Little Rock police searched for a masked man exposing himself to Little Rock children for four months before they developed sufficient evidence to focus on one person, according to testimony at an evidentiary hearing Tuesday.
That probe ended with the September 2012 arrest of 35-year-old Brandon Charles Runion of Benton, after a police officer, part of a team trying to keep him under surveillance, saw him engaging in a lewd act in front of a 14-year-old girl on Evergreen Drive, detective Tabitha Carter testified.
Runion was driving a 2008 blue Jeep Patriot that had its license plate removed when he was taken into custody, and detectives had secretly placed a tracking device on it five days earlier, Carter told Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson at Tuesday's hearing.
Runion and his attorney, Lou Marczuk, challenged the legality of police using the tracking device on Runion's sport utility vehicle.
Prosecutor Jeanna Sherrill argued that police had sufficient evidence to justify the use of the tracker.
The judge sided with the prosecutor and upheld the device's use.
Runion, who did not testify, is scheduled to stand trial in March on three counts of sexual indecency with a child, charges that together carry a potential 18-year prison sentence.
The case has been delayed because Runion's original attorney suffered a serious long-term illness and did not withdraw from the case until last year. Marczuk took over as defense counsel last July.
Carter said the investigation began around the end of April 2012 when police were called to the Fletcher Library on North Buchanan Street where two girls and two boys, ages 13 and 14, reported they had seen a man in a black ski mask and gray hoodie standing next to a dark-colored Jeep with no license plate who had exposed his genitals to them and chased them.
The man's description matched "numerous" complaints police had received from other children about indecent exposure, the detective said.
Later that same day, police got a complaint about a dark Jeep with no license plate being driven in the area of Lee Avenue and North Martin Street, which is about 2 miles from the library, Carter said.
A tip the next month led police to a Jeep Cherokee owner, but that man was able to prove to police he was out of town at the time of the Fletcher Library encounter, Carter told the judge.
In July 2012, detectives learned that security guards at the Park Plaza Mall at West Markham Street and North University Avenue had seen a masked man driving a dark colored Jeep in the parking lot, she said.
Carter told the judge she could tell from the mall surveillance video that the Jeep was a Patriot model, although the video does not show the driver's face.
Also in July 2012, a woman reported she had followed a masked man driving a Kia Soul that was missing its license plate. The woman said she had gone out looking for a masked man who had scared the daughters of a friend when they encountered him in the parking lot of the Hobby Lobby on West Markham Street and then drove by their home about 2 miles away, the detective testified.
But Runion's name first surfaced as a potential suspect in August 2012 when a patrol officer, Brandon Eggerth, recalled having stopped the defendant for driving a blue Hyundai Tiberon that was missing its license plate. Carter told the judge the Tiberon matched the description of a vehicle that had been seen following school buses and children in the area.
After a background check showed that another officer had ticketed Runion in June 2012 for driving a 2008 blue Patriot without license plates, Carter told the judge that she and fellow detective Marilyn Scott drove to Runion's Benton home, where they saw both a Kia Soul and a blue Patriot parked in the driveway, both of them with license plates.
A week after that, a 15-year-old girl reported seeing a man in a ski mask dressed all in black and performing a lewd act in front of her when she got off the school bus at Ash and Woodlawn Street, the detective said.
Two hours later, Carter told the judge, she went to the Chenal Parkway restaurant where Runion worked and saw that his Jeep did not have its license plate on it.
The following week in September 2012, Carter testified, she got a warrant from Little Rock District Judge Alice Lightle to put the tracker on Runion's Jeep for 45 days. She attached the device herself while the Jeep was parked at the restaurant.
Seven days later, Runion was arrested.
That day, Carter told the judge, she and other detectives were monitoring Runion as he drove the Jeep, partially through visual surveillance and partially through the tracking device.
After Runion was seen in the 5300 block of Evergreen Drive exposing himself to the girl, police stopped him in front of Mount St. Mary Academy on Kavanaugh Boulevard, where they found the Jeep's license plate under the passenger seat and a face mask, Carter testified.
Metro on 02/03/2016