Ralph Holland

[ca. September 1962]

A 22-year-old youth, Ralph Holland of Waterhouse St., Somerville, suspected of being the bike-riding sprite who molested five women near Harvard Ave. earlier in the day, was and forced to come down to earth Friday when he was discovered hiding in the top of a 35-foot tree on Kent St., Somerville, by no less than 30 police. The suspect was treed after a somewhat offbeat chase that had many of the elements of a Mack Sennett comedy. After the ball was over, police put the whole story together this way! The trouble began when five women, living in the neighborhood of Oxford St., complained to Cambridge police that a man, riding a bike, had molested them and then pedaled away before he could be captured. A squad of officers was sent into the area, and det. John Galligan spotted a bike rider on Merrill St. When he tried to arrest him, the man threw the bike at him. Galligan grabbed his shirt, but the erstwhile rider slipped out of it and made tracks out of there. More