Armchair Anonymous: Stalking II
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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. Stalker Part 2. Scary. Scary. They are scary, but these were not as scary. It's always pretty scary. It's always pretty scary.

But you can listen. Yeah. And there was a guy. We liked having a guy. Yeah, we do like that. I mean, it was still scary. It was still scary. It's a different version of scary, but it's scary. Yeah, and you know what? It's perfect timing because I'm watching you. We didn't even plan this. The universe, the sim, is so sparkly. It's laughing up a storm, yeah. It's got a sense of humor. It really does. Yeah. Please enjoy Stalker Part 2. Get into your body's vitals with the Vitals app on Apple Watch. Oh.

The Vitals app tracks key overnight metrics so you can spot changes in your health before you feel them. The Vitals app on Apple Watch. iPhone XS or later required. The Vitals app is for wellness purposes only and not for medical use.

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Order one today at Domino's dot com. Hello. Hello. You're my first Lindy. Yes, it's a very unique name. Am I your first Dax? Yes. Not my first Monica. Not my first Monica sounds like not my first barbecue.

Sure. Or a rodeo. Yeah. Not my first rodeo, not my first barbecue. Ooh.

This is my first Armchair Anonymous interview, though. Yes. Have you ever called a radio station or anything? No, I've never. And this was my first story I submitted. Oh, wow. It's good conversion odds. Okay, so you have a stalking story. I do have a stalking story. Also, before we get started, I'm just going to mention my mom, Jennifer, and my sister, Erica, they're also armchairs with me and they feature in this story. And my

My mom wanted to say to you, Dax, that she's just very grateful for you always being honest in your recovery and sobriety. She's nine years sober as of this year. Fuck yeah. And my sister, she's two years younger than me. She wanted me to say that she's regularly in the top 1% of listeners. She's a badass horse rider, works on a farm, and she's always listening to you guys. Does she have powerful legs? Yes, she does CrossFit. I mean, there's nothing she can't do. Wow.

Cool. She's the athletic one. So the story does take place in Washington, but Western Washington, about 45 minutes south of Tacoma. It was my senior year of high school about 10 years ago. I had just turned 18 in December. And Monica, my junior year, our cheer team won state. I was on the cheerleading squad. Oh my God.

And you don't describe yourself as the athletic one? That feels discounting. Definitely not compared to her. I love a good dance routine, but put me in any other kind of coordinated situation. It's not my jam. Did you guys do stunts and stuff? We did do stunts. We were not a tumbling squad, but we did stunts and had a great routine. Nice. Congrats. Yeah, that was exciting. So a lot of stuff was going on. That spring, I started receiving strange friend requests on Facebook.

And I didn't recognize the name. It said Joe Smith. But the profile picture was a picture of a penis. Okay. That's not a great way to make friends. Or maybe it's a great way to make the kind of friends you want. I don't know. To be more specific, the penis was a micro penis. Oh, boy. Wow. Okay. I've never seen anything like that. I want to see really bad now.

Then check my messenger app on Facebook and I had message requests from this profile. Most of them saying things like, hey or hi. I think one of them said something kind of creepy like, do you like what you see referencing the picture? But I just deleted these. I honestly thought it was spam or someone messing with me at school. I didn't think it would be anything crazy. So a few months go by and a family friend calls my mom and says, hey, I've been getting...

from this person, Joe Smith, on Facebook. His profile's normal. I asked how he knows me and he said he knows you, Jennifer. I overhear this and I say, oh, I know that name. That's Joe Smith's profile with this penis picture. Her jaw dropped and she says, that's Joe Smith, our neighbor. So I didn't know his name. How old was the neighbor? He was probably in his 30s. Lived with his mom and...

And we didn't interact with him a lot. But I knew his first name, but I didn't know his last name. So we contacted the police, but I didn't have any evidence. I deleted the friend requests. I deleted the messages. And I was over 18. I think if I was a minor, it would have been a bigger deal. And they also mentioned if I had asked him to stop and then he continued, that would have been something else. But I had never kind of said stop. The victim's never doing it correctly. Exactly. This is it.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, I'm sorry, you didn't do it correct. You weren't a correct victim. Then he turns his attention towards my mom. He somehow had her phone number. And he starts sending her these pictures, screenshots of pornos. One time he sent the penis picture, but with a mini Bic lighter held up next to it to compare the size. Oh my God. I did look it up. So that's two inches is the size we're working with. She also contacts the police. She was going to get a restraining order at one point.

point, but it would have cost her money. We had gone over to the home while my parents did, my mom and my stepdad, and he didn't answer the door, but they knocked and let him know very loudly that if anything were to happen again, we're going to have some more issues. So she ended up changing her phone number because of that.

A bit of time goes by. I'm away at college now, so a lot of this is from my mom and my sister. A couple things to note, we lived on a private driveway, so there were only three houses. It was our house, Joe's house, and then our third neighbor's house. Now living at home is my mom, stepdad, my sister, and my brother Kyle. So we're not having any issues with Joe directly, but it's clear that other people in the community are because cars start coming down the driveway.

showing up at his house, knocking on his door. They start knocking on our door saying, hey, they're always men. Joe's been messaging my wife, my girlfriend, my sister. There's three or four instances of different men coming, telling us this. Do you know anything about him? And we just let him know, hey, we're working with the police, building a case. He's done this to us. At one point, someone comes back in the night and smashes his car with a baseball bat. While this is going on, my sister says,

Erica turns 18. So she starts receiving the Facebook friend request. Oh my god. And she is very freaked out and she's very avoidant. So she is just deleting them and doesn't really want to deal with this anymore. At one point, my stepdad's outside, our other neighbor is looking out her window and she sees Erica getting out of her car and Joe standing in the driveway with his pants down, touching himself. Oh my god.

