DETROIT, MI — Ronald A. Dotson is a 39-year-old man with a problem. Actually, he’s a 39-year-old man with several problems, perhaps the least of them being that he has a major mannequin fetish.In addition to adoring the dolls, Dotson appears to have an impulse control problem. The evidence is his history of breaking store windows and stealing female mannequins from their display cases.
According to Detroit police, the most recent mannequin to catch his eye lured him from behind the glass of a cleaning-supply company while wearing a black and white French maid’s uniform.
His attorney, Edward Cohn, admits that his client has a problem, but doesn’t believe it’s been addressed by the legal system. “Mr. Dotson went to prison and they haven’t helped him,” he pointed out. “He got out of prison and he was right back out there. It’s pretty bizarre.”
The judge at Dotson’s last court appointment agreed with Cohn’s conclusion about his fetish, because he ordered the man to undergo a psychiatric examination to determine whether he was even competent to stand trial on the comparably mundane charges of attempting to break and enter. Given that Dotson had been a free man for less than a week and his experiences with mannequins goes back 13 years and includes six convictions, the question is a good one.
Detective Brendan Moore explained that Dotson had told his parole officer that his intention was to buy his own mannequin, so he wouldn’t need to steal anymore.
“Apparently that didn’t work out,” Moore concluded.
