Suspected Stalker Hides in Bay Area Halloween Corn Maze for Hours as Officers Search

Petaluma Pumpkin Patch’s 4-acre maze is seen in an undated photo. (Credit: Petaluma Pumpkin Patch via Los Angeles Times)

by: Los Angeles Times

Posted: Oct 1, 2019 / 12:59 PM PDT

Updated: Oct 1, 2019 / 01:00 PM PDT

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

It took two hours, a plane and six officers to track down a suspected stalker after he fled into an elaborate corn maze in Petaluma over the weekend.

Police began searching for Ryan Kenneth Watt, 29, of Petaluma, on Friday evening after his ex-girlfriend reported Watt had violated a restraining order by texting and calling her, the Petaluma Police Department said.

Officers looked for Watt, whom they described as a transient with a history of stalking behavior, at a homeless encampment but couldn’t find him. Police visited the camp again the next morning and spotted Watt just before 9 a.m.

Watt ran across a nearby freeway and into a corn maze in the 400 block of Stony Point Road that was being prepped for Halloween visitors and had not yet opened, police said.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.