Things are escalating past just cyber harassment. I don't know that this is an appropriate question, but do we know it's his penis in these photos or is he getting a penis from the internet? We're assuming it's his penis. We don't know for sure. That's a follow-up question I'll have to ask. Well, that's

So he's arrested for some of these various crimes within the community. He's released within less than a year, just a few months. And they assign him a female parole officer. What does he start doing? Harassing his female parole officer. He begins sending her vulgar messages, showing up, calling her. Now he's got multiple warrants out for his arrest. At one point, the U.S. Marshals show up at our house. They're asking where he is. And supposedly he's staying maybe in shelters in Tacoma.

A few months later, the sheriff show back up. They're looking around, knocking on the door, trying to find him. And at one point there's some shouting. My family's outside watching all of this and they're dragging him out from under the house. He'd been hiding under the house. We're not sure why. In the crawl space. Yeah. And so they had dragged him out from under the house and arrested him. And that's kind of where the story ends for us. I sent in a news article to Emma saying,

Joe. And I was looking at this article of his. There's a photo included. In 2018, he was convicted of indecent exposure and cyber-stalking one of his former teachers. A year after that, he was convicted of indecent exposure on a bus after offering a woman chocolate and then showing his penis. Oh!

As of 2021, he was arrested and being held without bail for a couple of things. Unlawful possession of a personal identification device, which I guess is something you use to make fake IDs with. Obstructing police and failing to register as a sex offender. Wow.

What do you do with someone like this? Like, he's so unhinged. He's just blasting everyone he sees. Clearly, all day long, he's doing this. Can you throw someone in prison forever? I was thinking a good invention would be a pill. Once they could isolate whatever chemical creates the horniness.

If there was like a blocker. There's probably a testosterone blocker. Doesn't chemical castration exist? Didn't they do that to like some people? Not for the right reasons. This was about homosexuality, but that's the instances I've heard it being used. Yeah. Was that to make them infertile or not horny? I'm not sure. Oh, I know another side note. One night I was Googling myself or my family just as you do when you're a teenager. And I found this forum where Joe had written about, um,

My mom and like watching her getting out of her car at work and just posting some creepy things about watching her. And so just a lot of creepiness happening next door. Yes, that is rough. I hope he's in jail. I do want him to be in jail. That has to be the answer. Another question.

also delicate. Has anyone talked to him? Like, is he mentally? I believe there's mental issues there and some kind of maybe drug use and probably a traumatic home life. We're not really sure, but there's a lot of things going on. And then the micro penis. I mean, I was wondering the same thing. Is that his or is that just kind of a weird obsession? We'd have to ask him. I

I think I'm good. I think I'm probably not going to ask him. I would love to talk to him, actually. I wrote down this little bingo card of what would happen during the interview. And one of the things I put down was that Dax would have compassion for or want to follow up with Joe. Well, the reason I have compassion is I just always imagine what if that was my life? What a disaster of a life. I have compassion. I can too.

consumed his whole life and ruined it. What was the other bingo cards? I want to know the other bingos. All right. Let's see what I wrote down. That's fun. Armchair bingo. I have a technical issue. Dax brings up Big Brown if I mention the Pacific Northwest. Oh.

That was a good guess. Dax tries to guess where I live. These are great guesses. Like, you never know where I'm at with my annoying of Monica. So, like, that's hard to know. Is it the first one and I haven't already asked a bunch of geography questions? Right. Rob makes an appearance. Not yet. Monica makes a gasp type noise. Like a... I'm sure that happened. Rob, please make a bingo. I'm here.

Hi, Rob. And then I wrote down, I get emotional, but I haven't said my thank you yet. So that could happen. Okay. I want to hear your thank you. And let's see if we can get another bingo. I did just want to say thank you guys so much for everything you do. I'm a teacher and you've taught me so much about empathy and compassion and just communicating in relationships. And you just made me so curious about the world again. About eight months ago, I had a

baby my first baby our baby girl Daphne she is amazing but those first few weeks are kind of rough but I always knew I could listen to you guys and just feel like myself again so thank you for always being there for me and you're my favorite parasocial relationship so thank you oh

Oh, we love that. Yeah, Lindy, this was delightful. Thank you so much. And thank you for being a teacher. The best year of middle school, seventh grade. We love it. We love it. It's Teacher Appreciation Week right now, first week of May. So shout out all the teachers. That's right. We need to remember that for next year, Armchair Anonymous. Yeah, we should do teacher prom.

teacher prompts or more teacher experts on anything like that. We would love. That's a great idea. Well, thank you, Lindy. So nice meeting you. Nice to meet you. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Bye.

