Serial Rapist Paroled Amid Death Threats

A notorious serial rapist who confessed to attacking more than 100 women was paroled Thursday in the tiny Modoc County town of Alturas, where residents promptly threatened to kill him and a judge issued an order seeking to banish him from the region.

State corrections officials said Melvin A. Carter, whose parole has sparked an outcry because he served only half of his 25-year sentence, arrived about noon at a prison work camp just outside Alturas, an outpost of 3,200 people in California’s northeastern corner. He will live at the compound under close supervision, leaving only when accompanied by a parole agent, officials said.

Carter, 49, was initially scheduled to be released in Alameda County, where he committed many of his crimes. But public fury and political pressure prompted Gov. Pete Wilson to abruptly change that decision and order him set free in “as remote a location as possible.”

On Thursday, Carter’s new neighbors rebelled. Rallying at the Modoc County courthouse, more than 1,500 angry people waved hand-lettered signs and said that paroling the rapist in Alturas would forever alter life in a town where nobody locks the front door.

“The governor obviously believes women in the country don’t count as much as women in the city,” said hairstylist Cherrie Crites. “It’s an outrage. . . . Instead of being laid back and feeling secure, we’ve now got to look over our shoulder and feel paranoid.”

While some residents worried, others threatened to kill Carter if he shows his face in town. Police Chief Larry Pickett, who oversees a force of seven officers, said, “Every other fellow I run into tells me he’ll blow this guy away. Lots of people have guns around here. There’s no way we can protect him.”

Dist. Atty. Ruth Sorensen, meanwhile, tried other means to keep Carter out of Alturas, obtaining a court order that seeks to block the state from housing him there. Sorensen argued that the state violated its own rules, which require parolees go to the county where they were convicted unless special circumstances exist.

“We will do whatever necessary to keep Melvin Carter out of Modoc County,” said Sorensen, who rousted Superior Court Judge Guy Martin Young from the shower to obtain the court order first thing Thursday morning. “We refuse to be a dumping ground for another county’s hazardous waste.”

Corrections officials said their attorneys were studying the order Thursday and had not determined its impact. A hearing was set for April 1 in Alturas, and until then Carter is likely to remain at the Devil’s Garden Conservation Camp, seven miles outside of town.

Each month, the state’s prisons release 250 rapists, child molesters and other sex offenders, whose time behind bars averages less than 3 1/2 years--41.6 months. Despite such numbers, the parole of Carter and the near-release of another serial rapist, Christopher Evans Hubbart, have stirred uproars at opposite ends of California this week.

On Wednesday, residents of Claremont protested after learning that Hubbart, believed to be responsible for 50 rapes over 22 years, was to be released there. After failing a psychiatric exam, Hubbart was returned to the state prison in Chino, where he will probably remain another year.

Carter, a former engineer, confessed to raping more than 100 women over a dozen years, beginning when he moved to California from Colorado in 1968. He told police that he targeted neighborhoods near college campuses and searched for women who lived alone.

Wearing a jumpsuit and surgical gloves, Carter struck at night, typically cutting phone and power lines before raping his victims with a knife at their throats. He was dubbed the College Terrace rapist and committed most of his known crimes in the Bay Area.

In 1982, Carter was convicted of 12 rapes and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He is eligible for release now because laws in effect when he was convicted allowed him to reduce his sentence by working and behaving himself. By contrast, the new “three strikes and you’re out” law sharply restricts some inmates’ ability to cut their sentences with so-called “good time” credits.

News of Carter’s pending release surfaced last week. Hayward, an East Bay Area city, was rumored to be the state’s parole destination of choice, and residents there quickly staged demonstrations and flooded the governor’s office with phone calls and faxes.

“Locating him in a community that so closely resembles his ‘old hunting grounds’ is irresponsible at the least and blatantly reckless at worst,” Mayor Michael Sweeney wrote in a letter to Wilson, noting that Hayward is home to two colleges.

As the ruckus mushroomed, it caught the eye of state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, who is running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Brown declared that missteps by Wilson’s Department of Corrections had allowed the rapist to go free two years early and charged that the governor was all talk and no action on crime.

On Monday, Wilson stepped into the fray. Calling Carter “an animal,” he ordered him released “out in the wilderness someplace where he will have absolutely the least possible opportunity to hurt another young woman.”

The governor, who has long sought tougher prison terms for rapists, called Brown’s charges “utterly false.” He said his office took special steps to ensure that Carter’s parole is subject to the strictest possible conditions, including electronic monitoring, psychiatric evaluations, frequent polygraph tests and limits on how far from his parole site he may go.

Devil’s Garden Conservation Camp houses 122 minimum security inmates who are nearing their parole dates and work on fire crews and other projects. Christine May, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, said Carter will live “as a parolee, not an inmate of the camp” and will serve a maximum of three years on parole.

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“Protecting the citizens of Modoc County is a high priority. We want them to know we have taken every precaution for their safety,” said state Corrections Department Director James H. Gomez.

Such assurances did not seem to assuage fears in Alturas, where residents forgo conveniences such as shopping malls and fancy hospitals for a sense that their children are safe on the street.

Bookkeeper Debbie Mason, a mother of two children, said, “You never lock your door in Alturas, and you don’t worry about your kids playing outdoors. Suddenly, that’s going to change, and people are upset. It doesn’t seem fair.”

Assemblyman Bernie Richter (R-Chico), who represents Modoc County, said he understands Wilson’s quandary but believes the governor failed to understand the dynamics of a small town.

“You just can’t release a guy like that here, because he would stand out like a sore thumb,” said Richter. “Everybody would be aware of his every move, and that would completely disrupt life.”

Carter’s saga closely mirrors the case of Lawrence Singleton, who raped a 15-year-old girl in 1978 and hacked off her forearms with an ax. Like Carter, Singleton had his sentence reduced because he worked and behaved while behind bars, and encountered a storm of protest when his parole date came up.

Opposition was so strong that corrections officials were forced to move Singleton around Northern California in secrecy. On one occasion, he had to be removed under police guard from an apartment after his whereabouts were learned and a crowd of 500 surrounded the building.

Ultimately, Gov. George Deukmejian ordered him housed on the grounds of San Quentin prison. His last known address was in Florida, where he was once picked up for shoplifting.

Experts blame Carter’s release on a 1977 law that requires convicts be sentenced to a set term, rather than a range of years, such as one to 25. Under the system, known as determinate sentencing, the state parole board no longer has authority to judge an inmate’s suitability for release.

“Because of this law, his release was mandated and there was nothing they could do about it,” said Jerome H. Skolnick, a professor of law and social policy at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall. “We need some restructuring of the system. Someone who raped 100 women ought to be behind bars for a very, very long time.”

Carter’s attorney, Tom Nolan of Palo Alto, did not return telephone calls Thursday. But last week, he told the San Francisco Examiner that the public need not fear his client.

“He’s not a threat,” Nolan said. “He is very guilt-ridden and remorseful . . . and sensitive to community concern.”

Parole Furor

Residents of tiny Alturas, in northeastern California, are up in arms over the parole of a serial rapist to a state prison camp just outside town. The fate of Melvin Carter remains uncertain because a judge ordered him banned from Modoc County.