Last week, an anonymous person posted a message on the CinC message board about his sex offender neighbor named James William Kelly. Kelly had an outstanding warrant because he hadn’t checked in with the Sheriff’s Department in over a year. He posted the message because he was frustrated…he said he called Crime Stoppers, the Sheriff’s Office and 911 to report Kelly’s whereabouts but nothing happened.According to North Carolina DOC records, James “Jamey” Kelly was convicted in 1995 for taking indecent liberties with a child, second degree rape and second degree sex offense against a child. A Judge agreed to a plea bargain and he went to jail for one year and seven months before he was paroled. In 1999, Kelly violated his parole for failing to register as a sex offender and he was sent back to jail for five years and nine months.
The anonymous writer mentioned in his message that Kelly lived at the same address for a couple of years. The sex offender registry reported Kelly’s residence was verified in April of 2006 and anonymous claimed he still lived there. However, Kelly’s current address is listed as ‘unknown’ in the registry. If someone in Kelly’s neighborhood searched for sex offenders in their area, Kelly would not appear in the list. I believe the sex offender registry is a wonderful tool but if the information is outdated and inaccurate, it defeats the purpose entirely!
For some reason, this situation really bothered me and I was determined to find the truth. I verified with CMPD the warrant for Kelly was active. I went uptown to the Sheriff’s Office to obtain his last known address. The woman I spoke with told me the Sheriff’s Office made several attempts to locate Kelly at the address she provided to me. She said they had a signed statement from someone verifying Kelly was no longer living at the address so they issued the warrant for his arrest.
I was not convinced. The authorities dropped the ball at least three times with this guy and I had a gut feeling anonymous was telling the truth about Kelly. I wanted to check it out but I’ve never done anything like this before so I didn’t want to do it alone. I spoke with my buddy Rob Tufano at WBTV and we met at the condo complex, located off Sharon Lakes Road.
We walked up to the possible residence of Jamey Kelly and knocked on the door. To our surprise, he answered the door and identified himself. I walked off and called 911 to report Kelly and Rob continued to talk to him. It was somewhat strange because Kelly willingly spoke to Rob on camera for a long time. He told us everything… more than any of us wanted to hear…it was sick stuff.In short, Kelly said: In 1994, he moved in with a woman and her 10-year old son as roommates. He told us he was left alone with the boy and he performed oral sex on him. He said it only happened one time- he admitted to what he did, served his time, and hasn't done anything since he got out of prison. Kelly told us he had no idea he had a warrant for his arrest. He said the Sheriff’s Office never came to his condo to check on him, which I had a hard time believing. He was hiding in plain sight!
James Kelly is sitting in jail with a $75,000 bond. The sex offender registry will be updated and his neighbors will know to keep their kids away from him. More Info