While driving past a house, a man noticed that a convicted pedophile was trying to once again lure children into his backyard. Instead of allowing the predator to hurt another child, the vigilante decided to take justice into his own hands.
While searching for an apartment, Omaha middle school employee James Fairbanks, 43, discovered that a convicted sex offender lived just a few doors down from the location in which he hoped to move. Hoping to get a better idea of the man’s whereabouts, Fairbanks drove past the residence to see a scene that would change his life forever.
According to an open letter, Fairbanks alleges that he saw 64-year-old convicted sex pedophile Matteio Condoluci stalking a pair of young children only yards away. He then looked into Condoluci’s backyard to find a child’s playhouse set up in a way that any little girl or boy could easily access it.
After witnessing what he knew to be a predatory tactic, Fairbanks decided he had to stop Condoluci from making another child his victim. Heart pounding, Fairbanks claims that he grabbed his pistol and headed over to the pedophile’s residence to scare him into staying away from the nearby children. Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite as planned.
In a shocking social media post directed at the media, Fairbanks confessed to murdering Condoluci, who had been convicted for assaulting a 5-year-old boy and raping a 13-year-old girl, explaining his reasoning for his actions, Daily Mail reports. Condoluci only served 2-and-a-half years in prison.
“Dear media, I am writing this email to let you know that I killed Matteio Condoluci,” Fairbanks began. “While out apartment searching and checking the neighborhoods I wanted to live in I stumbled across his sex offender registry info. I read where he had molested (raped) two children and been convicted twice yet only served two years in prison. For RAPING CHILDREN!…I drove by and to my horror he was standing in his driveway pretending to wash his truck (no soap or water just a rag) while staring at a group of children playing in the street. I watched him for a few minutes and just felt sick to my stomach. He just kept staring at them…I went to drive away and noticed to my amazement this twice convicted sex offender had a playground set in his backyard! No fence. Just a slide and a play house. I felt sick to my stomach. Having had my own experience with these type of predators I knew the damage he would do to those kids. It agonized me for days. I couldn’t sleep.”
Fairbanks explained that he had a similar experience with a predator molesting a close relative when he was young and that the situation brought back terrible memories of the abuse. He wrote that he couldn’t sleep for days and ultimately decided to confront Condoluci, which led to him killing the pedophile.
“I’ve worked with kids for years who have been victimized and I couldnt in good conscience allow him to do it to anyone else while I had the means to stop him. I’m willing to turn myself in even though I’m confident I wouldn’t be caught because it’s my opinion that we need to fix this in our society. We cannot let this continue to happen to our children. They must be stopped. I know in this messed up judicial system that means I will face far more severe punishment for stopping him than he did for raping KIDS. But I could no longer do nothing,” he wrote.
Fairbanks claims that he forced Condoluci into his home at gunpoint in order to threaten him to stay away from the children. He says that Condoluci rushed toward him in an attempt to disarm him, prompting Fairbanks to shoot him in the chest.
While Fairbanks’ confession drew overwhelming praise from the public, one registered sex offender identified only as “Jay” says that the killing has stricken terror in the hearts of convicts like himself, according to KETV.
“You don’t go out there and take it into our own hands and murder and take the life of somebody else because you weren’t happy with the judgement that was made,” he said.
Laura Smith, who lost her son to a drug overdose nearly two decades after she says he was sexually assaulted by Condoluci at age 5, thanked Fairbanks for taking revenge on her child’s abuser. She has since started a petition to free Fairbanks, adding that Condoluci had raped two children and molested countless others.
Fairbanks was charged with first-degree murder for the death of Condoluci. However, he maintains that he was simply protecting children from the sex offender and didn’t intend to kill him, although he believes Condoluci would’ve definitely abused again.
Fairbanks doesn’t consider himself a hero, despite many others claiming he is. Instead of trying to free him, he hopes that his followers will focus their efforts on reforming laws concerning sex offenders. Incredibly, his message has garnered major support for the movement to protect children from sexual predators.
