San Diego County Sheriff's Office: Fugitive Sexually Violent Predator Found Dead in Riverbed, Month-Long Manhunt Ends, Cause of Death Pending Autopsy
In San Diego, San Diego County, California, the San Diego County Sheriff's Office reported on Tuesday, October 20, that Merle Wakefield, 69, a state-designated sexually violent predator, has been found dead. His body was discovered at about 9:30 a.m. on Monday, October 19, in a riverbed off the 4800 block of Fairmount Avenue in the Talmadge area; a ruling on his cause of death is pending autopsy results. Wakefield had been at large since the early morning of September 25, when at about 3:30 a.m. he removed his mandated GPS tracker and fled his job at an Amazon processing facility in Rancho Bernardo. He was on supervised release under the California Conditional Release Program, supervised by Liberty Healthcare, and had been on conditional release since November 2024. He was convicted in 1980 and 1991 of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 and forcible rape. The Sheriff's Office had issued a wanted notice, and Crime Stoppers offered a reward of up to $1,000 for information. With his death confirmed, the nearly month-long manhunt has ended.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图为圣迭戈县警长办公室车辆。Dave Conner 摄，CC BY 2.0（Wikimedia Commons）。
