Armchair Anonymous: Stalking II

0:01Welcome, 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.

0:37It really does. Yeah. Please enjoy Stalker, part two.

1:02Hello. 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 rodeo. Yeah. Not my first rodeo. Not my first barbecue. This is my first Armchair Anonymous interview. 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 arm cherries with me and they feature in this story.

1:45And 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. 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.

2:26I had just turned 18 in December. and Monica, my junior year, our cheer team won state. I was on the cheerleading squad. Oh my gosh. 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.

3:03It 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, of course. 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.

3:35I 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 friend requests 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. Wow. How old was the neighbor? He was probably in his 30s, lived with his mom, And we didn't interact with him a lot.

4:23But 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 had deleted the friend requests. I had 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 the common thread. Yeah, yeah. It's like, I'm sorry, you didn't do it correctly. You weren't a correct victim. Then he turns his attention towards my mom.

4:54He 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, but it would have cost her money. We had gone over to the home. Well, 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.

5:27So 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 of things to note, we lived on a private driveway. 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.

6:02Joe'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, Erica, turns 18. So she starts receiving the Facebook friend request, the messages. 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.

6:36At 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. That's a follow-up question. 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.

7:16What 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 sheriffs 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.

7:49In 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 about 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. Ah. 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.

8:30Obstructing police and failing to register as a sex offender. Wow. What do you do with someone like this? I know. 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.

9:07Yeah. Was that to make them infertile or not horny? I'm not sure. 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 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.

9:51We're not really sure, but there's a lot of things going on. And then the micropenis. 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 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 can too.

10:25He's 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. 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. You never know where I'm at with my annoying of Monica. So 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.

11:01Rob, 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. Oh, congratulations. 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.

11:39So thank you for always being there for me. And you're my favorite parasocial relationship. So thank you. Oh, we love that. Yeah, Lindy, this was delightful. Thank you so much. And thank you for being a teacher. The best year, 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 prompt, teacher prompts or more teacher experts on anything like that. We would love. That's a great idea. Well, thank you, Lindy.

12:12So nice meeting you. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Bye. Hi. Hi there. This is happening, huh? It's truly happening. Do you have a preferred fake name? Can I go by Nick? 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. Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick. Because I would have said if I was in this situation, yeah, I would probably go like Justin, Trevor.

12:47Names 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, so. What if he goes, my name's Joe Smith and I use the pictures?

13:24Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah, none of the stalkers have called in. You're right. It's always people have 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.

14:00It was like a work study where you live 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. It was 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.

14:29Yes. 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.

15:06And 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. And 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, DC. 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.

15:40Was she crying? She was absolutely a wreck. Okay, oh yeah. I fly back to DC and I'm getting involved in life. I work at a warehouse for 12 hour shifts And I get a call a couple months in 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.

16:17and she grabs me and she hugs me and she starts to kiss me. And 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. 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. There's no notice.

16:49She was just there. I asked my stepmom, hey, do you think that she can 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'd 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.

17:21She 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'd 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?

17:55Who 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. 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.

18:26I 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 pack all of her stuff. I was like, all right, I'm sorry. But, you know, it's been great. See ya. So she leaves with mom.

18:57Can I ask you a question you're not going to want to answer? That's okay. Okay. 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. Okay, great. And then you feel guilty. Exactly. Time comes for parents to move. I helped them move from D.C. 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.

19:31So I go and answer it. And it's Amy. In Jacksonville, Florida. Yes. 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. 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.

20:09And 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 them to be here. They're like, is it Amy? I was like, yes, it's Amy.

20:40They 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 And in the middle of the night, I woke up to Amy 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.

21:14This 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.

21:43It'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? 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.

22:12They 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.

22:44I knew her MySpace password and her email password because it was my name. Oh my God. I logged into her MySpace and I deleted 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?