Man Jailed for Sex Assault on Girl, 3, Freed

A man imprisoned since 1984 for kidnaping and sexually assaulting a 3-year-old girl and then leaving her for dead in an outhouse pit was released from prison today.

Robert Thiret, whose release Gov. Roy Romer tried in vain to block, did not speak as he and his attorney emerged from the facility and got into a van.

Colorado law requires Thiret to be set free--no parole, no probation, no restrictions--even though authorities have said they still consider him a menace and psychologists say he’s made “minimal” progress in therapy.

Thiret, 28, was convicted of snatching a 3-year-old girl in Sheridan in 1983. She was found alive three days later in an outhouse pit at a campground 20 miles west of Denver near Genesee. She had been sexually assaulted and left for dead. She later recovered.

Thiret has been at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Complex, where he was serving a six-month sentence for telephone harassment after getting out of the state penitentiary, where he served six years of a 10-year sentence for attempted murder and sexual assault on a child.

Thiret was up for parole in 1989, but public pressure pushed authorities to continue to hold him. In May, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that because of the delay, under the law in effect at the time of the attack Thiret had to be freed--not paroled.