Hale homicide victim was a convicted sex offender

8-15-17 Michigan

HALE, MI -- Before being killed and buried in his backyard in rural Michigan, a 72-year-old man served time for sexually assaulting a minor.

The Michigan Public Sex Offender Registry states Roger L. Knickerbocker II in July 2000 was convicted of two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a victim 13 or younger. The charge is a life offense and involves penetration.

Since 2006, a person convicted of the crime when the victim is 13 or younger must serve a mandatory minimum 25 years in prison.

The crime occurred in Pontiac. The conviction was handed down in Oakland County Circuit Court. He was paroled of May 2009 and discharged from parole in May 2011, said Chris Gautz, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections.

Knickerbocker had to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He last registered on June 26.

Portland homicide victim was convicted sex offender

2-28-17 Maine:

Bryan K. Garcia of Scarborough, who was found unresponsive Monday in his car on a West End street, also had convictions for drug and weapons offenses.

Portland police have identified the homicide victim who was found slumped over in his car on a West End street as Bryan K. Garcia, a registered sex offender who also had convictions for drug and weapons offenses.

No details were released about Garcia’s death or the circumstances that led the Scarborough resident to Portland on Monday afternoon, when he was found unresponsive in his Silver Infiniti G35 near the intersection of Chadwick and Carroll streets.

Police have not released details about how Garcia, 35, died, whether he suffered obvious injuries or if they have any suspects in his slaying.

Police ID decomposing body as that of registered sex offender

11-17-2016 Connecticut:

MERIDEN — Police have identified a decomposing body found in a Meriden apartment this month as that of an elderly man who was a registered sex offender.

The case is being investigated as a homicide.

Officers were called to the apartment Nov. 2 for reports of a body. Police on Wednesday identified the dead man as 73-year-old Thomas Wilderman.

Police have said that based on the state of decomposition, the man had not died recently.

Police say Wilderman's car was found in Hartford about two days after his body was found.

The Record-Journal reports Wilderman was convicted of sexual assaulting a minor in 1998. The state's sex offender registry indicates he was released from prison in July 2011. ..Source.. by The Bulletin

Man found dead in Huber Heights was a sex offender

9-15-2016 Ohio:

HUBER HEIGHTS — The man found dead in Huber Heights this week was a sex offender who frequently neglected to register, court records and county officials confirmed Thursday.

Brian Wallace Moore, 34, was identified as the body found by a pedestrian on a lunchtime walk Tuesday on Wildcat Road, north of Kellenburger Road. Huber Heights Police are investigating the death as “suspicious” and coroner’s officials said a toxicology report will take six-to-eight weeks to complete, leaving the cause of death as “pending.”

“This is definitely a different case,” said Huber Heights Sgt. Charles Taylor, who asked for the community to call police with any information. “We’ll be turning over every stone we possibly can to figure out what happened.”

Court records from the Fifth Appellate District in Richland County characterize Moore as a “habitual sex offender,” although most of his seven trips to state prison were related to his failure to incorrectly register or change his address.

Moore was required to register as a sex offender once a year for 20 years following a judgment in August 2001 and entered state prison in June 2002 on a charge of corruption of a minor in Huron County.

Marion County remains are those of Paul Winklebleck, suspect in Portland abductions

2-11-15 Oregon:

The Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office has determined that the remains found in Marion County in December are those of Paul Winklebleck.

Winklebleck had been sought in connection with the March 2010 kidnapping of two women from Portland's Old Town.

The Oregon Medical Examiner's Office has not determined the cause or manner of death.

The identification was based on evidence found at the scene and facts gathered by detectives. A DNA sample sent to the University of Texas awaits analysis, said Nici Vance, a forensic anthropologist at the medical examiner's office.

Man accused in rape dies during arrest

4-21-15 Tennessee:

COLUMBIA, TN (WSMV) - Police in Columbia have launched an investigation after a man died in police custody.

Brian Acton, 40, was a convicted sex offender in Utica, KY, and was on the sex offender registry. In 2013, he was charged with raping a woman at a motel in Columbia.

