New details were released on Tuesday about how Hillsborough deputies caught a man accused of attacking a woman and taking her shorts as she was out for a jog on the Northdale trail.
Robert Hembree, 31, is the man deputies say grabbed a woman from behind as she was jogging.
“I mean, it is frightening because you think during the day that nothing could really happen,” said Jacinda Woodley, who lives nearby.
For almost two months, deputies couldn’t figure out who committed the crime, but that all changed when deputies say Hembree broke the law again.
“Hembree had approached our speed signs, one of those signs that tell everyone how fast they are going as you’re approaching it kind of as a warning and he went to vandalize it, and that vandalism was caught on a security camera of a local home,” said Danny Alvarez, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office spokesman.
Hembree later admitted to throwing a woman to the ground and seeing her naked from the waist down.
“It is terrifying, you are jogging and all the sudden someone jumps out of the bushes. This is stuff out of the movies, stuff that no one thinks happens and in this case to this poor woman, it actually happened so we are happy we’ve got him, took him off the streets,” said Alvarez.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office reminds you to always pay attention to your surroundings while you are out running or while you are out anywhere.
Even though many like to run with ear buds, they say that isn’t the best idea since you can’t hear what is going on around you.