Hi there. This is happening, huh? It's happening. It's truly happening. Do you have a preferred fake name? Can I go by Nick? Yeah. Oh, I love Nick. Very solid name. You could pass for Nick. Well, let me ask you this. Do you have a friend that you think is really cool that's named Nick? It's related to my wife's name. So it's a little homage to her. It's a nod. It's a wink. Okay.

It could have been short for Nickelodeon. Yes, it could. Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick. Because I would have said if I was in the situation, yeah, I would probably go like Justin, Trevor. Names I associate with being cool. Oh, wow. What would you do, Monica? Names you associate with being nerdy? How dare you? Well, you're laughing that I would want a cool name. I don't think I would put that much thought in it. All right, Mandy.

Okay, Nick. Sorry we took up a lot of your time. Are you allowed to tell us where you're at? Yeah, so I am in beautiful Seattle, Washington. Oh my God. Ding, ding, ding. We just got off the phone with someone whose story took place just south of Tacoma. It's not speaking well for Seattle. I actually live just south of Tacoma. Oh, no.

What if he goes, my name's Joe Smith and I used to send pictures out? Oh my gosh. Oh my God. Oh my God. Yeah, none of the stalkers have called in. You're right. It's always people who've been stalked. We've never had a stalker call. That'd be a change. It sure would. I don't know how I'd handle that, but I'd like to try. Okay. I want to hear it now. Yeah, me too, Nick. Okay. So this starts almost 21 years ago.

So 2004, I graduated high school two years early. My family and I, we lived in Washington, D.C. at the time. I was 17 and I don't want to commit to a college just yet. So I was looking for something interesting to do. And the University of Washington in Seattle had a program that worked with people experiencing homelessness. It was like a work study where people

You lived in the university district. You shared a house with other people in the program and you would get college credit at the end of it as a one year program. This sounds great. I wanted to get it as far away from my family as possible. So I get out there. I'm obviously the youngest because I'm 17. Everybody's sort of like 19 to 21, except this woman that's part of the program. She was 26. Her name was Amy. Obviously, it's a fake name, but Amy sort of takes a liking to me.

I'm like, oh, this is great. She wanted to hang out with me. She can buy beer. Exactly. Yeah. Everything was working in my favor. But as time went on, I could say now I could see what the pattern was, but she started isolating me from the other people. She would get mad if I hung out with another housemate. If I was going to grab something out to eat, she'd want to meet me there. She'd call me if I wasn't back at a certain time. I just was like, oh, maybe that's just part of having a friend that's a little bit older.

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And so you're just friends at this point? Just friends at this point. Other housemates start to notice and start reaching out. Hey, are you cool with her? I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, everything's fine. Fast forward at the end of the year, before I leave, Amy sits me down and she says, hey, I really, really like you. I just turned 18 and I think that we're made to be together.

And I was like, oh, geez. Was she attractive? Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary, except she was a little bit older. I told her, hey, I'm moving back to Washington, D.C. I don't think it's going to work out. And so she made me promise and promise and promise that we'd be best friends. Was she crying? She was absolutely a wreck. Okay. Oh, yeah. I fly back to D.C. and I'm getting involved in life. I work at a warehouse, 12-hour shifts. And I get a call a couple months in from...

from Amy. And she goes, oh, the best thing happened. I found a really good program at this college that's in Washington, D.C. And I'm thinking about doing that program. And I was like, oh, okay. You know, I'd already moved on by that point. Yes. But she was like, wouldn't that be cool? I'd be like, it'd be interesting. Sure. Two weeks later, there is a knock at my parents' front door and it's Amy. Oh, no.

She was like, surprise, I'm here. And she grabs me and she hugs me and she starts to kiss me. She's like, I'm so glad we're meant to be together. And I was like, whoa, freaked out. And you're fucking 18 or 19? Yes. Oh my God. And your parents are just like standing there? Oh my God.

Super awkward. Very non-confrontational. And so she's like, hey, since I'm here now, do you think maybe we could date? I should have said no, but I was so overwhelmed by the whole thing that I was like, oh, okay. Because she was a friend and I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Yes, this is tricky. And she goes, the only thing is I need a place to stay. Oh!

There was no notice. She was just there. I asked my stepmom, hey, do you think that she could crash here for a week until she figures out her dorm? So it turns out that she wasn't in some program at the university. She enrolled in the community college nearby. That's the program she discovered? Yes. So basically what would happen is I would work these 12-hour shifts. I would come home.

And she would be sitting there waiting for me. Oh, you're here. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're here. Let's go out. Let's do this. Let's do that. It was very, very overwhelming. And I wasn't feeling it at all. If I tried to make plans with friends, she would sort of fly off the handle. She would cry. Can I ask, are your parents checking in on any of this? Are they asking you, like, tell us about this woman who's here? They did. But I was like, I'm 18. I could handle this. My dad was like, hey, she find a place yet. She wasn't working. She was going to class like twice a week.

And so this goes on for about six months. Oh my Lord, Nick, six months. It was to the point where I didn't want to come home from work. I would stay late after work. And if I didn't call her on my breaks at work, when I got back, she would be angry and it would be like I was in trouble.

Right. Why didn't you do that? Who are you talking to? Super controlling. And I could see it now in hindsight. And I was like, wow, this was super intense. I wanted to find a way to have it, but I didn't know what to do. I started looking at colleges again, and I found a really cool university program in England. Ha ha!

