Remembering Chelsea King (family photo)
Convicted sex offender John Albert Gardner is charged with murder in the disappearance of missing teen Chelsea King. The District Attorney filed the charges and the complaint was read at an arraignment earlier this week when Gardner made his first appearance. Gardner entered a plea of not guilty. I spoke with the District Attorney in San Diego, and he tells me that a status hearing will take place next week, and a preliminary hearing is set for March 18, 2010. At the preliminary hearing, the court will decide if there is enough evidence to move forward with a trial. The charges come after a body was found earlier this week in Lake Hodges, an area near where Chelsea King went missing while she was running through the Rancho Bernardo Community Park. We are still waiting for a positive ID on the body. Investigators say that Chelsea, 17, was a runner for her high school, and parked her car nearby as she went to exercise. Inside her vehicle, police found a cell phone and other personal belongings.
Registered sex offender John Albert Gardner was initially arrested on Sunday and held on preliminary charges of suspicion of murder and rape in the disappearance of the missing teen. Gardner has a conviction for lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age, and served five years in prison. He was released in 2005 and was on parole until 2008. During that period, he did wear an electronic monitoring device. Gardner was staying with his mother in the Rancho Bernardo Community where Chelsea went missing. It is widely reported that 10 years ago, Dr. Matthew Carroll, a psychiatrist who spent time and interviewed Gardner after his conviction said he lacked remorse for the incident, making him “an extremely poor candidate for any sexual offender treatment.”
Since last Saturday, nearly 5,000 volunteers donated their time to look for Chelsea. Many members from the Laura Recovery Center were on site to help organize the search efforts. Investigators say physical evidence found at Lake Hodges lead them to Gardner. It appears Gardner may be linked to a December 27, 2009 attack on another jogger in the area. Gardner was also charged with assault in that attack. The victim in that incident told investigators she was tackled by a man who demanded money from her as she was running in the park. She was able to elbow him in the face and escape. DNA was taken from the victim’s elbow. Since the incident, the victim has moved away from the area, but she was contacted and has positively identified Gardner as her attacker. At a press conference, authorities said Gardner may have played a role in the Amber Dubois case as well. Amber disappeared on February 13, 2009 as she walked to a nearby high school. She hasn’t been seen since. We are waiting to learn more information about a possible link to that case.
John Albert Gardner
In addition, authorities in Riverside County and Lake Elsninore are looking into all cases involving any sexual assaults or attempted sexual assaults in the surrounding area that Gardner may be linked to. There was an incident on the day Chelsea went missing involving a teenager and a man with a sedan who was trying to get her into his car, and an incident in October 2009 that investigators are diving into.
The big question is how could this happen and what can citizens do in their own communities? I am diving into a more in depth report on that, and should have an updated post for you on Monday. A lot of the issue boils down to money and resource of police departments. In this case, Gardner was registering as an offender, but some people in his own community didn’t know he was living there. He allegedly re-offended in the same community he had been convicted of assaulting a teen a decade prior. Folks, you have to be vigilant in your own communities and be the eyes and ears for law enforcement when they cannot be around. Check the national sex offender and state offender registries, and learn who is living around you. I know some of the problem with these registries is that you don’t know what the convicted offender is actually convicted of (meaning a child crime, adult crime, animal crime, etc). I will have more for you on this in the coming days.
If you have any other information to help investigators, please contact the San Diego Sheriff’s office:
(858) 565-5200
Write all the laws you want. They will not prevent anyone from committing a crime, if they are determined to do so. In fact, the harsh laws encourage the killing of a victim, because dead people cannot testify. Unless there is some kind of evidence to direct investigators to the Perp. So, how do you tell who might be dangerous? While nothing is 100 percent in this world, we must concentrate on the most dangerous.
1. The VIOLENT offender.
2. The REPEAT offender.
3. The offender who DID NOT KNOW their victim.
If you notice. The vast majority of these most heinous sexual assaults, fall into 1 or all three categories. We are wasting all the resources on the low to no risk while the predators are hiding in the registry.
This is so simple and so to the point! When people say, “Well, we can’t get rid of the register, what do you think we should do?” Answer, if we need a public register at all, and I truly don’t think the public has proven that they can handle it, then the only ones on it should be those that fell into the categories above!
California has a HUGE amount of registered sex offenders. Punishing all of them for the acts of one individual does not make sense.
He and he alone should be punished. If found guilty, he and he alone should suffer the consequences of this murder.
That’s supposed to be the American Justice system.