Holly MatkinEverett, WA – The scattered partial remains of a high-risk child predator who disappeared shortly after he was released from jail approximately two years ago have been located in a secluded, difficult-to-reach area of Everett, according to police.
Police are now trying to piece together what happened to Level III sex offender Timothy McCamey, who was 40 years old when he vanished in the spring of 2020, KCPQ reported.
Investigators initially believed that McCamey, who went by the nicknames of “Baby Devil” and “Casper,” cut of his GPS tracking device shortly after a judge granted him a temporary release from custody on March 30, 2020, according to KCPQ.
A nationwide extraditable felony warrant for failure to register as a sexual offender was issued, as well as an escape warrant for failure to register that was issued by the Washington Department of Corrections, KIRO reported.
McCamey was featured on Washington’s Most Wanted, but the investigation into his whereabouts ultimately went cold, according to KCPQ.
But in March, a property owner called police to report he believed he had found human bones on a secluded area of his land approximately one mile off of Larimer Road in southwest Everett.
Police responded to the scene, which was located in an extremely muddy, difficult-to-access ravine, KCPQ reported.
It turned out McCamey didn’t cut off his GPS monitor at all – the battery had simply died over time.
“Our detectives started searching around and managed to find part of the remains attached to the ankle monitor which was damaged and no longer functioning but we were able to look at the ankle monitor, look at the serial number and track it back to who it belonged to,” Everett Police Department (EPD) Officer Kerby Duncan told KCPQ.
Detectives with the EPD’s Major Crimes Unit said the last alert from the GPS tracker came from an area approximately 100 yards away from the railroad tracks near where McCamey’s partial remains were found.
Due to the extreme conditions and dense mud in the area in the springtime, investigators were not initially able to conduct a thorough search of the ravine, KCPQ reported.
“It was just muddy, up to your knees in mud with no grass so, at the time, it was easier to see remains but it was too hard to excavate due to the mud, so now we come back out and we have five feet of grass to work through but at least it’s dry,” Officer Duncan told the news outlet.
Officer Duncan said there “could be a lot of reasons” why McCamey’s remains would be out in such an area and that “not all of them are nefarious,” KCPQ reported.
As investigators work to figure out how the convicted sex offender died, they are also trying to build a timeline of his final days and moments.
Police said they know he spoke with his sister-in-law at 8:22 p.m. on April 2, 2020 after being released from jail just days earlier, KCPQ reported.
“Anyone who has spoken to Timothy or has seen him in his final days of life and can provide us any information, no matter how small it may seem, can help us piece together that timeline and determine when exactly he got out here, how he got out here, was he out here with anybody else and ideally how he died,” Officer Duncan said.
McCamey’s family members said they believe he was murdered, KCPQ reported.
He was first convicted of a sex offense in his early teens, according to The Daily Herald.
That case involved him having molested a five-year-old girl while they were “playing doctor,” according to investigators.
McCamey was 15 years old in 1995 when he pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment with sexual motivation in another incident involving an eight-year-old girl, The Daily Herald reported.
Three years later, he admitted to having had sexual contact with a 12-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl in a hotel room just five days after he was released from jail.
He was convicted of child molestation and sentenced to five years in prison in that case.
McCamey was charged with raping a developmentally delayed woman beneath an overpass in 2016.
He was also convicted of charges of failure to register as a sex offender and perjury for providing false information while register as a homeless sex offender, according to The Daily Herald.
McCamey’s family members said his father victimized him when he was a child and that he never had a chance to be successful, KCPQ reported.
Officer Duncan said the fact that McCamey was a convicted child sexual predator does not have an impact on how police investigate his death.
“When we investigate deaths, we don’t take into account their history. We don’t care who they were before,” the officer told KCPQ. “We are here to do our best to determine if a crime occurred and to get justice for the family and to give peace of mind to the family. Their history doesn’t go into our equation.”
