Parents restrain sex offender accused of peeping at teen in restaurant bathroom
A group of parents held a registered sex offender accused of peeping under a bathroom stall at a South Carolina restaurant until cops arrived to arrest him, police said.
Douglas Lee Lane, 53, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was prevented from leaving a Cracker Barrel in Duncan, South Carolina, by parents at the restaurant after a teenage girl said she saw him peering at her from a neighboring stall in the women’s bathroom on Sunday, The State reports.
The 15-year-old girl said she noticed something moving near her feet inside the bathroom when she spotted a man’s head coming from the stall beside her, Duncan Police Chief Carl Long told WSPA.
The girl told her father what happened after leaving the bathroom, prompting him to ask a female employee to get Lane out of the restroom. The girl’s father then confronted him inside the restaurant, Long said.
A witness then saw Lane try to leave the restaurant by “sprinting out the front door” with a bloodied nose, but he was stopped in the parking lot by other parents who restrained him until cops arrived, Long said. It is unclear what happened to his nose.
The group of parents were in town for a softball tournament, Long told WYFF.
A viewer sent the station a photo of a bloodied Lane sitting on grass outside the Cracker Barrel.
“Get him, he’s getting away,” a witness told the station he overheard someone say inside the restaurant before Lane ran outside.
Lane, who was charged with voyeurism, simple possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, has four similar peeping convictions in North Carolina and South Carolina dating back to 1996. He has been ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, records show.
He had also been charged with peeping at least eight times prior to Sunday’s incident, WSPA reports.
A court official said during Lane’s bond hearing Monday that he told authorities he didn’t realize he was in a women’s bathroom until he sat down, WYFF reports.
A judge ordered him held on $2,000 surety bond and to wear a GPS monitor ahead of his next court date on Nov. 12, WSPA reports.