Posted on 08/31/2005 7:17:15 AM PDT by Clint Williams
BELLINGHAM -- Two men shot to death at a Bellingham apartment building were Level 3 sex offenders, police confirmed Monday.
The men were identified by police as Hank Eisses, 49, and Victor Vasquez, 68, both convicted child rapists.
Police are looking for a man who may have posed as an FBI agent to gain access to their apartment. A roommate who found the bodies says the man wore a blue jumpsuit and a cap with the FBI letters and said he wanted to talk with the men about their status as sex offenders. The man also was seen Friday by neighbors.
The fake FBI agent told the three roommates that one of them was on a "hit list" on an Internet site, according to the police.
The roommate who reported the deaths left about 9 p.m. while the FBI impostor was still there, police Lt. Craige Ambrose said previously.
He found the bodies when he returned about 3 a.m. Saturday, police said.
Neighbors said the suspect stayed at the house for about two hours, according to police.
The Masked Avenger ?
Well, I guess that takes care of that problem.
Already posted twice.
Where?
This may shock some people here, but if my daughter or granddaughters were their victims, I would have done the same thing.
clap,clap,clap........
BELLINGHAM — Last Friday night, a man claiming to be an FBI agent dropped in on three Level 3 sex offenders living together, supposedly to warn them of an Internet "hit list" targeting sex offenders.
The man was not an FBI agent, but he may have been enforcing a hit list of his own creation.
Two of the roommates were found dead early Saturday of gunshot wounds, and Bellingham police are investigating a crime that authorities say may be one of the nation's most serious cases of vigilantism aimed at sex offenders.
The killings also highlight a potential problem about Washington's 1990 law requiring sex offenders to register their addresses so the public can keep track of them.
Bellingham Police Chief Randall Carroll said it is too early to conclude that Hank Eisses, 49, and Victor Vasquez, 68, were killed because they were sex offenders. Police released a sketch of the suspect, who is still at large.
But Carroll noted that their address — and descriptions of their crimes — were posted on the city's Web site, and if someone used that information to target Eisses and Vasquez, it could have a broad impact.
"Certainly if sex offenders were targeted and attacked because of their offense, the Legislature could decide they could repeal our sex-offender notification law," Carroll said.
Eisses owned the house where the killings took place, and had rented rooms for the past three years to Vasquez and James Russell, 42.
Russell was there the night the suspect showed up, but he soon left to go to work. When he returned about 3 a.m., he told police, he found his roommates dead. Based on their estimated time of death, and the fact that Russell was at work, he is not considered a suspect, according to police. Results of an autopsy are expected later this week, Carroll said.
Vasquez was convicted in 1991 of molesting several relatives. According to court documents, his victims endured regular abuse, sexual and otherwise. He was on Department of Corrections supervision at the time of the murder.
Russell was convicted in 1994 of molesting a 3-year-old girl, and released from DOC supervision about three weeks ago after serving 5 ½ years in prison.
While the public is understandably concerned about sex crimes, Kit Bail, a DOC official, said the three men have been quiet, law-abiding offenders while living together. None of the three had violated supervision conditions, she said, and none had reoffended.
"In a sense, they are a success story," said Bail, the DOC's field supervisor for Whatcom County. "These guys were doing fine. They were employed. They were living according to the conditions."
The killings, she said, should "not be the basis on which we change the laws on registration, but if it is a vigilante act, it gives one pause. It gives me concern about other Level 3 sex offenders living responsibly — or even irresponsibly — in the community. Murder is not the response anywhere."
A fake FBI agent
Eisses was sentenced to 5 ½ years in prison in 1997 for raping a 13-year-old boy at his home in Sumas, near the Canadian border. He was released from DOC supervision about two years ago, Bail said.
He bought a blue house with a white picket fence in Bellingham's Columbia neighborhood — about a half-mile from a middle school — with the help of Theodore Kingma. In a brief interview, Kingma said he met Eisses at church. "He confessed his sins, and he lived right with God and the neighbors," said Kingma. "That's all I know."
It is unclear how Eisses met Russell and Vasquez. One of Russell's relatives said Russell's sex-offender status made it difficult to find a place to live until he moved in with Eisses.
According to police, Russell said a man wearing a blue jumpsuit and a hat with an FBI logo dropped by at about 9 p.m. on Friday to warn the trio of the alleged "hit list."
There were no FBI agents in the neighborhood that day, prompting the bureau to open an investigation of impersonation, said FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs. The case does not qualify for federal hate-crime prosecution because the law does not appear to cover sex offenders, she said.
Too much information?
In response to a series of vicious sex crimes against children, Washington became the first state to require sex offenders to register their address upon release from prison. Level 3 offenders like Eisses, Vasquez and Russell, considered the most likely to commit a new crime, must register for life.
Since then, most states and the federal government have passed similar mandatory-notification laws.
A searchable, statewide database maintained by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs provides block-specific addresses for Level 2 and 3 offenders. Other municipalities — including Bellingham — go further by giving exact addresses.
That information has led some to take the law into their own hands. In 1993, Joseph Gallardo planned to move into his family's home in Lynnwood after serving about three years for the statutory rape of a 10-year-old girl.
The home was burned after neighbors heard of Gallardo's plan. He then planned to move to New Mexico but encountered fierce protests there. He returned to Lynnwood, where he still lives. He has not been convicted of another crime.
