News & Observer | newsobserver.com | Police identify women in peeping suspect's tapes

Published: May 16, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: May 16, 2008 02:42 AM

Police identify women in peeping suspect's tapes

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SMITHFIELD - Smithfield police have begun identifying women seen on some of the hundreds of videotapes taken from the home of a semiretired pharmacist who was charged last month with peeping into a woman's window.

Ben Earl Pell, 58, could face more charges, a police spokesman said Thursday. Pell, of 103 E. Stevens St. in Smithfield, has been charged with one felony count of secret peeping.

Police arrested Pell about 10:30 p.m. April 19 outside his neighbor's home after a woman called police and said she spotted a silhouette at her window while she was getting ready for bed.

Investigators used a search warrant after Pell's arrest to seize about 400 VHS videotapes from his home.

Detectives are still reviewing the tapes, which go back at least four years, said Smithfield police Lt. Keith Powell.

"This is going to be an extensive case," Powell said. "We are going to have to talk with some individuals. There are other victims."

On the night the woman called 911, police parked some distance from her house and approached on foot. The officers found Pell coming from the back of the house wearing black clothes and a mask that partially covered his face. He was carrying a video camera, police said.

Smithfield Police Chief Steve Gillikin said Pell admitted to officers he had been filming the woman as she undressed.

Pell is a pharmacist who retired from Johnston Memorial Hospital in 2005 but continued to work part time, police said.

Pell could not be reached for comment Thursday.

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