For years, Elizabeth Thurston used the website as a kind of salve.
She’d check it for affirmation, clicking her abuser’s name so it would come up for the world to see, reinforcing that through the awful experiences that shaped her childhood and, in turn, her life, she’d taken a stand as an 8 year old and he was now being monitored. It affirmed for her that children in her community were protected.
Sometimes she’d check it for confirmation, to make sure she knew where he was. Sometimes she sought outward recognition that the trauma that still haunted her, that she still felt daily, was real, the result of things that were confirmed in a court of law to have been done to her.
And after moving back to Humboldt County from Georgia during the COVID-19 pandemic to care for elders in her family, Thurston began checking “very, very regularly” just to feel safe. Once again living within miles from her abuser, Thurston deeply feared running into him at a grocery store or in a public space. If she had his listing on the California Megan’s Law website up on her phone, Thurston figured if they ever crossed paths, she could show it to someone and they might believe her and help her slide out a back door or otherwise avoid contact.
But one day last spring, when Thurston turned to the website for support, Ronald Baroni’s name was gone. Her first thought was that maybe he’d died, so she scoured and monitored local obituaries, but found nothing. A friend soon reported they’d seen him out in the local community. His name seemed to disappear and reappear randomly for a couple of weeks, so Thurston thought maybe it was just a glitch with the site. But then it vanished again, and it didn’t come back.
“I think I was somewhat mentally avoidant because the alternative felt really scary to me,” Thurston says, adding it wasn’t until about a month after she’d noticed Baroni’s name missing from the state sex offender registry that it seemed something more serious could have happened. Her mom said she, too, had searched and been alarmed to find him no longer listed. “That’s when I was like, ‘It’s not just me. I have to call.'”
There was some back and forth with the victim witness program run through the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office. Then Thurston says she got a call from Humboldt County District Attorney Chief Investigator Kyla Baxley, who delivered the news: The sex offender registration requirement that accompanied Baroni’s conviction on a charge that he’d molested Thurston — a requirement prosecutors told Thurston’s family would span his natural life — had been lifted under a new state law that allows some offenders to petition to be removed from the list.
Thurston was at work at Two Feathers Native American Family Services at the time, and the news left her shaken.
“I freaked out a bit and left work early,” she says. “That was stressful. You hold your breath for a little while. … He was just off the list, and I learned there was just nothing I could do about it. That felt really devastating. That felt like a very — like the wound I thought I’d healed over was totally torn open again, and I didn’t really know what to do about it.”
“That felt like a very — like the wound I thought I’d healed over was totally torn open again, and I didn’t really know what to do about it.” — Elizabeth Thurston
The bill reducing registration requirements for convicted sex offenders in California passed quietly, signed into law in October of 2017 with remarkably little fanfare, to take effect in 2021. When the final version of the bill came to votes that September, it was supported by both the California District Attorneys Association and the California Public Defenders Association, as well as the California Police Chiefs Association.
Then state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, carried the bill as a long-overdue reform to the state’s “broken” sex offender registry, which he said had become bloated by decades of mandatory registrations to include some 150,000 people, making it “basically useless” for law enforcement monitoring efforts. Further, Wiener noted California was one of only four states in the country with mandatory lifetime registration, noting the requirements were the same for sexually violent predators and “people caught having sex in the park 50 years ago.” And, others argued, landing on the list severely impacted a person’s ability to find employment and housing, making them more likely to fall into homelessness.
Wiener introduced Senate Bill 384 as a solution. The bill created three tiers of sex offender registrations. Tier One, those convicted of offenses considered to be non-violent, like indecent exposure, misdemeanor sexual battery or misdemeanor possession of child pornography, would be eligible to petition for removal from the registry 10 years after first registration. Tier Two offenders, meanwhile, convicted of offenses like oral copulation on a minor under 14 and penetration with a foreign object, would be eligible to petition for removal after 20 years. A lifetime registration requirement would remain in place for Tier Three offenders convicted of most classes of rape, felony possession of child pornography and sex trafficking children.
The bill outlined a streamlined process for registrants to petition for removal from the list through the superior court system that sees local law enforcement confirm they meet eligibility requirements: that enough years have passed since their conviction and they haven’t committed other crimes. If the registrant meets the minimum criteria, they are granted removal from the list.
Facing no formal opposition, S.B. 384 passed with lopsided votes in both the state Assembly (45-9) and Senate (28-5). But it seems clear some in the Legislature didn’t fully understand what they were voting on.