Now you're on the hunt for a program to escape. I'm getting out of here, right? Yeah. Oh my God. At this time, my dad's job moves to Florida. This is my out. They're moving over the summer. I'll help them move. And then once they're moved, I'll go to England and go to the program. This is great. Clean break all around. I let her know, hey...

It's not that I don't like you. You're great. But my parents are moving. I'm going to help them. I need to move on. She completely broke down. So she was going to kill herself. She couldn't be with me. She didn't want to be with anybody else. She said that one person can't decide to end a relationship. Both people have to make that decision. Oh, those are the rules? Apparently, yeah.

She was from Michigan. And so her mom drove from Michigan to D.C. to pick her up. And I helped to pack all of her stuff. I was like, all right, I'm sorry. But, you know, it's been great. See you. So she leaves with mom. Can I ask you a question you're not going to want to answer? That's OK. OK, if I were in your situation, I would want her out of there so bad.

And also I would be 19 and horny. Did you hook up with her at all? Yeah, that was part of why it was so hard to let go. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, great. And then you feel guilty. Exactly. Time comes for parents to move. I helped them move from DC to Jacksonville, Florida, get them set up in their house there. And it's the summer. I had like six weeks until I moved to England. I got accepted into the program. I was like, this is great. So about a week after being there, I'm moving some boxes, I'm packing stuff and there's a ring at the doorbell. So I go and answer it.

And it's Amy. In Jacksonville, Florida. Yes. Oh. Address I didn't give her. I don't even know how she knew that was the address, but she just showed up. She was so excited. Oh my gosh, I'm so happy to see you. And she ran in and she hugged me and she tried to kiss me. And I sort of went, whoa, what's going on? And she's like, I found another college program here in Jacksonville. You mean another community college? Yeah, they're everywhere, Amy. Yeah.

She said her dad was a long haul trucker and he had a route going from where they lived in Michigan down to South Florida. So he agreed that he would drop her off on the way down. And then he'd pick her up six days later on the way back if she decided that she didn't want to stay. And so at that point, I'd had enough.

We could be friends, but this is just way too much. This is more than I can handle. She immediately threw herself on the ground, crying, writhing like she was in pain. And then she ran in the house to the back bedroom, which just happened to be the bedroom I was staying in, like our guest bedroom. And she locked herself in and she wouldn't come out. Oh. Now I was there by myself and I didn't know what to do.

I called my dad and stepmom. I was like, hey, I have a visitor, but I don't really want him to be here. They're like, is it Amy? I was like, yes, it's Amy. They come home and now there's a negotiation through the door trying to get her out of the room. It goes on for hours. She's like, I just need a good night's sleep. And then I could think clearly about this. And so my parents were like, all right, we'll talk about this in the morning. Just go to sleep. Oh, I slept on the couch. And then in the middle of the night, I woke up to Amy on

on the couch on me. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not doing that. At this point, she runs back to the bedroom and it's about maybe four o'clock in the morning. My dad wakes up and he goes, hey, listen, you're going to have to deal with this or I'm going to deal with it. This is going to be done either way. Do you want to talk to her or do I want to talk to her?

So I said, you know what? I'll talk to her. So I told her, hey, let's go for a ride to the beach. We went down to the beach and I laid it all out there and she cried. And I was like, it's not going to work. She's like, all right, but can we still be friends? I was like, we can be friends if you get on a plane tomorrow back to Michigan.

And she said, I agree. Okay, fine, fine. So I bought her one-way ticket back to Michigan and she goes back to Michigan. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad this is over. I didn't hear from her for another couple of weeks. It's two weeks before I was moving to the UK. One night, my phone rings. It's her number and I answer it. She's on the other end, but she's screaming. Why are you?

picking up the phone. You got to make this work. Relationship, it takes both people. I can't believe the way you've treated me. I'm like, what are you talking about? It turns out in that period of time that less than two weeks, she on a whim moved back to Seattle, moved back to where our friends were in the program and was like,

He said he wanted to be with me and now he doesn't. And now he's treating me bad. And so they were all, well, let's call him and try to get him to work it out. They had no idea what had been going on. So now I'm on speakerphone with all my friends while she's saying all these things that I did, which I didn't do. And so I finally said, you know what? This is over. I don't love you. Never did. Don't call me again. And I hung up. That night she called my cell phone and then the house phone over 300 times. Oh,

We had to unplug the phone and turn my phone off. And she started peppering with long emails, maybe 20, 25 a day. But she was posting pictures of us together on MySpace talking about we're so in love, we're getting married. And so this is where I did something that I don't know the legality of it, but I just sort of made the decision. I knew her MySpace password and her email password because it was my name. Oh my God. I logged into her MySpace and I deleted everything.

every single photo that there was of us. It's absolutely everything. Cleaned out the entire thing. And then I logged into her email and I deleted every single email that we'd ever sent to each other. And I'm like, that's it. A couple of weeks later, I moved to England. A couple of weeks into that, I was talking to one of the registrars there and they pulled me aside. Like somebody listed you as a reference. They're trying to get into the program. I was like, who's that? And it's like, it's this girl, Amy. She said that you would vouch for her. I was like, absolutely not. No.

