A convicted sex offender who has raised alarm in each city he has landed in since being released from a state mental hospital has left Garden Grove for Santa Ana.
Cary Jay Smith, 59, was at a health care facility in Santa Ana, where he was being monitored, the Santa Ana Police Department said in a tweet.
Police had earlier been tracking Smith in Garden Grove, where his arrival drew protestors to the motel where he was staying earlier Tuesday.
Nicole Alvarez told KTLA that she was concerned about Smith’s presence in Garden Grove because she lives near where he was staying.
“I am a victim of child molestation and I do everything I can to protect my kids and to keep my kids safe,” she said, adding “This is scary.”
Smith was released from Coalinga State Hospital in Fresno County two weeks ago for unknown reasons. He is not on any form of parole and is no longer required to register as a sex offender, and can therefore move around freely.
Before being in Coalinga State Hospital, he was sent to 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 Orange County District Attorney’s Office said.
He was held there for years after a series of civil trials determined he presented a substantial danger to children.
Smith testified that he fantasied about raping and killing boys. Officials said he prefers to go by “Mr. RTK,” which stands for “rape, torture kill.”
He was required to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor child sex crime in 1985. But the state removed his requirement to register in 2005 also for unknown reasons, officials said.
Though several agencies recently requested Gov. Gavin Newsom reinstate Smith’s registry requirement, the governor has not yet publicly responded.
Since Smith’s release, law enforcement agencies have been tracking his movements.
He left an adult living facility in the city of Orange Friday night and was spotted in Corona Saturday morning. Smith eventually “decided to leave” and went to Lake Elsinore, officials there said.
On Sunday, Riverside County deputies escorted Smith away from a motel in Lake Elsinore. He had stayed at a motel in northern San Diego County, but by Monday afternoon local sheriff’s officials said he was no longer in San Diego County.
Upon Smith’s arrival in Garden Grove Monday, police asked residents not to “contact, confront or attempt to apprehend” him.
