Police hunt sexually violent predator who vanished after GPS tamper mode alert
A convicted child sex offender was still missing Sunday, two days after his GPS monitor sounded a tamper alert at a San Diego worksite and supervisors arrived to find him gone, authorities said.Merle Wakefield, 69, was working in Rancho Bernardo when his device alerted to “Tamper Mode” at about 3:30 a.m.Friday, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.Liberty Healthcare, the state contractor supervising him, responded to the location and found the device removed and Wakefield gone.
The company notified the sheriff’s office and San Diego police.The sheriff’s office said Sunday it “shares the community’s concerns over Merle Wakefield’s disappearance” and was still actively looking for him.“We have been working diligently to locate him,” the agency said.It asked the public to report any sightings or information that could help find Wakefield.“It’s been more than 48 hours since Merle Wakefield took off his GPS monitor and walked away.
He’s still out there,” San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond wrote Sunday on Facebook.He called Wakefield “a convicted child molester and violent rapist” and accused the state of saying nothing publicly about his disappearance.Wakefield is wanted for violating the terms of his conditional release, the sheriff’s office said.
He was convicted in 1980 and 1991 of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 and rape by force, according to the agency.He has been on conditional release since November 2024.Desmond said Wakefield was gone by the time Liberty Healthcare arrived after the GPS alert.“That’s how easy it was,” he wrote in an earlier post.
“The state released him into our community in November 2024 and promised he’d be monitored and supervised.Less than two years later, he’s missing and wanted.”Local officials had warned about Wakefield’s release before it happened.
A San Diego judge granted him a transient release in October 2024 rather than placing him in a desig...