Eagan Teen Faces More Felony Charges; County Seeks to Try Him as Adult

A 17-year-old Eagan boy in connection with a series of burglaries and window-peeping incidents is now facing additional charges in cases involving three Eagan families and their teenage daughters. 

The Dakota County attorney’s office is asking that William Donald Maloney, 17, be tried as an adult.

Police say Maloney stalked three teenage girls, burglarized their homes and stole underwear from them beginning in June 2010, when he was 16, and continuing through September 2011. When police interviewed him, they found five pairs of underwear under his pillow.

Maloney is now charged with eight felonies:

• Second-degree burglary, in which Maloney is accused of entering an Eagan home on June 20, 2010.
• A pattern of harassing conduct. Police say Maloney followed, monitored and pursued victims between June 20 and July 22, 2010.
• Attempted first-degree burglary of an occupied home, in which Maloney is accused of trying to get into another Eagan home on Sept. 18, 2011.
• Two counts of stalking. Police say Maloney stalked a second Eagan family between Sept. 6 and Sept. 18, 2011, and a third family between July 15 and Oct. 8, 2011.
• First-degree burglary, in which Maloney is accused of breaking into an Eagan home on Oct. 8, 2011.
• First-degree burglary involving criminal sexual predatory conduct, stemming from the Oct. 8 incident in which police say Maloney was motivated by his sexual impulses.
• Fourth-degree attempted criminal sexual conduct, also stemming from the Oct. 8 incident. Police say Maloney attempted to have sexual contact with his victim.

The case against Maloney began when Eagan police were called to a home on June 20, 2010, to investigate a residential burglary. The family’s teenage son told police that the family had spent the weekend at a cabin, and when he arrived home, he found the door leading from the garage to the kitchen ajar.

The boy told police that the door had apparently been forced open, and pieces of the door frame were lying on the kitchen floor. Neither police nor the family were able to determine that anything was missing from the home.

About a month later, the same homeowner reported an ongoing problem with a window peeper; she said that she had seen a male outside the home, once on the deck in the back yard and a second time outside the window of her teenage daughter’s bedroom.

On Sept. 18, 2011, police were called to a different home just after 1 a.m. after the homeowner reported a suspicious person. The man said he and his wife thought they heard their garbage cans being moved outside; the man said that when he looked outside, he saw a male wearing black clothing and a black ski mask pacing between his home and his neighbor’s house.

When the homeowner turned on an outside light, the male fled. Police searched the area using a K-9 officer, but couldn’t locate the suspect.

On the same night, just a few minutes after the first report, police were called to a nearby home on a report of suspicious activity. The family’s teenage daughter had come home at about midnight, and shortly after she got home, she heard the garage door open.

The girl told police she heard someone jiggling the door handle on the service door from the garage to the house; because the door was locked, the would-be intruder was unable to get in.

The homeowner told police that he thought the incident might be related to an earlier incident in which someone cut the screens on the windows on the back of his house. Police determined that the cuts on the screens appeared to have been made with a knife or a razor blade.

Just after 2 a.m. on Oct. 8, 2011, police were called to a third Eagan home on a report of a burglar who had fled through the front door.

The homeowner described the suspect as a male wearing a ski mask and dark clothing. Police again searched the area using a K-9 officer.

A woman at the home told police that at about 1:30 a.m., she saw a motion light on the north side of the house flash on, and she thought she saw a flashlight flickering outside. She went to bed, but at about 2:05 a.m., she heard her teenage daughter screaming from her downstairs bedroom.

As the girl’s parents rushed toward the front of the house, they heard someone running up the stairs and saw him run out the front door.

The girl told police that she had been asleep when she felt her blankets being pulled off her. When she woke up, she saw a male standing over her; she said she started to scream, and the male grabbed her neck with one hand and put his other hand over her mouth.

The girl said she clawed at his neck, at which point he let go and fled the bedroom. She told police he was wearing black clothing and a black ski mask, and that he appeared to have a light attached to a headband around his forehead.

Those homeowners also said it appeared that some of the screens on their windows appeared to have been cut within the previous few months. In one of those incidents, their daughter’s bedroom window screen was cut, and the girl said she saw a man looking in her window.

The girl said it appeared that the underwear drawer in her dresser was open wider than when she went to bed, but she didn’t notice anything missing.

The family told police that a garage door opener had been stolen from one of their cars, parked in the driveway.

Police asked the girl if she could think of a possible suspect. She said it might have been someone she knew as Bill Maloney, whom she said she had met at a youth group; she said she had seen him at school, but the extent of their contact was to exchange greetings.

Police went to Maloney’s home and spoke to his mother, who acknowledged that her son owned a headlamp type of light on a headband. She also said her son had marks on his neck.

Maloney initially told police that a dog had scratched his neck. When the officer advised Maloney that he should be honest with her, he told her that he did “something stupid.”

Maloney confessed to police that he had entered the home through the unlocked front door and had gone to the victim’s bedroom, whose location he knew because he had gone there previously and had cut the screen on the window.

Maloney said he didn’t pull on the victim’s blankets, but that she woke up and “freaked out” when she saw him standing there. He said he put his hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream, then ran out of the house and to his home about a block away.

Maloney admitted to police that he had taken the garage door opener and some underwear from the victim’s dresser. “Maloney admitted that he was sexually attracted to the victim, and said that he was afraid he might do something that was not characteristic of him,” the complaint said.

Police found five pairs of women’s underwear under Maloney’s pillow, along with a knife that he carried with him and three lengths of shoelaces. They also found a headband-style flashlight and a stocking cap with oval shapes cut out for the eyes and the nose.

Maloney subsequently admitted being responsible for the window-peeping incidents and the attempted burglaries, and confessed that he had stolen underwear from the bedroom of another teenage girl.