Police hunt for 'Peeping Tom' in Sebastopol

By MARY CALLAHAN
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 5:25 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 5:25 p.m.
Sebastopol police believe one Peeping Tom may be responsible for four incidents in which prowlers were caught peering in bedroom windows around the area over the past seven weeks.

Two such occasions occurred within blocks of each other and mere hours apart late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, police said.

The incidents go back to Oct. 21, when a resident confronted a prowler outside a Swain Woods Terrace house on the south side of town, police said.

A similar event was reported Nov. 18 near Valentine Avenue, around 8:50 a.m. Again, a resident confronted the peeper, police said.

And just as in the October instance, the intruder said he was “looking for his cat,” police Lt. Jim Hawkins said.

The Tuesday night incident occurred on Healdsburg Avenue at 9:42 p.m., followed by another one just after midnight on High Street a few blocks away.

In each case, police searched the area and talked to neighbors but were unable to find a suspect.

The two most recent incidents suggest a pattern that leads police to believe a single culprit is involved, Hawkins said.

“It’s kind of leaning that way, but it’s not 100 percent,” he said.

The victims have described a white male with gray or silver hair and facial hair — possibly a mustache — wearing dark clothing and a hooded sweatshirt, sometimes with a baseball cap, police said.

The descriptions “are all similar, but vague at the same time,” Hawkins said.

Police hope that anyone who may have experienced a similar incident reports it as soon as possible, he said.


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