Woman identified as a ‘serial defecator’ tells police, ‘I am mortified’ after they caught her in the act, but she may have a good reason why

What started as a crude local police post quickly turned into one of those stories that sounds too bizarre to be real.

In a video report for WISN 12 News, reporter Derrick Rose detailed how Stoughton police in Dane County used trail cameras and a drone to identify a woman they accused of repeatedly relieving herself in a public park. The department’s Facebook post called her a “serial defecator,” a label that instantly grabbed attention online, but the body camera footage Rose obtained added a more human layer to the story.

The woman did not run. She did not argue much. And when confronted by the officer, she sounded deeply embarrassed.

“I am mortified,” she told police after being caught.

That line changes the tone of the whole story.

It is easy for a case like this to become internet joke material, and clearly it already has. But the report from Derrick Rose suggests there may be more going on here than just gross behavior in a public park. The woman told police she is a regular runner and said the portable toilets she usually sees along her route in summer were not there during recent runs.

That does not make the situation acceptable in a public park, but it does make it more understandable.

How Police Finally Caught Her

Rose reported that before the department’s Facebook post went viral, Stoughton police had already documented at least two separate discoveries of human feces in Schefelker Park, outside Madison.

According to the report described by WISN 12 News, officers found frozen human waste in the snow, along with crumpled toilet paper nearby. The way the officer described it was clinical, but the point was clear enough: police believed this had happened more than once, and not all on the same day.

That is when the department decided to get creative.

As Derrick Rose explained, police set up trail cameras and launched a department drone, apparently determined to catch whoever was doing this. It is one of those details that makes modern policing feel both effective and faintly ridiculous. A drone chase over bathroom violations is not something most people expect to hear on an evening newscast.

Still, that is exactly what happened.

At about 5 a.m. on February 5, according to the footage and records Rose obtained, an officer spotted a runner leaving the main trail and heading toward the woods. Police believed she was going off-path to relieve herself again.

Roughly two minutes later, she came back toward the main path.

An officer was already waiting.

The Awkward Body Camera Encounter

The body camera video described by WISN 12 News captured an exchange that was about as uncomfortable as anyone would expect.

“Can you come here and talk to me?” the officer asked.

Then came the line that made the whole thing sound almost surreal: “Can you look directly above me? See the drone that just caught you going to the bathroom back here?”

The woman answered simply: “Yeah.”

It is hard not to wince reading that.

There are embarrassing moments, and then there is being told by a police officer that a drone watched you use the bathroom in the woods before sunrise. Rose’s report made that moment the center of the story, and for good reason. It is humiliating, strange, and weirdly sad all at once.

The officer then told her, “You’ve been doing this quite a while, too.”

Her response was immediate: “Yeah, I’m sorry.”

There was no big denial. No dramatic excuse. Just apology.

That probably explains why the most memorable quote in the story was not angry or defensive. It was the woman telling police she was “mortified,” which sounds exactly like what a person might say when a private and bodily problem suddenly becomes public, and then viral.

Her Explanation May Not Excuse It, But It Does Matter

According to Derrick Rose’s report, the woman explained that she is a regular runner and that in summer she normally sees portable toilets along her route.

This time, she said, those portable toilets were not there.

That detail does not erase the public health issue or the fact that other park users had to deal with the aftermath. But it does matter because it turns the story away from the cartoonish “serial defecator” label and back toward something more grounded. She was not described as intoxicated, violent, threatening, or destructive in any broader sense.

She was described as a runner who apparently kept making a terrible decision in the absence of bathrooms.

There is also something revealing in the fact that she apologized so quickly.

People who are acting out of spite or thrill usually do not sound ashamed when they get caught. In Rose’s report, this woman sounded embarrassed from the start. That does not mean police were wrong to intervene. It just means the story may be less about malice and more about repeated bad judgment mixed with a practical problem.

And honestly, that makes it more interesting.

The internet loves a humiliating headline, but real life is usually messier than that. A person can do something gross in public and still not be a monster. Sometimes they are just a person who kept making a bad choice because they thought they could get away with it, or because they felt like they had no better option in the moment.

The Viral Post Made It Bigger Than A Citation

Rose also reported that Stoughton police turned the case into a social media spectacle.

The department’s Facebook post announcing the arrest used the all-caps phrase: “SPD USES DRONE TO ARREST SERIAL DEFECATOR IN CITY PARK.” That kind of wording practically begs to go viral, and it did. People piled into the comments with the usual mix of disgust and jokes.

One person wrote that they hoped police made her pick it up. Another joked that it was way too cold to be doing that outside.

That is the internet in a nutshell. Somebody’s deeply embarrassing moment becomes public entertainment almost immediately.

But WISN 12 News also uncovered an odd detail that casts the department in a less flattering light. The original Facebook post included a thermal image showing a person with their hands up. According to Rose’s report, police later said that image was not from their drone or even from this case.

A department official reportedly told 12 News that the image had come from a Google search.

That is not a small detail.

If police are going to publicly shame someone, especially in a case that already invites ridicule, the least they can do is present the evidence honestly. Using a dramatic image from somewhere else makes the whole thing feel more performative than it should. It starts to look less like simple public information and more like a department trying to squeeze likes and shares out of a humiliating arrest.

That is where the story gets uncomfortable in a different way.

Who She Is, And Why The Story Is More Complicated Than It Looks

Derrick Rose reported that the woman is not homeless, something police made a point of clarifying online after people speculated about it.

WISN 12 News also found that she is a health professional, specifically a nurse practitioner with ties to UW Health and SSM Health, according to public records and online profiles. The station did not name her because she was not charged with a crime.

That was the right call.

A citation for indecent conduct is serious enough to report, but not every humiliating public incident needs to become a permanent name-search stain for someone who has not been criminally charged. Rose’s reporting struck that balance fairly well. He gave viewers the important context without turning the woman into a target more than she already was.

According to the report, the fine was $187, and it remains unclear whether she has paid it.

That amount tells its own story. This was treated as a municipal offense, not some major criminal matter. And that makes the public shaming element feel even larger by comparison. The Facebook post, the drone angle, the phrase “serial defecator,” and the viral attention may have done more damage to her life than the actual citation.

That does not mean the conduct should have been ignored.

But it does raise a fair question about proportionality.

A Crude Story With A Surprisingly Human Center

At first glance, this is one of those stories people laugh at from a distance.

A runner. A park. A drone. A “Code Brown.” You can see why it spread. But Derrick Rose’s WISN 12 News report also showed something else: a woman who sounded humiliated, regretful, and very aware that she had become the center of a public mess.

She may have had a practical reason, at least in her own mind, with the missing portable toilets and her regular running route. That explanation does not excuse repeatedly using a public park as a bathroom. It does, however, make the case feel less like an act of pure disregard and more like a bad, repeated solution to a personal problem.

And that matters, because once the jokes fade, that is what is left.

Not just a gross headline, but a reminder that the people inside viral stories are still real people, even when they are caught in their worst and most humiliating moment.