This week, a 65-year-old man who fantasized about beheading and eating a teenager quietly moved into a house in the Woods Park neighborhood.
Unless neighbors happened to check Nebraska's sex offender registry, they wouldn't have known Dale Bolinger was now living on South 29th Street, around the corner from a park and small playground at Neighbors Park and a short walk from the Lincoln Children's Zoo.

Dale Bolinger
Upon learning of Bolinger's conviction in England for trying to meet up with a 14-year-old girl he'd met online a day after buying an ax, Allison Paukune, who can see the house from her backyard, appeared surprised.
"Are you listening to this?" she said, leaning in the doorway to talk to her husband inside.
Paukune said she had noticed her new neighbor the day before sitting on his porch.
Knowing that their 11-year-old son runs around with his friends until it starts to get dark now worries her a bit, she said.
People are also reading…
They have a 16-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son, too.
"That kind of creeps me out. We don't even get notifications on anything like that," Paukune said.
Chief Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Bruce Prenda can't say a lot about people who have been civilly committed to the state's regional centers. Neither can officials at the Lincoln Regional Center, from which Bolinger was released.
The cases are confidential. So, while county attorneys file petitions under the Nebraska Mental Health Commitment Act when a person is deemed a mentally ill and dangerous person, they can't talk about it publicly by law.
"What I can tell you is that law enforcement is aware of Mr. Bolinger. He registered in Lancaster County yesterday," Prenda said in an email Wednesday.
Speaking generally, he pointed to state statutes that define a dangerous sex offender and the Sex Offender Commitment Act. And he pointed to the Lincoln city ordinance that restricts sexual predators from living within 500 feet of a school.
By law, Bolinger wouldn't qualify as a sexual predator because his crime didn't include penetration even though he's been convicted of a sex-related crime, which is what landed him on the registry.
According to news accounts in England, Bolinger was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2014 after buying an ax the day before trying to meet up with a 14-year-old girl he'd met on a fetish website.
In online conversations, he described sex acts he wanted to perform on her and how he would kill her, according to a BBC report.
Bolinger arranged to meet her at a train station in 2012. But the girl never showed.
An FBI tip led to his arrest, and Bolinger ultimately was found guilty of attempting to meet a girl under the age of 16 following sexual grooming, and he admitted to 10 other charges for, among other things, putting a cloth soaked in cleaning fluid over a female friend's mouth, making indecent pseudo photographs of children and publishing obscene articles.
The BBC said Bolinger told police he was interested in children as food and had a computer disk containing an image of a girl on a serving plate with an apple in her mouth.
Police said he also confessed to having cannibalistic thoughts from the age of 6 but said his interest was all "in fantasy."
In 2018, after Bolinger served half of his sentence, he was released on good behavior, returned to the United States, where he is from, and settled briefly in Blair before the news broke. He then ended up in two state regional centers. First in Norfolk, then Lincoln.
Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said Bolinger wasn't even in his department's computer system until Tuesday, when he updated his address on the sex offender registry.
When asked if anyone at the Lincoln Regional Center or with Nebraska Health and Human Services reached out to his office about Bolinger's release, Wagner said: "The responsibility is on the offender."
But the address update form did come from the regional center, he said.
Wagner said when mental health records come to his office, there's one person who handles them and that they go in a locked box that no one else has the key for.
"It's super-secret stuff. Highly confidential," he said.
Wagner said the rest of his office doesn't even know.
"There's such a fine line in announcing to the general population this guy's out and here's where he's living. And then he's, in some cases, justifiably ostracized and/or threatened," Wagner said.
It happened just up the road.
In July, an Omaha man, James Fairbanks, was sentenced to 40 to 70 years in prison for killing Mattieo Condoluci, a twice-convicted sex offender, who Fairbanks said he saw “leering” at children while looking for apartments near Condoluci's home in May 2020.
But prosecutors suggested the killing was premeditated, that Fairbanks had sought to hunt down sex offenders, even mapping out a path to another child molester.
Bolinger is one of 1,971 registered sex offenders in Lincoln, according to the Nebraska State Patrol. Of that, 1,112 are in state prisons, 29 at the regional center and 830 others in the community.
His roommate, Martin Herron, is on the registry, too, for first-degree sexual assault of a minor in 2002, when he was in his 20s.
Officer Erin Spilker said Lincoln police do regular checks to make sure the registry information is accurate and people are staying where they say they are.
But they don't do anything to alert neighbors, she said.
Spilker said given the number of sex offenders and how often they move, it would be almost impossible. She encouraged people to check the Sex Offender Registry so they know who is in their neighborhood.
But the registry's website also comes with a warning: "Sex offender registry information shall not be used to retaliate against the registrants, their families, or their employers in any way. Vandalism, verbal or written threats of harm are illegal and will result in arrest and prosecution."
Top Journal Star photos for September
Top Journal Star photos for September

