SoCal Community Protests Release of “Pillowcase Rapist”

Christopher Evans Hubbart has admitted to raping about 40 women in a series of Los Angeles County and Bay Area attacks between 1971 and 1982

A Southern California community was up in arms Friday as a judge ordered a man who admitted to raping 38 women in California during an 11-year period to be released to Palmdale, despite protests from residents of the Southern California community.

Christopher Evans Hubbart (pictured), 63, will be released from Coalinga State Hospital on or before July 7, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office.

"I am extremely disappointed with the court's decision to release serial rapist Christopher Hubbart into Los Angeles County. We took every legal action at our disposal to try to stop his return to our community," LA County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement.

"We will do everything within our authority to protect the residents of Los Angeles County from this dangerous predator," Lacey said.

Hubbart, who has been in the custody of Department of State Hospitals since he was designated a sexually violent predator in 1996, will be monitored by the Liberty Conditional Release Program. The program contracts with the state to place and supervise sexually violent criminals.

"I'm going to file for a concealed weapons permit so I have my self-protection," said resident Cheryl Holbrook, who was one of a group of women who tried to convince the judge earlier this week that Hubbart did not belong in the Antelope Valley.

"I know he's going to escalate and he's not going to leave any witnesses behind," Holbrook said. "He is going to prey on us like a cat, like a slimy rattlesnake."

Hubbart must wear a GPS ankle monitor and will be transported to individual therapy sessions twice per week. He will be accompanied by a Liberty supervisor when he goes out in public for the first six months to a year, according to terms of his release.

The house (pictured, right) is located in a remote part of Palmdale, about 60 miles north of Los Angeles. He was ordered to Los Angeles County because of a state law that states a judge can send a sexually violent predator back to his "alleged county of domicile."

"There's no streetlights out here, the cell service doesn't hardly work out here. What is this judge thinking?" Holbrook said.

Hubbart has acknowledged raping and assaulting about 40 women between 1971 and 1982, but authorities place the number of victims closer to 100. He became known as the so-called "Pillowcase Rapist" because he muffled the screams of his victims with pillowcases.

He admitted to raping about two dozen women in Los Angeles County. Hubbart was released to the Bay Area in 1979, where he attacked 15 more women, which is why this week's proceedings regarding his release were conducted in Santa Clara County.

About a dozen people conducted a protest earlier this week at a public hearing at which they tried to persuade a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge not to allow Hubbart residence in the Antelope Valley community.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich called the order "an unconscionable threat to public safety."

John Cádiz Klemack contributed to this report.

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