An annual compliance check of registered sex offenders in Sweetwater County resulted in one arrest and two ongoing investigations according to a media release from the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office.
Last week, county detectives and deputies initiated 104 registered sex offender compliance checks throughout the county, including Granger, Bairoil, Point of Rocks and Wamsutter. Registered offenders were delivered a copy of the Wyoming Sex Offender Registration Act, a list of applicable fees to their status and a letter detailing individual requirements for each registered offender. In total, 96 offenders were verified in compliance, while two were non-complaint, two others are under investigation and one non-complaint offender was arrested.
The compliance check was done with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service Sex Offender Task Force as part of an ongoing activity known as Operation Jessica. Under Wyoming law, sex offenders must register with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation through their county sheriff’s office. A registered sex offender in Sweetwater County is photographed, fingerprinted and required to provide information including their physical address vehicle information and place of employment and are required to notify the sheriff’s office if they change jobs or move. Information is published online through Wyoming DCI’s website.
According to the release,While registration status is monitored and compliance checks are actually conducted year-round, officials named the annual compliance sweep “Operation Jessica” for nine-year-old Jessica Marie Lunsford, who was abducted, raped and murdered in Homosassa, Florida in 2005 by 47-year-old John Couey, a convicted sex offender who lived near Lunsford. An autopsy at the time revealed that Couey buried Jessica alive in garbage bags until she eventually suffocated to death. A Florida judge sentenced Couey to death in 2007, but he died in prison of natural causes in 2009.
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