‘Masked prowler' caught on camera terrorizing Mesquite neighborhood

Mesquite homeowners hope police can track down a masked prowler who was caught on surveillance cameras in their neighborhood.

Preston Patterson is head of his neighborhood crime watch. He says it all started with a text from his neighbor Friday night.

“So she had texted me saying, 'Somebody tried to get into my house,'” said Patterson. “That really scared me and upset me with the mask.

Patterson says the woman was home alone with her kids at the time when someone rang the doorbell and jiggled the doorknob. When other neighbors checked their security cameras for anything suspicious, they found video of the masked prowler.

“Wow. The fact that they had a mask on, almost like stalked the camera and looked at the camera,” said neighbor Olden Hatcher. “I was like, that's bold.”

Patterson wonders if the masked creeper is part of this group of four young people behaving suspiciously his security cameras recorded them the same night.

“If they are teenagers or kids doing it, doing this sort of thing nowadays, I'm afraid they're going to get hurt first,” said Patterson.

Neighbors contacted Mesquite police who say they are investigating this and another similar report in the same neighborhood but can't say if the two are related.

“We haven't found any links to any other burglaries or incidents going on,” said Sgt. Joseph Thompson with the Mesquite Police Department. “It's isolated -- a single male as far as we know at this point.”

As police investigate, neighbors say they're keeping a close eye out and making sure they alert each other to any suspicious activity.

“This is not the neighborhood you want to mess with,” said Hatcher. “This is not the one.”