Before the Assembly vote, Assemblymember Melissa Melendez, R-Riverside, urged her colleagues to vote against the bill. She said revamping the registry was a good idea and applauded her colleagues’ efforts, but she cautioned its Tier Two designations included those convicted of offenses under Penal Code 288, or lewd or lascivious acts on a child under the age of 14, a broad designation that she said includes the bulk of offenders on the list. Additionally, she noted that two-thirds of sexual assaults are never reported, and that convicting someone of Tier Three-level offenses often requires a victim’s testimony, which isn’t always preferable or possible.
“We put so many children at risk if we do this,” Melendez told her colleagues. “Please, I’m begging you: Vote no.”
But Melendez was quickly — and erroneously — corrected by the next speaker, Assemblymember Lorena Gonzales Fletcher, D-Oceanside, who described herself as a “ridiculous mother who checks the list” regularly. Fletcher argued incorrectly that the bill was amended to make all sexual crimes against children Tier Three offenses that would result in lifetime registration.
“Any crime against a child has to be Tier Three, meaning they never get off the registry,” she said incorrectly, defending her support of the bill.
Introducing the bill before the Senate’s vote, Wiener also incorrectly said the bill had been amended to designate “sex crimes against children” as Tier Three offenses and touted its support from law enforcement. Sen. Joel Anderson, R-San Diego, also spoke in support of the bill, saying it would result in a “more useful” registry that better enabled law enforcement to keep families safe.
Sen. John Moorlach, R-Orange County, then also spoke in support of the bill.
“One size does not fit all,” Moorlach said. “Urinating in public does not justify a scarlet letter for the remainder of one’s life. We need a tiered system. It hasn’t been fair to a lot of fathers who can’t go to the park with their kids.”
At no point in remarks on the floor in advance of either the final Assembly or Senate votes on the bill did anyone correct the record that S.B. 384 did, in fact, allow people who had been convicted of crimes against children to petition for removal from the registry.
Similarly, not a single legislator raised the question of whether victims should be notified when their abusers petitioned to be removed from the list, much less whether they should be given a voice in the process.
Elizabeth Thurston was 5 years old and a kindergartener at McKinleyville’s Morris Elementary School when she went to play with a neighbor across the street from her house only to find she wasn’t home. But the girl’s dad, Ronald Baroni, then about 43, was home. Thurston says he asked her to get into his truck.
Baroni then told Thurston to lie down, pulled down her underwear and licked her genitals, according to documents in the case. Thurston later told investigators she told Baroni to stop, and he did not.
Thurston says this abuse continued for years until she was 8 and told a classmate what was happening. They urged her to come forward and tell an adult. That night, Thurston told her mother. Thurston remembers a short time later sitting down in front of a video camera with a woman she didn’t know who asked all kinds of questions about what happened.
“I do not remember all the questions that she asked but I know, even at 8, I felt a deep sense of shame that I could not understand,” Thurston wrote in a letter to state Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire in December, requesting a meeting with the North Coast representative to voice her concerns about the change in law. “My abuser was never violent with me, so I thought I was at fault for his doing things to me that made me feel like I was rotting inside. I was hesitant to share everything, but I was very clear on what I could understand: This man put his mouth on places that, even at 8, I knew he shouldn’t put them. After that interview, it was like my abuse never happened. My family didn’t talk about it. I never knew what the interview meant or what became of it.”
On Feb. 23, 1998, Baroni was charged with a single count of committing a lewd and lascivious act upon a child under the age of 14 by force, coercion or threat with the intent of arousing himself. Having reportedly confessed when first contacted by an investigator in the case to having twice molested Thurston, Baroni pleaded guilty to a lesser charge that dropped the allegation that the crime had been carried out with force or coercion. According to court records, he was sentenced to 180 days in county jail and six years’ probation. Imposition of a six-year prison sentence was suspended.
As is the case in a majority of child sexual abuse cases, Baroni’s was resolved with a plea agreement for a lesser charge. And in this case, decades later, prosecutors’ decision to drop the allegation that the crime was committed with force or coercion would mean the difference between him having to register for life and being allowed to petition for removal from the state’s sex offender registry list.
Multiple efforts to contact Baroni for this story were unsuccessful.
Thurston says she was unaware of Baroni’s plea or sentence, saying she didn’t see him at school or across the street anymore, but it was never talked about.
But as Thurston got older, she says the “weight of this silence” grew, and her nightmares, depression and anxiety became worse until she found herself in crisis in her 20s and was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This, she says, finally prompted her to speak to her mother about what happened. That’s when Thurston learned Baroni wound up serving 114 days in jail but would be required to register as a sex offender for life.
