HILLIARD, Fla. – Nassau County deputies are investigating three reports of clowns approaching children in the Hilliard area in the past three weeks.
On Sept. 10, two girls walking along Henry Smith Road after midnight were approached by a guy in a old dark blue car wearing a clown shirt and orange wig. He called out to them to stop, and they ran away.
An adult then called 911.
"My boyfriend's daughter was out, near the driveway, and a car came past her and her family friend and stopped. Guy was dressed like a woman," said the woman in the call placed to a 911 dispatcher.
Then on Sept. 14, A person dressed as a clown was spotted about 1 p.m. along the woodline near Hilliard Middle and High School, near the library and skate park.
Just days later, a woman in her home on Sandstone Road was giving her child a bath about 8 p.m. on Sept. 17 when her dogs start barking. She looked out the window and someone in a clown mask was looking in.
"I looked up and there was a face with red hair and white face paint in the window. I screamed and I didn't know what to think at first. And I ran back into the living room," said Raegan Castleberry.
Castleberry then called 911, but when officers arrived, the clown was gone.
"I've never felt threatened at all. (It's) always been a safe place, I guess, and now, it isn't," Castleberry said.
The Sheriff's Office said no assaults have been reported, but if someone is doing this as a joke, that person need to stop.
"If someone is doing this, be careful, because if they go on the wrong property they could get shot," Sheriff Bill Leeper said.
Leeper warned the clown incidents are no laughing matter.
"Certainly, we hear reports around the country of clowns trying to entice children to do things and that's what we're concerned about," Leeper said.
Nassau County is not the only area that the scary clowns have been spotted. Clowns have also popped up in Ocala and around the country.
The Sheriff's Office asks anyone who sees a clown in an area where you would not expect to see a clown to call 904-225-5174.