WEYMOUTH, MASS. (WHDH) - Police in Weymouth said they have already received several calls after 49-year-old Richard Gardner, a Level 3 sex offender, was released from prison. Last week, neighbors said they saw Gardner peering over a fence. Amanda Hill started an online petition calling for Gardner and other sex offenders to be outfitted with GPS.
“I strongly believe that all Level 3 sex offenders should be on a GPS monitoring device if they’re allowed parole,” said Hill.
A convicted sex offender who caused concern in Weymouth after his recent release from prison was summonsed to court for violating a city ordinance after he was allegedly found in a Quincy library.
On Oct. 8 just before 11:30 p.m., Quincy Police responded to the Thomas Crane Public Library for a report of an unwanted person. A librarian told police she saw Gardner, a Level 3 sex offender, inside the library using one of the computers.
Police approached Gardner and told him he would be summonsed to court for violation of a city ordinance, which says a registered sex offender is prohibited from entering the premises of a school, library or day care center unless previously authorized.
According to police, Gardner is not wanted at this time.
Gardner served 27 years in prison after he was sentenced for kidnapping and raping young boys in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In one case, Gardner abducted a boy at knife point from his bedroom. In another, he tied a boy to the tree and molested him.
Gardner was initially sentenced to 190 years in prison in Rhode Island in 1991. Upon appeal in 1993, he got a shorter sentence. In Massachusetts, he received about 15 years when he was sentenced in 1989. He has now moved back into his parents’ home on Chandler Street in Weymouth.
Police went to the house on Chandler Street Tuesday to see if Gardner was actually living where he was registered. Officials at Father Bill’s Homeless Shelter in Quincy said police told him to leave when he showed up on there Saturday evening.
“I am disgusted,” said neighbor Kathleen Fay, who is the mother to a 10-year-old. “You are supposed to feel safe in your own home and no one feels safe.” Fay said she got an alarm system for her house and put up a sign warning about a guard dog.
Gardner is out on probation until 2043. If he violates probation, he will likely go back to prison.
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