Judge Approves Release of “Pillowcase Rapist” to Palmdale

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, 63, will be released from Coalinga State Hospital on or before July 7, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office. A news conference was scheduled for 1 p.m.

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. He must wear a GPS ankle monitor.

He also will be transported to individual therapy sessions twice per week. He will be accompanied by a Liberty supervisor -- the program contracts with the state to place and supervise sexually violent criminals -- when he goes out in public for the first six months to a year, according to terms of his release.

The house 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."

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.

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