State Drops Plans to Send Paroled Child Molester to San Diego Area

Plans to parole convicted child molester Thomas Max Hetherington to the San Diego area were dropped Friday after local officials pleaded with Gov. Pete Wilson and three of Hetherington’s victims invoked their legal right to keep him at least 35 miles away.

San Diego Mayor Susan Golding wrote the governor on Thursday that the victims “are still undergoing therapy and reportedly became hysterical” at the prospect of Hetherington returning to the community where he molested eight girls at a day care center.

Dist. Atty. Edwin L. Miller wrote Wilson and then spoke Friday morning with Craig Brown, the undersecretary for the state Youth and Adult Correctional Agency.

The key move came from county Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who persuaded three of the victims and their families to request that Hetherington, 78, not be paroled near their homes. By state law, no violent felon can be paroled within 35 miles of a victim if the victim seeks such protection.

Jacob faxed the requests to Sacramento only hours before Hetherington was to be released from the Men’s Colony at San Luis Obispo and then leave for San Diego County.

Late Friday afternoon, correction officials announced that Hetherington is on parole and is being watched by a parole agent, awaiting a decision on an alternative location, possibly to be made next week. Officials declined to disclose Hetherington’s whereabouts, except to say that he is not in San Diego County.

San Diego County has not been ruled out as a parole location. But if the 35-mile limit is applied to the victims’ homes in San Diego, Ramona and Bonsall, the only area not off-limits is in the county’s mountainous and virtually unpopulated southeast corner.

Hetherington was convicted in 1982 of repeatedly molesting eight children in rural Ramona, north of San Diego. The victims ranged in age from 2 to 11. They were in the custody of a day care center run by Hetherington’s wife, who has since divorced him.

Sentenced to 21 years in prison, Hetherington was set to be released Friday under a law that gives time off for good behavior. Arizona authorities two months ago rejected his request that he be allowed to live in that state when paroled.