Naked man breaks into Draper home, creeps close to sleeping residents

DRAPER — It was a shocking sight caught on surveillance cameras in a Draper neighborhood: a naked man was going door to door trying to get into people’s homes early Tuesday morning.

“My ring doorbell shows him naked coming up to the front door,” homeowner Lynn Collier told KSL TV. It was a sight he could not believe. Nor could Mike Richards who’s backyard camera picked up the naked man trying to get into his sliding back door.

“We’re looking and we’re seeing a person buck naked, trying to gain access into our home. Pulling on the screen door, checking windows,” Richards said via zoom while elk hunting at Fish Lake in Central Utah.

“What in the world am I logging into? Am I looking at my door? You know, is this my house, and then I’m looking at it and I’m noticing the furniture, and I’m seeing my door and I’m going ‘Oh my gosh this is horrible.’ ”

At 4:30 a.m. the man found an unlocked back door to the Collier’s garage. He made his way through the garage and into the home, stopping in the kitchen for snacks.

“Twinkies and cupcakes. Had some of that,” Collier said.

He also went up their stairs and into the bathroom, just feet away from the master bedroom where Lynn Collier and his wife were sleeping.

“Spooky that I didn’t wake up,” he said. “just makes me sick.”

He also went into the basement, grabbing stuff along the way including Collier’s wallet, credit cards, check book and car keys. Thirty minutes later he walked out the front door wearing Collier’s shirt, shorts, new shoes and a baseball cap.

“I thought there were two people originally then as I looked [at the video] he had my shirt on,” he said.

He then stole Lynn’s car. Richards who was on the elk hunt said his phone started alerting him early Tuesday morning that someone was at his back door. He couldn’t believe it when he pulled up the video.

“I’m thinking, it’s probably a good thing that I’m not at home with my gun. Otherwise, there might be an issue,” Richards said.

Lt. Dustin Willie with Draper Police Department said the initial call came in just before 4 a.m., that there was a naked man behind some business along 11400 South and State Street. When officers arrived they said the man escaped into a nearby neighborhood.

A short time later they started getting calls from homeowners about the man. Police said Collier’s car was found abandoned and then they found the man and arrested him. They say he is 27 years old and told them he is living on the streets.

Willie said there were signs of mental illness and elicit drugs. He is now at the Salt Lake County Jail where he faces a variety of charges of lewdness and theft.

“The fear is anytime anybody is breaking into people’s houses that’s a dangerous, aggravated thing. You never know who is one the other side of that door and you never know who is coming in and what that person is capable of,” Willie said. That’s why he says to always lock up.

“Lock your house up, lock your things up.”

The Colliers said neighbors are worried because they are starting to see more of this lately, where homes are getting broken into, and more homeless people making their way into their neighborhood.

“There have been more than our share of incidents of people trying to get into houses,” Collier said.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase in the last couple of years,” Willie said.