Parole Notes on Rape-Murder Suspect Destroyed

PUBLIC INFORMATION -- "Three years of field notes from parole agents supervising John Albert Gardner III after his release from prison on a 2000 molestation conviction were destroyed under a state policy that is being reviewed as he faces charges of raping and murdering Chelsea King," report Michael Gardner and Jeff McDonald for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

California prison officials said pertinent information on parolees is transferred to a central file and retained before agents’ notes are burned or shredded. But Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, who represents the Poway area where Chelsea lived and went missing, wrote to state prisons Secretary Matthew Cate Monday, expressing alarm that the department destroys any records after one year.

“Many people are committed to improving our criminal justice system, but it is hard to find needed reforms when records are destroyed,” Fletcher wrote. “This policy makes it impossible to know what was done right and what needs to be changed.”

Officials say they are rethinking the practice, which allows the destruction of field records as soon as one year after an offender completes parole. “We are pretty confident that the system does work,” said Oscar Hidalgo, the top prison spokesman. “We are always willing to look into the policy and see if we can learn more and adjust that policy, and we are going to do that.”

Gardner received six years in prison in 2000 for molesting and falsely imprisoning a 13-year-old neighbor girl. He was released Sept. 26, 2005, and spent three years on parole. The field notes on Gardner’s contacts with his parole agents were destroyed last fall. The convicted sex offender was arrested Feb. 28 in connection with the disappearance of 17-year-old Chelsea King of Poway. Chelsea’s body was discovered in a tributary of Lake Hodges on March 2; Gardner pleaded not guilty to rape and murder charges on March 3.

Gardner, 30, also remains “a focus of the investigation” into the death of 14-year-old Amber Dubois of Escondido, who disappeared in February 2009, Escondido police said yesterday. Amber’s skeletal remains were found north of Pala on Saturday. The Governor’s Office signaled an interest in changing the corrections department policy. “The administration is doing an immediate review of this policy,” said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. “In the case of sex offenders, the governor believes we need to retain as much information as possible and make that information available.”

Prison officials did explain the thinking behind the document destruction. Hidalgo said the department oversees 120,000 parolees at any given time, and 10,000 people enter and leave the program every month. “It’s a cost issue. It’s a staffing issue. It does take some energy to put together and keep a filing system indefinitely,” he said.

Meanwhile, prison officials have been working closely with local law enforcement agencies to recount Gardner’s movements and activities while he was on parole, Hidalgo said. He also said the department would respond appropriately to Fletcher’s concerns. “The fact that we don’t have a parole file does not mean we are not sharing plenty of information,” Hidalgo said.

Prison officials are not likely to make public the details of the central parole file, however. In response to a request for release of the documents, Hidalgo said the record is “an investigative file ripe with confidential info that is protected by law from release.”

The idea of shredding any parolee records even after a year dismayed open-government advocates. Terry Francke of Californians Aware, a Sacramento nonprofit dedicated to open records and transparency in government, said he could hardly believe that prison officials do not retain all parole files. “The notion that they burn parole records after a year is simply incredible,” Franke said. “For their sake, I hope it’s not true. … It is contrary to what the public expects of the parole system.”

Another public record from Gardner’s past may be available as soon as tomorrow. San Diego Superior Court Judge David Danielsen yesterday sided with an attorney representing The San Diego Union-Tribune and a representative of its news partner, KGTV Channel 10, both of whom requested release of the probation report prepared in advance of Gardner’s 2000 sentencing on molestation charges. The judge gave defense lawyers until Wednesday to appeal that decision.

Comments

[Christian]

Does it surprise anyone that that the Amber Dubois disappearance case (Escondido, CA) has no one in custody for the crime and the Chelsea King case (Rancho Bernardo, CA) has a convicted sex offender awaiting trial. Could it be where they happened to die or that the one family is poor and the other affluent. Is anyone surprised that the Amber Dubois family, knowing the history of the Escondido Police went and hired a private investigator who passed along information as to where the body was ultimately found. We all remember the Stephanie Crowe Murder Case where the Escondido Police Department falsely accused her brother Michael Crowe and forced confessions (as a 01/15/2010, Michael Crowe, won a case against Escondido PD). Could it be that the criminal is a member of the Escondido Police Department and all of them are protecting their own (like the Catholic Church) and that’s why they originally said she was a runaway to deflect additional searches. Could it be that the police are just following “Escondido City Council“ (Gang of Three – Marie Waldron, Sam Abed and Ed Gallo)orders to chase around un-document workers and not do their job of protecting and serving the residents of Escondido. It kind of makes you wonder if the “Gang of three” has ask the police to formally or informally investigate potential or future political opponents, it makes you wonder doesn’t it. Of course it could be that Escondido Police Department is filled with incompetent dullards who love taking steroids in their attempts to look like their body builder heroes. The only thing I can say for sure is there is something wrong here.