Welcome to
the Crazy News Page
Serial
Socks Snatcher in Trouble Again
AP
BELLEVILLE, Ill. (May 7) - James Dowdy has admitted
his hankering for women's hosiery has been his
undoing, earning him three stints in prison and
repeated scoldings from judges over the years. So
police say it's no surprise the 36-year-old man is
knee deep in trouble again because of his lust for
leggings.
St. Clair County prosecutors charged Dowdy on Friday
with felony attempted burglary for his uninvited
visit to a parked car and with misdemeanor disorderly
conduct charge for dropping stolen socks "in an
unreasonable manner, as to alarm and disturb."
"He's obviously got some problems,"
Belleville police Capt. Don Sax said Monday of Dowdy,
who remains jailed on $50,000 bond. "We can't
crawl into his head and come up with a particular
answer to why he does this. We have to assume it's
part of his sexual deviation."
Authorities have no evidence that Dowdy has ever
threatened anyone.
"To the best of our knowledge, he's just after
the socks," Sax said. "Generally, they are
almost always female socks."
In the weeks leading to his latest arrest, Sax said,
witnesses in Dowdy's neighborhood reported seeing a
suspicious person slinking about, at times peeking
through windows. Often, Sax says, socks were left
behind, though it's unclear whether the culprit
dropped them clumsily or as a calling card.
Police responding to one of the reports saw Dowdy -
who fit the description of the man reported by
neighbors - trying to crawl into his house through a
basement window, socks in one hand and a flashlight
in the other. Witnesses picked Dowdy from a photo
lineup, Sax said, but he wasn't arrested at the time.
Dowdy was arrested April 28, after someone reported
seeing him near or in a parked car - and after a
woman's sock was found in a backyard near where
witnesses claimed Dowdy had been.
His troubles stretch back at least 13 years.
In 2004, Dowdy was sentenced to seven years in prison
after pleading guilty to attempted residential
burglary, a felony reportedly tied to his strolling
into a female neighbor's home for her socks.
Seven years earlier, Dowdy got a six-year sentence
for breaking into another woman's home and stealing
socks.
And in 1994, Dowdy was sentenced to three years for
trying to burglarize a home, ultimately getting
caught by police with a bag of socks.
"I know what I did was wrong," he told the
judge back then during sentencing. "And the
thing with the socks, I would like to get help with
it so I can get over it, get it out of my life and
get on with my life."
Messages left Monday for some of his relatives in
Belleville were not immediately returned.
Dowdy has been assigned to be represented by the
county public defender's office, though no specific
counselor there has yet been assigned to him,
officials said Monday.
"Obviously, our hope is that he either be
incarcerated in jail or a hospital someplace where
this can be dealt with," Sax said.
"Sneaking around a house in today's society, at
some point, someone is going to get hurt."
Home
