Cops chase naked man on Route 422
AMITY TOWNSHIP >> Police officers from several departments responded to Route 422 in Amity Township after a motorist reported seeing a man wearing only a shirt emerging from the woods along the eastbound lanes.
Officers from Amity, Robeson and Exeter townships and Birdsboro searched in the area of Riga Lane shortly before 1 p.m. Monday and eventually found the man, naked from the waist down, running in the grassy area between the eastbound and westbound lanes in the 100 block of Benjamin Franklin Highway (Route 422), Amity Police Chief Jeffrey Smith said.
The man, later identified as Zachary R. Gilbaugh, 35, Kenhorst, Berks County, was ordered to stop, but he kept running, Smith said. Officers chased Gilbaugh and took him into custody.
Gilbaugh, of the 1100 block of New Holland Road, was charged with indecent exposure, resisting arrest and open lewdness.
He committed to Berks County Prison in lieu of $5,000 bail after arraignment before Senior District Judge Thomas M. Gauby Sr. in Reading Central Court.
Smith said the motorist who initially called 911 saw a man walking out of the woods wearing only a shirt. Subsequent 911 calls indicated the man was on the westbound side of the highway, apparently having crossed the eastbound lanes.
Gilbaugh wasn’t described as directly engaging motorists, so what he was doing in the area and how he was
missing clothes is part of a continuing investigation, police said.
Police found a stolen vehicle on Riga Lane close to where he emerged from the woods, which is near the Exeter Township line, Smith said. The owner of the car who reported it stolen overnight lives nearby.
Smith asked anyone who may know something about Gilbaugh Sunday or Monday and the incident is asked to call police at 610-689-6002.