Photo: Willie Jesse Jones, aka Willie J. Curry
SAN RAFAEL — A previously convicted sex offender has been arrested for accosting three different women last week. The suspect is 39-year-old Willie J. Jones, a homeless man with a lengthy arrest record.
Jones has been jailed multiple times for lewd acts, indecent exposure and other offenses. He was released from jail on supervised probation only eight days prior to his latest arrest.
His most recent arrest resulted after San Rafael police received three calls in rapid succession on August 17. The first call at 6:45 a.m. concerned a suspicious man who appeared to be casing an apartment complex on Laurel Place.
While officers searched for him, a woman called police at 6:55 a.m. to report being chased by a man. She was accosted while walking her dog at Boyd Park, by a man matching the same description.
He followed her when she left the park, before she began running to get away. After being chased several blocks, she was able to outrun him to safety.
Officers quickly located the suspect, but he evaded them. While officers resumed searching for him, another woman flagged down the officers to report being followed by the same man.
Twenty minutes later, another woman called the police to report being chased by a man matching the same description. She outran him and locked herself inside her workplace, while he stayed outside, pounding on the door.
When officers arrived, the man ran away again, but this time San Rafael police set up a perimeter. With assistance from sheriff’s deputies, Jones was surrounded in a parking lot on Fourth Street, underneath Highway 101.
Surrounded, Jones next climbed onto a nearby rooftop. After about two hours talking with police, Jones agreed to come down and he was finally arrested.
Jones was booked at Marin County Jail, where he remains in custody on open charges. The charges he faces include stalking, trespassing and failure to register as a sex offender. He is also accused of providing false identification to police, resisting an officer and violation of probation.
