Escaped “high risk” sex offender arrested in Fond du Lac County

FOND DU LAC COUNTY, Wis. (WBAY) - A “high risk” sex offender who went on the run from Green Bay is in custody.

Jail records show Roy D. Burnam, 56, is in the Fond du Lac County Jail. Green Bay Police say Burnam turned himself in to authorities.

“We will follow up to determine motive and his whereabouts while he absconded,” reads a statement from the department.

On March 9, Burnam cut off his GPS monitoring bracelet and fled his residence in Green Bay.

Burnam was convicted of child sex assault and ordered by a court to live under the supervision of DHS at a home in the 1700 block of 11th Avenue.

“We’d gotten a call around 1:50 in the morning. Officers were sent there for a tampering alert on his GPS,” Green Bay Police Lt. Matt VanEgeren told Action 2 News.

“With his convictions, it’s concerning. Sex offenses... his victims were children,” says VanEgeren. “He did not own a vehicle, and as far as we know, he didn’t have access to a vehicle. He had a bicycle, but that was still there. The roommate had mentioned to us that he had $5,000 cash when he left.”

Burnam was originally placed in the 11th Avenue home in 2018, after a judge ordered he be released from a state treatment facility for sex offenders, but his cases go back decades.

Burnam was convicted in Waukesha County in 1998, ordered to spend 12 years in prison for third degree sexual assault of a child and enticing a child into a vehicle, building or room, according to state court records.

Police say he was also convicted in Oklahoma in 1996 for lewd molestation.

The courts ordered Burnam be committed to Wisconsin’s treatment facility for sex offenders in 2011.

He was denied release several times, then eventually granted it in 2017, but court records show finding a home for him in the county where the crime occurred was difficult, so they searched statewide and locked in on the Green Bay home.

All this happened just before a law change made placement in other counties much more difficult.

Burnam moved into the home in Green Bay in 2018.

We uncovered court records showing he violated rules in 2019, but no details about the violation are given.

Burnam was taken to the Brown County Jail for a few months at that point, but eventually placed back at the home on 11th Avenue later in 2020. He had been there until his escape March 9th.