Police Seeking Paroled Killer Who Left State

Convicted killer William Archie Fain, whose parole from San Quentin Prison was met by public outcry, has moved to Mesa, Ariz., according to police who obtained a warrant for his arrest.

California law requires Fain, a sex offender, to notify local police of his new address within 10 days of moving, according to Police Sgt. Dwight Messimer.

“We received a letter from him dated Aug. 3 saying that he would soon let us know his address,” Messimer said on Monday.

Messimer said Fain’s attorney gave police the address over the telephone on Monday and “said he’d soon send us a letter to confirm it.”

However, the conversation with attorney Robert Y. Bell came too late, he said. Eleven days after getting Fain’s letter, the Police Department asked the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office to issue a warrant for Fain’s arrest.

“This is really a tempest in a teapot,” Bell said. “He has stayed in communication with me. He’s always complied with his obligations.”

Fain is scheduled to appear in a Santa Cruz court later this month on a drunk-driving charge and in San Jose in November on charges of peeping into a bedroom window.

Fain has lived in San Jose, Hayward and Campbell since his release from San Quentin, where he had been sent for killing a 17-year-old Stanislaus County youth with a shotgun in 1967 and raping two high school girls.

Fain was originally sentenced to death but the punishment was overturned on appeal. He was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Fain was denied parole in 1976 and 1982 after public protest, including a petition signed by 62,500 people. A third parole date was blocked by Gov. George Deukmejian in 1983 but Fain was finally released in October, 1983.