Dangerous Sexual Predators Released

June 21, 2001 -- Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, who had a history of sexual crimes against boys, was released from the Massachusetts Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous after 12 years because a judge deemed him no longer sexually dangerous.

Within days of his release, he was arrested in connection with the attempted abduction of a small child.

Convicted rapist Michael Kelley was released from the same treatment center in 1991 after a psychologist concluded he did not need additional treatment — even though just weeks before the judgment he was found with a 14-inch knife and rope. After his discharge, he killed two women, burying one in the back yard of a home he was able to purchase while at the treatment center.

During her last years of working at the treatment center, Paula Erickson, a therapist there until the early '90s, says many such dangerous men were released from the facility. "I tried to warn people, but they wouldn't listen," says Erickson, who was laid off and has since settled a lawsuit she brought against the state. "I couldn't get anyone to investigate," she says.

So Erickson compiled her own list of 26 men she thought should not have been freed, and 10 years later, PrimeTime Thursday takes roll call of these sexual predators.

Sexual Fantasies, Cannibalism and Torture

From the time Bar-Jonah was admitted to the Massachusetts center, therapists documented his problems. Records from 1977 refer to him as "dangerously disturbed." In 1980, it was reported that he had "sexual fantasies" that involved cannibalism. Bar-Jonah admitted a "longstanding interest in the instruments of torture" in 1983.

But despite all this, Bar-Jonah had a chance to get out. Each year, inmates have the right to petition a judge to let them go. To stop the inmate from getting out, the state has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the inmate is still sexually dangerous.

Among inmates, it was no secret the key to getting out was finding sympathetic psychologists. So Bar-Jonah, who was part of a Christian group inside the institution, found two outside doctors who identify themselves as Christian psychologists, Richard Ober and Eric Sweitzer.