Palmer man charged with molesting 2 girls

PALMER — A 32-year-old man was arrested Wednesday on charges he sexually molested two young girls.

Jeremy Holland, of Palmer, allegedly molested one of the girls — now 13 years old — since she was in the fifth grade. The other girl reported being inappropriately touched recently and is currently 10 years old.

According to an affidavit Trooper Investigator Shannon Fore filed in the court case against Holland, the incidents came to light at 12:43 p.m., March 28.

“I received a report from the Office of Children’s Services that (the older girl) had told a school counselor (about the abuse),” Fore wrote.

The girl had also told her mother and both had talked to the counselor. At The Children’s Place in Wasilla, a safe facility for law enforcement to interview abuse victims, the girl told Fore the abuse started three years prior and stopped after her mom found out. In a brief phone conversation with the Frontiersman, the mother said that she didn't know her daughter had actually been abused, that she'd been told Holland had made an attempt to touch her and afterward promised he'd stop drinking and it was a one-time thing.

The abuse started again a week prior to the girl making the report. Holland texted the girl soon after, Fore wrote. He quotes those text messages.

“I’m terribly sorry and I wish I could take it back and if you tell OCS I’ll go to prison. I hope you don’t or I’ll be locked up please don’t send me to jail,” one of them reads.

Fore also interviewed the girls’ mother, who showed them similar texts on her phone.

“I’m sorry. I know that does nothing but I’m ashamed to be me,” one of them read.

“I am doing everything I can. I don’t want to go to prison. I want to be who I used to be and have my family,” read another.

After all of this, Fore interviewed the 10-year-old girl who said she’d woken up twice in the past year to find Holland standing beside her bed, using her hand to touch himself inappropriately. Another touching incident happened when no one else was home and she was watching television. She left and went to her room despite Holland’s attempts to stop her.

On Tuesday, Troopers recorded a phone conversation between Holland and the mother who’d received those texts from him.

“Jeremy stated that he didn’t remember the part about touching (the girls) but that he wouldn’t call them a liar. Jeremy said it was only because of his drinking that it happened and that if the drinking stopped so would the touching,” Fore wrote.

Holland was charged with six counts of felony sexual abuse of a minor and jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility with bail withheld pending his arraignment. He was still incarcerated as of Saturday morning, according to jail records.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.