A convicted child sex offender remained missing Sunday, two days after his GPS monitor issued a tampering alert at a San Diego-area worksite and supervisors discovered he had left, authorities said.
Merle Wakefield, 69, was working in Rancho Bernardo when his tracking device entered “Tamper Mode” at approximately 3:30 a.m. Friday, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.
Liberty Healthcare, the state contractor responsible for supervising Wakefield, went to the site after receiving the alert. Employees found that the device had been removed and Wakefield was gone, then notified the sheriff’s office and San Diego police.
The sheriff’s office said Sunday that it “shares the community’s concerns over Merle Wakefield’s disappearance” and continues to search for him.
“We have been working diligently to locate him,” the agency said, urging anyone with information or who spots Wakefield to contact authorities.
“It’s been more than 48 hours since Merle Wakefield took off his GPS monitor and walked away. He’s still out there,” San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond wrote on Facebook Sunday. Desmond described Wakefield as “a convicted child molester and violent rapist” and criticized the state for not publicly addressing his disappearance.
The sheriff’s office said Wakefield is wanted for violating the conditions of his conditional release.
According to the agency, Wakefield was convicted in 1980 and 1991 of lewd or lascivious acts involving a child under 14 and rape by force. He has been on conditional release since November 2024.
Desmond said Wakefield had already left by the time Liberty Healthcare personnel arrived in response to the GPS alert.
“That’s how easy it was,” Desmond wrote in an earlier post. “The state released him into our community in November 2024 and promised he’d be monitored and supervised. Less than two years later, he’s missing and wanted.”
Local officials had voiced objections to Wakefield’s release before it took place.
A San Diego judge approved a transient release for Wakefield in October 2024 instead of assigning him to a designated residence, Fox 5/KUSI reported at the time. It was the third proposed placement for him in San Diego County.
One earlier plan would have housed Wakefield in a Poway residence near a school and park. Residents organized protests against the proposed location, according to the outlet.
Poway Mayor Steve Vaus opposed the site, saying that allowing Wakefield to live without a permanent address would make it more difficult for the public to know where he was staying.
“It’s a shell game that puts a community at risk,” Vaus told Fox 5/KUSI when discussing the transient release.
The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office also objected to releasing Wakefield without a fixed residence, citing concerns about inadequate monitoring and supervision. Tanya Sierra, a spokesperson for the office, told the outlet that the Department of State Hospitals and Liberty Healthcare needed to secure appropriate housing where people on conditional release could be closely monitored.
State Sen. Brian Jones separately questioned where Wakefield would live. Jones told Fox 5/KUSI that he could wind up on the streets or in a hotel paid for by taxpayers.
“Supposedly, he’s going to have a tracking device,” Jones said at the time.
Jones had also urged an audit of California’s sexually violent predator program, the outlet reported.
The audit determined that approximately 36% of participants had violated their release conditions. Jones criticized the program’s expense and argued that the state should keep sexually violent predators in hospitals instead of releasing them into communities.
The California Department of State Hospitals pushed back on criticism of the release process, telling Fox 5/KUSI that the court ultimately decides whether someone designated a sexually violent predator can be conditionally released.
The department said its supervision program used GPS monitoring, unannounced home visits and surveillance, and that breaking the rules could send someone back to a state hospital.
The outlet also reported that Wakefield’s court order called for 24-hour in-person supervision wherever he stayed. That report was published before the hearing to finalize his release.
Desmond renewed his objection after Wakefield disappeared.
“I’ve fought these placements from day one,” he wrote. “These people do not belong back out in the community. They belong in a state hospital or in jail. As long as Sacramento’s law keeps putting them in our neighborhoods, families are going to keep paying the price.”
Wakefield is 5 feet, 10 inches tall, weighs 230 pounds and has brown eyes, according to the sheriff’s office. Authorities warned anyone who sees him not to approach or contact him and to call 911 or local law enforcement.
Fox News Digital reached out to Senator Jones’ office and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office for comment.