Night route: simply means that with victims and when looking for new opportunities with boys, back roads were used at night. This was done to avoid being seen . . .
always took the back roads, never the highway.
Red dots: automatically generated courtesy of 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, Calif., simply denote road intersections on the map.
Ski masks are common in Minnesota. Their narrow piping can be likened to the striped appearance of indoor-outdoor carpet. See, for example:
www.amazon.com/6x24-Red-Indoor-Outdoor-Carpet/dp/B0097DMH4S
The use of winter apparel in warm months or in warm climates to commit sex crimes (including male-on-male assaults) is not uncommon. The obvious purpose of ski masks and large winter coats is to hide the assailants appearance and identity nothing bizarre about that.
See, for example:
Colorado in September:
http://www.collegian.com/2013/10/update-on-campus-sexual-assault/49439/
California in August:
http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/local/Police-Rapist-in-ski-mask-strikes-again-220422221.html
Texas in July:
http://lubbockonline.com/crime-and-...arged-second-lubbock-sex-assault#.UsIiMLSf-i0
And, of course, Minnesota in October - Sheriff John Sanner, Stearns County:
It was described as a dark-colored ski mask. [
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1102/28/ng.01.html]
That's interesting about the "carpet-like" mask. It ties in with an article from a while back on Joy's blog about some molestations in Paynesville. One of the boys described the perp's mask as looking like candy-striped carpeting.
"Local police seek help in accosting incidents
The Paynesville Police Department is seeking public support in apprehending a man that has been accosting young men in the Paynesville community. So far there have been five different incidents reported.
Sergeant Bill Drager, Paynesville Police Department, said, We need help, all the help we can get.
According to Sgt. Drager, the incidents began last summer, there were two more incidents during the winter, one incident occured this spring and another last week.
The police are taking these incidents very seriously.
Sgt. Drager stated, After this guy grabs the boys he tells them, Dont turn around or Ill blow your head off and in at least one instance he used a knife. The man then makes sexual advances to the boys.
The young men that have been assaulted range in age from 12-16 years of age. The kids are scared, Sgt. Drager said.
There doesnt appear to be any pattern to the area that the attacks take place. One incident happened by the river, another in the hockey rink area, downtown Ben Franklin area, middle school playground, and the alley between the middle school and the hospital.
The last incident happened when two young men were riding their bikes home. One young man was grabbed off of his bike and the other young man went for help.
In every instance, the young men had been downtown before they were accosted. It think hes picking them out downtown and then following them home or lying in wait for them to go home, Sgt. Drager said.
Every instance occurred on a weekend night after dark between 9:30pm and 2:00am.
The suspect wore a mask on several occasions. Sgt. Drager said one young man described the mask as looking like it was made out of indoor-outdoor candy-striped carpeting.
The man is supposedly 511″ tall, not fat, but chunky. In the last incident, he had blackened everything so that you couldnt make out anything on his face. He can run fast, according to witnesses."