Police hunt sexually violent predator who vanished after GPS 'tamper mode' alert

A convicted child sex offender was still missing Sunday, two days after his GPS monitor sounded a tamper alert at a San Diego worksite and supervisors arrived to find him gone, authorities said.

Merle Wakefield, 69, was working in Rancho Bernardo when his device alerted to "Tamper Mode" at about 3:30 a.m. Friday, according to the San Diego County Sheriffs Office.

Liberty Healthcare, the state contractor supervising him, responded to the location and found the device removed and Wakefield gone. The company notified the sheriffs office and San Diego police.

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The sheriffs office said Sunday it "shares the communitys concerns over Merle Wakefields disappearance" and was still actively looking for him.

"We have been working diligently to locate him," the agency said. It asked the public to report any sightings or information that could help find Wakefield.

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"Its been more than 48 hours since Merle Wakefield took off his GPS monitor and walked away. Hes still out there," San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond wrote Sunday on Facebook. He called Wakefield "a convicted child molester and violent rapist" and accused the state of saying nothing publicly about his disappearance.

Wakefield is wanted for violating the terms of his conditional release, the sheriffs office said. He was convicted in 1980 and 1991 of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 and rape by force, according to the agency. He has been on conditional release since November 2024.

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Desmond said Wakefield was gone by the time Liberty Healthcare arrived after the GPS alert.

"Thats how easy it was," he wrote in an earlier post. "The state released him into our community in November 2024 and promised hed be monitored and supervised. Less than two years later, hes missing and wanted."

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Local officials had warned about Wakefields release before it happened. A San Diego judge granted him a transient release in October 2024 rather than placing him in a designated home, Fox 5/KUSI reported at the time. It was the third attempt to place him in San Diego County.

An earlier proposal would have placed Wakefield in a Poway home near a school and park, prompting residents to rally against it, according to the outlet. Poway Mayor Steve Vaus opposed that location and argued that allowing Wakefield to live without a fixed address would make it harder for the public to know where he was.

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