A Tennessee landlord accused of raping more than fifty women was arrested again after a month on the run in Florida when a 7-Eleven employee recognized his tattoo while selling him a hot dog.
Sean Williams, 52, had already attempted to escape from custody in Tennessee when he was placed alone in a transport van with a broken rear window for a trip to the federal courthouse in Greeneville.
When the security camera was also broken, he used a paperclip to remove his handcuffs, slipped away, stole a car and made his way to Pinellas County, where store clerk Tasha Baumgartner recalled a warning about his signature Celtic cross tattoo.
“I just felt weird about it, so I called him,” she said. “He bought a hot dog. And then I went outside and followed him around the corner a little bit to see where he went, and he disappeared.
Sean Williams, 52, was finally seized Tuesday by Florida’s Pinellas County police, 34 days after he escaped from a transport van taking him to court in Greenville, Tennessee.
He was strapped to a wheelchair because he was booked on the flight after his month
He was recaptured after 7-Eleven store clerk Tasha Baumgartner remembered a warning about his signature Celtic cross tattoo and viewed it online.
‘I called the police and told them. He was in my store. I know he was,” she said newsnation.com.
Officers arrived within minutes and he was arrested again after a police dog tracked him down nearby.
Police have described Williams as a Ted Bundy-style character who allegedly recruited a handsome young man and a female accomplice to lure young women to parties at his Johnson apartment building.
There he allegedly drugged and raped his guests, including one who crashed into a lamppost and died on impact while trying to escape after getting drunk.
Another suffered multiple fractures after falling from his fifth-floor apartment.
‘I’m very excited. That’s the best news ever,” Mikayla Evans told the station after learning of his arrest Tuesday evening.
Williams faces Tennessee charges of child rape, aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor and aggravated sexual battery.
He also faces multiple federal charges of child sexual exploitation and gun crimes.
He went on the run in 2021 after being accused of being a felon in possession of ammunition, but was arrested in April when police spotted him in a parking lot at Western Carolina University.
During a search of his car, drugs were found, along with electronic devices containing videos showing him raping 52 different women.
According to Western Carolina University police, one of his thumb drives also contained more than 5,000 images of child pornography.
Police have described Williams as a Ted Bundy-style character who allegedly recruited a handsome young man and a female accomplice to lure young women to parties at his Johnson apartment building.
Ten women who accuse Williams of drugging and raping them are suing Johnson and his officials for ignoring repeated allegations about what happened at his ‘parties’
In July, he reportedly attempted to escape from the Washington County Detention Center and successfully escaped while being transported back to Tennessee from a Kentucky detention center on October 16.
Cynthia Bradford, a former tenant and neighbor of Williams, said police sometimes came to their building, and Williams tried to hide by climbing into the air ducts or even the elevator shaft.
“Sean is bad, he’s weird, but he’s got some kind of brain,” she said.
“So I guess he was able to get out of the cuffs? Yes. But I do think he paid people off, absolutely.”
Ten women who accuse Williams of drugging and raping them are suing Johnson and his officials for ignoring repeated allegations about what happened at his “parties.”
“From November 2019 to 2020, Johnson City Police received at least six reports alleging that Williams had attempted to drug and/or sexually assault women at his downtown Johnson City apartment,” the complaint alleges.
“However, instead of arresting Williams, JCPD officers treated Williams as if he were, in the words of Detective Toma Sparks, ‘untouchable.’
Investigators believe Williams lived in Greeneville, Tennessee in a “transient manner” after his Oct. 16 escape before heading to North Carolina in mid-November.
“He was actually a pretty slippery guy,” U.S. Marshal David Jolley said.
“There’s quite a few transients in that particular area that live in the woods and live in some of these old abandoned houses and stuff, and he was able to blend in and mingle in that area.”
He sold his car sometime around November 16 in Greenville, North Carolina, but stole another car in town a few days later.
That car was spotted by officers in Florida who gave chase before Williams jumped out and disappeared again.
“Williams traveled from North Carolina to Pinellas County,” Johnson said.
“And the night he walked into this 7-Eleven, a clerk there apparently recognized him and called the police. They were able to enter him and take him into custody. He was hiding somewhere near the store.”
Williams, the former owner of a construction company in Tennessee, said Fox News digital in September, “half the women in the city” wanted to attend his parties.
“My luxurious place and willingness to spend money on others quickly made me popular,” he claimed.
“My reputation became someone with money who likes women and parties and people.”
He also alleged that all ten women who sued Johnson’s city council had waged a vendetta against him for various reasons, including “despite being excluded from my parties, or insinuating that I was attracted to them, or a moment in the spotlights’.
“In the case of the dead girl (whom I have never met), her family just feels the need to blame someone for her terrible accident,” he added.
“What they all have in common is that I was the perfect target.”
But Jolley described the arrested man as a “predator of a human being” and compared him to one of America’s most notorious serial killers.
“I heard someone describe him before, he has a real Ted Bundy personality.
“He is definitely a very dangerous kind of person and the kind of person we are all happy to know has been arrested and is back in custody.”