A Florida man, freshly released from jail, allegedly went on a rampage through a quiet Pinellas Park neighborhood smashing property, trying to break into homes, and terrorizing residents.
Joshua Neal Garrison, 23, was captured on surveillance video as he strolled through the neighborhood naked on the night of October 7, erratically swinging an axe.
Tim Reischmann and his wife said they didn’t realize what had happened until the next morning, when they noticed things out of place in their backyard.
“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,” Reischmann recalled to FOX13.
When he checked the security footage, what he saw was disturbing.
“Here’s this creepy guy in the sliding glass door, naked,” he said. “Absolutely horrified.”
The video showed the man trying door handles, removing window screens, and pressing himself against the glass.
“You can see where they saw his blood and got his fingerprints,” Reischmann said. “He tries the door, and then he starts pleasuring himself and wiping it on the door knob.”
“He went into my shed, grabbed an axe and came back on my porch,” he added. “We don’t know why he didn’t use it.”
The odd occurrence didn’t just happened at the Reischmann house. Police say he caused destruction at multiple properties in the neighborhood that night.
“I was asleep, and the doorbell rang, and I answered the door,” neighbor David Dale said about his surprise 10 p.m. guest. “Opened the door and there was a guy standing there, and he was stark naked.”
Dale said the man then began destroying property outside his home.
“He threw a pot of plants through my truck window and tore the lights off the front of my house,” he said.
Neighbors said the situation could have turned deadly.
“We are all Second Amendment people here in Pinellas Park; we will shoot you,” one neighbor warned, according to FOX13. “He got lucky we didn’t wake up.”
Garrison was taken into custody, but some of the residents, like the Reischmanns, said they’re terrified the man might return.
“I made sure I was in court to let the judge know, look, this is more than a simple burglary,” he said. “There was a sexual and a violent component to this that needed to be expressed.”
Reischmann said he was shocked to learn that Garrison had been released early from jail days earlier. According to court records viewed by FOX13, 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.
“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.”
Garrison has been charged with armed residential burglary, criminal mischief, violation of probation for grand theft auto, and violation of probation for fleeing and eluding.
