Shoppers rallied around mom and daughter, man charged with secret peeping at Garner boutique

An Apex man accused of using his phone to record a teenager in a dressing room at a Garner boutique appeared in court Monday.

Garner police on Saturday said they received a call about a man taking pictures of a 16-year-old over a changing room stall at Little Details Women’s Boutique, located at 2670 Timber Drive in Garner Towne Square.

According to a copy of the arrest warrant obtained by WRAL News, 50-year-old Kelly Sean Jones used a cellphone to record the girl in the dressing room next to him.

The store's owner, Jessica Throneburg, explained to WRAL News how the teen discovered Jones.

"A customer was in the fitting room and noticed that there was a cell phone that was over the top of the partition wall," Throneburg said. "She immediately left the fitting room and let her mom know very calmly, 'Hey, I think someone might have been taking pictures of me."

Throneburg said the mom and daughter waited until the man came out of the fitting room, and the mom confronted him.

Officers from the Garner Police Department responded in five minutes and arrested Jones, who admitted to the peeping when the officers arrived.

Throneburg said the everyone in the store rallied around the mom and daughter while they waited for police to arrive.

"We had moms that were standing around the mom making sure she was okay," Throneburg described. "We had customers standing around the door so that way if he tried to leave, I guess, they were going to try to keep him in here."

Authorities charged Jones with felony secret peeping and seized his phone.

Little Details has been in business for 12 years; the most recent four spent in the Garner Towne Square location.

Throneburg said she purposefully designed the fitting rooms so there wasn't any open space at the bottom of the wall.

"Never in a million years would I imagine someone getting over our partition walls, which are seven or eight feet tall," she said. "It's something I would have never anticipated."

Little Details does sell men's clothing but has already changed fitting room protocol, moving men to a different dressing room away from the adjoining fitting room wall.

Throneburg said she is proud of the way her employees and customers jumped into action and she wants people to know Little Details is a safe space.

She is also grateful the 16-year-old said something.

"I hope that they know that we take this seriously and that we want to think about their safety in our store," Throneburg said. "Thank goodness she said something when she did because this just prevents him from doing this to someone else in the future."