Spicer Conant
An Escondido man had been harassing teenage female victims for over the course of this past year, trying to get the teens to enter his red convertible after asking for directions. He would pull up to the victims and bribe them to get in his car by offering money. Most victims refused to get in the car, but a couple of the victims were persuaded by the man.
On May 9th, 2016 around 1:45 pm, a 16-year-old female was offered $10 dollars by the man and agreed to get in the car. After several minutes of driving around, the man dropped the female off. A witness on the scene took pictures of the victim and the suspect, while they were in the car. The incident was reported to police.
Upon investigation, police were able to identify the man as 46-year-old, Spicer Conant, a resident of San Marcos. It was deemed that no crime had been committed and the case was suspended.
Then in the morning of March 15th, a man in a red car had reportedly asked an 11-year-old girl for directions, as she was walking to school. The victim ignored the driver and kept walking.
A few days later, on March 20th, a 27-year-old female was approached by the same man in the red car. He asked her for directions multiple times, and the female victim managed to capture a photo of the man on her cell phone.
The two incidents led to a re-opening of the case that happened back in May of 2016. On Tuesday, Escondido detectives held a surveillance on Conant. During the surveillance video in a span of about 90 minutes, Conant had went around the Mission Ave/Broadway area and asked 5 female minors to get into his car. The last female that was approached got into Conant’s car.
Immediately after the victim got into the car, police stopped the car and took Conant into custody. An illegal assault rifle was located in his car.
Conant was booked for 19 counts, which included nine counts of attempted kidnapping, seven counts of annoying or molesting a child under the age of 18, two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and one count of possession of an assault weapon.
His bail has been set at $929,500.
