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Pasco, New Port Richey officers looking for flasher

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By LISA A. DAVIS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 10, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - Pasco deputies and New Port Richey police are trying to figure out if six reported cases of a man exposing his genitals in public is the same man.

The instances have occurred over the past month on the west side of the county and five out of six times a child has been the victim, authorities said.

Two cases have been in Holiday Lake Estates – one near a school - and the other four have been near schools as well.

The first reported to the sheriff's office on Oct. 2 at Locke Elementary in New Port Richey. A 9-year-old girl told deputies that while she walked to school that morning, a man walked by her, exposing himself. The girl first told her mother and the mother reported it to the school. The girl, however, thought the man didn't realize he was exposed. At no time, she said according to the report, did the man talk to her or approach her.

On Oct. 12, a 13-year-old girl reported that while riding her bike west on Holiday Lake Drive to Smith Middle School in Holiday, she saw a man who unbuttoned and unzipped his pants before she rode by him. That man never tried to touch her and didn't speak to her.
In that case, a school resource deputy showed the girl pictures of sex offenders within a 2-mile radius of the school, but she didn't recognize any of the men as being the one she saw that morning.

On Oct. 26, a 44-year-old woman reported that a man walked up to her on Holiday Lake Estates and exposed himself. She went home and told her husband who then searched for the man, and, according to the report, found him five blocks away from their home.

"Why are you showing your private parts to my wife? Are you crazy?" the man asked the flasher, who then ran away.

On Monday, two 11-year-old River Ridge Middle School students reported that when they got off the bus a man was sitting on a green power box at Hamlet and Foxboro drives when he exposed himself in front of them. The girls told deputies it was the second time in two weeks the man had done this. He didn't talk to them and didn't touch them. The girls, according to the report, ran all the way home.

In the past month, two similar cases of a man exposing himself to school girls have been reported to the New Port Richey Police Department. The girls were on their way to school when the man who was near the Madison Street bridge when he flashed them, said Capt. Jeffrey Harrington. The incidents were about a week apart.

"I'm not sure that they're related," Harrington said of the sheriff's office cases.

The two agencies are working together to determine whether there's a link.
The sheriff's office gets reports from time to time about someone exposing himself or herself but for so many to occur around the same time is a bit unusual, Doll said.

"If this is the same person, it's unusual for someone to be doing this so blatantly," he added.

Though the descriptions of the flashers have been vague, they have some similarities, Doll said. The reports put the suspect's height in each case between 5-foot-9 and 6-feet tall. Doll said that deputies are trying to meet with the victims so they can come up with a composite sketch of the suspect or suspects.

If anyone has any information, they can contact the sheriff's office at their Tips Line at 1-800-706-2488.

Reporter Lisa A. Davis can be reached at (727) 815-1083.

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