Landlord confesses to Action News

NORRISTOWN, Pa. - September 23, 2008 - Only Action News was there as Thomas Daley was arraigned on a new round of charges involving five more victims.

He's accused of installing hidden video cameras in the apartments of female tenants.

As he went into the building, he apologized.

"I can't begin to express my sorrow, and I'm sorry." Daley said.

He says he's sorry, but why did he do it?

Daley admits to secretly videotaping the female tenants in seven of the apartments he owns for the past 20 years.

When asked why, he said he just couldn't stop.

Police sources say it was an obsession.

Daley was a loner who, police say, quit his job and spent day and night in his house in Phoenixville, spying on his tenants with dozens of hidden cameras hooked up to the internet.

Erin Melville is one of them.

"I don't know if there is a word... Violated, humiliated, I don't want to say it's equivalent to being raped, but it's almost like being raped," Melville said.

One of the cameras was concealed in the light fixture of a ceiling fan over her bed.

It was invisible to the naked eye, the tiny lens embedded in this screw and hooked up to the camera unit inside the fixture.

Another was in the towel bar in her bathroom.

One tiny screw in the bracket is actually a lens and the camera unit was embedded in the wall.

In all, police found six cameras in Erin's apartment.

Police say Daley made VCR recordings and high tech DVD's using sophisticated computer gear.

His computers were shipped off today to the FBI lab for more detailed analysis.

Investigators say Daley is cooperating, identifying all of the women who've rented apartments from him over the past 20 years.

But there may be many more victims, all of the friends and relatives who visited those apartments.

Erin Melville says the shock is only now sinking in.

"I stayed at home last night, just laying in my bed and just visualizing like the things that he seen, it was pretty bad," she said.

At least there may be one relief for Daley's alleged victims.

Investigators say, so far, there's no evidence that any of the videos ended up on the internet.

Daley is now being held on $2 million cash bail.


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