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[from ABC News Online] Californian man locked up over hair cutting spree When police finally came to Michael Howard's home they came across quite a lot of hair. They discovered a thin carpet of it covering the floor, huge mounds of it on the bed, piles of it in the closet, and to capture that perfect hairy moment, photos of severed ponytails lined up as neatly as bodies in a morgue. Californian police then deduced they had finally caught up with the notorious "Haircut Bandit". For three weeks in December of 2001, Howard cruised the streets of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, casing bus stops and park benches for women with ultra-long tresses. Before he was caught, Howard chopped hanks of hair or entire ponytails from the heads of nine victims, aged 12 to 45. Investigators began closing in on the bicycle repair shop owner on New Year's Eve when a deputy sheriff saw him approach a woman at a bus stop and shear off her waist-length hair. He escaped, dropping his scissors and his hair trophy, but police nabbed him the next day. On Thursday, Howard entered a surprise guilty plea and was sentenced to eight years in prison for his hair-raising rampage. His attorney, deputy public defender Gregg Hayata, says Howard became fascinated with hair as a boy and that as an adult, the sound of scissors cutting hair sexually aroused him. But the lawyer says lust never interfered with his leading a law-abiding life until December 4, 2001, the first time he went into the street and attempted to shear some locks. Mr Hayata says his life began to spiral out of control after his father died and his business began to fail. "I think the combination... made him start experimenting with drugs... and he just lost control of it," he said. Before his highly publicised foray into hair banditry, Howard was known as a cycling fanatic who had learned to fix and build custom bicycles as a youngster, a passion which led him to open a bike shop with a high school pal. Howard, who was once married, owns a home in a suburb south of Los Angeles, and has been described by neighbours as quiet. Family members say Howard underwent an extreme personality change in the weeks corresponding with his haircut spree, that they attribute to cocaine addiction. Police also unearthed reports from friends that Howard had often paid women as much as $200 to let him cut their hair. They confiscated more than 40 hair fetish videos depicting people getting haircuts. "There were naked women getting their hair cut, videos of (Howard) cutting women's hair, some of a couple who had each cut each other's hair and shaved each other's heads," one police officer said. "There was a Spanish game show where, if you answered the question wrong, they would cut your hair." They also seized photos of the apparently consensual bobbing of a woman's long hair and of a row of about 15 neatly severed ponytails. This news report interested me on several levels. Hair. Now you gotta admit that most of us are usually pretty fussy about how our hair looks. And it takes a lot of work - shampooing, conditioning, styling, maybe colouring etc etc... And hair is definately something that you notice about other people... The thought of having a bad hair day strikes fear in the hearts of many... It can take ages to grow your hair long. And the conditioning and treatments that are involved...the untangling...so I was shocked at the thought that this guy ran around just cutting it off - months of hard work down the drain!!! I'm amazed that anyone could have a fetish for hair. How did it make him feel to own someone else's ponytail? I find other people's hair a bit gross. Even finding my own escaped strands annoys me. To actually collect them though? As for the actual sound of scissors cutting hair... Still if he owned 40 videos of hair-cutting then maybe it's a wider spread fetish than originally thought? I must admit that I'm fascinated by the concept of fetishes. Maybe it's because I don't really have any. How do you develop them? What are the catalysts? The stages of fetishism? Can it usually be related to a childhood experience of some sort? What drives people to satisfy there desires? Is it healthy to have them to a certain degree? Can they be controlled? Hmmm maybe when I have time I should google for some ideas on this... Although I don't believe I sway towards anything to such a degree as to describe it as a fetish, I must admit that I have a possibly unhealthy preoccupation with split ends. Only mine though. I have been known to sit for an hour with a small pair of scissors in my hand mercilessly snipping away on occassion. It drives me a little crazy to see one...but that perhaps is more vanity than anything else. When I had long hair at Uni I just to collect the more interesting ones and sticky tape them into my schedule book. I ended up with rather a fascinating collection (the most impressive one had about 14 splits off the one end). Hmmm maybe I shouldn't vacuum them up but frame them and sell them on e-bay. It scares me, but there is probably a market out there for the ragged ends somewhere....

• As someone with waist length hair myself this made my heart skip a beat!  Seems totally violating, but I have to wonder; cutting off a thick pony-tail is not a quick operation.  Even with sharp scissors it takes several hacks to fully seperate the hair.  You made this up!  But anyway, the best place in the world to learn about fetishes (I think) is the Savage Love column in the Village Voice.  If you don’t know it, it’s not for the faint of heart.  But very educational!!  http://villagevoice.com/issues/0315/savage.php

  Elle
  03/04/12 04:30 AM

• I agree with you Elle - he must have been using garden shears!
  Ta for the link (^^)

  gomichild
  03/04/12 01:11 PM

• The idea of selling cut hair on Ebay totally intrigues me. Unfortunately, my hair isn’t very long…. I’d love to try this experiment with you MJ, we could split the profits. If you donate the hair, I will set up the auction..Whaddya think?/

  Karen

  Karen
  03/04/12 04:02 PM

• I wonder what happened to the confiscated hair? Hopefully it will be donated to Locks of Love or something?

  (and yes, there are many many many men with hair fetishes…even yahoo groups dedicated to specific styles)

  L.
  03/04/21 06:07 PM

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