The paroled killer of a Rockland teen girl has been arrested for the second time this year, accused of threatening a Peekskill woman and taking the license plate from her car.
Robert McCain, 65, of Verplanck, was arrested by Peekskill police on Friday, Nov. 21, two days after he allegedly told the woman in a phone call that her mother “would not be able to find her body for the next 5 to 10 years,” according to a criminal complaint charging him with second-degree aggravated harassment.
He was also charged with petit larceny, accused of taking a license plate off of her car while it was parked near her Homestead Avenue residence.
Both charges are misdemeanors.
In an earlier incident this summer, McCain was accused of groping a different woman at a Cortlandt dog park.
McCain was arraigned on the current charges virtually Sunday, Nov. 23, from a hospital bed and ordered released without bail. Details of what led to his hospitalization following his arrest were not available but McCain previously had a medical incident while at the county jail following the earlier arrest this year.
He is due back in Peekskill City Court in January. His lawyer could not be reached for comment.
A spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said McCain’s most recent arrest is under investigation by DOCCS staff at its New Rochelle Area Office.
40-year sentence for murder of Pearl River teen
McCain was paroled in 2021 after serving nearly four decades for the Oct. 28, 1980, murder of Paula Bohovesky. The 16-year-old Pearl River High School junior had been walking home from her after-school job at the local library when McCain and Richard LaBarbera attacked her.
Both were convicted of murder and sentenced to 40 years in prison.
LaBarbera had been released in 2019, reincarcerated three weeks later for a parole violation after he got drunk, and re-released in 2020. LaBarbera is no longer under parole supervision.
Robert McCain paroled, then accused of groping in 2025
McCain had no reported incidents on his record while on parole until July of this year, when he was charged with forcible touching, also a misdemeanor, after a woman accused him of groping her while they were at a dog park in Cortlandt.
That led to a parole violation that kept McCain at the county jail while the case was pending.
McCain pleaded guilty last month to both forcible touching and the parole violation and was sentenced to four months for each, which was satisfied by the time he served at the jail. He was restored to parole supervision.
Friend of Bohovesky family reacts to McCain arrest
Bob Baird is a retired newspaper columnist and friend of murder victim Paula Bohovesky’s mother, Lois Bohovesky, who is now in her early 90s.
“I was unbelieving that he was let go after four months,” Baird said about the earlier groping incident.
“You commit a crime against a woman after 40 years in prison for killing a woman and you get four months?” Baird said.
Now McCain is charged again, Baird said. “How many chances does he get before he harms another woman? This was Lois’ fear all along.”
The Bohovesky murder case has spurred New York lawmakers to seek state and federal versions of “Paula’s Law,” which would ban parole for anyone convicted of killing a child under 18 during a sexual assault. McCain and LaBarbara, of course, would not be subject to such a law retroactively.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Rockland murder convict McCain charged with harassing Peekskill woman
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler and Nancy Cutler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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