For months, he'd been sneaking into customers' homes at dawn, disrupting their slumber with offers of cholesterol-rich breakfast items.

"People were definitely creeped out," an LAPD spokesman said. "But there wasn't much we could do besides tell them to get a restraining order."

Then, three months ago, the frozen-faced mascot apparently snapped, leaving a trail of bodies, blood and curly fries. Police were baffled at first – crime scene tests indicated the killer's DNA consisted solely of polystyrene resins and Thousand Island dressing.

It wasn't until the King's girlfriend was reported missing last week that detectives pieced things together. Early this morning, they captured his royal highness casing a house in Canoga Park.

So far, the King has been linked to 38 homicides, the biggest mascot death toll since the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Massacre of 1984.

The arrest comes amid a burgeoning mascot crime wave. In May, an unfed Del Taco Beast allegedly assaulted two men in Boyle Heights. And, in January, Sit 'n Sleep spokesman Irwin was charged with fatally stabbing business partner Larry Miller. At trial, Irwin pleaded self-defense. "I kept telling him, 'You're killing me, Larry,' But he wouldn't stop. I had no choice."

Jurors acquitted Irwin of murder, but sentenced him to death anyway because his commercials are so obnoxious.