Picture this: a 4-year-old girl, playing outside her house in Sacramento. A man pulls up. Candy. Barbie dolls. Toys. The oldest tricks in the predator playbook, because the oldest tricks work on children who still believe adults are safe.
He takes her. He does things to her that seasoned prosecutors would later call the worst they’d ever seen. He holds a knife to another little girl’s throat. He kidnaps sisters. He targets children as young as three — three — across the Sacramento area like he’s running a route.
When they finally catch David Allen Funston, a jury hits him with 16 felony counts. The judge doesn’t mince words. Calls him “the monster parents fear most.” Hands down three consecutive 25-to-life sentences. Consecutive. Not running at the same time — stacked, one after another. The legal equivalent of “rot in there.”
That was 1999. And the system worked. For 27 years, it worked.
Then California’s Elderly Parole Program entered the chat.
The Formula That Eats Children
Here’s how this works in the Golden State. You turn 50, you’ve done 20 years — congratulations, you’re eligible for parole. Doesn’t matter if you robbed a 7-Eleven or terrorized an entire city’s worth of toddlers. The math is the math. Plug in the numbers, out pops your hearing date.
Funston is 64. Served 27 years. The formula says he qualifies.
And here’s where it gets stupid.
The parole board read the case files. The same files Sheriff Jim Cooper read. The same files that describe a man luring preschoolers with toys, kidnapping them, violating them, punching one girl and dumping her on a roadside an hour away, holding a blade to another’s throat to keep her quiet.
Cooper read those files and said: “He’s a definite danger to the community, and he’s not rehabilitated.”
The board read those files and said: “Suitable for parole.”
Cooper’s reaction was basically everyone’s reaction: “How the hell did they come to that conclusion versus what I came to?”
Great question, Sheriff. Fantastic question. The kind of question that should be spray-painted on the wall of every parole board office in Sacramento.
Everybody Said No — Except the People Who Mattered
Let me walk you through who tried to stop this.
The Sacramento County DA — Thien Ho — showed up at the hearing and “strenuously objected.” Called Funston “the worst of the worst” and “a ticking time bomb.” Said flatly: “He will reoffend.”
Not “he might reoffend.” Not “there’s an elevated risk profile.” He will reoffend. That’s your county’s top prosecutor telling you this guy is a guaranteed repeat.
The sheriff — Cooper — personally reviewed thousands of pages of case files. Went to the press. Called it dead wrong.
The former DA — Anne Marie Schubert — who helped prosecute the original case, told the LA Times it was the worst child predator case she ever handled. She’s formally requested Funston be evaluated as a Sexually Violent Predator, which could keep him locked up indefinitely.
Even Gavin Newsom — Gavin “I Can’t Read A Speech” Newsom — referred the case back to the board in January for further review. The governor of California looked at this and said “hold on a second.”
And the board looked at all of them — the DA, the sheriff, the former DA, the governor, and the survivors — and said: nah, we’re good. He’s out.
That’s not a parole board. That’s a rubber stamp with a death wish.
The Survivor They Didn’t Listen To
One of Funston’s victims — kidnapped at age four, now in her thirties — spoke to the LA Times. Her message was simple and devastating:
“He shouldn’t be breathing the same air that we’re breathing.”
She was four. She did what the system asked her to do. She sat in rooms with investigators and identified the man who took her. She testified. She helped put the monster away. She was braver at four years old than every single member of that parole board will ever be in their entire careers.
And now the system she trusted is opening the cage door and telling the monster he’s free to go.
“Fifty Is Not Old”
Cooper demolished the entire premise of the Elderly Parole Program with five words: “Fifty is not old.”
He’s right. My neighbor is 50. He runs marathons. My buddy turned 60 last year — he’s remodeling his kitchen by himself. These aren’t frail, geriatric cases who can barely operate a wheelchair. A 64-year-old released from prison is a fully functioning adult who can drive a car, walk through a neighborhood, and — if he’s David Allen Funston — do exactly what he did thirty years ago to children who can’t fight back.
The program doesn’t care. The formula doesn’t distinguish between a 64-year-old embezzler and a 64-year-old who systematically hunted toddlers. Age plus time equals freedom. Plug and play. What you did to those kids? That’s just a variable the formula acknowledges and ignores.
Cooper was asked if certain crimes should automatically disqualify someone. His answer: “Crimes and violence, anything of a sexual nature, 100%.”
No committee needed. No study required. Just basic human decency applied to law — something California abandoned so long ago it doesn’t even remember what it looks like.
Where’s Gavin?
The governor could stop this. California’s governor has the authority to reverse parole decisions for violent offenders. One phone call. One signature. Monster stays in the cage.
But Gavin Newsom is on a book tour. “Young Man in a Hurry” — which is ironic, because he’s in no hurry to protect children in his own state.
He’s in Atlanta telling Black audiences “I’m like you, I can’t read.” He’s on CNN telling Dana Bash that Democrats need to be “more culturally normal.” He’s in Nashville signing copies of a memoir that nobody’s buying while a serial child rapist counts down the days to freedom under a law that exists because Sacramento decided formulas matter more than toddlers.
The DA is fighting. The sheriff is fighting. The former prosecutor is fighting. The survivors are begging.
The governor is selling books.
The Punchline That Isn’t Funny
Somewhere in the California Institution for Men in Chino, David Allen Funston is waiting. He’s 64 years old. He kidnapped children as young as three. He held knives to little girls’ throats. A judge called him the monster parents fear most. He got three consecutive life sentences.
And a parole board — after reading every word of every report, after hearing from every prosecutor and every cop and every survivor who begged them not to — decided he’s suitable for release.
Because he’s old enough. Because the formula says so. Because California.
Newsom’s book is called “Young Man in a Hurry.” Here’s a better title: “Old Monster in a Hurry to Get Out — And the Governor Who Let It Happen.”
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you. Unless someone with a spine stops it first.