By Tim Binnall
Putting an unsettling twist on the creepy clown phenomenon, a Massachusetts man has been arrested for allegedly harassing women while wandering along a walking trail dressed as an old-timey mime. According to a local media report, the bizarre case began around two months ago when the costume-clad individual first appeared at the Cochituate Rail Trail. "He passed me when I was going down the path," resident Chris Neofotistos reportedly recalled, "kind of freaked me out a bit. Top hat, Dracula paint on his face, black cape, cane. Real creepy." Word of the weirdo haunting the trail quickly became the talk of local social media with several people sharing photos and videos from their sightings of the peculiar stranger.
Hopes that the man was merely an eccentric individual out for a stroll were seemingly upended on Sunday night when police arrested the mysterious mime, identified as Hernan Asael Villagran Lux. At an arraignment on Monday for criminal harassment charges, it was explained that authorities had received calls from three separate female Department of Conservation and Recreation staff members who work at the trail and had grown concerned about his increasingly erratic behavior. "The women report an extensive number of contacts with the defendant involving him staring at them, smiling in what they describe as 'a really unnerving and frankly terrifying manner,'" said Framingham District Court Supervisor Andrew Mange.
Chillingly, he also recounted one particularly troubling incident wherein the suspect allegedly "stripped down to his underwear, slathered cooking oil all over his body and began working out right by their staff area." As if the situation were not strange enough, as Mange laid out the case against Lux at the arraignment, the suspect suddenly fainted, causing the proceeding to briefly stop while he received medical attention. As one might imagine, frequent visitors to the walking trail were relieved to hear that appearances by the mysterious mime are likely a thing of the past, with one resident musing, "I just don't understand what goes through someone's head to do that ... I hope this guy gets the help that he needs."