They got, they were like, no. So I haven't spoken to her since. The only person that's heard from her was randomly six months after all this went down, my sister, who lives in Maryland, got a package. She opened up the package and there was a loaf of bread. And then there was a picture of Amy. Oh my God. Not like a smiley picture, just like a deranged bug-eyed picture. And on the back it said, happy President's Day. And that was it.

You can't write this stuff. Happy President's Day. She's sick. So I've never heard from her since. I've tried to like Google to see where she's at. Cannot find her.

anywhere. And nobody that I know has heard from her. This is so selfish, but if I were you, all I'd be thinking is like, God, I just need her to find the next guy she's going to get crazy about. I just hope she finds another guy she's obsessed with and he has to deal with it. No. Because you're like, what's the solution to this? Well, the only solution is that she'd get obsessed with someone different. Well, she probably needs to get on medication. Well, sure, sure, sure, sure. So that's the solution. I learned quite a bit from that one is speak what your truth is and not try to just go along.

You know, I was going to say this earlier because I was maybe telling my kids this. I was like, you got to know that when you are in a situation where you want to say something, but it seems very cruel or it's going to hurt the person. What you have to know is you will have to say that. There is no getting out of that. You can delay it.

for some period of time and more stuff will happen. But just know the decision you're making is I'll do it today or I'm going to do it sometime in the future and incur way more stuff. But it will have to get done. And I think that's what you tell yourself. There's going to be an easy, softer way out of this. There isn't in life. Can I be sincere just for a sec? Is that okay? Since all this has happened, I'm a police detective and I specialize in homicide investigations, crimes against children and sexual assault investigations, including stalking. Wow.

I'm a day one arm cherry. I actually emailed you guys in 2018 to say like, thanks, please keep doing the podcast. One of the parts of my job is I work with people who are survivors of crimes and abuse. I myself am a childhood abuse survivor.

One in six boys at some point in their childhood will experience sexual abuse. And some boys never talk about it their entire life. It becomes a thing that weighs on their masculinity and really, really traumatic to even bring it up, much less work through it. Some of the guys that I've worked with that have disclosed this type of background, I've used you as an example to show that just because you acknowledge something for healing, it doesn't emasculate you. It helps you to be able to own your identity and who you are.

It's something that can bring healing and you don't have to sacrifice who you feel you are to be able to do that. So I just want to say thank you. I really appreciate what you've been doing. And Monica as well. Oh, man, brother. That was the very hardest thing I've ever said in my life to somebody. And thank you. Did you hear the Tyler Perry episode for anyone that's

struggling. His willingness and openness is really incredible. Absolutely. Well, you're doing amazing work, it sounds like. Yeah, what a pleasure meeting you. Thank you so much for having me on. Of course. All right. Have a great day. Great meeting you. Take care. Hello. What fake name do you want? Brittany. It's Brittany Bridge. That's right. That's exactly what I thought when I picked it.

Not only do you have a closet rocking, but you also have a nice blanket behind you that's going to be very sound dampening. I have many blankets behind me. Very colorful. Thank you. We have an addiction and we are okay with that. We love our blankies. Of all the addictions, that one's pretty safe. I've given up a lot that weren't, so I call it a win. Can you tell us where you're at? I'm in Southwest Michigan. Oh, wonderful. Wonderful.

I rented a house down there not terribly long ago in Stevensville. Stevensonville? On the water. I was going to guess that, like Michigan, South Haven, St. Joe, something like that. We made Monica a fan. Yeah, it's so fun. It's beautiful. Okay, on a darker note, you have a stalking story. I do.

I do. And I'm going to try not to laugh through it. Well, you'll see. You get to. Yeah, you're allowed to. Obviously involves me, Brittany, and then my cousins. We're going to go with Carrie and Victoria. And Carrie and Victoria are sisters. This is 1996. I'm a junior in high school. Victoria is a year older than me, senior. And then Carrie is 21.

So we're all pretty close. Definitely came in handy on those Friday night party nights. She had her own apartment. It was great. We pretty much are living our best lives at this time. We hang out all the time.

Carrie works at a factory that's pretty big in the area, second shift. And then she tells us about this guy she meets. We're going to call him Kyle. We're all like, what a great guy. He's so nice. She's so happy. She deserves it. We're just like, oh, this is what dreams are made of. A few weeks into this relationship, she starts telling us about a girl named Karen.

who is quite jealous. She really likes Kyle, too. And I mean, why wouldn't you? He's a really nice guy. Karen starts harassing Carrie at first, just snide comments, rude remarks. Do they all work together? Yes, they all work the same place. Carrie just every chance she gets a dig or something. And then Kyle, so sweet, he sends flowers to Carrie at work. And that kind of sets Karen off a little bit.

- Oh. - Karen starts following Carrie home at night. At first, just kind of driving by yelling through the parking lot 'cause it's an apartment complex she lives in. So this continues for probably a couple weeks and then Victoria and I are like, "Something needs to be done." My cousin, her sister, we can't be having this. Karen is regularly showing up at Carrie's apartment after work.

So we plan a stakeout. I was just going to add for color, and maybe we're not as unique in this as I think, but I just need to remind people, girls in Michigan fight. We do. Yes. I'm sure at some point you're like, there's three of us and one Karen. Absolutely. We had it won before it started.

We planned it all out. We're going to jump her. She's never going to see it coming. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, great. I just knew that was in the mix. Victoria and I are sitting in the car and we're waiting and we have a perfect view. The apartment has like an open stairwell so we can see all the way through to the other side. We've got a great vantage point.

