Protesters Rally To Keep 'Pillowcase Rapist' Out Of The Antelope Valley

PALMDALE (CBSLA.com)  — A loud and vocal demonstration was held in Lancaster Saturday with protesters adamant -- they don't want the infamous "Pillowcase Rapist" in their backyard.

The so-called "Pillowcase Rapist" is set for release. Christopher Hubbart admitted to raping 40 women in Northern and Southern California between 1971 and 1982. Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Gilbert Brown ruled that Hubbart would move into the Antelope Valley.

Specifically, Hubbart has a home lined up in the 20000 block of East Avenue R. in the Lake Los Angeles area.

Residents took to the streets again today to protest the move. The demonstrators got hundreds of signatures on petitions hoping to block Hubbart.

CBS2's Art Barron spoke to demonstrators who in some case he says spent six hours screaming vocal opposition and gathering protect letters.

"Keep him out of LA County. We don't want him here," screamed one woman.

"He raped, he got out of jail, he raped again," Cheryl Hobrook told Barron, "Are they going to issue us women a concealed weapons permit to help protect ourselves?"

State Senator Steve Knight joined the protest. Noting Hubbart was deemed a sex offender with a mental disorder who has been released twice, only to re-offend, Knight says the release makes no sense.

"He's in a mental institution right now, he has a mental problem, it's obvious. We would like him to stay in that institution," says Knight.

The protest was organized by a group called Ladies of Lake Los Angeles. They held the demonstration in nearby Palmdale, on a busy street, hoping to get more neighbors on the anti-Hubbart bandwagon.

Signed petitions were placed inside a pillowcase to drive the point home and send a strong message to the judge -- hoping he would reconsider his order.

"And we're going to take the letters in front of the judge and show him this community is united against allowing this deviant to be in our community," said Knight.

The house on East Avenue R. is actually the second home Hubbart was slated to move in to.

The first house, about five minutes away, was picked in November of last year. But community backlash forced that owner to withdraw the property.

"This man said he would do it again," said concerned resident Sharon Duvernay about Hubbart, "it's not only frightening, it's devastating."

Duvernay lives two doors down from where Hubbart would take up residence.

"I do believe in working within the statues of the law, and I would be devastated as a voter, that someone would place this man there," she said.