12:30 a.m. on Dec. 16, the woman had been at Lindzee O’Michaels, a nightclub on lower Main Street, for a couple of hours listening to a band that she wanted to see perform.
She had already gone to the women’s restroom in a common area close to the nightclub a few times that night without noticing anything out of the ordinary. But when she entered this time, she noticed one of the lights had been turned off since the last time she had been inside. She was moments away from being confronted by a voyeur, a bizarre case on Main Street that has thus far stumped the police and led the building owner to consider installing security cameras.
In an interview with The Park Record, the woman, who agreed to speak to the newspaper under the condition she not be named, said she was “getting a funny feeling” as she walked into the restroom with one of the lights out.
“I shouldn’t have gone in, but I turned the light on,” she said.
She quickly noticed that the door of the last stall was shut and apparently locked. She could tell someone was inside the stall through a crack in the door, and she went into a stall two doors down. She had pulled her pants down when a man, appearing to be naked, slid, on his back, underneath the divider. She saw his naked chest as he slid toward her headfirst.
“Horrified,” she said as she described her reaction when she saw the man. “And just frightened, and I need to run for my life.”
The woman said she jumped off the toilet, clawed open the door and ran out of the bathroom, her pants still at her ankles.
“The entire time I was screaming at the top of my lungs,” she said, adding, “I was, basically, running for my life.”
She described the man as having broad shoulders and being “on the thicker side.” He has black hair, she said. She said she did not see any tattoos. She said he left his shoes in the stall.
The Park City Police Department continues to investigate the case, but nobody had been arrested by early in the week.
Phil Kirk, a police captain, said shortly after the report he was unaware of similar instances in Park City. He said the Police Department was contacting other agencies to find out if cases like the one on Main Street have been reported there.
The episode occurred as the first wave of crowds of the ski season descended on Park City for the holidays. Main Street was busy that night.
A member of the family that owns the building said afterward the case is the first of its kind that he is aware of since the building opened in 1998. Mike Sweeney also said he was considering installing security cameras in hallways of the building, 825 Main St.
The police responded to the scene, but the man had already fled. Kirk said afterward it was not clear what charges he would face if he is caught.
“This circumstance has probably never happened, and there’s millions of people who come through this town,” the woman said, adding, “Where can you feel safe?”
Anybody with information about the case may call the Police Department at 615-5500 or the department’s anonymous-tip line, 615-5847.