So we're waiting and we're waiting. It's a Friday night. We're sure she's going to show up. We see Carrie get home and go inside. And Carrie knew we were there, but she acted like she didn't. We wait probably an hour after Carrie gets home. No, Karen. We go home the next day. Carrie calls Victoria and is like, she showed up after you guys came. And we're like, oh!

The audacity? How did we miss this? So I'm mad. I'm like, we're doing this again. No way this is happening again. Well, before we could plan it, Karen had come back another night and left a note on the door, a very threatening, harassing note. Another night later, Carrie gets home, Karen's there, and there's a little altercation, a pushing, a shoving, yelling. ♪

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So at this point, Victoria and I are like, all right, dude, this is getting scary. She's regularly showing up. You need to go to the police. She goes to the police, files a report. A couple of days go by. So I'm talking to Victoria. What happened with the police? She's like, well, they did an investigation. I'm like, oh, fantastic. Well, what happened? Well, Carrie's not being stalked anymore. Good. Like, did Karen go to jail? And she's like, no, she didn't. I'm like, tell me what happened. And she's like, doesn't want to. I'm like, come on. I've

I was ready to beat this girl's ass. She's like, well, the police talked to the florist and the florist didn't describe a man that sent the flowers. And remember, 1996, we don't really track credit cards. Not many people have them. I said, OK, well, who did she describe? And she's like, Carrie. I had a scary feeling when you said Karen arrived right after you left. I know, right? So I'm like, what? What?

And then they investigated further, found out the note was from Carrie's apartment and a couple other things like Carrie couldn't produce Karen's last name, wouldn't give them Kyle's information. So Carrie got arrested, not Karen. She was stalking herself. Your cousin invented a stalker. Wow, that's kind of

Munchausen Z. Yes, very, very Munchausen Z. I was on board hook, line, and sinker. It was very convincing. Yeah. Yeah. Did you have any follow-up with Carrie? Did it ever get talked about? We just pushed it under the rug and I kind of was like,

No to self. We are taking a little step back. Yes, you know who you're dealing with. Truly, it hurts my heart that she felt she had to do this. You know, 1996, mental health wasn't talked about. But even in current times, there's been some things not quite like that, but some like, okay. And was she ever even dating Kyle or did she just like Kyle at work? We don't really know if he's real. Never met him. He's definitely not real. Yeah.

Well, I could see him being there and she just liked him and made up this whole fantasy about him. He's so great. Someone's jealous of it. It's like a whole soap opera. It also doesn't even make sense that he would send flowers to his own work. Why wouldn't he just bring flowers? Good point. Or send them to her house. These are the questions you ask after the fact. Yeah. And at the little age of 17, I was just all like, oh, he's that flower.

flowers. And no, you didn't think about that stuff. Of course. Now, did you and Carrie's younger sister ever have a session about it? Talk it through? Not really, because she's pretty protective. Even then, I was much more open to like therapy and things like maybe we should have her talk to somebody. And she's like, no, we don't mention it. She pretty much just got a felony and we're just not going to talk about it. What was the charge? Falsifying a police report. Oh,

Oh, no. Oh, my God. I can't believe she was like letting you guys sit out there for an hour on the stakeout. We were like pumped. Probably on Red Bull and who knows what else. Like ready just to grab anybody and start throwing down. There she is. Just some random woman. Oh, my God. Thank God somebody else didn't come to the door that day. Could have ended in a real arrest or a real assault. It could have because we had no description of who she was.

We were just going to jump anybody that went to that door. I started yelling. Oh, wow, Brittany. That was a good twist of a story. I like that one. Really good twist. It's good to have some twisty, lighthearted ones in the middle of these, to be honest. If you have to pick between someone who has a real stalker or a fake one, you know, I hope they have a fake one. That's right. That's what I'm going to hope for if I ever have one. Yeah. So nice meeting you. Nice to meet you, too. Being here with you is like winning the lotto. Probably better. Oh, I don't know about that.

If I ever get it, I'll let you know the comparison. But right now, this is money right here. Oh, thank you, Brittany. Nice to meet you. You guys have a great day. What if her cousin was Amy? Michigan. Oh, she was from Michigan. Yeah. Oh, the ages aren't right. No, they are right. Are they? Because it's my age. Oh, my God. What if? That would be incredible. Should we ask him what the real name was? Perhaps.

Hi, how are you? I'm good. What fake name do you want? Have you thought of one? Hannah. My best friend picked it because she thinks, do I look like a Hannah? I think you do. Oh, yes. Are you allowed to tell us where you're at or no? I think I'd rather just say I'm in the Midwest. Okay, great. Midwest is popular for stalkers, just so you know. Pacific Northwest and Midwest seems to be hot spots for stalkers. Maybe the shitty weather. Maybe. People are bored. Actually, it's been pretty here. Oh.

Oh, I'm jealous. It's gloomy as hell here. Okay, so lay the scene for us. This happened in 2017. It was eight years ago, and there's things I would do differently. Let me just say that. So at the time, ride shares were fairly new to the area.

