Before Jordan Adam Criado allegedly committed the worst mass murder in Medford, Ore., history on Monday, the 51-year-old sex offender left a series of helpless young victims behind in Sacramento two decades ago.
Criado, who is suspected of stabbing his 30-year-old wife and four children to death, then setting their house on fire, is in guarded condition in a Medford hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.
Police in Medford, just north of Ashland, told The Mail Tribune that that they are waiting for him to recover before arresting him in the deaths of his 30-year-old wife, Tabasha Paige-Criado, and the four children, who ranged in age from 7 to 2.
Criado apparently had lived there for several years without running afoul of authorities, the Mail Tribune reported, except for 2005 arrest on a fugitive warrant that landed him in jail in California for failing to register as a sex offender.
That sex offender history stemmed from Criado's guilty plea in Sacramento Superior court in 1990 to eight counts of child molestation.
He originally faced 36 counts, but took a plea deal that gave him a 20-year sentence - the maximum available - for his five-year history of abusing three victims ranging in age from 6 to 12.
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