The curious case of the mystery enema

Even veteran police officers were dumbfounded by a difficult-to-classify act that may or may not have been a crime but which definitely did stretch the boundaries of the bizarre. "You are not," premised Sonoma Police Sgt. Spencer Crum, "you are definitely not, going to believe this." The story is brief but no less baffling.

On the afternoon of Sunday, May 1, a 53-year-old Sonoma man who is visually impaired - that is to say he could not see well, if at all - was standing in his apartment in the 300 block of Robinson Road when a woman appeared in his doorway, unannounced and unexpected. The woman told him she was there to give him an enema. Because the man had recently undergone intestinal surgery, he thought perhaps that explained her presence.



The woman deftly guided him to his bedroom, had him drop his pants and lie face down on his bed. She then gave the man an enema and promptly left. The whole episode took about a minute-and-a-half, he later told police. The woman did not leave a card or any other identifying information. And given the condition of his eyesight, the man did not, in the complete sense of the word, actually see her.

A day later, on Monday, the enema recipient began wondering about what had happened to him but took no action. By Tuesday, he felt compelled to shed some light on the experience, so he contacted police. An investigating officer promptly called the man's doctor and was told no enema had been prescribed, ordered or approved. Sonoma police turned the case over to the domestic and sexual assault unit of the Sonoma Sheriff's Office who have yet to make sense of the caper.