Cops: Sex offender caught peeping on two 12-year-old girls in Arlington

EVERETT -- A convicted sex offender is behind bars after police said he admitted to peering through a young girl’s bedroom window in the middle of the night.

It happened early Sunday morning in Arlington, and police said it’s not the first time the suspect has been caught in the act.

“She can’t sleep,” said the victim’s mother, Allison Myers. "She’s scared, she doesn’t feel comfortable.”

Myers' daughter had a friend sleepover at their Arlington home on 67th Avenue Northeast on Saturday night.

Police said 51-year-old Tal Vanderpool peered through the child’s bedroom window and spied on the two 12-year-old girls.

“I tell her that she’s safe and nobody’s going to hurt her and everything’s going to be OK, but it doesn’t bring her any comfort knowing that man’s in jail,” said Myers. “It doesn’t matter to her, she’s scared.”

Police said an alert neighbor saw Vanderpool’s van illegally parked and then called 911. Police arrested Vanderpool at his home less than 4 miles away.

“It’s just sick. I’m sorry, that’s just scary,” said neighbor Joy Mathis, who said she’s knows Vanderpool personally – she went to school with him.

Now she worries there could be more victims out there.

“We have all these kids and stuff," Mathis said, "and he’s staring through people’s windows. Who does that?”

Vanderpool appeared in a Snohomish County Superior C ourt on Monday, where bail was set at $100,000.

Vanderpool is a registered Level 3 sex offender. Police said he told them that  he’s been committing similar crimes since he was 14 and he has victimized more than 200 people.

Myers thinks its time to put Vanderpool behind bars.

“If he doesn’t get put away for along time, he’s going to do it again,” she said. “And then the police aren’t going to be looking at a sex offender, they’re going to be looking at a murder. Cause the wrong dad’s going to catch him and take care of it.”

Vanderpool has served time before; he spent 90 days in jail after pleading guilty to burglary with sexual motivation and voyeurism in Walla Walla ,in 2005.

In 2001, he  pleaded guilty to exposing and touching himself in front of coffee-stand employees in both Marysville and Everett.