Indiana man who stalked 'thousands of women' finally arrested after threatening to sexually assault woman
An Indiana man has confessed to stalking "thousands of women" over the past several years. He claimed that he spent 12 years tracing one woman to suburban Detroit after she managed to elude him in 2004 when she moved to Michigan from Indianapolis.
According to the Detroit Free Press, 42-year-old Steven Craig Mason was arrested this past December after he finally made a mistake while stalking that same woman.
A threatening call he made to her residence was traced by detectives from the Royal Oak Police Department to a small frame home in Anderson, Indiana, where he was found to be living with his mother.
Mason first came to the attention of the authorities that month after the victim, a resident of Royal Oak, contacted the police to report that an unknown man called her cell phone and made threats to find her and sexually assault her.
While the call came from a blocked number, she recognized the voice as that of the same unknown person who had stalked her several years ago while she was still living in Indiana. She said she had received similar calls from that person multiple times between 2001 and 2004.
During the same time period, neighbors in Anderson told her they had seen a man parked at various times in different vehicles outside her apartment complex, but local police were unsuccessful in their attempts to identify and apprehend him.
The calls continued even after she moved to Michigan in 2004, though they stopped for more than a decade after she managed to conceal her identity. When it resumed again after that call in December, the man reportedly told her he had spent years tracing her to Royal Oak.
This time around, detectives were able to track him to his home and contacted the Anderson Police Department for assistance. A search warrant was subsequently executed at the residence that resulted in his arrest, and the US Department of Homeland Security seizing his computer. His mother is said to have indicated to police that she was "terrified of her son" and fully cooperated with investigators.
They are now combing through his computer files to identify other potential victims, with Royal Oak Police Chief Corrigan O'Donohue saying, "Royal Oak detectives did an outstanding job with this case. This victim and potentially many others have been living in a state of constant fear. We are glad, after all these years, to give this young woman some peace."
Mason was extradited from Indiana to appear before District Judge Jamie Wittenberg in Royal Oak's 44th District Court. He was arraigned this past Tuesday, May 7, and was charged with one count of aggravated stalking. If convicted, the felony carries a maximum possible sentence of five years in prison.
He is currently being held at the Oakland County Jail on a $100,000 cash bond.