Man who left women’s underwear as experiment arrested

A man has been charged with leaving women’s underwear in a forest for what he claimed was an experiment.

William V. Winnie has been charged with obscenity, disorderly conduct and littering after he was arrested earlier this month in Pratt’s Wayne Woods near the village of Wayne, Illinois

The 67-year-old said he left the underwear, some of it in plastic bags, along the Illinois Prairie Path in a DuPage County forest preserve as part of an experiment, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Police say they were first alerted in October by people who had spotted the underwear, some of which was accompanied by pornographic photos, near a bridge along the path in the preserve.

Officers from the forest preserve police then set up remote cameras to monitor the path in a bid to find the perpetrator.

Images of a cyclist stopping at points where the clothing had been found were recorded.

Winnie was stopped at 6am on December 2 while riding his bicycle when he stopped at the bridge and picked up a plastic bag containing women’s underwear.

Police were first alerted when members of the public kept finding underwear and so set up cameras to catch the perpetrator 

Winnie was arrested on his bicycle at 6am. He said he planted the garments to see what happened to them 

He told officers he had left the clothing there about a week earlier.

A police report said Winnie told them he would routinely find underwear hanging from the trees along the Prairie Path.

He would take the underwear home, place in the plastic bags and then leave them at the bridge.

‘He described his actions as an experiment and said he wanted to see where it would go,’ the report said, adding that Winnie reported leaving 15 to 20 pairs over the previous year.

Winnie said he did not know anything about the photos found with some of the clothing.

He does not have any criminal records in DuPage County and was released on bond to appear in court on January 8.