COMAL COUNTY, Texas – A California woman has been declared the first sexually violent predator (SVP) in a Texas county, according to a Facebook post from the Comal County District Attorney’s Office.
Desiree Hamm, 37, was determined by a Comal County jury to be an SVP on Jan. 30 after she was first convicted of sexual offenses in 2011.
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SVPs, according to Texas Law, are a small group of sexual offenders that are considered extremely dangerous and likely to engage in repeated predatory acts of sexual violence due to a behavioral abnormality.
Inmates with two or more offenses who are nearing their release from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice need to be screened for the State’s Sexually Violent Predator Civil Commitment program, the post said.
This group is treated differently from traditional civil commitment with long-term treatment and supervision, including consistent reevaluation.
Jail records show Hamm was a candidate for this screening, as she was convicted of 13 sexual offenses.
Kidnapping and Abuse
An investigation was first opened by the Comal County Sheriff’s Office in 2009 when Hamm was 22.
According to the post, Hamm had started an online relationship with two teenage girls.
She began grooming the victims through role-playing games, which are computer games where players control characters in an imaginary world.
The Alliance for Children defines child grooming as the calculated process by which an offender sexually abuses a child.
The act often involves manipulating them by establishing trust, building a relationship, and, eventually, breaking down physical boundaries.
Hamm did this by giving the victims secret devices and gifts, spending hundreds of hours with them on the phone and computer, convincing them the games were real, and, eventually, turning the games sexual.
She made up false sexual assault allegations of the victims’ parents in order to take them away from their support network.
The post said Hamm also manipulated them over webcams, which she would constantly monitor.
Hamm coordinated a way to kidnap the teenage victims with Sarah Nadeau, an adult who Hamm had similarly groomed, the post said.
Hamm convinced Nadeau to drive from San Diego, where they were, to Comal County, where the victims lived, and back.
The post said the victims were successfully transported by Nadeau, riding some of the way in the trunk of her car.
When parents found the girls missing that morning, they were able to find Hamm’s cellphone number. She gave the families and police false information, which kept the victims’ real location hidden for a month when she moved them to Fresno, California.
During that time, Hamm abused the victims sexually, psychologically and physically, the post said. Hamm was eventually captured when authorities placed a location device on a nebulizer she got for one of the victims.
Conviction and Consideration
Hamm pleaded guilty in 2011 to 13 convictions of sexual offenses and kidnapping. She was sentenced to 20 years, with an additional 10 years probation, according to the district attorney’s office.
However, the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole granted her an early release after she served 15 years.
According to the Comal County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, this made Hamm eligible for civil commitment consideration.
During the consideration trial, she was diagnosed by expert witnesses with several mental conditions that built a basis of the likelihood for Hamm to commit future acts of sexual violence.
Other experts, the post said, testified she was highly manipulative and met the criteria for having a behavioral abnormality that made her likely to re-offend.
Furthermore, Hamm admitted the role-playing games had continued with various “pen pals” during her incarceration and lied during expert interviews and to the State’s attorney in Aug. 2024.
Considering all of this, she was evaluated as Texas’s first woman SVP since the law was first enacted in 1999, according to the post.
Hamm will be transferred to the Texas Civil Commitment Center in Littlefield and evaluated every two years to determine whether her risk as an SVP has changed.
Additionally, she will be given sex offender treatment and constant supervision.
“I am extremely grateful for the hard work and excellence by SVP Chief Erin Faseler and her team who took an important case for our County and used their expertise to protect Texas by handling this case for my office,” said District Attorney Jennifer Tharp. “It has been a historical week for Texas, and I am grateful for the jury’s verdict.”
