Neighborhood Surveillance Cams Help Police Capture Window Peeper
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (CBS4) - A serial window peeping suspect has been arrested in Fort Collins.
On Wednesday police arrested Steven Christensen for his alleged involvement in a number of window peeping cases over the last six months.
Investigators said several residents of Circle Drive reported suspicious activity on and around their property during the past several months. On several of the occasions, surveillance cameras captured the male suspect, later identified as Christensen, 57, on video.
One evening last November, Jessie McCaig, who lives on Circle Drive, saw a man approach her roommate's bedroom window and hold up his phone.
"He was standing right there looking in this window taking a picture of her," McCaig said, pointing to the window. "At that point it was like 'Oh wow,' if he's getting that brave and he's confident that he can just look at us in our own home, that's a scary feeling, like, it can escalate quickly to something more serious."
For nearly a month prior to the November incident, both McCaig and her roommate, Kylie Castleberry -- who said she was standing in her room with a towel wrapped around her when McCaig saw the man raise his phone to the window -- had the feeling someone was watching them. Their dogs would bark at odd hours overnight, suggesting something was happening outside, and at least once the women say they heard the handle to a door of their home turn, as though someone were trying to enter.
Castleberry could not shake a frightening feeling.
"That there'd be some creepy man that would try to snatch me, or hurt me, or do something weird," she said. "It's like, unreal, a little bit."
After the November incident, McCaig contacted police. Having heard similar complaints from other residents, a Circle Drive neighborhood group installed cameras around the women's home. Their nextdoor neighbor did the same, and found the suspect had made a habit of coming to her bedroom window on Tuesday nights.
McCaig and her roommates started taking extra precautions, watching each other walk the few yards from their cars to the front door of their home, and keeping windows covered 24/7.
"It's weird to have to go to strange lengths to make sure nobody is coming into my house," McCaig said.
Fort Collins Police spokeswoman Kate Kimble said the cameras captured the suspect several times, which helped investigators track Christensen's pattern.
On Wednesday, Kimble says a neighborhood enforcement team conducting additional patrols on Circle Drive noticed the suspect enter a victim's yard. When officers confronted Christensen, Kimble says he tried to run but was caught and taken into custody.
Christensen was booked into the Larimer County Jail on suspicion of invasion of privacy for sexual gratification, attempted invasion of privacy for sexual gratification, 4 counts of criminal trespass, and resisting arrest. Additional charges are pending.
On Thursday a judge granted Christensen $1,000 bond in the case and ordered he have no contact with the victims. He's due back in court next month.
Lauren DiSpirito is CBS4's Northern Newsroom reporter. Follow her on Twitter @CBS4Lauren. Share your story ideas with her here.
