A 59-year-old man whose release from a Central California mental hospital last week prompted a public warning will be required to register as a sex offender again, officials announced Friday.
Cary Jay Smith was released from Coalinga State Hospital in Fresno County last week for unknown reasons, after spending 20 years in custody for threatening to rape and murder young boys, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
O.C. District Attorney Todd Spitzer and Board of Supervisors chairwoman Michelle Steel issued a community warning after his release, and local authorities have been tracking him from city to city ever since. As of Tuesday, he had left Garden Grove for Santa Ana, officials said.
Smith was originally sent to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino in 1999, after his wife alerted a psychiatrist about a journal entry he’d written, detailing sex acts he wanted to perform on a 7-year-old boy from his Costa Mesa neighborhood, the DA’s Office said.
Smith stayed in custody for two decades after a series of civil trials determined he presented a danger to children, authorities said. He repeatedly testified that he fantasized about raping and killing young boys, according to the DA’s Office.
“He claims that he has killed three boys and molested 200,” said Kimberly Edds, spokeswoman for the DA’s Office. “He prefers to go by the name Mr. RTK, which stands for rape, torture, kill.”
Smith was required to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor child sex crime in 1985. In 2005, the state issued a letter for unknown reasons stating Smith no longer had to register as a sex offender.
After his release last week, Spitzer and Steel asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to reinstate a lifetime sex registrant requirement on him. On Friday, the DA’s Office said it received notice from the California Attorney General’s Office saying that the department agrees.
“We want to thank state Attorney General Xavier Becerra for taking the legal steps to protect our residents and we want to thank Governor Gavin Newsom for referring our letter to the state attorney general and listening to our concerns,” Spitzer said in a written statement Friday.
The DA’s Office said it’s working with other agencies to ensure Smith is properly registered once again as a 290 sex offender registrant. The database allows members of the public to access information on convicted sex offenders through the California’s Megan’s Law website.
