by El Pelon » Thu Oct 14, 2004 10:37 am
Naked Neighbor Haunts Apartment Complex
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
If a naked man knocks on your door and asks to use your phone, don't let him in.
That's the message Chapel Hill, N.C., police are giving residents of a local apartment complex following a string of bizarre incidents, reports The Herald-Sun of Durham, N.C.
In each case, the man, unclothed from the waist down, approaches a woman at the Chapel Ridge Apartments (search) with a sad story — he's lost a bet, he's the victim of a practical joke, his girlfriend kicked him out of her apartment — and says he needs to call a friend to pick him up.
In reality, police say, he's just a creative, if polite, pervert who wants to be naked around women he doesn't know.
"It's a sense of watching firsthand, from his perspective, the person's reaction," said Sabrina Garcia, a crisis counselor at the Chapel Hill Police Department (search).
The first incident was nearly a year ago, in November 2003. Since then, the naked neighbor has knocked on apartment doors in March, April, May and June of this year.
This past Monday night, a woman was sitting in her car outside the apartment complex when she saw a guy walking around without his britches on.
He started looking in parked cars, she told police, and when he saw her, walked over and gestured that he needed to use her cell phone.
She refused to open the door or window, and he walked away. Police responding to her 911 call couldn't find him.
"This perpetrator assumes [the] victim is not as bright or as smart as he is," Garcia said.
Speaking of similar flashers, she explained that "their goal is to see the victim's reaction and to see how far they can manipulate their actions for as long as they can."
The apartment-complex creep doesn't sound dangerous so far, but Garcia pointed out that men who expose themselves sometimes escalate their activities as the original thrill wears off.
Garcia said police were looking for a white male aged 20 to 30, between 5 feet 8 inches and 6 feet tall, with brown eyes and brown hair that on Monday was slightly spiky in the front.