First there’s the trucks. Then in an unrelated series of incidents, a nekkid man or peeping tom or 5 foot 11 white man with sandy hair has been roaming the neighborhoods of the Peoples Republic of Rowayton, looking not for evidence of trucks passing through, but people to expose himself to. Or assault, according to the latest incident. From The Hour:
Last month, residents said, the man, known as “the naked man” and “peeper” among Rowaytonites, allegedly showed up at 1 a.m. outside a Ridgewood Road home while the homeowners’ 16-year daughter was downstairs in the family room.
“The dogs started to go berserk and the girls started screaming,” said a neighbor who didn’t wish to be identified Wednesday. “They just saw the man’s white legs.”
Some are concerned that the attacker fought off by a Roton Avenue woman Sunday night was the same man, who has been seen leering in windows and flashing people for nearly 20 years.
The middle-aged woman, who was “extremely physically fit” and able to fight off the man when he tried to grab her behind her house, was taking out her trash at about 11:40 p.m., and was wearing sleeping apparel, police said.
She described her assailant as white, 5 feet, 8 inches tall, with a thin to medium build and sandy-brown hair, police said. This description is strikingly similar to the one witnesses gave a year ago, when the peeper made several appearances and shook up the close-knit, typically quiet waterfront neighborhood.
Last August, The Hour reported the following description: White, about 5 feet, 11 inches tall with light brown hair and a medium build.“If it’s the same person, which it most likely is, he’s becoming increasingly bold and dangerous,” said a Witch Lane resident who’s apprehensive about the safety of her children, neighbors, and herself after reading The Hour’s Monday account of the Roton Avenue incident.
“People are concerned. This has been going on for too long and it seems to be escalating,” she said. “I think something’s just got to be done. The police don’t seem to think this is important. Enough people have seen him — you would think that they would have a better description.”
A lack of communication from city police on the recent sightings is “perceived as lack of interest,” she said.
Police have acknowledged that there could be a link between Sunday’s alleged attack and the recurring incidents, but haven’t determined yet if it was the same man.
The Police likely are a tad more focused on gun crimes and robberies than nekkid man, but exposure can go both ways. Cell phone camera photos of nekkid man would certainly help in the identification. That’s what snagged a flasher on the R subway:
A cell phone photo taken on an uptown R train on August 19 helped police identify a flasher who has been targeting women on the subway system, the New York Daily News reported. The suspect flashed train rider Thao Nguyen, who no doubt surprised him by snapping a picture of him in the act. More surprising still, perhaps, was the Daily News’s Saturday front page, which showed off the photo to millions of readers.
The paper also carried Nguyen’s story: “‘I saw him massaging himself and then he unzipped and pulled it out. I thought, “I can’t believe he’s doing this in the middle of the day!”‘ The subway car was mostly empty and Nguyen felt nervous, so she pulled out her Samsung P777 cell phone, equipped with a 1.3 megapixel digital phone. ‘I turned on the camera,’ she said. ‘He was still masturbating. I aimed it and quickly took the shot. As soon as I took it, he zipped up and got off the train.’ Nguyen said she was disgusted by the incident and immediately reported it to a police officer at the 34th St. station. The next day she filled out an official complaint, and the following day a detective had her look at hundreds of photos of ex-cons. None of them was the culprit, but Nguyen wasn’t about to give up. She posted the degenerate’s photo on the Web sites Flickr and Craigslist, and bloggers began linking to her site.”
The Daily News has since received tips on the suspect’s identity, which it published in today’s paper. Try riding the subway now, flasher man.
source: The Hour, ‘Peeper is back,’ say some Rowaytonites, by Noelle Frampton, August 16, 2007
source: Washington Post, Cell Phone Camera Fazes Flasher, By Robert MacMillan, August 30, 2005; 10:00 AM
