Dowdy had been free on bond in one alleged sock caper when police say he was caught with socks that had been taken from someone's laundry room on Monday morning in Belleville, a St. Louis suburb. The 36-year-old remained jailed on a felony burglary count.
Dowdy's mother, Linda, said he needs to be institutionalized to get psychiatric treatment for the fixation she says has tormented him most of his life. She thinks the fetish took hold when he clung to some of her socks as keepsakes when he was forced to live for a year with his dad as a child.
"He cries to me all the time, `Mom, I hate myself. I'd rather be dead than live like this,'" the 59-year-old mother said, her voice cracking. "He doesn't hurt anybody, and he never takes anything of value. He takes nothing but socks."
Police have said there's no evidence Dowdy has ever threatened anyone in his apparently single-minded quest for socks, almost always the female variety. But police Capt. Don Sax said that while Dowdy is "obviously a guy with a problem," authorities have run out of patience.
"I'm sorry, I don't personally have any sympathy for him anymore," Sax said. "He's been doing this long enough, he's been out of jail plenty long enough, that he could have easily gone out and sought help for whatever problem he has."
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