Editor’s note: Be advised, this story covers violent sexual assaults and may be disturbing to some readers.
Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal released a letter to the community at noon today announcing his “strong opposition” to the proposed release of a man once known locally in the late 1980s as the “Ski Mask Rapist” to be placed in a single-family home in a residential area of Manila.
“Let me be clear: I strongly oppose [Humboldt County Superior Court] Judge [Kaleb] Cockrum’s ruling and the [Department of State Hospitals] placing this sexually sadistic predator anywhere in our county,” Honsal wrote in the letter. “Richard Stobaugh has a long, violent and deeply disturbing history of sexually assaulting women in Humboldt County. His actions were not only premeditated and violent, but often committed under terrifying circumstances involving weapons, home invasions and utter disregard for human life or dignity.”
First convicted of the rape of an 18-year-old Humboldt State University student at knifepoint in 1981, Stobaugh served five years in state prison before he was paroled Sept. 24, 1987. He was then convicted of raping two women by force Nov. 18, 1987, the attempted kidnapping of a woman at gunpoint Nov. 23, 1987, the rape by force of a woman who was seven months pregnant on Jan. 27, 1988, and the rape by force of a 71-year-old woman Feb. 20, 1988. According to prosecutors, Stobaugh was also suspected in numerous prowling reports in early 1988, suspected of sexually assaulting his wife and a girlfriend, and was discharged from the U.S. Air Force for “aberrant sexual tendencies.” Additionally, they allege he committed the violent Jan. 3, 1988 home invasion rape of a woman in a case that was never prosecuted because the “victim was too traumatized to testify” and later died by suicide.
Stobaugh pleaded guilty to six felony counts of kidnapping and rape by force, as well as three special allegations, in June of 1988 and was sentenced to serve 45 years in prison.
“Richard Stobaugh is a predator whose adult life has been devoted to the violent degrading of an entire sex,” then Deputy District Attorney Worth Dikeman wrote in a June 8, 1988, sentencing memorandum. “Each day he spends in prison is one more day he will be unable to act upon his hatred. There is no reason to expect that he will ever change and should be locked up for the rest of his life. Each effort within the law should be made to keep him in custody for as long as possible.”
In 2012, after he’d served 24 years in prison, Stobaugh was deemed a sexually violent predator, a designation that stems from a civil process dictated by state law. The process provides that toward the end of a prisoner’s sentence for a qualifying assaultive sex crime, the state can order them to be evaluated by two psychologists, who assess whether they exhibit signs of mental illness associated with sex crimes, typically paraphilia or “deviant sexual urges.” If both psychologists agree, the case is then forwarded to the local district attorney in which the person was convicted, who can then initiate a civil procedure to have them deemed a sexually violent predator and involuntarily committed to a state hospital for treatment. The designated predator can then petition the court every two years to determine that they have either completed a treatment program or no longer pose a threat to the community.
In Stobaugh’s case, the two psychologists diagnosed him with sexual sadism and a local jury, after hearing testimony from both psychologists and another called by the defense, deemed him a sexually violent predator, and he was sent to the Department of State Hospitals’ Coalinga facility. Stobaugh appealed the designation, but it was upheld by an appellate court.
According to a brief filed by the California Attorney General’s Office in the appellate case, Mary Jane Alumbaugh, a psychologist who had conducted more than 600 sexually violent predator evaluations at that point, evaluated Stobaugh and testified at the civil trial.
Allumbaugh, according to the document, pointed to a variety of factors in Stobaugh’s case to support her diagnoses, saying he used “gratuitous violence … above and beyond what you need to get the victim to cooperate” in each of his assaults. Additionally, Allumbaugh pointed to various things Stobaugh did to “humiliate” his victims during and after the assaults, as well as several instances in which he stayed with them for sometimes hours afterward, trying to engage them in casual conversation, as signs “of extremely disordered sexuality.”
Another psychologist, Bruce Yanofsky, who had conducted more than 650 sexually violent predator evaluations, concurred with Allumbaugh’s diagnosis, describing his offense history as “terrible” and indicative of “sexual sadism.”
Yanofsky also noted that Stobaugh indicated he “had no interest or intention of participating in sex offender treatment,” insisting the source of his criminality was drug use even though when asked whether he’d enjoyed committing rape, he responded, “obviously.”
In his petitions for release, attorneys for Stobaugh argued that the rapes he committed were not premeditated but were crimes of opportunity that were a byproduct of burglaries committed to sustain his methamphetamine addiction. They argued drug addiction was the driving force of all Stobaugh’s criminality and that, now sober and in his 70s, he poses minimal risk of reoffending.
An attorney representing Stobaugh in an unsuccessful 2016 petition for release argued he’d remained drug free for years and had not committed any offenses in custody.
“The man who sits before you today is not the same man who committed those crimes,” the attorney said, according to a report in the Times-Standard. “This is not 1988. It’s 2016. A lot of time has gone by. That’s why we have to look at his current situation.”
On Dec. 4, Cockrum granted Stobaugh’s latest petition for release after hearing about three hours of arguments in the case and testimony from an expert witness for each the defense and prosecution. Court minutes from the hearing indicate the petition was granted “for reasons as stated on the record” but do not specify what those reasons were.
Cockrum’s order requires that Stobaugh be placed in a one-year conditional release program that will include monitoring. In April, the Department of State Hospitals contacted the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office and the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, as required by state law, to advise them Stobaugh would be released from state custody and that it was considering placing him in a single-family residence in the 2100 block of Peninsula Drive in Manila, with a public hearing to consider that placement scheduled for 10:15 a.m. on May 7 in Courtroom One of the Humboldt County Courthouse.
In his letter to the community, Honsal is urging residents to join him in opposing Stobaugh’s placement, noting his diagnosis as “someone who derives sexual gratification from inflicting pain and psychological suffering on his victims.”
“We cannot ignore this reality,” Honsal writes in the letter. “Placing this man back into our community, in proximity to women and children, is irresponsible, dangerous and unacceptable. I encourage all residents of Humboldt County to join me in voicing opposition to the proposed relocation of Stobaugh. I urge you to speak up. This isn’t a political issue; it’s about protecting public safety and ensuring our community can live without fear.”
In 2021, community backlash over the proposed placement of Joshua Cooley, deemed a sexually violent predator in 2010, prompted Humboldt County Superior Court Judge John Feeney to strike his order for Cooley’s conditional release. After five years of unsuccessfully trying to find a placement for Cooley that didn’t prompt community outcry, an effort that saw the state consider more than 7,000 potential sites, Feeney struck his previous order, citing both the inability to find a suitable placement and Cooley’s refusal to participate in treatment programs, ordering he be sent back to the state hospital in Coalinga.
Editor’s note: The North Coast Rape Crisis Team, a local nonprofit dedicated to ending sexualized violence, operates a 24-hour hotline [(707) 445-2881 in Humboldt County and (707) 465-2851 in Trinity County], and offers a variety of support, counseling and advocacy services.
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This article appears in How the Klamath Dams came down.
This is outrageous… How can judge cockrum can even think it’s ok to have this monster back in our community.. this scumbag should never be released from prison. And especially never be allowed back in Humboldt county. Jesus he should never be allowed to live in any county. It doesn’t matter how old he is he is a sick predator and should never be around any woman ever again. Only thing this poor excuse for a human being deserves is a bullet. Out community will never be safe if he is released into any place in society.
Vote! VOTE! Vote Judge Cockrum out of office. He’s a man who has put the interests of a Sexually Violent Predator before the interests of the victims and before the safety of this community.