Dec 11, 2007 7:22 pm US/Pacific
Megan's Law May Have Led To Lake Co. Man's Murder
Linda Yee, reporting
LAKEPORT (CBS 5) ―
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Michael Dodele was murdered in his Lakeport home on November 20th.
CBS 5
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Ivan Oliver is accused of Dodele's murder.
CBS 5
For 11 years, the Megan's Law website has informed the public if a convicted rapist or child molester lives in their neighborhood. But the information on the site may have been used as a motive to kill a Lake County man.
The murder of convicted rapist Michael Dodele has shaken the usually calm resort community on Clear Lake.
"Now we're concerned, this whole trailer park is concerned," said resident Maico Lopez.
They're not just worried about the killing, but because it had to do with neighbor against neighbor at the Western Hills Resort and Trailer Park.
Dodele, a recent parolee moved to the trailer park last month. But when another resident, Ivan Oliver, found Dodele on the Megan's Law website, he spread the word.
"He came and told us that 'The old man, he was in jail because he was a child molester,'" said neighbor Fabiola Ramos. "He made everyone concerned, because everyone has kids in here."
On November 20, Sheriff's deputies got a 911 call, and found Dodele dead of multiple stab wounds. Deputies say Oliver was in his house, covered in blood.
The convicted sex offender lived in house trailer #19. Oliver lived right across the road. Oliver told other residents he didn't feel comfortable that a sex offender lived among them.
Neighbors said Oliver wanted Dodele gone.
"He just said, he needed to get out of here," Ramos said.
Oliver is in the Lake County jail, charged with murder. He told the Los Angeles Times his son had once been molested. Then he saw Dodele look at his boy.
"You could see it in his eyes," Oliver said to the newspaper. "He was fantasizing, plotting. Later on down the line, who knows how many other children he could hurt."
It turns out Oliver was wrong. Dodele never molested a child, he was convicted of raping an adult. Oliver misread the Megan's Law website.
The violation code was in shorthand and read, "oral copulation with a person under 14 / or by force, etc." It left out the section that includes adult victims.
That worries Lake County chief deputy district attorney Richard Hinchcliff.
"If people don't know what they're looking at, they might assume somebody has been convicted of a particular crime they haven't been convicted of," Hinchliff said. "And people can't take the law into their own hands because they might make a mistake."
People in Lakeport agree the Megan's Law website is for information, not a map to kill. "I don't think it justifies killing," said one young mother to CBS 5.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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