There’s a woman in Sacramento — she’s in her early thirties now — who was kidnapped at the age of four. A man lured her away from where she was playing outside her home. He took her. He did things to her that prosecutors would later describe as among the worst acts of child sexual predation in the county’s history.
She survived. She identified her attacker. She helped put him in prison. She was four years old, and she did what the system needed her to do.
Now the system is letting him out.
“He shouldn’t be breathing the same air that we’re breathing,” she told the Los Angeles Times. She called him “a monster.” She’s afraid.
She has every reason to be.
The Override
Here’s the timeline that shows you how California’s justice system works — or doesn’t.
September 26, 2025: The Board of Parole Hearings grants David Allen Funston parole suitability under the Elderly Parole Program.
January 12, 2026: Governor Gavin Newsom refers the case back to the parole board for further review by a majority of commissioners. This is the governor’s mechanism for intervening — a referral that signals concern about the decision.
February 18, 2026: The board panel reaffirms its decision. Funston gets parole.
The governor referred it back. The board said no, we’re right. The prosecutors appeared at the hearing and “strenuously objected.” The board said it didn’t matter. The sheriff reviewed the case files, called Funston “a definite danger to the community,” and said he’s “not rehabilitated.” The board disagreed.
The parole board overruled the governor’s referral, the district attorney’s objection, the sheriff’s assessment, and the original sentencing judge who called Funston “the monster parents fear most.” It read the same case files — the same testimony from children, the same evidence of systematic predation, the same documentation of a man who kidnapped toddlers with candy and Barbie dolls — and concluded he was suitable for release.
Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper asked the question that every rational person is asking: “What’s ironic is the parole board read the same reports that I’m reading. How the hell did they come to that conclusion versus what I came to?”
“He Will Reoffend”
Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho wasn’t diplomatic about it. “This defendant is the worst of the worst — a child predator who lures, grabs, kidnaps and assaults children. He will reoffend and is a ticking time bomb.”
He will reoffend. That’s not a risk assessment hedged with qualifiers. That’s a prosecutor who knows the case, knows the offender’s profile, and knows what the research on serial child predators says about recidivism — and stating it as a certainty.
Ho said prosecutors are requesting a review by CDCR, seeking an evaluation under California’s Sexually Violent Predator law — which could result in civil commitment to a state hospital rather than release — and calling for intervention by the governor’s office.
Former Sacramento DA Anne Marie Schubert, who helped prosecute the original case, told the LA Times it was the worst child sexual predator case she ever handled. She’s formally asked CDCR to evaluate Funston under the SVP statute, arguing that “the pattern of crimes involving multiple very young victims, coercion and threats falls squarely within the category of offenders the law was designed to address.”
A knife held to a young girl’s throat. Children as young as three. Sixteen felony counts. Three consecutive 25-to-life sentences. And a parole board that read all of it and said: suitable.
“Fifty Is Not Old”
The Elderly Parole Program is built on a premise that sounds reasonable in the abstract: that elderly inmates pose lower risk and incarceration of the aged is costly. The cutoff is 50 years old with 20 years served — or 60 with 25 years served.
Sheriff Cooper dismantled the premise with common sense: “Fifty is not old. We know a lot of 50-year-olds. Everyone does.”
He’s right. A 64-year-old man released from prison is not frail. He’s not incapacitated. He’s not a geriatric case requiring hospice care. He’s a functioning adult, fully capable of driving a car, walking into a neighborhood, and doing exactly what he did thirty years ago.
The program doesn’t distinguish between a 64-year-old who committed a white-collar crime and a 64-year-old who systematically kidnapped and molested toddlers. The formula is the same: age plus time served equals eligibility. The nature of the crime — the severity, the number of victims, the age of the victims, the predatory pattern — is a factor the board considers but is clearly not treating as disqualifying.
Cooper was asked whether certain crimes should automatically exclude someone from elderly parole. His answer was immediate: “Crimes and violence, anything of a sexual nature, 100%.”
One hundred percent. No exceptions. No formulas. No parole board discretion. If you kidnapped and molested children, you don’t get out because you turned 50. Period.
The Governor’s Silence
Newsom’s office told Fox News Digital that the governor “referred review of the case to the Board of Parole Hearings to determine suitability and public safety risk.” The administration noted that parole eligibility is set by state law, that the board determines risk, and that individuals released through elderly parole have “historically had low recidivism rates.”
Low recidivism rates. That’s the statistical defense for releasing a man convicted of 16 felony counts involving the kidnapping and molestation of children younger than seven. On average, elderly parolees don’t reoffend. Therefore, this specific elderly parolee — the one the original judge called the monster parents fear most, the one the current DA calls a “ticking time bomb” — should be released.
Averages don’t protect children. Individuals do. And the individuals who know this case — the sheriff, the DA, the former DA, the original prosecutor, the survivors themselves — are all saying the same thing: this man is dangerous, and releasing him is wrong.
Newsom referred the case back to the board. The board overruled him. And now the governor’s office is citing statistics instead of exercising the authority that every parent in California would expect him to use.
He’s on a book tour. Telling Black audiences in Atlanta he can’t read. Telling CNN that Democrats need to be more “culturally normal.” Running for president on a platform of leadership.
And a serial child predator is about to walk out of prison in his state because the system he governs decided the formula mattered more than the victims.
Funston is still incarcerated at the California Institution for Men in Chino. It’s unclear when or where he’ll be released. The prosecutors are fighting. The sheriff is fighting. The former DA is fighting.
The governor is on tour.