John La Fond, a lawyer who fought the notification law on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, said posting sex offenders' addresses "almost becomes a confession by the state that they cannot keep the society safe from harm, and invites society to take matters into its own hands."
In researching a 2005 book on notification laws, he found dozens of assaults and harassment against sex offenders. Eisses and Vasquez, he said, may be the first deaths.
Don Pierce, head of the police-chiefs association, said the case will renew the debate on publishing sex offenders' addresses.
"I think there are risks and this may prove to be an example of one of those risks," said Pierce. "I also think the public and Legislature have said there's a risk to the general public if they don't know with specificity where a sex offender lives."
Yepper, same here.
I could read this story over and over again.
Paging Paul Kersey, please report to the nearest FBI agency.
Wow.
same here
Well I guess there will be the most intense 30 second investigation the city has ever seen.
I could find only one.
I'm confused. This article implies that a cold-blooded killer allowed the third roommate to simply LEAVE - after having seen him up close - then proceeded to kill the other two??
This story sounds "off" to me.
Nope, doesn't shock me, I concur.
However wearing the FBI get up was a tad much IMHO. By hey whatever works :-)
ditto
If this guy is caught, will he be charged with a hate crime?
agreed
Well, the legal system will lock up someone for stealing bicycles for life(3rd offence) but sets child rapists up in apartments like it's a normal thing to do. Fine the bicycle thief and hang the child molesters. How hard can it be?
Murder? That's acceptable? We change laws to prevent more tragedies. We don't take names off the list that is on the internet and then take the law into our own hands.
Posing as an FBI agent to kill someone is also breaking the law. If this person is found, he will be a convict also. Shall we then take him and have the sex offenders families kill him? Geesh people!
There are times when the only justice you can find is the justice that you make for yourself.
We're going to see a lot more of this. It's stark reality that our 'theraputic' justice system simply refuses to dela with animals like these. People are way past fed up.
We are just assuming that he had a family member raped by one of these men...The article doesn't state that.
No where does the article state that these men were provided with apts etc.
I think a ticker-tape parade and a key to the city would be more appropriate. I betcha the killer was either abused as a child or perhaps a family member was abused by one of these creeps.
Or drastically increase the penalty for sex offenses.
Yup, maybe the score is settled now.
This guy has probably done the job the courts would not do for years and were all too happy to satisfy the feminists' psychotics in protecting those perverts.
That said, it is easy to employ and blackmail sex offenders in illicit trades and get rid of them later too. No one wants them. Either way they got their day.
Shocking is when people say, "these people need our understanding and help..They're just like everyone else..."
We put rabid animals and dangerous dogs down for our, and their, protection -- so why not child rapists? It's the humane thing to do.
I've got a two year old daughter. I would have done the same thing too. Her three uncles and father have stated the same as well.
"Well, I guess that takes care of that problem."
L.O.L---Amen To That !!
I would hope.
In a case where it was a violent rape, I would tend to agree. The problems remains, the lists are inadequate. A person who has sex with a 15 yr old and they are 18 doesn't need to be on the list as they are in Michigan..
Wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench in the trial if the guy ever gets caught. Yeah, what he did was wrong but I'm not shedding any tears for the "victims".
Thanks! You realize of course, that none of us who have expressed this reaction will ever be selected for jury duty, right? I have only been on one (a special grand jury in California) but they will never pick me for a rape or murder trial.
I say he should get a medal, but yeah okay, prosecute like say - for littering.***But I believe the chances of Jury nullification are extremely high on this one...***
I'd hope so, depends if Michael Jackson types and/or sympathizers get on the jury. But if this 'unknown person' had a family member assaulted-raped, etc. He should walk."The problem I have is that this guy who did the killing, will say that he would never had been in that position if the state had no provided him the resources to do so...I can see this leading to the end of notification laws."
The problem I have is that these perverts are still allowed to 'suck air'. And the REAL problem is L.E. CAN'T protect the people. In fact by our Supreme Court they (cops) aren't legally required to protect 'us'. And if notification laws are ended, I see a revolt. This ain't the '70's anymore and 'we' are fed up with "criminal rights" especially for sex offenders.
And seriously, if any family member of mine - from MIL, wife to grand kids was sexually assaulted, I'd hunt that maggot down till the end of time. And when I found him - a quick shooting would be the LEAST of his problems. To quote Pulp Fiction, "I'd go Medieval on his a$$".
And he got chosen anyway!!!!
My husband sat on a grand jury in Boston despite telling them he was a staunch conservative (I guess they still thought he still looked like a lib!). I've never been chosen.
I've never been so lucky as to serve on a capital crime case, but rest assured, I would be judiciously expedient.
One would have thought that the words "Female Body Inspector" on the "FBI" cap would have tipped these two off.
No doubt, any DUmmies or media lurkers reading this thread are simpering into their lattes at this moment. We conservatives are just SOOOO heartless. ;-)
File that under D.S.A.F.
I got 5 bucks that says the 3rd roommate did it mad made up the FBI story.
I suspect when they make a TV show out of it, the conclusion will be the Christen right radical roommate did it and present the case that the poor victims were now cured and turning there life around after the sex addition brought on by a cruel society.
Gee. I wouldn't look very hard...
What does that matter?
Just like the volunteers on the Mex border, this is vigilantism. There is no place in our society for people that think they can take the law into their own hands.
Citizens should rely solely on the government for all their needs and protection. (/sarcasm)
Charles Bronson died, right?
Charles Bronson died, right?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.