A convicted child sex predator remains free in San Diego County after ditching his GPS monitor, local leaders say California’s release system put families at risk again.
Merle Wakefield, a 69-year-old sexually violent predator on conditional release, was still missing Sunday after his GPS device entered “Tamper Mode” early Friday and supervisors arrived to find him gone from a worksite in Rancho Bernardo.
Fox News reported that Liberty Healthcare, the state contractor assigned to supervise him, responded to the alert around 3:30 a.m., discovered the monitor removed, and notified the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office and San Diego police. Wakefield is now wanted for violating the terms of his conditional release.
Authorities described him as 5 feet 10 inches tall and 230 pounds, with brown eyes. The sheriff’s office asked the public to report sightings and warned people not to approach him, telling residents to call 911 or local law enforcement instead.
The disappearance landed less than two years after the state put him back into the community, and it immediately renewed a fight over California’s practice of releasing sexually violent predators into neighborhoods under monitoring that critics call inadequate.
San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond did not mince words on Facebook. “It’s been more than 48 hours since Merle Wakefield took off his GPS monitor and walked away. He’s still out there,” he wrote.
Desmond called Wakefield “a convicted child molester and violent rapist” and said the ease of the escape spoke for itself.
"That’s how easy it was. 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."
He added that he had opposed these placements from the start.
"I’ve fought these placements from day one. These people do not belong back out in the community. They belong in a state hospital or in jail. As long as Sacramento’s law keeps putting them in our neighborhoods, families are going to keep paying the price."
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office said it “shares the community’s concerns over Merle Wakefield’s disappearance” and that deputies “have been working diligently to locate him.”
Wakefield’s record is not in dispute. He was convicted in 1980 and again in 1991 of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 and rape by force. A San Diego judge granted him transient release in October 2024, the third attempt to place him in San Diego County, and he has been on conditional release since November 2024.
Transient status meant no designated home. Poway Mayor Steve Vaus had opposed an earlier proposal to house him near a school and park. He told Fox 5/KUSI the arrangement was dangerous.
"It’s a shell game that puts a community at risk."
State Sen. Brian Jones, the Senate minority leader from San Diego, raised the same alarm before the placement was finalized. “Supposedly, he’s going to have a tracking device,” Jones said, warning Wakefield could end up on the streets or in a hotel at taxpayer expense.
The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office had opposed releasing him without a fixed residence, citing limited monitoring and supervision. A prior Fox 5/KUSI report noted that Wakefield’s court order called for 24-hour in-person supervision wherever he stayed. Spokesperson Tanya Sierra said the Department of State Hospitals and Liberty Healthcare needed to find suitable housing for close monitoring.
The California Department of State Hospitals pushed back on criticism of the release process. Officials said the court ultimately decides whether someone designated a sexually violent predator can be conditionally released. They described a supervision program that uses GPS monitoring, unannounced home visits, and surveillance, and said breaking the rules could send a person back to a state hospital.
That assurance collides with the program’s own track record. Jones had called for an audit of California’s sexually violent predator program. The audit found that about 36% of participants had violated the terms of their release.
In Wakefield’s case, the GPS device did what it was designed to do: it flagged tampering. What failed was the system built around it. Supervisors arrived after the alert. The monitor was already off. The offender was already gone. More than 48 hours later, he was still free.
Liberty Healthcare’s role was clear in the reporting: respond to the location, confirm the removal, and notify police. The sheriff’s office then took the lead on the manhunt. No public statement from the state contractor or the Department of State Hospitals on the disappearance itself was included in the available accounts beyond the sheriff’s remarks and the department’s general defense of the release framework.
Local officials framed the episode as the predictable result of Sacramento policy, not a one-off glitch. Desmond tied the missing predator directly to state law that keeps pushing these placements into neighborhoods. Vaus called the housing process a shell game. Jones questioned whether a tracking device was enough when the offender had no fixed address and a history that included forced rape and crimes against children.
The public now faces a straightforward set of facts. A man twice convicted of attacking children under 14 and of rape by force was returned to San Diego County under conditional release. A judge approved transient status. The state contractor relied on a GPS monitor. The monitor went into tamper mode before dawn on a Friday at a Rancho Bernardo worksite. By the time help arrived, Wakefield had walked away. On Sunday he was still missing, and families were being told to watch for a 69-year-old man and not to approach him.
California’s sexually violent predator program promised monitoring and swift consequences for rule-breaking. An audit already showed more than a third of participants violating release terms. Wakefield’s disappearance turned that statistic into a live manhunt in one of the state’s largest counties.
When the state frees violent predators on the promise of a bracelet and then loses them in the middle of the night, law-abiding neighborhoods are the ones left exposed.
