PINELLAS PARK, Fla. – A Pinellas Park couple said they woke up to a nightmare they didn’t even know happened until they checked their security cameras the next day.
What they saw was X-rated and terrifying: A naked intruder roaming their property, arming himself with an axe, pleasuring himself on their sliding glass door and trying to get inside while they slept just inches away.
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The backstory:
Homeowner David Dale said the ordeal began at his front door at around 10 p.m. on October 7.
“The doorbell rang, and then the motion light was on, so I answered the door and the guy’s standing there, naked,” he said.
Dale called police as the stranger began tearing things up outside.
“That pot there was inside on the front seat [of the truck], so I’ve taped up the window for now,” said Dale.
The man broke the lights on their garage, a mirror off their golf cart and wreaked havoc in their backyard as officers searched the neighborhood.
“They brought a dog. They brought the helicopter,” said Dale.
Dig deeper:
The man disappeared, but security video revealed a chilling scene, taking place just down the street. In the morning, Tim Reischmann woke up to find things out of place.
“Things are not right in the house, on the back porch. I go out back and the shed door is open, and then I look around the corner and the screen is off,” he said.
He checked his cameras and recoiled.
“Here’s this creepy guy in the sliding glass door, naked. Absolutely horrified,” he said.
The video showed the man climbing the fence and coming right up to the couple’s bedroom window, just inches from where they slept.
“You can see where they saw his blood and got his fingerprints,” said Reischmann. “He tries the door, and then he starts pleasuring himself and wiping it on the door knob.”
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Reischmann said the intruder removed window screens, tried the doors, then lingered. The man then opened their porch door, walked inside, pressed himself up against their sliding glass door, leading into their home,
“He then he goes out, goes to our shed, gets an axe, comes around, comes back in the porch here.”
Video showed the man hiding in the shed for roughly two and a half hours, during that police search, before walking out a side gate.
What we know:
A week later, Pinellas Park police said they arrested Joshua Neal Garrison. The Reischmanns said they finally exhaled – somewhat.
“A couple of nights it was me sitting up, gun in my lap, you know, which is not what you want to do,” he said.
They are still processing having their sense of peace and safety violated.
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“We were terrified he was going to come back,” Reischmann said.
They were alarmed to learn Garrison had been released from jail just two days before the alleged burglary spree.
“He’s obviously escalating, and he’s dangerous in a sexual and violent way when he armed himself with the axe and came back into our porch.”
Court records show Garrison was sentenced on grand theft auto charges in July and was scheduled to be in jail until December. It’s unclear why he was released early.
Why you should care:
Reischmann made it a point to attend Garrison’s bond hearing on Wednesday.
“I made sure I was in court to let the judge know, look, this is more than a simple burglary. There was a sexual and a violent component to this that needed to be expressed,” he said.
The couple’s warning to others: Check your cameras, lock everything and report anything suspicious immediately.
The Source: Sources for this report include information provided by the Pinellas Park Police Department, interviews with neighbors, surveillance video and court records.