The right side of the tracks

Deepa Bharath

Three months ago, Charlie Gabbard says, he helped police

investigators install a global positioning satellite system in Scott

Peterson’s car.

At the time, the longtime Newport Beach resident did not know much

about the case. But Gabbard said he had a gut feeling that it was

going to be a story that hit headlines across the nation.

Peterson, 30, was arrested Friday in San Diego County on suspicion

of killing his wife Laci Peterson, the Modesto woman who disappeared

Christmas Eve. She was eight months’ pregnant when she disappeared.

Early last week, the decomposed bodies of Laci and her unborn son

washed ashore in San Francisco Bay.

Police had said they did not consider Scott Peterson a suspect in

the beginning. But Gabbard says they were apparently keeping an eye

on his whereabouts.

The GPS system Gabbard installs for his customers lets them know

if a car leaves a certain area.

“You draw an imaginary perimeter,” he said. “And you want to be

made aware if the car leaves that boundary. That’s what this system

does for you. The car sends you a message telling you that it’s left

that boundary.”

Gabbard, who runs his business from Mission Viejo, said he caters

to the Department of Justice as well as several police departments.

“They’ve used my system to track sexual predators, drug dealers

and even money launderers,” he said.

But officials do not tell GPS installers whom they are tracking,

said Ernesto Limon, a special agent supervisor for the Department of

Justice’s Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement unit in San Diego.

Limon helped Modesto police with their investigation of Peterson,

but said he will neither confirm nor deny that he had the tracking

device installed in Peterson’s car.

He said publicity in the media about these systems has adversely

affected their investigations.

“A couple of our suspects actually learned about it and found the

tracking devices in their cars,” he said. “And these things cost

$2,000 and up. So that’s not good for us.”

Limon said they use the tracking device in less than 5% of their

investigations.

“There are about 5,000 sexual predators in San Diego County,” he

said. “It’s just not possible for us to track all of them this way.

These are investigation tools, but we don’t entirely rely on them.”