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Girls targeted in similar cases of genital exposure

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By LISA A. DAVIS

ldavis@tampatrib.com

Published: November 11, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - Pasco County sheriff's deputies and New Port Richey police are trying to determine whether six cases of a man exposing his genitals in public are connected.

The incidents occurred in the past month on the west side of the county, and the victims in five of the cases were children, authorities say.

Two times it happened in Holiday Lake Estates, including once near a school, and the other four happened near schools.

The sheriff's office says the first incident occurred 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 thought the man didn't realize he was exposed. At no time, she said, according to the sheriff's 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 who lived within two miles of the school, but she didn't recognize any as the one she saw that morning.

On Oct. 26, a 44-year-old woman reported that a man walked up to her in Holiday Lake Estates and exposed himself. She went home and told her husband, who 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 husband asked the flasher, who ran away.

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

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

Sheriff's office spokesman Kevin Doll said deputies are trying to come up with a composite sketch of the man or men.

Anyone with information can contact the sheriff's office on its Tips Line, 1-800-706-2488.

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