Suspect in Abuse Case Dies in Jail Fall

A Fontana man who confessed to police this week that he had used his influence as a youth leader to molest three boys during the last 20 years jumped to his death Wednesday from a second-story tier in the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

David Robert Putnam, 41, had been jailed Tuesday and was scheduled to be arraigned in San Bernardino County Superior Court by Friday on charges of sodomy and lewd acts with a child.

Putnam was alone at about 11:40 a.m. when he jumped over a railing in the jail’s housing unit. Chip Patterson, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department, said witnesses reported that “there was no doubt this was intentional on [Putnam’s] part.”

He said the distance of the fall was typically survivable, but witnesses described it as a head--first dive.

Putnam contacted Fontana police Tuesday to confess that he had molested three boys since 1985: a 9-year-old he met as a member of Big Brothers; a 12-year-old he met in 1999 or 2000 as a Boy Scout leader; and another boy from Fontana.

A Fontana police spokesman said detectives continued investigating the case Wednesday, establishing contact with four other boys who said they had inappropriate contact with Putnam. The spokesman, Sgt. William Megenney, said it was believed the boys were former Boy Scouts.

“We don’t know exactly why [Putnam] confessed,” Megenney said. “Sometimes, there’s just a genuine guilt -- they know what they did was bad and they have to get it off their chest.”