Pillowcase Rapist Taken Into Custody
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A man known as the "Pillowcase Rapist," who had been living in a home near Palmdale despite outcry from neighbors, has been taken into custody Tuesday.
Christopher Evans Hubbart, 65, was taken into custody, but it was not immediately clear why, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office confirmed.
A California Department of State Hospitals official declined to comment on the case.
Hubbart was released from Coalinga State Hospital in July 2014 and was assigned by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Gilbert Brown to live at a home in the 20300 block of East Avenue R. He had been designated a sexually violent predator in Santa Clara County in 1996, and his lawyers argued in 2014 that his continuing detention violated his rights to due process, sparking a battle over where he should live.
Residents of the area, along with county Supervisor Mike Antonovich, vehemently opposed the decision to send Hubbart to live in the Palmdale area.
The District Attorney's Office tried unsuccessfully last year to have Hubbart's release revoked, with District Attorney Jackie Lacey saying "this violent predator continues to pose a serious danger to our community." A judge, however, rejected the request.
Hubbart was sent to Atascadero State Hospital in 1972 after the court deemed him a "mentally disordered sex offender." Seven years later, doctors said he posed no threat and released him.
Over the next two years, he raped another 15 women in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to court documents. Hubbart was again imprisoned, then paroled in 1990.
After accosting a woman in Santa Clara County, he was sent back to prison and then to Coalinga State Hospital.
As a condition of his release, Hubbart was required to wear an ankle monitor and attend regular therapy sessions and make quarterly reports to a judge.
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