A man with a long criminal history of stealing women's clothing,
underwear and shoes in Iowa has apparently made his way to Florida and
is accused now of doing the same thing again.
Over the past week, multiple Pinellas Park families have been victimized
by the man who apparently has been going up to families who like to
leave shoes outside their homes, and is stealing the shoes, sometimes
replacing those shoes with other shoes.
Two of the victims shared their home surveillance video which clearly
shows a man running up to their homes and taking shoes.
Fed up by the strange criminal activity, one family took action into
their own hands, saying they watched and waited as the man returned
again, catching him in the act, then confronting and restraining him as
they called police officers.
According to Pinellas Park police, the man responsible is Rusty Wayne
Sills, 56 of Largo, was arrested on Saturday morning after the family
caught him.
The van that Sills drove to the Pinellas Park home had approximately 100
pairs of women's shoes inside, according to police.
Despite the fact that he denied every being to the woman's home,
officers did recover the shoes that were stolen from her home on
Thursday.
Sills is charged with burglary and remains in the Pinellas County Jail
and his bond is set at $10,000.
Pinellas Park police say there are several more similar cases regarding
the theft of women's shoes.
Records show Sills was once described as an underwear bandit in
West Des Moines, Iowa.
10 years ago he was arrested for allegedly stealing hundreds of pairs of
women's underwear and shoes from an apartment complex's laundry room.
Back in 1979, West Des Mois police charged Sills with burglary of
women's underwear.
In 1999, it was reported he stole shoes from female students at Iowa
State University, where ISU Police reportedly found 185 pairs of shoes
in his Des Moines apartment.
He was convicted of theft that time, as well as many any other times in
Iowa and in Florida over the past 30 years or so.
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