Naked man rampages in a garbage truck

Police say the man streaked through Clearwater Beach, assaulting people, pushing his way into hotel rooms and fighting would-be captors.

By JANE MEINHARDT

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 22, 2000

CLEARWATER -- A naked man ran amok on Clearwater Beach early Tuesday, hijacking a garbage truck, forcing his way into motel rooms and trying to steal a semitrailer truck before he surrendered.

[Times photo: Jim Damaske] Wearing the shreds of a shirt, Anthony M. Childs is taken Tuesday by Clearwater police to the county jail.

Several people suffered minor cuts and bruises in struggles with the man, but no one was seriously injured.

"I was coming back from a walk on the beach and saw this much disheveled young man running," said Mona Curry, a British visitor staying at the Clearwater Beach Hilton. "People were running after him, and when I got closer, I saw he had nothing on but a torn shirt. It was a surprising thing to see on the beach in the morning."

Anthony M. Childs, who turns 25 on Friday, was arrested when he was surrounded by police and motel employees in front of the Clearwater Beach Hilton.

Childs, of 2018 Alpine Road in Clearwater, was charged with carjacking, attempted carjacking, auto burglary, aggravated battery, battery and grand theft. He was held at Pinellas County Jail in lieu of $261,000 bail.

Valerie Yates, Childs' cousin, said he has been having financial problems and was fired Monday from his job in the shipping department at a Largo medical supply business.

"He just needs some help," Yates said. "He's really not like this."

Clearwater Officer Michael Duffey, who arrested Childs, said: "He didn't say much at all. We have no idea why he did what he did. I've never seen anything like this."

The first hint of trouble was an 8 a.m. report that a city garbage truck was hijacked by a naked man who had, minutes earlier, jumped into the open back of the truck and laid in the refuse.

The man, later identified as Childs, then pulled the driver out of the truck in the 600 block of Cyprus Avenue and drove away, Duffey said. The city's truck driver suffered a head injury.

The truck headed south to Bay Esplanade, turned onto Mandalay Avenue, went to Baymont Street and then to N Gulfview Boulevard, where it was abandoned.

After making his way to the Clearwater Beach Hilton at 400 Mandalay Ave., the naked man knocked on the door to Room 505 and announced that he was from room service. Duffey said the man pushed his way into the room and struggled briefly with a guest before being pushed back out of the room.

He also struggled with a guest in Room 508 before hotel employees and security guards confronted him. The man darted down the stairs after slugging a security guard. He ran into the hotel parking lot.

A semitrailer truck from Alliant Foods was making a delivery at the hotel. The man climbed into the truck's cab, Duffey said, but could not start the engine. The truck's driver and hotel employees forced him to get out of the truck.

"I got punched twice," said Matt Kinley, the hotel's operations director. "He was lashing out at anybody who confronted him. He never said a word."

The man ran to a pickup pulling into the parking lot and jumped into the truck's bed. Charles Cassini, the truck's driver and the hotel's chief engineer, slammed on the brakes. The naked man ran out to Mandalay, where hotel maintenance employee Dan Rupert spoke to him.

"He told him that the police were coming, and that they had guns," Duffey said. "He told him to stop. He just stopped dead right there and waited for us."

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