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Changes Planned for Sex Offender Registry System

Lloyd Jones was a model registered sex offender. Following his 2001 conviction for rape, he was paroled in 2008 and received discharge two years later. “He was ...
sebcosexoffenders

Lloyd Jones was a model registered sex offender. Following his 2001 conviction for rape, he was paroled in 2008 and received discharge two years later.

“He was one of my more docile people,” said Sebastian County Investigator Janell Daggett, who oversees the county sex offender registry. “We have some come in that are really resentful, but he stayed in complete compliance on everything. Lived where he was supposed to be living. Came in when he was supposed to come in.”

Yet on the night of Feb. 10, 2012, he picked up 16-year old Angela Allen from a Van Buren parking lot and drove her to her death. At the Arkansas River, Jones murdered Allen before stuffing her into a plastic barrel and hiding her body on his brother’s land near Lavaca.

The body was discovered a week later.

For Daggett, the crime could have been prevented “if we just had his cell phone or text messages. Once we saw his computer, and we did see everything, it was scary.”

“But it’s a privacy issue,” Daggett added. “And they’re (sex offender) not going to come up here and show us.”

Sebastian County Sheriff Bill Hollenbeck acknowledges that having access to sex offenders’ cellphones, text messages and Internet usage would be “a useful tool,” but that the information is currently a “Fourth Amendment and freedom of speech” issue.

Click here to read the full story from our partners at TheCityWire.com.

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