Victim: 'That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard, the weirdest fetish'
By Matt Markovich
A Pierce County woman fell victim to the bizarre acts of the so-called "TriMet barber" before he began allegedly g cutting and applying Super Glue to the hairs of women in Oregon, according to police records.
PUYALLUP, Wash. -- A Pierce County woman fell victim to the bizarre acts of the so-called "TriMet barber" before he began targeting women in Oregon, according to police documents.
Jared Walter is in jail in Oregon, suspected of cutting unsuspecting women's hair aboard buses there and, in some cases, even applying Super Glue to the women's hair.
But records show Walter, 22, first targeted a woman in Puyallup.
Drina Ellison said she was shopping at the McLendon Hardware last May when she first noticed a man standing next to the shopping carts. She didn't think twice about the man, she said.
When she walked out to the garden department, an undercover McLendon's security guard tackled that same guy right next to her. But she still didn't think anything of it; she thought it was a shoplifter, she said.
But that's when the security guard told her the shocking news.
"(The guard said) 'This guy just sprayed Super Glue in your hair, and we saw him do it,'" Ellison said. "That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard, the weirdest fetish.
"I was pulling Super Glue out of my hair for days even after washing it."
And investigators say Ellison isn't alone.
Debbie Smith's glued hair is seen in this photo.
Walter is accused of cutting the hair of three unsuspecting women on city buses in Oregon, and applying Super Glue to the hair of two others. Detectives believe he may have been responsible for gluing Debbie Smith's hair at a Fred Meyer store in Portland.
"I'm walking around the store and my hair starts to feel funny, so I put my hand on the back of my head and I've got this stuff on my head," Smith said. "I wasn't quite sure what to think - and you're actually so stunned that you don't. Then it dawned on me that it was Super Glue."
Smith said it took a week to get the glue out. She used everything from rubbing alcohol to mayonnaise, to peanut butter. Eventually, she had to cut out a chunk of her hair.
He's also accused of breaking into a neighbor's apartment in Oregon and pouring oil on the woman's hair as she slept.
Investigators have connected Walter to three similar incidents that took place in Texas before Walter moved to the Northwest. A surveillance camera at a Texas grocery store apparently caught him hanging out at the front door, waiting for his next victim.
The story is all too familiar to Ellison.
"There has to be something wrong with him," said Ellison. "You just don't wake up in the morning and (decide) like, 'I'm just going to go to McLendon's and stand in front of McLendon's and put Super Glue in somebody's hair.'"
Walter was convicted of assaulting Ellison and ordered to pay her $100 to fix her hair.
Investigators are urging any additional potential victims in the case to contact them.
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"You learn more from losing than you do from winning." Lou Pinella