Washington- A Washington sex offender was arrested Thursday near North Medford High School after appearing at in a nearby yard wearing only a rope around his waist.
A resident called police at about 7:30 a.m. to report a naked man clad only in a rope standing in her back yard on the 2000 block of Brookhurst Avenue.
“She described him as being covered in feces,” Medford police Lt. Mike Moran said.
Before he left the yard, Kelly James Bailey, 33, reportedly smashed a lawn chair and ran away with a strip of leopard-print vinyl peeled from the seat, Moran said.
About 90 minutes later, four North Medford High School female students were waiting in a car near the school when Bailey, now wearing blue jeans, but still covered in a substance approached the car. He asked the girls for a ride to the Red Carpet Inn on Riverside Avenue or the Rogue Valley Mall, Moran said.
“The girls wisely rolled up their windows and left,” Moran said.
The girls told the school resource officer about the man. Police then cruised by the school and saw Bailey running toward the south end of campus, Moran said.
“When we caught him, he still appeared to be covered in fecal matter,” Moran said. “He told us, though, he was partying with girls the night before and somehow ended up rolling around in tomato paste.”
As officers patted him down, they found that he had taken the leopard-print vinyl strip and used it and the rope-belt to fashion a primitive loin cloth, Moran said.
The officers then learned that Bailey, of Greenwater, Wash., had not registered as a sex offender after moving to Oregon. He has been in Medford for a couple of months staying at the Red Carpet Inn and working at a mall construction site, Moran said.
Bailey was lodged in Jackson County Jail on charges of failing to register as a sex offender, third-degree theft, third-degree criminal mischief and trespassing. He was held on $24,000 bail. The theft charge was for allegedly swiping the vinyl strip, Moran said.
“I think its definitely the strangest case of the day,” Moran said.