SACRAMENTO, CA – In a development described as 'utterly unforeseen' by state officials, the California Parole Board announced Tuesday it was 'genuinely flabbergasted' to learn that a convicted serial child molester, whose release was pending, still harbored 'unseemly thoughts' regarding children. The revelation came after a routine review of parole transcripts, which reportedly contained 'several hundred pages of extremely detailed and concerning internal monologues.'

“We had genuinely assumed that 27 years in a state correctional facility would have simply… evaporated these kinds of tendencies,” stated Dr. Evelyn P. Grimsby, Chief of Ontological Oversight for the California Department of Rehabilitative Optimism. “Our models predicted a 97.4% chance of complete thought-pattern realignment. This is a significant deviation.”

Sources close to the board, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the 'sheer awkwardness' of the situation, indicated that the discovery was made during a 'cursory glance' at the inmate’s mental health evaluations, specifically section 4B, subsection 'Ongoing Fantasies (Non-Recreational).' The inmate, identified only as 'Mr. X,' reportedly admitted to 'continuing to find the concept of children… appealing, in a way that is legally problematic.'

Local resident Agnes Periwinkle, 83, expressed her own brand of bewilderment. “They let him out, and he still wants to do the bad things? What exactly did they think was going to happen in there? A magical cure for evil?” Periwinkle then reportedly shook her head and muttered something about 'the good old days when they just locked 'em up and threw away the key, and nobody pretended they were going to start a flower shop.'