And I was really uncomfortable. It's sort of intimate, right? Yes. Getting a stranger's car with a stranger driving you and it's like, go to my house. Yeah, 100%. Let me show you where I live. It was really weird. So for a while, I was ride share adverse. But eventually I sort of accepted it. And probably about six months after I decided...

to start using Rideshare. I'm going to use that instead of a company name. Yeah, thank you. So I was at a restaurant with my girlfriends and decided I wanted to Rideshare home. So I ordered a Rideshare and came to the restaurant and it was about 12 minutes from my house. So we're talking this was a short

drive. We're going to call driver Bill. And what time of night was it? When did this dinner conclude? Like 845. It was not late. So I get in the car and driver Bill was really nice. I liked him. Chatty. Just small talk, nothing big, just a little fluffy. Can you tell me Bill's age-ish? It's funny. So I'm 53 and I thought he was about 10 years older than me, but I actually think he was about eight years younger. Oh my. Okay. So some hard miles maybe. Very hard miles. So

We're pulling into my neighborhood and he says, these houses are so cute and I love this neighborhood and I wonder what the value of the houses are. And I said, well, interestingly enough, I'm a real estate agent.

We talked just a little bit and he's pulling up to my house and I said, well, if you are serious about purchasing a house, here is my business card. So far, you're fine. You've done nothing wrong. You've done what most of us would do. So I learned later that a ride share driver is not allowed to call someone outside of the ride after the ride.

It's done. I've just registered with all these ride chairs. And yeah, you're not allowed to get a number. There's all this stuff you can't say. Even if you were invited to get romantic with someone, you cannot do that. That's good. I mean, I'm glad to know that. Some of that stuff actually happened closer to like 2019. In response. This was in the beginning. It was a little bit of risky business. Wild West. Right.

So I give him my card and I go into my house and it's 9 p.m. And I climb into bed and I'm sleeping. All of a sudden, my phone dings at like 1130 p.m. Ooh.

And I get a text and it says, this is your ride share driver. You are a very elegant woman. Thank you for the card. And I will call you tomorrow. We had a couple of red flags there, but I was in the era. This is eight years ago of, I want to help people. I want to work with first time home buyers. I see the good in everyone. I'm like, maybe he's just socially awkward. Maybe I can help him. But you have that ick.

ick. And it's funny as a realtor, you get that ick with people. It's that intuition. Okay. Well, I had it, but I was trying to talk myself out of it. So the next morning, sure enough, get a text. When are we going to get together?

And at that point, I'm like, oh, gosh. And I was really busy. But I thought, well, I'm going to process this a little bit more. So I say to him, listen, I'm super busy. Let's reconvene next week. Dude didn't wait. He was texting me. How are you? Did you have a good day? It got creepy. So I figured out very quick this dude don't want to buy a house. Yeah. He wants to date you. Probably. He does want to live in your neighborhood, but in your house. Yeah.

So at some point I just pulled back. I'm not going to respond to this. It's getting weird. Fast forward a few days and I've pulled up to my company parking lot. All of a sudden I get this barrage of text messages from this guy. He is going off on me. He is saying, you promised me this. You promised me that. And you have not done what you were supposed to. And it goes on. I mean, he's cussing at me. He's like, I am on my way to your office. Oh.

Oh, fuck. What I responded with is, I cannot work with you. Here is the name and number of a colleague of mine who has your name. Call him. He is waiting for your call. Trying to keep it professional. Well, all of a sudden, my phone is blowing up.

And I thought, well, I'm going to answer one time because I want to just set a boundary and say we're done. So I pick up the phone and of course he's screaming and kind of going off. And I said to him, I sent you the information. Don't ever call me again. Great. Okay. Hug up.

He texts me, I am truly on my way to your office. It was terrifying. So I go into my office. And of course, at the time, I told my manager in the front desk and they locked the office down. Thankfully, he never showed up. But for the next week, someone always walked me to my car. This was...

scary stuff. Yeah, of course. In the back of your mind, you know, this guy knows where I live. Yes. Oh, it was awful. And I did not block him because I thought if something happens, I want record of he threatens me or something, but he didn't call. He didn't text. So I really thought we're fine. Well, about a week later, I open up Facebook and my Facebook is public because of my job. I mean, this is how I market myself, but I have a friend request from this guy.

I am like, leave me alone. And so at that point, I think he knows what my children look like. It's obvious he could have found me, but I guess I'm still kind of naive thinking this guy is gone, but he wasn't. So at that point, I think I've got to call ride share corporate. Nice. And no one answered. No one responded to messages. I finally get someone to email me back. I mean, I sent pictures, screenshots of what he said. And they said to me, that's very disturbing. Here is your money back. Oh, my God.

Great. Thanks for the $8. And I just responded like, what are you guys doing about this? Tell me. And they said, well, it's private. We can't tell you. No, you need to say we called him. He's been fired. And he no longer works for this ride share company. Well, then nothing happened. So I thought, well, maybe he got into trouble.

And we're done. So I've got my 10-year-old son, my 13-year-old daughter in the car with me and it's night. And I'm pulling down the road to my house and I see this car in front of my house. And for a minute, I thought, well, maybe a neighbor's having people over, but I'm looking around thinking nobody's having a party.