Portrait of graffiti artist Micah Mullins, who was commissioned to create a new mural in a little-known tunnel beneath the train tracks at Third and F streets. The project is part of the upcoming Streets Alive festival, sponsored by Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln. The mural depicts the neighborhood’s identity – a train, Quinn Chapel, the Mexican flag, the Volga German crest, an outline of the African continent, among others. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Nebraska fan Daniel Lenz (center) reacts after the game gets sent into overtime on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021, at The Railyard. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Nebraska's Billie Andrews connects with a pitch during a Sept. 27, 2021, game at Bowlin Stadium.
Top Journal Star photos for September

Nebraska defensive lineman Ty Robinson (99) looks on after Michigan State won in overtime, Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021, at Spartan Stadium. JUSTIN WAN, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Scott Rosenbaugh, captain of the Narwhals, walks to the water station after finishing the Market to Market run on Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021, in Haymarket. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Nebraska’s Madi Kubik dives for an Iowa shot in the third set on Sept. 25, 2021, at Devaney Sports Center. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Pius X's Carson Winer (83) high fives students as he runs off the field after the game on Friday, Sept. 24, 2021, at Seacrest Field. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Lincoln Lutheran's Max Bartels (10) gets hit by Yutan's Isaiah Daniell on a first-quarter run on Friday, Sept. 24, 2020, at Aldrich Field. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

(L - R) Josie Ivy, Emma Bitterman and Kita Hall, all University of Nebraska - Lincoln students and Sustain UNL members, holds signs as David Corbin (background) carries an earth flag as part of the Global Climate Strike on Friday, Sept. 24, 2021, on the steps of the Capitol. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

The chair that Principal Kevin Naumann will be sleeping in sits on the roof of St. Joseph Catholic School before he is raise up on Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021, at St. Joseph School. Naumann agreed to sleep on the roof of the school if the goal for the school's fall fundraiser was met. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Scaffolding surrounds The Sower, a 19-foot tall bronze statue which represents Nebraska's agricultural heritage, on Sept. 23, 2021, at the Nebraska State Capitol, as part of restoration and repair work which is expected to take 20 weeks. The scaffolding will enclose the entire dome allowing the workers to remove and store any loose gold glazed tile while they replace the water-damaged bed beneath. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Lincoln East's Noah Walters (right) throws the one of his four touchdown passes in the first half against Lincoln Southeast on Sept. 23, 2021, at Seacrest Field. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Clinton Elementary fifth graders sit on the steps of the Sheldon Art Museum while on an outdoor tour field trip on Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021, at Sheldon Museum of Art. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Lincoln Lutheran history teacher Nathan Bassett waves to students as he holds a trophy for Nebraska History Teacher of the Year during an assembly on Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021, at Lincoln Lutheran. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Waverly's Maci Steckelberg gets tagged out by Norris' Sage Burbach at first after attempting to steal second on Monday, Sept. 20, 2021, at Waverly High School. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Nebraska's Lindsay Krause celebrates a second set kill on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021, at Devaney Sports Center. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

