Offender goes missing

A convicted sex offender who is supposed to be living in Oak Harbor is wanted on a $100,000 warrant.

Troy Salmon, 39, left Island County sometime during the past few months without notifying authorities, violating the state’s registered sex offender law, according to the Island County Sheriff’s Office.

Salmon was charged in Island County Superior Court Aug. 7 with failure to register as a sex or kidnapping offender. Judge Vickie Churchill authorized the $100,00 bench warrant on him.

According to a report written by Deputy Susan Quandt, Salmon’s girlfriend reported to the Department of Community Corrections in Oak Harbor that Salmon left her a “Dear John letter” June 25. The letter indicated that he may have gone to live at a friend’s home in Arizona.

Jan Smith, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said Salmon had been living between his mother’s home in Lagoon Point and a residence in Oak Harbor for several months. When he first moved to the Lagoon Point residence, he made an unusual attempt to introduce himself to neighbors during a sex offender meeting and claimed that he had been falsely convicted of rape.

Smith said Salmon had a job and appeared to be complying with the terms of his probation when he disappeared. “We were keeping as close a watch on him as possible and was appropriate,” Smith said.

When Salmon came to Island County in January, he was classified as a Level 2 sex offender, meaning law enforcement saw him as a moderate risk to reoffend. Salmon was sent to prison for beating and raping a woman in Seattle in 1993. He was to serve three years of probation after his release and was required to register as a sex offender anywhere he lived in Washington.

If Salmon is found and convicted, he may face up to a year in jail for violating the sex offender law.

Matt Johnson of the South Whidbey Record contributed to the story.

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