I can tell. So I pull into my driveway with the kids. It's the same shape car. It's the same color. And I can see there's a man sitting in the front seat. It was Bill. And I was so scared. I locked the doors of my car and I called the police. Yeah. And I thought, I don't want my children 30 feet from this crazy man. And so I said, guys, we're going to run to the house. Maybe that was a bad mistake, but it was what I did. So we all jumped out of the car and we ran to the door and I locked the doors.

So I'm standing at the front door and he's not left. And I see the police lights and I can hear the sirens coming down the street and he takes off. Yeah. Yeah.

I run to the street and there were two police cars and I run up and I said, he just left. Go chase him. He drove off. And then the other guy, I just told the whole story too. And unfortunately, the first police officer comes back and he says he was gone. I couldn't find him. And he says, well, what is his name? And so I had the name from Facebook. So I gave him the name and he went back to his car and did what he did. And he comes back and both of them just say, look, he has not broken any laws. There's nothing we can do.

Which I'm sure you've heard this. Yeah, it's maddening. Well, there's something you can do. You go talk to this guy and you go, we are monitoring you. We are aware of what you've done. And if you do anything, we are going to arrest you. That's what you do. Yeah, I know. Why aren't they doing that? What they said to me is we are going to

patrol your block. We're going to drive in front of your house a lot more for now. And you call us if there's a problem. They were very nice, but you know, their hands are tied. So nothing happens. Time goes by and I think he's done. I called the cops. He got his scare. Right. We just broke up. It was like a month, six weeks. I get on Instagram and he is following me.

So I went to his Instagram profile before I blocked him. And I guarantee he had just created that profile because the picture was like the day before. He had no followers. Like 12 minutes, let go of me. Yeah, this is...

he has a real hang up. Oh, I blocked him and he never came back around and I actually looked him up. As a realtor, we have an app on our phone that allows us to do background checks and I don't know why I'd never thought of it, but he is many states away at this point. Oh, good. Oh, that's good. I mean, he's someone else's

Yeah, the thing is, when we have these stories, I don't ever feel better. I know the person we're talking to has maybe been free of it, but there's no way the person's different. I know. It's sad. I mean, there was a woman who was murdered by an Uber driver a couple years later. And even as realtors, crazy things have happened. So at least people are more aware of these things. And there are safeguards in place that were not before with some of the ride share and also as agents.

They've taught us new things. And it's sad that times have changed and we're not completely safe. But in my business, I'm out in front of the public. I'm networking with strangers. You have to constantly be careful

sharing intimate spaces with people you don't know. Right. So I'm giving out my business card a lot, but I will tell you, I have never given my business card again to a ride share driver. Yeah, it's probably a good policy. Well, if you're ever in Detroit, feel free to call because you might get Aaron Weekley.

And you'll be safe. He'll even protect you from the bad guys. True. So I have to tell you guys, currently my son is 18. When he hit about 13 years old, they go from they love their mom to they don't want to speak to their mom. Yeah. Mom's embarrassing. He turns 13, 14, and he doesn't want anything to do with me, but he can't drive. Oh.

So I'm his ride share. That's right. Yeah, you're his bill. I don't get paid. So I would take him places. And of course, try to talk. I'm all cheery, you know, and he's like, Mama, stop. I don't want to talk. I'm listening to music. It's so brutal. So I started playing armchair expert and in particular, armchair anonymous. And slowly I realized he was listening. And then I would drop him off. I'd say, do you want me to pause it till you get back in the car? And he says, yes. Oh.

Oh, this is so cute. You know, we have observed this weird thing. We keep hearing from people that they listen to it with their kids. And then in my own life, my kids have zero interest in the interviews I do. Even if they are obsessed with a singer, I'll go like, do you want to hear it? And they'll go, yeah. And then five minutes and they're like, I don't want to hear it. Every time we record these and they know I've done Armchair Anonymous at dinner, they go, what stories did you hear today? Kids are really...

fascinated with the things that are going on. Yeah, that makes sense. Yes. Thank you very much for getting my teenage boy to talk to me. Well, and now he's got to listen to you. And guess what, son? I think you're cool. Yeah, mom is cool, son. Well, lovely meeting you. So nice to meet you. You're in the right business. Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment. It is a compliment. Yeah. All right. Well, take care. Nice meeting you. Nice to meet you too.

It's tough out there. It's tough out there. Mostly tough out there for the gals. Well, there were some scary girls in this batch. Oh, stalkers. Stalkers. Stalkers. We did it again. Who needs them? We'll do it again. I love you. I love you. Do you want to sing a tune or something? We know a theme song. Oh.

Okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestions. On the fly, I rhyme dish. On the fly, I rhyme dish. Enjoy. Enjoy.

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This is Nick. And this is Jack. We're best friends, ex-finance guys, and resident 90s experts. And every week on our podcast, The Best Idea Yet, we're bringing you the untold stories behind your favorite products. For instance, can you guess which billion-dollar fashion company went viral thanks to a rhinestone-covered tracksuit? Or which cartoon turned four turtles into a global toy empire by accident? It started as a joke. Last one, which cold beverage was so hated by Starbucks that

They actually ended up acquiring it. Spoiler, the Frappuccino. Howard Schultz apparently thought cold coffee was super lame, and then he bought it. From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Juicy Couture to the Orange Mocha Frappuccino. Join us every week to learn how your favorite things got made. Follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. And if this podcast lasts longer than 45 minutes, call your doctor.