NORMAN, OK. - 09/18/2021 - Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez (2) scrambles to avoid the tackle from Oklahoma's Isaiah Thomas (95) in the second half on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021, in Norman, Okla. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Nebraska cheerleaders Logan Larsen (bottom) and Haiden Loop cheer on the northside of the stadium on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2021, at Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

(L - R) Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks speaks with Sen. Justin Wayne during debate of redistricting legislation on Friday, Sept. 17, 2021, on the floor of the Legislature. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Softball under the lights at Holmes Lake Park on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021. The lights are scheduled for replacement in the future. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

An Antonov AH-124, a large Russian military plane that’s been converted to carry cargo, in this case a 220,000-pound boiler that’s going somewhere north of Sioux City, sits on the tarmac on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021, at Lincoln Airport. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Fremont's Elli Dahl (82), Elkhorn South's Jaci Sievers (52) and Lincoln East's Mia Murray lead the girls varsity race at the Harold Scott Invitational on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021, at Pioneers Park. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Sen. Adam Morfeld (foreground) references printed maps during a redistricting hearing on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021, at the Capitol. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Norris' Ella Waters (left) and Waverly's Hanna Allick battle in front of the net during a high school volleyball game, Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021. JUSTIN WAN, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Firefighters work to put out fire of an airplane simulator during a disaster drill Lincoln Airport, Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021. JUSTIN WAN, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Southwest players cheer their teammates on from the dugout on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021, at Doris Bair Complex. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

James Green (blue) watches Ryan Deakin (red) as they circle each other during the 70 kg Men's Freestyle match on Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021, at Pinnacle Bank Arena. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

James Green signs autographs for fans after his win on Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021, at Pinnacle Bank Arena. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Nebraska's Kenzie Coons (10) falls after an attempted slide tackle by Loyola-Chicago's Alaina Abel (4) on Sunday, Sept. 5, 2021, at Hibner Stadium. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Nebraska's Nicklin Hames (1) bumps the ball on Saturday, Sept. 4, 2021, at Devaney Center. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez (2) dives in the end zone for the Huskers first touchdown in the first quarter against Fordham on Saturday, Sept. 4, 2021, at Memorial Stadium. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Lincoln Northeast's Trevor Vocasek (17), Dylan Gray (9), Connor Alley (6), and Gavin Wilbur (71) prepare to take the field for warm ups on Friday, Sept. 3, 2021, at Seacrest Field. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

David Hollingsworth walks his grandson Jordan (11) to the stadium before the game against Fordham on Saturday, Sept. 4, 2021, at Memorial Stadium. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Lincoln Lutheran's Gabriel Schmidt (20) intercepts a ball intended for Lincoln Christian's Ben Ehlers (23) in the closing moments of the game as teammate Cooper May (11) looks on Friday, Sept 3, 2021, at Lincoln Christian School. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Lincoln Northeast's Jack Bouwens (15) kisses his girlfriend Jaedyn Sandy after Northeast won the game on Friday, Sept. 3, 2021, at Seacrest Field. EAKIN HOWARD, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

A tree trunk growing through the bumper of a 1949 Chevrolet pickup is seen in this photo taken on Friday, Sept. 3, 2021. JUSTIN WAN, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Nebraska's Kayla Caffey (3) and Lexi Sun (11) block Omaha's Lakyn Graves (18) during the Ameritas Players Challenge on Friday, Sept. 3, 2021, at the Devaney Sports Center. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Art teacher Elizabeth Thomsen waves goodbye to her online class at Roper Elementary School, Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021. JUSTIN WAN, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Students walk past a Know More banner on the Delta Upsilon fraternity on the University of Nebraska - Lincoln city campus on Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star
Top Journal Star photos for September

Darrius Booker practices basketball drills at Trago Park, Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021. JUSTIN WAN, Journal Star
Reach the writer at 402-473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com.
On Twitter @LJSpilger