“When I think about the type of abuse I experienced and that he only spent 114 days in jail, it breaks my heart a little that that was the value placed on the damage he did to me,” Thurston says.
But she also took some solace that he would be registered forever and began relying on the Megan’s Law website for a sense of security, checking his status regularly to remind herself that he “would be closely watched forever” and she’d always know where he lived.
By the time Senate Bill 384 made its way through the Legislature, Thurston had moved to Georgia. She says she found a sense of safety and comfort there, knowing she was thousands of miles away from her abuser. When she returned to Humboldt County in early 2021, the new law had taken effect just a few months earlier, though hardly anyone outside of law enforcement or the legislature seems to have been aware.
Baroni’s is not the only name to have vanished from the statewide sex offender registry in Humboldt County.
Countywide, 48 sex offender registrants have petitioned to be removed from the list since the law changed in 2021, with 40 of those petitions granted, according to data provided to the Journal by all local law enforcement agencies. As of January, more than 8,150 people statewide had successfully petitioned for removal from the registry, according to a report by Fox 40 News in Sacramento, which also found that two men who’d successfully petitioned off the registry are now facing fresh allegations of sex crimes against children.
The bulk of those removed from the list locally have been in Eureka and Fortuna (15 and 12, respectively), while the county’s unincorporated areas have seen 11 names removed from the list.
Many law enforcement agencies contacted by the Journal stressed that they do not have discretion over the process, and their roles are limited to confirming whether petitions meet specified criteria before sending some forms back to the state Department of Justice and the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office.
None of the agencies contacted by the Journal reported that removing people from the registry has resulted in a time savings that would allow more intensive monitoring of those who remain listed.
“It has little to no effect on how we do business or our workload,” said EPD Chief Brian Stephens, adding the 15 registrants removed from the list over the past few years represent “a very small percentage of those required to report in the city of Eureka,” though he said the impact is probably bigger in larger communities.
District Attorney Stacey Eads similarly says she doesn’t know if there’s been any “measurable impact on resources being saved locally,” though she sees other merits to the new law.
Eads says lifelong sex offender registration can often be the most contested aspect of plea negotiations in criminal cases, sometimes preventing resolutions early in the proceedings. This, she says, could change that.
“This would, potentially, result in earlier dispositions sparing victims the additional anguish, stress and anxiety stemming from a defendant’s not accepting responsibility, victims needing to testify (particularly about such intimate and difficult subject matter) and lengthy litigation,” Eads wrote in an email to the Journal. “Many victims feel the registration requirement is a key component to any disposition, and many offenders seek resolutions that do not require lifetime registration.”
North Coast Rape Crisis Team Executive Director Amanda LeBlanc says she feels sometimes getting an abuser onto the registry is seen as the only good that comes out of criminal prosecutions, and some survivors feel strongly they “want and need the recognition of that list.”
One perceived shortcoming of the new law that Eads says she’s working to address is the absence of any victim notifications. Eads says her office has created a review process for every petition that includes efforts to locate victims and inform them their abuser is trying to get removed from the list, even though the law does not allow for their input into the process.
“Identifying, locating and contacting victims can be particularly challenging because many of the cases are quite old and detailed records are not necessarily available,” she wrote in the email, adding that convictions and sentencings often come years after the underlying crimes, so many offenses occurred well prior to the start of 10- or 20-year registration periods, and some folks are registered in Humboldt County for offenses committed elsewhere.
This all means identifying and contacting victims can be challenging and time consuming, Eads says, and the effort comes with no allocated staff or funding from the state.
“Nonetheless, I do believe reaching out to survivors to advise them of the pending petition should be done whenever possible,” Eads continued. “I do have concern regarding a survivor being contacted, completely out of the blue, with difficult news regarding the person who did something terrible to them years, sometimes decades, earlier and whether the notification will cause further harm to the survivor.”
Eads noted in the email that her office had gained the “insight of a child sexual assault survivor” whose abuser successful petitioned to be removed from the registry. (Thurston says she had extensive communications with Baxley from Eads’ office on the issue.)
“Her perspective confirms providing the information regarding the offender seeking relief from his registration is the right thing to do, as, understandably, it was extremely important to her to have as much information as possible,” Eads wrote. “Taking her insight into consideration was very helpful for us in understanding that we should, at a bare minimum, exercise due diligence in notifying all survivors.”
In her letter requesting a meeting with McGuire, who represents the North Coast and voted for Senate Bill 384 back in 2017, Thurston lays bare she feels there’s an inherent injustice in the law.
