In the Tri-Cities, police often leave neighbors in the dark. Officials at the state Department of Social and Health Services said they could do nothing because they had no proof the sex offender actually was living there. But the state figures used in a map in Sunday's report has 487 offenders listed in the same region. Gone but not forgotten Last spring, a Herald reporter visited 100 homes in the Tri-Cities to see whether sex offenders were living where they were supposed to. At one house in west Kennewick, the people at the door drew a complete blank and said they had never heard of the sex offender who was supposed to be living at the address they had called home for four years.
State law requires the sheriff's office to do annual checks on sex offenders.
If they're gone, they're gone. In Richland and Pasco, about one-third of the sex offenders had moved away from their registered addresses. I would think in most cases he has not. But sex offenders do re-offend. That's why Washington legislators passed registration and community notification laws in the first place.