Man terrifies Hollywood Hills residents by knocking on doors, talking incoherently

HOLLYWOOD HILLS, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Hollywood Hills residents are on edge after a man wandered the neighborhood knocking on doors while talking incoherently.

The recent run-ins have homeowners afraid and wondering how much security they have around their homes.

It's been a week full of strange and frightening encounters caught on camera in the usually quite Beachwood Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The first incident reported to police occurred around 9:12 p.m. on Wednesday on Linforth Drive. The suspect, identified as a male in his 30s or 40s, was knocking on the victim's door and talking incoherently.

"It was extremely scary the way he was talking through the door," homeowner Vanessa Beecroft said. "It felt like a horror movie."

Beecroft said he was yelling for about 15 minutes before running off.

"I was wondering what did he really want? Did he want food, shelter, what did he want from the house?" Beecroft said. "Because he didn't open the door when the door was actually unlocked."

She says he's the same man seen on surveillance video several hours later outside a home on nearby North Beachwood Drive.

A Ring camera video showed the man walking up late at night and knocking on the door while carrying a bag filled with unknown items.

"Thursday morning at 1:36 a.m. I get a notification on Ring that there is a person outside, and I look at the live (camera) and I see there's a man, there's a stranger there," homeowner Mariette Natasha said. "He's knocking on the door, and ringing the doorbell."

She immediately contacted police and notified her mother, who lives next door.

"The cops came over and they looked at the back of my house, they looked all around. But he was around the neighborhood until 4 or 5 in the morning," the homeowner said.

Surveillance images captured outside an apartment on North Beachwood around 4 a.m. Thursday shows a man who one resident said rang all the building's tenants and tried to gain access.

On Monday, LAPD arrested a naked man after he broke a window and tried to enter a home on North Beachwood shortly after 5 a.m.

Police say he began cutting himself with an unknown object and was chased down by the homeowner before police arrived. That man is out on bond and faces an assault with a deadly weapon charge.