The California man who turned his upscale vacation rental into a secret surveillance den — allegedly hoarding thousands of child sexual abuse files and filming unsuspecting guests in private moments — has been found dead, and nobody in authority seems interested in explaining how a predator this dangerous walked free on $75,000 bail in the first place.

Christian Parmalee Edwards, 44, was discovered dead inside a home on Granite Butte Way in Oakhurst, according to the Madera County Sheriff's Department. Deputies responded and pronounced him at the scene. Investigators have not released a cause of death but say foul play is not suspected. Edwards had been out on bail since April.

His death closes a case that should have never been open. In March, detectives with the Madera County Sheriff's Office and the Central California Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed a search warrant at the property. What they found was the inventory of a predator: more than 4,000 digital files containing child sexual abuse material, a life-like child doll designed for sexual use with its hands bound, and children's clothes.

Sheriff Tyson Pogue said Edwards was literally watching his most recent video as detectives arrived to serve the warrant. According to court records reported by the New York Post, Edwards filmed women and children in the lower level of the mansion, including at least one unclothed child, and attempted to record renters through window blinds from outside the home.

The technology that made this possible isn't classified. It isn't the exclusive domain of the NSA or the FBI. Miniature cameras, remote streaming, hidden recording devices — all of it is cheap, commercially available, and virtually undetectable to the Americans renting a vacation home who assume privacy comes standard with a door that locks. The surveillance state isn't just the government anymore. Private predators can weaponize the same tools, and the only thing standing between a family and a secret recording is the conscience of a man who keeps a bound child doll in his closet.

Then there is the bail question. Edwards faced one felony count of possession of child sexual abuse material. He was released on $75,000 bail. A man caught in the act of watching surveillance footage of his own guests, with thousands of abuse files on his devices and a doll built for molestation, was deemed manageable enough to return to the community. The system that let him walk has yet to answer for that judgment.

Breitbart's coverage of the day's crime stories focused on a separate case in Indianapolis involving a 21-year-old man charged with sexual misconduct with a minor after a newborn was found abandoned in the woods — another example of the system's failure to protect the most vulnerable, but a different jurisdiction and a different failure entirely.

Edwards will face no courtroom now. The families who trusted his rental property with their privacy will never get a trial. The question that lingers is how many more rental properties, Airbnb listings, and hotel rooms are rigged the same way — and whether anyone with the power to act has bothered to look.