Missing Molester Tracked Down

State Department of Justice agents Thursday captured four-time convicted child molester James Steven Turner, who had eluded authorities for almost two years but was found within hours of being identified in The Times as one of the state’s most wanted sex offenders.

As the sun set over a North Hollywood neighborhood bustling with children, agents braced the trembling Turner against an alley wall and demanded an explanation for his failure to register with authorities for the past two years.

“Didn’t get around to it,” Turner muttered.

“Unfortunately, that’s a felony,” replied Special Agent Steve Utter as he patted down Turner.

The hunt for and arrest of Turner, 47, illustrates the difficulty a sparse squad of overworked agents has in tracking down errant rapists and child molesters.

California law requires anyone convicted of a sex crime to register their address with local authorities. But more than 10,000 of these criminals are estimated to be delinquent, meaning they could be anywhere.

With so many unaccounted for, some authorities express doubt over the effectiveness of the recently enacted Megan’s Law. Named after a New Jersey girl allegedly slain by a paroled molester, the California version of the statute gives authorities the ability to publicize the whereabouts of sex offenders, and calls for the compilation of a database with all 57,000 of the state’s offenders by July 1.

But local police warn that many of the worst offenders cannot be found. Until Thursday, Turner was one of them.

Turner was a nightmare for Utter and Special Agent Rich Ward, two state Department of Justice investigators who are part of the City of Commerce-based Sexual Predator Apprehension Team, one of three in California.

A four-time loser whose repeated convictions make him one of the 900 child molesters classified by the state as high risk, Turner was paroled from his latest stint in prison in 1990. (Authorities said Wednesday that he had three convictions, but determined Thursday that he had four.) As mandated under state law, he registered with Los Angeles police, listing a Granada Hills apartment as his residence.

Turner spent three apparently uneventful years on parole. But in 1995, when the state sent him a card reminding him he needed to re-register as a sex offender, it was returned “undeliverable.”

Utter, the lead agent on the Turner case, said he didn’t get all the information together on Turner until the middle of 1996. He had to make sure Turner hadn’t registered elsewhere. State records are not set up to alert one jurisdiction when an offender moves out.

So Utter began the cumbersome process of trying to find one man in a society where addresses change faster than hairstyles. He pored through databases--Department of Motor Vehicles records, utility records and a bank of addresses maintained by credit card companies. He pounded the pavement and conducted hours-long stakeouts.

No luck.

In December, the overburdened court system finally spat out a warrant for Turner’s arrest on the charge of failure to register--a felony. But the agents said they were unable to return to Turner’s suspected addresses until this week because, not only did they have dozens of other cases, but Utter was on vacation and was felled by the flu.

On Wednesday, the agents released Turner’s name, record and picture to The Times. A Times librarian set to work and within minutes had Turner’s four possible addresses--the same ones that Utter’s team had developed. When told that The Times was seeking Turner, the agents agreed to let a reporter accompany them Thursday.

First stop was a rundown hotel on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood. Waving Turner’s mug shot, agents asked the manager if the ex-convict lived there, and checked a list of current tenants.

No luck.

“Sometimes they’ll be living with parents in nice houses,” Utter said. “Other times you’ll find them in hotels like these. It can really be anywhere. I know a lot of people who live in nice neighborhoods who’d be surprised to find a sex offender down the street.”

Next was a decaying Art Deco apartment complex, up the block from gaudy Hollywood Boulevard stores.

Utter rang for the manager and identified himself as an agent for the Department of Justice.

“Do you need an apartment?” the manager asked.

No luck there either.

“I try not to draw any conclusions,” Utter said. “I really go expecting to find someone. I don’t give myself a false sense of security and think it’s just a dry run.”

Finally, about 4:45 p.m., they reached the house in North Hollywood, a single-story white building with an overgrown frontyard and an abutting alley. There was no answer at the front door, but windows were open.

“The place is wide open,” muttered Ward as he circled to the alley and knocked on a side gate.

A young man opened the door, and as Ward began interrogating him, the agent saw his quarry peek around the corner.

*

The slim Turner wore a faded gray T-shirt, jeans and a black cap. “Can we talk to you?” Ward asked.

“Who’s we?” Turner replied.

Ward identified himself, and Turner stepped outside and was handcuffed. In his rush to back Ward up, Utter locked his keys in the agents’ Chevy parked on the street.

Turner was within arm’s reach all along--he said he had worked at this house assembling electronics for three years while drifting through local hotels and apartments.

“We have 18,000 sex registrants in Los Angeles County,” Utter said, glancing at Turner. “There’s no way to confirm what he’s doing, what he’s up to. That’s why this is so important.”

But the seven-agent Sexual Predator Apprehension Team--and its two counterparts in Fresno and San Francisco--constitute the only line of defense the state has against the thousands of missing sex criminals, and Steve Telliano, a spokesman for Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, said the state will have to make do with that.

“I don’t want to fall into the trap of asking for more money,” he said. “The Sexual Predator Apprehension Teams have done a very good job.”

Even so, there are glaring discrepancies between state records and those kept by local authorities. Some police departments--like those in San Francisco and Los Angeles--say they lack resources to monitor sex offenders registered in their cities. They caution against relying too much on state files, which are largely based on their own incomplete records.

That makes some police skeptical about Megan’s Law.

But Telliano said that with increased vigilance, the state’s records have actually improved.

He attributes this to annual letters sent out by the state reminding offenders to register, the apprehension teams and stiffer penalties for failing to register. It used to be a misdemeanor, but is now a felony.

That poses a problem for Turner. If convicted of failing to register as a sex offender, he will have had his third strike and face a possible sentence of 25 years to life under the three-strikes law.

Times librarian Janet Lundblad contributed to this story.