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Sleuthing Landlord Helps Cops Catch Fugitive Sex Offender

A sleuthing landlord helped police track down a fugitive sex offender after learning a 52-year-old man living in a trailer on his property may have been trying to lure teenage girls.

The landlord called police Tuesday and said he’d become suspicious of the man after hearing from friends he was trying to lure teenaged girls into his car.

When the landlord searched for the man’s name on a sex offender registry site, he discovered police in San Diego have been searching for his tenant since 2013.

The landlord called police, who went to the suspect’s trailer in the 3900 block of 25th Avenue South, but weren’t able to find him. However, officers did speak with a neighbor, who agreed to call police when they saw the suspect return to the trailer.

A few hours later, around 4 PM, the neighbor called as promised, and officers returned to the trailer and took the suspect into custody.

Following his arrest, the suspect asked police to grab his two cellphones out of a truck parked nearby. When an officer reached into the vehicle to grab the phones, the screen on one of the devices flashed the words “kids only.” Police weren’t immediately able to determine why the man had turned the creepiness setting on his phone all the way up, but police are working with authorities in California to investigate.

Officers booked the man into the King County Jail and seized the phone as evidence.