Note: Story updated below, with further detail.
A man suspected of pooping on the sidewalks and driveways of several homes in and around the intersection of Byrne St. and Helen in the Woodland Heights has been apprehended and taken into custody, a Houston Police Department spokesperson tells the Leader. The story of the Woodland Heights excrement attacks clogged up the internet last week, with stories of the repeated front-yard exploits reaching international and local news outlets around the globe — but only after a repeat victim went to teevee reporter Jennifer Bauer with surveillance footage from a camera hidden in a tree near her home. The captured images (above) of the man dubbed a “serial defecator” in various follow-on news reports appeared to show the perpetrator in the act.
Perhaps the most astounding aspect of the arrest: The public-pooping suspect was apprehended after he was found urinating — on a wall at the Fiesta Mart at Quitman and Fulton, according to the Leader report: “Police arrested the man, who appeared to be the same man as the one from Woodland Heights’ resident’s surveillance video, and charged him with public urination.“
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The alleged perpetrator’s clever switch of M.O. — changing from defecation to urination, and targeting a grocery store in the Near Northside, across I-45 from the homes of the Woodland Heights — wasn’t enough to throw investigators off the scent. Unless, of course, police have apprehended the wrong man.
Update, 12:45 am: The Harris County Precinct One constable’s office website now provides a bit of detail on the booking, which took place on Saturday, and credits “the residents who called with information that ultimately led to the suspect’s arrest.” It also names the suspect. Separately, Craig Hlavaty reports that the constable’s office “will not file charges on the man, due to his mental health issues. The man is no longer in police custody, according to [Sgt. J.C.] Mosier.”
He admitted to that he was the one doing the defecating, from what I have been told,” Mosier said Tuesday. Mosier says that the Hispanic male, 53, has mental health issues. The man told officials that he will not be defecating in yards again.
- HPD: Woodland Heights serial defecator has been caught [The Leader]
- Previously on Swamplot: Has This Man Been Pooping in Your Yard? Or Only on Byrne St. in Woodland Heights?
Images: Click2Houston (pooper); LoopNet (Fiesta)
Yeah..the a-hole hopefully gets in front of a City judge who sentences him to “creative” punishment: picking up dog poop ALL over town and/or cleaning out porta-potties all over town, in the middle of day in the summer. Then has community service cleaning kennels of poop and urine at BARC and/or other animal shelters..Would serve him right, the low life douche bag.
Caught urinating in public? You gotta be shitting me
Those them off the scent…. a pun is the lowest form of comedy but i laughed.
That’s so typical—yeah, he’s mentally ill (shocker), so we’ll not charge him, we’ll just release him so he’ll find his way back to the same neighborhood and again do the same thing. The continuing nightmare issues we have with the homeless (vast majority are mentally ill) are because of the failure of the mental health facility’s in the United States. These people make living in areas like the Heights, Montrose etc, a nightmare at times. I’ve had several run ins with crazy homeless people and it’s scary, but when you call the cops all they do (of they come at all) is pick them up and dump them in some other neighborhood, where they quickly find their way back like some bad penny. I’m sure this isn’t over for Woodland Heights, he’ll be back, like some unwashed, gross, crazy version of The Terminator.
He must have ran out of prune juice.
I guess he went from their #2 to #1 suspect….
It’s cool that people find humor in this, but mental health issues in relation to the homeless is anything but funny. When he escalates from shitting on your driveway to threatening your kids or worse, will you be laughing then?
Vwgto: likely the best comment I’ve ever seen on this site.
@Shannon, it’s extremely difficult to keep mentally ill people in facilities without their consent. The Supreme Court made a ruling to that effect in the 70’s that led to wholesale emptying of mental institutions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Connor_v._Donaldson
This must’ve been the guy that pooped on our sidewalk three times when we were in the Woodland Heights.
>>I guess he went from their #2 to #1 suspect….
Now that’s comedy gold.
Shannon – I am terrified he might pee and poop on my kids. But that’s what I get for living in the Heights. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in Katy.
Why are they being all hush hush with his identity? Is it a cop?
@dose—I hope for your sake, but especially your kids, that you never run into one of the violent homeless–joke all you want, but when you come face to face with a complete lunitic, you won’t be laughing then, I assure you. You’ve obviously have never been a victim of violent crime.