'Chelsea's Law' Could Track Sex Offenders Via GPS

[Teressa]

Death of Chelsea King Prompts Lawmaker to Overhaul Laws Monitoring Predators

Known sex offenders should be outfitted with GPS devices that would track their movements and immediately alert police if predators travelled to restricted areas near schools or parks, a California lawmaker told ABC News.com.

Following the alleged rape and murder of 17-year-old high school student Chelsea King by convicted sex offender John Albert Gardner III, Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, R- San Diego, called for a complete review of California laws intended to monitor known offenders.

Fletcher said California law requires sex offenders to register where they live, but not where they go. Police in the nearby towns of Escondido and Rancho Bernardo are working to determine if in Gardner's routine travels between his residence and his mother's home he attempted to abduct girls along the way. ~snipped~

[Teressa]

"I'm really concerned where these sex predators go because where you live is one thing, but where you go is another matter. If you're a certain category of sex offender you can't go where kids congregate. You can't go to parks, you can't go to bus stops, you can go to schools," Fletcher said.

"We're looking at the possibility of using technology. Using a GPS device that's a passive device, but the minute you cross into one of these safe zones it immediately pings a 911 call and you've committed a crime by violating it," he said.

King's body was found in a shallow grave near Lake Hodges on March 2, ending a week-long search for the straight-A student who disappeared Feb. 25 during an afterschool run at a park.

Gardner, who served five years in prison after admitting to molesting a 13-yeard-old girl in 2000, was arrested March 1 after his DNA was found on clothes belonging to King found in the area where she vanished.

In the days following his arrest and arraignment, police have since linked him to one other attack in the same park and believe he may be connected to the death of Amber DuBois, 14, who disappeared in February 2009 and whose skeletal remains were discover over this past weekend.

[313girl]

I hope he's successful and that we can use it as a model for other states.