Man Accused Of Hiding Camera In Bedroom

A Brandon man is charged with secretly hiding a camera in a Garretson woman's bedroom. Christopher Geringer, 37, is charged with burglary and installing an eavesdropping device.

Court papers say Geringer used a game camera; hunters buy them at outdoor stores to take pictures of wildlife. They're typically attached to a tree or a fence post and snap photos when it senses movement. But investigators say Geringer was targeting a woman when he set it up in her home.

KELOLAND News interviewed the Brandon man back in 2001. But investigators say just last month, Geringer tried to catch a rural Garretson woman on his own hidden camera.

Court papers say the woman found the motion-sensing game camera on a book-shelf in her bedroom last month. And when she looked through its pictures, she found partially nude images of herself.

The victim's mother works with Geringer's wife and told her about the hidden camera the next day at work. That's when Chris Geringer came over to the victim's house and looked at it. He said he had just bought a similar one at Scheels sporting good store a couple days earlier. Geringer said he had installed it on his carwash in Garretson, but that it was stolen and filed a report with the Minnehaha County Sheriff's Office.

But Minnehaha County investigators traced the make and model of the camera Geringer bought and found it matched the one found in the victim's bedroom.

When investigators questioned Geringer, he admitted he put the camera in the bedroom, but he said he did it to see if it worked, not to get naked photos. When asked why he originally reported it was stolen, Geringer said he didn't know how to tell the victim he put it in her room to test it out.

KELOLAND News called Geringer late Thursday afternoon, but after asking him if he had put the camera in the victim's bedroom, he hung up the phone.

He's scheduled to appear in court in August.