Bluffton man who faces peeping charges suspected in other recent incidents involving children
A Bluffton man facing Peeping Tom charges is a suspect in other recent incidents involving children, including one eight days ago when he allegedly posed as a school district employee and asked a Bluffton mother if he could see her son for "testing," according to a Beaufort County Sheriff's Office report.
The same day Bret Holterman, 29, was arrested on misdemeanor Peeping Tom charges for an incident in which he allegedly looked into the bedroom window of an 8-year-old in Bluffton's Mill Creek community, a woman says he posed as a school worker and tried to convince her to bring her son outside to speak with him, according to the incident report.
On Monday, the boy's mother called authorities after she saw Holterman's jail mugshot on TV. She told them that on July 13, a white male carrying a black book bag and piece of paper came to the door of her Kirks Bluff Road home and told her he had come to "test" her son, according to the report.
When she told him she hadn't received emails from the Beaufort County School District about testing, he became visibly "agitated," and told her "we can test him in the house or you can just bring him out here to me and I can test him out here on the porch," the report said.
The woman told deputies she was "uneasy" about the man and asked him to leave. He then gave her a piece of paper with a list of area parents' and their children's names.
She again asked him to leave. She said he left in silver car, but she wasn't able to see the tag number, the report said.
The same day, an 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old sibling were playing near their Mill Creek home when a man tried to convince them to come over and speak to him. The children refused and went into a neighbor's home, according to Bluffton police.
Later that night, the 8-year-old saw the same man looking into her bedroom window. She notified family members, who called police.
On Saturday, another child saw a man matching the Peeping Tom's description at the Mill Creek pool. This time, the child's parents wrote down the tag number of the silver car he was driving and reported the incident to police. Investigators determined the car, a Cadillac, was registered to Holterman.
Bluffton police then questioned him at his Mill Creek home. He denied walking around the neighborhood recently, but told investigators he had been on the street where the children lived "a couple of months" before to check cable boxes for his job, according to a Bluffton Police Department incident report.
He told police he had a criminal history and said he "used to have a problem with children," the report said. He said he'd received counseling and "is now fine." He said he does have "urges" to be with children, but he hasn't tried to "get with" children. He denied looking into anyone's window, the report said.
Holterman was later arrested and taken to the Beaufort County Detention Center. He posted bond and was released Sunday, according to the jail log. The log didn't list the bond's amount.
Holterman has been a suspect in at least two other incidents of criminal sexual conduct.
Holterman pleaded guilty and was sentenced under the state's Youthful Offender Act to five years of probation, Stone said.
Since then, Holterman has violated the conditions of his parole at least three times, sending him to prison in both South Carolina and Alabama, according to court records.
Follow reporter Cassie Foss at twitter.com/LCBlotter.
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Bluffton man faces peeping tom charges, July 17, 2011
This story was originally published July 20, 2011 at 9:07 PM with the headline "Bluffton man who faces peeping charges suspected in other recent incidents involving children."