A 22-year-old man sought by police for allegedly terrorizing multiple people in Philadelphia while wearing a Halloween mask has been captured in Las Vegas, authorities said.
On the morning of August 12, Zymire Hughes approached one woman jogging in Center City Philadelphia and asked her, “Are you ready to die?,” according to police.
Hughes, 22, then chased her, leading to her injuring her hamstring and spine, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said in a Friday, August 21, news release.
Video shared by the Philadelphia Police Department shows the chase, which ended with Hughes allegedly fleeing into a train station.
That day, Hughes is accused of running after and terrorizing more than dozen people while masked, according to WPVI-TV.
U.S. Marshals arrested Hughes in Las Vegas at 8 p.m. the evening of Tuesday, August 25, the U.S. Marshals Service Philadelphia announced in a post shared to X.
“By hiding behind a Chucky-style Halloween mask, Hughes terrorized Philadelphia residents and believed he could evade law enforcement. He was wrong,” Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Clark, of the Eastern Pennsylvania Violent Crime Fugitive Task Force, said, according to CBS News. “His arrest should send a clear message: You can hide your face, but you can’t hide from the elite investigators of the U.S. Marshal Service.”
Before his arrest, the district attorney’s office said Hughes was expected to face a slew of charges, including aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime, terroristic threats, simple assault and reckless endangerment of another person.
According to investigators, Hughes lives in Las Vegas and was visiting Philadelphia when he harassed local residents, WPVI-TV reported.
“He was not a happy man being brought into custody,” Clark said, per the TV station.
An investigation revealed Hughes left Philadelphia on August 19, then took a flight from the Trenton-Mercer Airport in Ewing, New Jersey, that landed in Orlando, Florida, according to CBS News. At some point afterward, he allegedly flew to Las Vegas.
Hughes was detained at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas and will be extradited to Pennsylvania, according to U.S. Marshals Service Philadelphia.
During a news conference on Thursday, August 20, Philadelphia Police Capt. Jason Smith said he believes Hughes was possibly terrorizing people “purely for social media content — either A, for his own sick personal amusement, or B, he had plans of posting it online at some point, and possibly monetizing it,” WPVI-TV reported.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said in an August 21 statement that “regardless of his motive, his actions demonstrate that he is a punk and will not be tolerated.”
It was not immediately clear whether Hughes had retained legal counsel.
