North County Creeper wants to go directly to trial

A man accused of being the North County Creeper admitted there is enough evidence to send him to trial, and thereby skipped public disclosure of details of his alleged child molestation crimes that would have been presented at his preliminary hearing in court yesterday, July 10, 2017.

The judge looked directly at Gilbert Andrew Chavarria, 29, and warned the defendant that if convicted of the alleged crimes he would not live long enough to see his first parole hearing, before the judge approved the defense request for a “stipulated bindover,” which sends the case forward to trial.

In the courthouse hallway, two girls and their families waited to give evidence in the case in which Chavarria is now charged with 22 felonies, including multiple first-degree burglaries of inhabited homes with intent to commit assault.

Assaults happened in August of 2012, in June and July of 2013, in April of 2014, and January and February of 2015, according to the prosecutor’s statement.

Prosecutor Ryan Saunders presented a new criminal complaint today which added five more felonies; these are four new molest charges and one new charge of possession of child pornography. The prosecutor confirmed that if convicted of all charges, Chavarria would be sent to prison for “hundreds and hundreds of years.” Saunders estimated “approximately three hundred years to life.”

There are nine alleged victims in this case, the girls are said to range in age from 5 to 14 years. All the alleged crimes were committed in Escondido, except for one alleged instance in San Marcos, the prosecutor said.

Chavarria was arrested in early 2015, after investigators got a “familiar DNA hit” from evidence left at a crime scene, according to the prosecutor. This suggests that a close family member already had DNA information available to law enforcement, although the DNA profile of Gilbert Andrew Chavarria was not in the system.

Chavarria, described in Sheriff’s records as 5 feet 9 inches tall and 145 pounds, had a thick mass of black curly hair resting on his shoulders and a full black beard in court today. Judge Robert Kearney denied media requests for permission to photograph.

Chavarria pleads not guilty through his public defender, is currently held in lieu of $7.5 million bail, and is next due in the Vista courthouse on September 20, 2017.