A man in a Chucky doll mask is still being hunted in Philadelphia after allegedly chasing a female runner, laughing at victims and asking people if they were “ready to die.”
Luanda Marinho, 40, said she was near 12th and Chestnut streets with a friend around 5:30 a.m. last Wednesday when the masked stranger approached and challenged them to run.
“He’s like wanna race me? But I’m faster than you guys. Let’s race. He sounded very young,” Marinho said.
The encounter moved from strange to frightening as Marinho tried to get away near City Hall.
Video released by Philadelphia police put the masked man behind her as she crossed through an intersection, then changing direction when she turned around.
On a five-lane road, Marinho was still only feet ahead of him.
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The suspect crossed traffic and veered toward the sidewalk as she kept running down the road. Police said Marinho fell and injured herself while trying to escape.
The masked man fled the area and went into a train station.
Marinho said the Chucky mask and the early hour made the stranger’s approach feel dangerous instead of harmless.
“I just want to run in peace. It’s not much to ask,” Marinho said. “I was definitely scared because it’s not normal for someone wearing a mask at that time of the day.”
Police said the runner was not the only person confronted.
The same suspect allegedly ran up to several people, laughed at victims and asked if they were “ready to die.”
He also ended up inside a Dunkin’, where he was refused service because of the mask before leaving after erratic behavior.
One woman told police she was confronted twice and ran while “screaming for help this entire time.”
Another victim said the suspect appeared to be recording the encounters on his cellphone.
Jameka, who declined to share her last name, told WPVI that she saw the masked man with a phone in his hand shortly after he had chased another woman.
From across the intersection, she tried to alert the woman that someone was behind her.
“I started to wave at her from across the intersection and say, ‘Hey, there’s someone behind you – look behind you!’ And she heard me, and then she started to run away,” Jameka said.
The woman being followed screamed “don’t follow me” and raised her hands in a fighting stance, Jameka recalled.
Jameka said she blocked her face, protected her centerline and watched the suspect raise his own hands.
“I blocked my face, making sure my centerline was protected. And then he also started to put his hands up but I could tell that he’d never been in a fight before,” she told WPVI.
Jameka said the man appeared “disoriented” and ran off after she kicked him.
Philadelphia investigators released photos of the suspect wearing the Chucky mask and carrying a blue plaid backpack.
One image had the doll mask off, but a balaclava still covered most of his face.
Police described the suspect as a 5-foot-8 Black male believed to be between 16 and 20 years old.
If he is apprehended, police said he will face felony terroristic threats, harassment, simple assault and reckless endangerment charges.
Philadelphia Police Capt. Jason Smith said investigators believe more people may have encountered him.
“He was able to accost a good many of people, most of which haven’t come forward yet,” Smith said.
The Philadelphia search came in the same month another masked teenager was charged in a deadly Illinois case involving a costume, a Ring camera and a 78-year-old man attacked near a bus stop.
Illinois State Police said John Wesley Allen Sr. was waiting at a bus stop in East St. Louis when a 15-year-old dressed in a clown outfit randomly attacked him.
Officers had gone to an East St. Louis intersection on a Monday evening after reports of a body in the road. The St. Clair County Coroner identified the victim as Allen, FirstAlert4 reported.
The teen’s name was not released. He was taken into custody as part of the homicide investigation and later charged with first-degree murder.
Allen’s family said the intersection where he was found was near a bus stop he often used before making surprise visits to his sister, Delores Fowler.
Fowler, 82, told NBC News that her brother would call to see whether she was home before she picked him up from the MetroLink station or bus stop.
“He was a very friendly person. He would talk to anybody. He just loved people,” Fowler said.
She said the family wants the teenage suspect prosecuted as an adult.
“We want him tried as an adult,” Fowler said. “He took a person’s life for no reason.”
Less than an hour before police arrived, Ring camera video shared by East St. Louis resident Lora Palmer showed the teen in the clown costume at a nearby home. Palmer said the camera belonged to her mother.
The masked suspect could be heard whispering either “I have a gift for you” or “I’ve been looking for you.”
Special agents identified the teenager as the suspect, found him at a nearby residence and took him into custody.
Illinois State Police said videos of the suspect in the clown costume had been circulating and investigators were working to collect all relevant video.
Law enforcement said after the arrest that there was no remaining threat to the public.
Allen was pronounced dead at shortly before 11:30 p.m., the St. Clair County coroner told PEOPLE.
