Nextdoor Thread Identifies 'Suspicious Loiterer' As Substitute Teacher Waiting For Bus
A 22-post investigation lasting nearly six hours ended after the woman was traced to the delayed No. 27 route.
WAUKESHA — A 15-second ring camera clip posted to Nextdoor at 9:52 a.m. Saturday touched off a 22-post thread that consumed nearly six hours of a Backslide Way subdivision's collective attention before the woman at its center was identified as a substitute teacher who had been waiting 18 minutes for a late bus.
The clip, uploaded by resident Carol Stennes, 58, showed a woman in a tan coat standing near the boarded storefront that used to be a nail salon on the 1900 block of South Street. Stennes captioned the post "Anyone recognize this person? Standing outside Nail Oasis building, seems off." Within 90 minutes, the thread had grown to 22 comments, several of them long.
The theories multiply
Commenter Rich Dobrowski, 47, floated "package-theft reconnaissance" at 10:41 a.m., noting that a neighbor two streets over had a cooler delivered the previous Tuesday. A user identified only as "WaukWatcher22" posted a side-by-side still comparison to security footage from a May package theft on nearby Larkin Street, annotating the woman's gait with three red arrows and the caption "same hip drop, I think." Another resident suggested calling the Waukesha Police Department's non-emergency line, which seven people then debated the correct number for across eleven replies.
By 1:15 p.m., the thread had drifted into a sub-argument about whether the vacant storefront's lack of a "No Loitering" sign constituted a code violation, with resident Pam Eckert, 63, writing that she had "reported the empty building situation to the city three times since March and nobody ever follows up," a claim unrelated to the woman but which drew nine replies of its own.
"I counted four people who said 'stay safe out there' and none of them left their houses."
— Trevor England, 24, Backslide Way resident
Identified at 3:45 p.m.
The thread turned at 3:45 p.m., when resident Donna Kalscheur posted that she recognized the woman as Patricia Kowalski, 34, a substitute teacher who covers classes across the district and who Kalscheur said she'd met at a PTA fundraiser in April. Kalscheur wrote that Kowalski had told her, in a separate direct message, that she had simply been waiting for the No. 27 bus, which runs along South Street every 40 minutes and which was running 18 minutes behind schedule Saturday due to what Waukesha Metro Transit's automated rider alert described only as "operational delay."
Kowalski, reached briefly by phone, said she had noticed people inside the building across the street "kind of looking at me" but assumed they were simply curious about the coat, which she described as new. She said she has not reviewed the thread and does not plan to.
Moderator closes thread
Nextdoor group moderator Lisa Thielke closed the thread at 3:52 p.m. with a reminder that read, in full: "Let's remember to consider context before posting about someone standing in public. Also, please do not post gait comparisons. Thank you." The post has since been locked to new comments but remains visible, with its view count, as of Saturday evening, at 1,140.
Dobrowski said in a follow-up comment that he stood by "reconnaissance" as a word choice but acknowledged it "probably didn't apply here specifically." WaukWatcher22 did not respond to a request to clarify the gait analysis. Stennes said she still thinks the coat "wasn't weather-appropriate" but agreed the matter was resolved.
The No. 27 route arrived at 10:10 a.m. Saturday, nine minutes behind its already-adjusted schedule. Kowalski boarded without incident.