In the quiet of the Wake Forest University library, a student sat studying when a man reached beneath the table and grabbed her foot. The incident, unsettling in its strangeness, led to the arrest of Christopher Jermaine Deas on the evening of September 1. Deas, a man with no connection to the university, was taken into custody by local authorities and placed in the Forsyth County Detention Center. The university, in a brief statement, acknowledged the arrest and the odd disturbance it had caused on campus.

But this was not an isolated event. Deas’s peculiar obsession with feet has followed him through the years, spanning two decades and multiple campuses across the Carolinas. His name has surfaced in records from the University of North Carolina to Guilford Technical Community College, with charges ranging from trespassing to disorderly conduct. In one incident at the University of South Carolina in 2016, he was arrested for allegedly pinching a woman’s toes as she studied. Each time, the details remain the same—an invasion of personal space in the quietest of places, leaving students rattled and campus officials urging vigilance.