Flasher owns a disturbing past
Jesse Bryan Ellyson
Each time, it happened the same way.
Young girls were walking in the Dale City or Lake Ridge area.
A man in a sedan drove up to them and called out, sometimes asking for directions.
When the girls looked over, the man exposed himself, and drove away.
It happened three times in the past month.
And it happened at least twice nine years ago.
And each time, police said, Jesse Bryan Ellyson was responsible.
Police arrested Ellyson, 39, of 4610 Hamilton Drive in Dale City, Monday and charged him with two counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor and three counts of indecent exposure for the most recent incidents.
According to Prince William Circuit Court records, Ellyson was previously convicted of taking indecent liberties with a minor in 2000, after another string of flashing incidents.
Ellyson pleaded guilty to exposing himself to an 11-year-old girl when she was walking to Kerrydale Elementary School on May 12, 2000, court records show.
Ellyson, then 30, was arrested on June 9, 2000, after a school resource officer caught him exposing himself to three 17-year-old girls in the parking lot of Gar-Field Senior High School, according to the court documents.
Ellyson admitted to the incidents and was sentenced to five years in prison, with four years and seven months suspended.
In the most recent cases, Ellyson is accused of exposing himself to five girls, ranging between the ages of 13 and 17.
Police said Ellyson exposed himself to two 13-year-old girls who were walking in the area of Cotton Mill Drive and Hedges Run Court in Lake Ridge on June 25. Ellyson is accused of stopping his car next to the girls, getting their attention, and exposing himself.
Police said he did the same thing in the same area on June 20. That time, police said, Ellyson stopped his car next to a 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl and asked for directions — pantless — and then drove away.
And on June 3, Ellyson is accused of exposing himself to a 17-year-old girl who was walking on Darbydale Avenue in Dale City. Again, Ellyson is accused of stopping his car, getting the girl’s attention and then exposing himself.
Ellyson is now being held without bond at the Prince William-Manassas Regional jail pending a hearing in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.
Reader Reactions
As a young girl growing up in the city, I remember a flasher exposing himself. The horror of his actions were not soon forgotten…and neither was the Brooklyn beatdown!! (Violence is not the answer)
As the father of 2 daughters, just the thought of this freak makes my blood boil. A prison sentence with full knowledge of his conviction amongst the prison population will be appropriate justice for this neer do well.
With no documented successful treatment for persons who commit sexual crimes, there is little alternative to placing folks like this inside places where they have no access to others.
I am surprised and thankful that in 9 years his sexual activities haven’t worsened. Very often flashers seem to move on to more violent means of sexual expression.
We need national standards for treatment and exclusion from society of persons whose illness causes them to prey on their neighbors.
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