Police said Acton attacked another woman on Saturday night and died after police put him in handcuffs.

Beckett Street in Columbia is usually quiet, but it was shaken after police said a woman was raped inside her home by a man she barely knew.

"You just don't expect that to happen right up the street from the house," said Marshall Brooks, a neighbor.

Dog brings home sex offender's skull, U.S. marshals say

11-17-2014 Texas:

AUSTIN, Texas — The case of a former Army specialist who escaped from federal supervision was closed Monday after officials said the sex offender's skull was found in a field two months ago.

The skull of Kevin Patrick Stoeser, 41, was discovered Sept. 8 when a woman's dog, who had escaped from the backyard overnight, returned with a pile of animal bones and a human skull. The skull appeared "weathered" and likely was there for some time, officials said.

Although police dogs searched areas nearby after the find, they did not recover additional human remains.

Stoeser was added to the U.S. Marshals Service 15 Most Wanted fugitives list in May after running Oct. 24, 2013, from a halfway house in Del Valle, Texas, about 7 miles from Austin. At the time, staffers had confiscated a smartphone that he was not authorized to have and found more than two dozen images of scantily clad young girls.

Convicted MH child rapist found dead at state park

11-9-2014 Arkansas:

The Baxter Bulletin has confirmed that the man's body found near Pinnacle Mountain State Park in Roland on Saturday was that of 44-year-old Mountain Home native Thomas James Lovelady.

Lovelady — who was a member of the Class of 1989 at Mountain Home High School — was the subject of a highly publicized child rape case in the 1990s, during which he was convicted in Baxter County Circuit Court of raping his 7-year-old stepdaughter.

A registered Level 3 sex offender, Lovelady was living in Little Rock at the time of his death, according to an address listed on the Arkansas Crime Information Center sex offender database.

Little Rock television station KLRT first reported that two women walking along a highway in the area of the state park discovered the body around 7 a.m. Saturday and contacted authorities. State police investigators spent most of the morning at the scene in western Pulaski County collecting evidence.

Police ID bodies found at Oceanfront hotel

Posted in Related Deaths

12-25-2013 Virginia:

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) - Police have identified two homicide victims found at an Oceanfront hotel last week.

According to James Cason with the Virginia Beach Police Department, the bodies were discovered in a fifth-floor room Thursday by a housekeeping employee at the Comfort Inn in the 2300 block of Atlantic Avenue.

Monday, police identified the victims as 31-year-old Lenny McDannell, of New Castle, Delaware, and 32-year-old Joshua Zettles of Virginia Beach.

Before Zettles went down to the Oceanfront hotel, he spoke with his sister Jackie, who did not want her last name revealed.

"The last time I saw him was earlier [Thursday] afternoon," said Jackie. "We were making plans to get together the following day as a family."

Jackie said Zettles was going to the Oceanfront to see his friend, McDannell, who is a registered sex offender in Delaware.

10 On Your Side could not get in contact with McDannell's family.

Plea deal nearly reached with man charged with murdering man, burying remains

11-9-2013 California:

Prosecutors are close to reaching a plea deal with a defendant accused of killing his friend and burying the body in order to collect the man's Indian tribal reservation checks.

Prosecutor Ken Green said in court Wednesday that he and defendant Frank Jude Valles have come to terms on how many years Valles will serve, but are still working out the exact charges he'll plead to. Green said he believes they'll have an agreement by the next court hearing on Nov. 15.

Valles was open to the deal, Green said afterward, because he wanted a determinate sentence, not the potential 25 years to life he faced if convicted of murder. The prosecutor said he could not reveal the number of years agreed to until the plea deal is complete.

Valles, 46, was arrested in August 2012 after investigators dug up human remains in two Bakersfield locations. The remains were determined to be those of Alphonso John Hyde, who had lived with Valles and his wife, Consuelo.

Family members of Hyde said they hadn't heard from him in four years. They filed a missing persons report in early August 2012.