7-27-2003 Multi-States Michigan to New Mexico: .ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- From the crest of his property in the Sandia Mountains, David Siebers can look out at the scrub pine and cactus of New Mexico's high desert. It is a desolate land, dry and remote, where a man could get lost -- or hide. For 10 months, the press chased the Michigan man across the country. Someone slashed his tires. Someone else kicked in his ribs. Police followed him around the clock. Churchgoing parents held signs telling him to "go back where you came from -- Hell." And here, where he retreated into the mountains, they burned down his home.
"I understand their concern," said Siebers, standing on the cement foundation where his home once stood. "I'm America's No. 1 monster." The soft-spoken Grand Rapids man served more than 20 years in Michigan prisons for a series of violent sex crimes. FBI profilers think he will commit more. So far, the only crimes committed have been against Siebers. The balding 45-year-old has become a symbol of the strengths and weaknesses of the nation's sex-offender registry laws and the moral quicksand surrounding a bad man to whom bad things are being done. When has a person paid the price for past crimes? How far should parents go to protect their children? Where does a man go when he's not wanted anywhere? Questions of civil rights and justice have different answers when a sexual predator lives next door.
Prisoner No. 162811 packed methodically, stowing 10 years of life into two foot lockers. "All I wanted was to start a life," Siebers said later. "My grand intention was to be average." To Bill Forsyth, Siebers was far from average. The Kent County, Mich., prosecutor glared at an FBI report warning that Siebers would commit more crimes. It was a thought that made Forsyth shudder. "I've convicted (people of) some pretty heinous crimes, but none of them have bothered me like these," Forsyth said. Siebers had been a star at Northview High School in Grand Rapids, lettering in track and cross country and being named Outstanding Senior Chemistry Student.
But by age 22, things had gone wrong. Facing marital and financial difficulties, "he snapped," said Dr. Robert Krangle, who has befriended Siebers in recent months in New Mexico. "He snapped bad." In August 1979, Siebers walked into a Get It and Go grocery store in Grand Rapids, pointing a gun at a frightened female clerk. Siebers took money from the cash register, then raped the clerk. More horrors followed. At a Wendy's restaurant, he allegedly ordered four employees into a back room, forced them to undress and raped one of the women. During another robbery, he allegedly sexually assaulted a female employee while holding a gun on the male workers.
