County voyeurism investigation active
By Debbie Lowe Staff writer

A man who was a Red Cross lifeguard trainer for more than two years was arrested in May in Tippecanoe County for video taping girls while they changed clothes in a locker room at Jefferson High School. During the Tippecanoe County investigation, it was discovered Matthew Mann, 30, also trained lifeguards at the Carroll Jr.-Sr. High School pool.

Working in conjunction with the Lafayette Police Department, Flora Police Chief Paul Redmon began investigating allegations of similar activity in Carroll County in late July and early August.

Redmon said he received information forwarded to Carroll County Prosecutor Tricia Thompson from LPD July 24. He said he interviewed CJSHS students as soon as he received the case. Redmon was prevented from interviewing the alleged perpetrator due to legal proceedings.

However, Redmon said in his statement to LPD, Mann admitted to videotaping students at Carroll in the locker room. He said LPD confiscated some of the tapes from Mann and is reviewing them in order to make positive identification of locations.

Redmon said that according to the LPD report, Mann would assemble students in the pool, go into the girls' locker room and hide a recording video camera wrapped in a towel in an open locker. He said the supposition is that the open locker was noticed by students at Jefferson because most are locked for security reasons while students are in the pool. Redmon said at Carroll, lockers are generally not locked and an open locker would not be remarkable to the students as they re-entered the locker room.

Redmon said a portion of the perpetrator's body appears in one video the police have in custody. Work is underway to positively identify the image.

Redmon said the case was turned over to Thompson's office Aug. 10 for review. Thompson said Tuesday that she is currently in the process of that task.

"My hope is that we have enough to file charges against this person in Carroll County," Redmon said. "It's important to send a message to sexual predators that these types of activities aren't going to be tolerated in our county."

"Our job is to protect our county's biggest assets, which are our kids," Redmon concluded. "We take that very seriously."