Unsolved mysteries come in all shapes and sizes. The ones that get the most attention tend to be things like unexplained murders or missing people, odd phenomena, maybe a robbery or two. Sometimes, you’ll find a type of unsolved mystery that stands on its own. For this tale, we are headed to the city of Akron.
In May 2012, a young man called the police with a rather unusual complaint. At some point during the previous night, someone had defecated on his 2000 Toyota Celica. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the caller also told authorities that this was the second time it had happened.
The police didn’t have much further information to go on. After a brief canvass of neighbors, none of whom admitted to seeing anything unusual the ngiht before, there weren’t any leads to follow.
On December 5, 2012, a young lady called the police with a rather unusual complaint. Someone had flung feces on the hood of her 2002 Mitsubishi Galant. Two weeks later, on December 19th, she called police because it had happened again.
A little under a year later, on August 14, 2013, a young lady’s 2002 Toyota Celica was reported to have been pooped on. She reported that this was the second time such a thing had happened.
Nearly a month later, on 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier a lady called to report that her 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier had excrement smeared on her doors and door handles. A few weeks later, she would call back saying someone had smeared poop on her doors again, but this time also the hood of her car.
By October 15, 2014, the Akron village of Kenmore was getting a rather disgusting reputation. The serial pooper struck again. This time, a teenager’s 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier was targeted and smeared with poo. The Bowel Movement Bandit was reported to have struck again in January and March of 2015.
March 10, 2015
It is impossible to know how many victims of the serial pooper there were, as several of the people who reported it waited until it had happened more than once. According to the rumors that were spreading around the Akron suburbia, many people didn’t feel the need to report it at all. If the police were already doing everything that they could to catch the guy, they might not have felt that adding their own personal embarrassment was going to do much good.
Some of the Kenmore residents were doing what they could to help, many doing things like putting doorbell cameras on their front porch and reviewing the footage whenever there was an incident nearby.
On March 10, 2015, this provided the police with their first, solid lead. A personal home security camera produced a few very good (but far from perfect) images of the man, including at least one taken during the act. This image was sent to the police to aid their investigation and almost immediately it was released to the news media. Suddenly, the slightly censored image was broadcast on television all across the state – and beyond.
Still, somehow – no positive identification could be made.
Theories and Suspects
By March, police had identified at least nineteen cars the serial pooper had done his thing on, many of which were targeted multiple times. Several of the people who called the police chose not to file an official report, limiting the information released to the public.
Other than the identity of the serial pooper, one question remained on most people’s minds – Why?
To some, this was a clear example of criminal mischief – perhaps a disgusting prank or the actions of an inebriated individual who didn’t care about what he was doing to other people. Others felt that this was the action of a person with mental health issues, saying that anyone who thought this kind of thing was okay to do must have some mental issues going on. Whether the goal was to put the serial offender in prison or an institution, it didn’t matter. People just wanted this to stop.
The police never commented on any connection between victims, believing that they were chosen at random. The cars were all various makes and models, their owners male and female, young and old – there was not a single thing all the victims had in common.
Of those who spoke with the police, several of them stated that they believed to know who had done this, at least to them (they could never explain why it happened to the other victims). For example, one victim was going through a messy, contentious divorce and tried to pin the blame on her soon-to-be ex-husband. Another female victim had called the police to report an incident with a stalker several weeks before her car was hit, believing this to be the work of the same man.
After the photo of the man was widely circulated from Akron to Cleveland, Columbus to Chicago, even papers in California and New York published the photo) in early March, 2015 – the pooper has stopped, just as mysteriously as he began.
One reporter, Bob Dyer of the Akron Beacon Journal, came up with at least one potential solution – shortly after the incidents stopped in Ohio, someone pointed out to him that a serial pooper was now active in Norway. There were some differences between the two stories – the Norwegian pooper was doing his business in golf courses, leaving his deposit in the holes golfers were trying to get their balls into.
Like in Ohio, Norwegian officials had no clue as to the identity of the mysterious pooper. No pictures existed, but they were fairly certain that it was a man as they believed the poops were too large to have come from a woman.
Other than the crimes being slightly similar – there is no evidence that the Ohio pooper even owns a passport.
The Bowl Movement Bandit Today
By now, I have all but given up hope that we may someday learn the identity of the Bowl Movement Bandit … the Kenmore Pooper … The Akron Fecal Artist … or whatever name you want to call the guy by.
There does not seem to be any further reports of a man flinging his poop onto cars or defecating through open sunroofs.
Yet, the memory of the serial pooper does keep coming up from time to time, either as a “remember when” feature, or that time it was brought up in reference to a political candidate who happened to be from the same area (Why elect this guy, he’s from the same place that produced the serial pooper) … Sigh.
