Cross-dressing burglar charged here after being sentenced in similar Arkansas case


Joshua Long. Courtesy of the Ozark County Jail.

Joshua Long, 37, of Mountain Home, Arkansas, is being held in the Ozark County Jail on a $5,000 cash-only bond on charges of burglary and possession of methamphetamine in connection with a Nov. 26 break-in at a Mammoth-area apartment where he allegedly attempted to leave the scene dressed as a woman.

The probable cause statement about the strange incident was written by Ozark County Deputy Nick Jones. The charges were filed by Ozark County Prosecutor John Garrabrant. (The incident was first reported in a Nov. 29 Ozark County Times story, “Prospective apartment renters encounter cross-dressing burglary suspect in Mammoth.”) 

Long filed an application for representation by the Missouri State Public Defender’s office, but the application was denied because his income exceeds the public defender office’s guidelines, online records indicate. 

According to the probable cause statement, Jones was dispatched to a residence on County Road 527 at approximately 4:38 p.m. Nov. 26 for a reported burglary in progress.  He was met at the scene by Mammoth resident Dee Goodman, who told the officer that around noon that day he saw a black Chevrolet truck parked in the roadway in front of the house that was subsequently found to have been burglarized. Goodman said he went to the residence around 4:30 p.m. the same day to begin cleaning up the property so his son, Donovan, and a friend could move in. However, when Goodman attempted to enter, he reportedly found that the door was screwed shut from the inside. After forcing the door open, Goodman said he could smell cigarette smoke, indicating someone was inside the building. Goodman said he “backed off” after realizing someone was inside and went to a nearby neighbor’s house. He returned in approximately five minutes and noticed the sliding door facing the roadway was open. Goodman then saw Long attempting to get into the black Chevrolet truck and leave. Goodman stopped Long and asked him to remain there until law enforcement arrived. 

Long was still at the scene when Jones arrived, and the officer said in his report that the suspect was wearing women’s clothing and makeup, a wig and Muck boots. Long was also reportedly smoking Pall Mall cigarettes, according to the report. When Jones asked Long what he was doing there, Long told the officer he had run out of gas, and a friend had just dropped off some gas so he could get his truck home. 

Inside the residence, Jones found boot prints matching the tread and measurements of the Muck boots Long was wearing, the statement says. A Pall Mall cigarette butt was also discovered inside the building, as were a woman’s coat and underwear. A window-mounted air conditioner  had been removed from a window and was lying on the floor, the statement says. The floor was wet with a liquid substance, and the toilet was reportedly filled with wads of toilet paper. 

Long was placed under arrest and transported to the Ozark County Sheriff’s Department, where he was read his Miranda rights and interviewed. Long reportedly told the officers that he did enter the building because he felt it was a suitable place to conduct “personal, private acts upon himself.” Long reportedly said he removed the air conditioner from the window, and he claimed the woman’s coat and underwear. He told the officer “he must have forgot to pick them up or missed them,” the statement says. 

Jones conducted a brief consent search of Long’s vehicle and discovered numerous personal items and a small bag of white crystal substance, which field-tested positive for methamphetamine.  When the officer asked Long about the substance, Long reportedly said it had been in his truck a long time and he had forgotten about it. 

 

Not the first incident

On Nov. 30, after Long pleaded guilty to breaking or entering and causing $1,470 in damage to a home in Baxter County, Arkansas, in a similar incident, he was sentenced to five years probation. 

The Baxter County charge is in connection with a July 7 incident in which a Gassville couple came home to find a man wearing a wig, black women’s panties and a black bra with pink tassels stumbling through their home, according to a story in The Baxter Bulletin. 

When the couple spotted the intruder, he grabbed a pair of jeans and some work boots and ran out the back door of the home and into a neighboring home’s yard. When Gassville police officers went to the neighbor’s residence, the homeowner said the “handyman” was in the bathroom. The owner gave permission to search the property, and officers reportedly found a black bra with pink tassels, a variety of adult novelties and a mirror placed to observe a bed in an outbuilding on the property. Additional wigs and underwear were found in another bedroom in the home, as well as a phone registered to Long. 

Ozark County Times

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