POLK COUNTY, Fla. —
Detectives caught a “serial sex offender” who was targeting children and women in Winter Haven and exposing himself to them, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Friday.
The arrest of 42-year-old Robert Miranda resulted from a multi-agency investigation between the Winter Haven Police Department and Polk County Sheriff’s Office that was opened after three similar incidents were reported within one week.
"When we saw this pattern of activity...we knew immediately that we were dealing with a deviant – a dangerous deviant,” Sheriff Judd said.
On Feb. 16, a mother and her adult daughter called police after they said a man pulled up to them in a car while at a park in Winter Haven and began to masturbate. The sheriff said they tried to get a tag number, but the car did not have one.
One week later, a man drove up to a 9-year-old girl waiting to be picked up for school and asked her if she had lost a dog, according to Judd. The man claimed to have a “black and brown puppy shivering” in his car and encouraged the girl to get into his car to look at it.
“Even at that age, she ran,” Judd said. “She ran to a neighbor to report this guy, who reported that information to [the Polk County Sheriff’s Office].”
The sheriff explained the third incident happened 20 minutes after that when that same car approached a 12-year-old. The driver, who law enforcement identified as Miranda, was masturbating, according to what the child reported to Winter Haven police.
“He has a pedigree in being a sexual offender...and it’s just by the grace of God – at least that we know of – that we don’t have any sexually abused, dead children,” the sheriff said.
Law enforcement leaders from the city and county said because of the partnership between the two agencies, they were able to put the incidents together and immediately assign resources to find a suspect.
The group of roughly 100 detectives working on the case started trying to locate the gray Mitsubishi Outlander, with no tag, that was reported by the victims, Judd said. They combed through surveillance video from different parts of town and found a tag number.
The sheriff said without the help of business owners sharing their security footage, that information would have never been found.
“When you put that video in place...you all collectively stopped a serial sex offender and allowed that person to be caught,” he said.
Using the tag number identified, detectives were led to Miranda’s mother’s home. She told them her family ran a used car auto auction business near Haines City, and that he would often borrow the cars on the lot, according to Sheriff Judd. Deputies determined that Miranda often used those cars to travel throughout central Florida between the family business, his home in Titusville and other cities to look for cars to bring back to the auction.
“That’s our big fear: what else has he done?” the sheriff said. “You can see how strategic and stealth[y] he was in his conduct.”
Judd said surveillance video around the time of one incident shows Miranda intentionally removing the license plate from his car before committing the crime.
Robert Miranda was arrested on March 1 at his home in Titusville, which is on Florida’s Atlantic coast. He was charged with three felony counts related to not reporting his addresses and owned vehicles as a registered sex offender. Miranda also faces one count of attempted kidnapping, one count of lewd and lascivious exhibition by a person over 18 and one count of indecent exposure.
“We need to charge him with everything he’s ever done,” Sheriff Judd said. “If he gets out again, he’ll be after your kids again, and that’s a guarantee because that’s who he is.”
Miranda has been a designated sex offender since he was convicted in 2005 of lewd and lascivious battery on a victim between 12 and 15 years old. He was 17 years old at that time. His criminal history dates to 1997 and contains several drug charges.
The sheriff’s office and police department said they believe there could be more unknown victims in different parts of the state and urged anyone with information of Miranda’s crimes to contact their local law enforcement agency.