MORGAN HILL
– Reports that a convicted child molester would be coming to
live in Morgan Hill set off a wave of speculation and phone calls
to police and City Hall earlier this week.
MORGAN HILL – Reports that a convicted child molester would be coming to live in Morgan Hill set off a wave of speculation and phone calls to police and City Hall earlier this week.
The reports caused city officials and Morgan Holl Chief of Police Jerry Galvin an uncomfortable time as they tried to uncover the truth.
What can be verified is that Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Robert Baines will hold a hearing today to determine a release site for Brian DeVries, who is in the Atascadero State Mental Facility and labeled a sexually violent predator.
The rumor started with a flyer handed out at a local church Sunday morning saying that DeVries would be released today to an address on West Main Avenue. The flyer was making the rounds on e-mail and Galvin said he had heard from Mayor Dennis Kennedy and City Manager Ed Tewes, both wanting to know if the rumors were true and what he was going to do about it.
“We are trying to find out if this is true,” Tewes said. “If it is, we would find out who the decision-makers are and provide that information to the community; and we would take action ourselves.”
Kennedy said he received a call from a resident who found a flyer on her door.
“She wanted to know if it was true,” he said. “We certainly don’t want this individual in Morgan Hill; it’s a very small and family-oriented community and this West Main location would be just absolutely inappropriate.”
DeVries was to be released to a sparsely populated area on Monterey Road, in San Jose, considerably north of Morgan Hill. The plans were nixed after the motel owner said no deal had been reached after a series of news reports.
The outcry from San Jose residents not wanting DeVries in their midst also caused the release to be derailed, according to Nora Romero, spokeswoman for the state Department of Mental Health.
Citizens in Morgan Hill are beginning to protest, too.
West Main stretches from Monterey Road to El Toro Mountain and passes by P.A. Walsh and St. Catherine’s schools and the Morgan Hill Library and is near Galvan Park, the YMCA, the El Toro Youth Center and several day care centers. The area is densely populated with families and children.
“We need to let our city and county officials know that we do not want this molester in our neighborhood or any other neighborhood,” the flyer said. And it encouraged readers to contact the city and police department, which they did.
DeVries was convicted of molesting an 8-year-old boy in 1994 and had been previously convicted in several other states, starting in 1978. He had admitted to doctors that he had molested as many as 50 boys, the flyer said. In August 2002 DeVries was castrated and fulfilled a program for sexually violent predators.
Since he has completed his sentence in the state prison facility and was not paroled, DeVries will not be supervised by the Probation Department but will be watched through a new state program, but only if some city in the county accepts him by June 28.
“In the worst-case scenario,” Romero said, “if we can’t find housing for him, he will be released unconditionally and we won’t know where he is.”
She said that DeVries, if he is released soon, will be the first former inmate in California designated as a sexually violent predator to go into the community treatment program. The state has contracted with Liberty Healthcare to run the program with the intention of supervising and monitoring the subjects.
“Anybody who is released by the courts,” Romero said, “will be released back into the county of origin – in this case, Santa Clara County.”
At the hearing, Romero said, the Department of Health will report on DeVries, and will attempt to settle on a conditional release site. She said the hearing will most likely occur in the afternoon.
“In the past these hearings have been public,” she said. She expects Wednesday’s hearing to be open to the public also.
“If there is any plan to dump him (DeVries) on our community, I will do everything I can to stop it,” Kennedy said.
He recommends that, if the rumor is true, that citizens organize and put together a vocal public campaign.
“I’d be happy to lead that,” Kennedy said.
Romero had some words of comfort for West Main Avenue residents.
“Whatever location we settle on,” she said, “we wouldn’t be releasing him right in the middle of an area with schools.”
Brian DeVries is scheduled to appear Wednesday before Superior Court Judge Robert Baines, Dept. 1, 191 North First St., San Jose.
