FL- Ankle monitor didn't stop serial rapist, police say

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt that, GPS has no preventative value. So why do lawmakers enact laws mandating its use? Its only value is as a prosecutorial tool to prove someone was at the scene of a crime, but even then cannot prove that person committed the crime. GPS has a tremendous value at lining the pockets of someone though!

6-28-2008 Florida:

Jerry Lee Williams Jr. was, authorities say, the most sinister kind of rapist: He would rape and choke, rape and choke, and sometimes he would rape and kill. All told, there were six victims, authorities allege. Two are dead.

And the state couldn't stop him, even after the Florida Department of Corrections forced him to wear an ankle monitor so it could keep tabs on him by satellite, the agency says.

While wearing the ankle band after his release from prison, Williams attacked two women -- killing one, authorities say. Both times, the satellite worked. It tracked his every move. But there was no way for the authorities to know that he was attacking the women.

Authorities insist the satellite technology did its job.

"No one is sitting in front of a [computer] monitor, watching these guys," said Steve Chapin, president of ProTech Monitoring Inc., the private contractor that kept watch on Williams and provides monitoring for thousands of offenders in Florida and other states. "It's the best supervision tool available. It's never advertised or promoted as being able to prevent a crime."

But to stop a serial rapist, you must do more than track him, said Jennifer Dritt, executive director of the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence.

"If he's not in treatment and he doesn't have . . . a deep, profound commitment to ending his behavior, then all the monitoring in the world is not going to prevent it from happening again," she said.

Death penalty sought

Williams chose his victims well, authorities say: drug addicts, prostitutes and the homeless. They were women no one would believe, women who wouldn't make good witnesses. Time after time, authorities would tie Williams to the victims -- his DNA was found on five of the six women -- but the cases would fall apart because victims would disappear, become mentally unstable or refuse to cooperate.

His most recent victim, according to police, was 39-year-old Lisa Marie French. She had been raped and asphyxiated, her body found behind a Sanford warehouse Feb. 20, 2007. Authorities found Williams' DNA on her body. When they checked his satellite-generated map, they discovered he had been at that warehouse for 30 minutes the weekend she was slain.

Williams, 25, of Sanford is now in jail, charged with rape and first-degree murder in that case. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

At the time of French's attack, Williams was on sex-offender probation, a far more relaxed form of supervision than house arrest. He was free to move about, as long as he abided by his curfew -- which he did -- according to Jo Ellyn Rackleff, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections.

Satellite monitoring runs on the electronic equivalent of autopilot unless something goes wrong, such as the offender travels to an address from which he's banned. If that happens, an alarm will sound and probation officers are notified.

There were no alarms the evening Williams, wearing that electronic ankle strap and carrying his boxy 4-pound satellite transmitter, attacked French, authorities say.

And there were no alarms seven months earlier when, despite satellite tracking, he choked a woman until she blacked out and raped her in an abandoned Sanford house, where they'd gone to smoke crack, according to police records. Police arrested him, but prosecutors filed no charges because the victim would not cooperate.

2 more connections

Authorities know Williams is connected to two more women who were attacked before he went to prison. In 2003, a woman was raped behind an Orlando bar. In March 2004, a woman was found raped and strangled in the driveway of an abandoned house on Grand Street in Orange County.

Police were stumped by the crimes and did not find the piece of evidence that tied the cases together until a DNA sample was taken from Williams after he was convicted for a different crime.

Williams was found guilty of choking and raping a woman in a van on a deserted stretch of road near Osceola Parkway in March 2004. She fought him and escaped, and prosecutors got the charge to stick. Williams took a plea deal that included a two-year prison term -- he served seven months -- followed by three years of sex-offender probation.

When he was sentenced, authorities collected a DNA sample from him -- as they do all convicted felons. A few weeks later, in late 2005, a state DNA analyst reviewing cold cases made two matches: Williams had sex with the victim of the 2003 downtown rape and the woman who had been strangled at the abandoned house in Orange County -- a crime he allegedly committed on the same day he raped the woman in the van in Osceola.

That was the first time authorities realized Williams might be a serial rapist.

Williams was not arrested in either case. Orlando police closed the downtown rape case, saying the victim had become severely mentally ill.

Orange County sheriff's Sgt. Allen Lee said Williams might be charged with raping and strangling the woman in the driveway of the abandoned house, 40-year-old Patricia Ann Kimmons of Orlando. It hasn't happened, Lee said, because he can prove only that Williams had sex with her -- not that he killed her.

Kimmons' husband, Terry, from whom she was estranged at the time of her death, doesn't understand why authorities were unable to stop Williams.

"This doesn't make any sense," he said. "They caught the guy. What are they doing?" ..News Source.. by Rene Stutzman Sentinel Staff Writer