Campers tie up man accused of peeping at women

ESTACADA, Ore. - A group of campers over the weekend caught a man they say was watching women go to the bathroom in the woods - a man who allegedly told them he had been doing similar peeping for the past 15 years.

Richard Henry Berkey, 63, of Beaverton, was cited for private indecency and released, authorities said.

According to the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office, the discovery came about 7 p.m. Saturday at the Big Fan Campground near Bagby Hot Springs in Estacada.

Jason Dugan and Charles Gelder apparently noticed something in the dense foliage near the tents and went to get a better look. They found a man trying to creep out of the latrine area without being seen. Dugan chased down the man and, with the help of other campers, brought the man back to the campsite, where they tied him to a tree and had a camper go call police.

As they waited for authorities to arrive, the man allegedly told campers that he had been doing such peeping for years as a kind of hobby, the sheriff's office said.

The campers believed it was the same guy they had found doing the same thing at the same campsite a year earlier. They reported the incident to law enforcement at the time but no criminal charges were filed.

When sheriff's deputies arrived, they arrested him and found the man with various national forest maps. He had driven to the area in a white 1999 Ford F-150 pickup truck with Oregon license plate XBT-246.

The sheriff's office asked anyone with information about the man or similar peeping incidents to call the sheriff's office tip line at (503) 723-4949.