“The absence of consideration for survivors in this bill tells me with the weight of its silence that my experience has no value,” she wrote. “That the pain this outcome has brought me every day since learning of it does not matter enough to even be taken into consideration before allowing my abuser to live out the rest of his days without the label he deserves: pedophile. But my sentence is lifelong. The normal childhood he stole from me will never be my reality. The comfort with my own body that he tainted is something I struggle with every day. I had made great strides toward healing this wound as best one can, but now I have a new wound created by this bill to which I struggle to find a resolution.”
In June, after months of trying, Thurston met with McGuire to discuss the bill. While she says she went into the meeting feeling that her experience and critique of the law were “something I needed to sell,” she says McGuire said he felt her letter deeply and it made him cry, asking what he could do to address her concerns.
Thurston says she wants to see the law change in several ways. First, she wants it to be modified so anyone convicted of perpetrating any type of sex crime against a child under the age of 14 should be placed in Tier Three and forced to register for life. Thurston says studies show most sexual assaults are not reported, cases with child victims are incredibly difficult to prosecute and people with pedophilic disorders are likely to reoffend. She has sympathy for people with this condition — even extending some to her abuser — but she’s firm in her belief the requirement should be that they register for life.
“I can’t imagine being him and living my life with that kind of affliction and knowing society hates me for it,” she says. “I do have sympathy for that, but my sympathy only extends so far, and I have more sympathy for victims.”
“I do have sympathy for that, but my sympathy only extends so far, and I have more sympathy for victims.” — Elizabeth Thurston
Second, she says, she thinks there needs to be a provision requiring that survivors be notified of a petition for removal and given the opportunity to provide a victim impact statement should they choose. And finally, Thurston says there should be a mechanism under the law that allows child sexual abuse victims to obtain lifetime restraining orders against their abusers.
“I don’t think there’s ever a situation where a victim of that type of abuse should ever have to be around their abuser again,” she says, adding she’s baffled this isn’t already allowed under the law. “I feel like my government has really failed to keep me safe.”
Moving forward, Thurston says she’s hopeful the law will change to spare other survivors what she’s experienced and to keep communities safer. She urges anyone who reads her story and wants to help to write their state representatives to urge them to change the law as she’s requesting.
Thurston says she feels like the meeting with McGuire went well, and he pledged to meet with her again this month to discuss next steps. She says his office has yet to schedule that second meeting, but she felt him to be sincere in his concern.
In a message to the Journal, McGuire states, “No one should have to live through what Elizabeth Thurston experienced as a child — no one. And nothing is more important than protecting the community from such heinous criminals. I am so grateful to Ms. Thurston for courageously sharing her story with me personally, and working together to advocate for victims of sexual assault. It’s clear that the Legislature needs to continue advancing important criminal justice reform measures to grant survivors the peace of mind they deserve.”
Following the June meeting, Thurston says, “I’m as hopeful as I can be as someone who has experienced a lot of disappointment.”
But hope is not what Thurston says has motivated her to push to reform the law. As she’s gone through this process, working with LeBlanc at North Coast Rape Crisis and Baxley with the district attorney’s office, Thurston says she’s learned that studies show only a tiny fraction of child sexual assault cases are reported to police, with only a small fraction of those leading to charges and prosecutions. Of cases that are prosecuted, only a little more than half land an offender on the sex offender registry.
The truth is Thurston’s case beat the odds in so many ways, even while repeatedly leaving her disheartened and devalued.
“The need to avoid the alternative — acceptance that this is just the way the world is — kept me going more than hope ever did,” she says.
Thurston says local nonprofits — particularly the North Coast Rape Crisis Team — have been invaluable in helping her through. She recalls reaching out to ValorUS, a California-based nonprofit dedicated to ending sexual violence that co-sponsored S.B. 384, shortly after learning of the law. She wanted the nonprofit to support an effort to amend the law and to help her contact McGuire, but she says they declined to offer any assistance.
But LeBlanc and North Coast Rape Crisis did, repeatedly, Thurston says. She says she’s also grateful for the counseling support she’s received at United Indian Health Services and the accommodations her employer, Two Feathers Native American Family Services, as she navigates a recurrence of PTSD.
“Without the support I’ve had, I think this outcome could have been very different,” she says. “Because this felt like an earthquake in my life, and that’s the only place that I got true help.”
Thadeus Greenson (he/him) is the Journal’s former news editor.
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.
This article appears in The Disappearing Registrants.