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An eagle-eyed neighbor helped crack the bizarre case of a former NFL star now accused in a slew of attacks on women.
It was just after 2:30 p.m. on June 7 when the Encinitas, Calif., resident spotted him: a muscled, hulking, 6-foot-4 stranger emerging from her 86-year-old neighbor’s mobile home.
He had no shirt on. And no reason to be there, she found when she confronted him.
“ ‘I’m just looking for my dog,’ ” she recalled him saying.
“I go, ‘What dog?’ and he said, ‘A red dog, Clifford.’ And I went, ‘There’s no dog here.’ ”
He hopped in a black SUV and left, but the woman called cops, who soon arrested a man near the trailer park on a burglary charge, according to a report.
It was Kellen Winslow Jr., once the highest paid tight end in the league and the son of San Diego Chargers Hall of Famer Kellen Winslow Sr.
Winslow, whose publicist downplayed the arrest, posted bail the next day and was released. But prosecutors say the incident was a critical clue for authorities who a week later charged Winslow Jr. over a string of sexual attacks from March to May 2018 on women in Encinitas., where he lives.
Winslow stands accused of targeting five women, ages 54 to 86, in charges including forcible sodomy, rape and kidnapping. If convicted, he could end up behind bars for the rest of his life.