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Sunday, August 5, 2012

A stalker that wanted to bathe in my blood

"Oh Sara, you should be grateful that men want you." is something I hear from naive people who have never filed numerous police reports against an obsessed person. According to the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime, stalking refers to repeated harassing or threatening behavior by an individual, such as following a person, appearing at a person's home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person's property. I've been stalked from an ex's girlfriend, a classmate, former boyfriends to fan boys. These people were not just obsessed about me but were seeking a form of control. 

I'm going to use a fake name for this person because even saying his name made me shudder. 

I met "Bob" during a class when I was 18 years out attending college for the first time. It was near the end of the semester so the teacher asked us to get into groups to study for the final. I exchanged my number with three other people, two females and one male, that male was "Bob". I didn't much of it at the time, because I've never a classmate harrass me before. All four of us got together to study in the library and I thought nothing of it. Soon after that semester ended, "Bob" called me to come to a party. I went over on a Friday night, there was a mild amount of people in the apartment. There was nothing unusual. I never talked to "Bob" outside of class before, but he didn't seem too odd from study group. He was clean shaven, tall, somewhat handsome, nicely dressed and polite, former sailor and a current photography major. However, after that night I learned something was a little strange about him. He had about a dozen tattoos of women, one of those women were me. A tattoo of my face on someone who I met a little less than a month before was a red flag. Little did I know at the time was that he got that tattoo before I even met him. My reaction was "is that real?" I tried to wipe it off with my fingers but it wouldn't budge. I honestly, was a bit flattered but more creeped out. I was used to compliments from strangers for my head shots for makeup but I've never met anyone who put my regular face on his arm. I asked him why he would do that. He said I reminded him of his friend's "ex-wife" that he was in love with but was murdered. I never knew from that point on the next year and a half of my life was going to be hell.

I rejected "Bob"'s invitations to any other events for the next three months, because I wasn't comfortable with the fact my face was on his arm. The only communication I had with him other than that was just saying "I'm okay and yourself?" to whenever he would say "How are you?" Then the fall semester started up again. I wasn't attending college that semester because I was preoccupied with other stuff, however whenever I visited I would always somehow run into "Bob." I would again, just say "Hello, how are you?" then slowly over time I would see him at other places such as downtown, the grocery store, on public transportation and then eventually even walking around my neighborhood. It became from seeing him or bumping into him twice a month to twice a week, to seeing him outside my window at night taking pictures. This was frightening because we lived in different cities and I didn't even give him my home address. I called him up angry once I saw him outside with a camera and asked "WHAT THE F ARE YOU DOING? ARE YOU STALKING ME?" He replied that I'm pretty and that he liked the way I photographed. I asked him to stop. Of course it only got worse. 

"Bob" called me numerous times at night, sometimes outside my house to tell me drunk confessions. He talked about how his friends kidnapped Mexicans and Native Americans then murdered them in his home state of Montana. Eventually he confessed that the girl I reminded him of, his friend's dead exwife who was murdered and he was in love with was one of the people his friends murdered. He told me about how his friends mutilated the body by first cutting her hair, cut holes in her body to rape and eventually slit her throat. My heart froze. He kept going on "You remind me of her, down to the way she smelled." The next day I went to the police station and told them about the phone calls as well as seeing him take pics of me and show up where I was. I told him that I thought he was obsessed with me. One of the officiers literally laughed at me and said that was a big claim. Another one told me that I'm wasting their time if I don't have any actually evidence. I didn't record the phone calls and it's not illegal to be on the sidewalk. "Bob" only seemed to get worse after that.

"Bob" wouldn't leave a voice mail if he called so I couldn't get any evidence and writing down that he was around me at the same time doesn't seem to count as evidence at all. His showing up where I was and taking pics was tormenting me. I didn't even want to leave the house and whoever I told about his tattoo seem to think it was hilarious. Then one night he got super drunk and left me hundreds of text messages. The messages talked about him wanting to sniff my hair, smell my breath to crazy stuff like "gouge" out my eyeballs and skull f*ck me. It literally went on all night of weird bizarre acts such as draining my blood to bathe in it and carving holes in my corpse. I was so scared that the next day I didn't even leave my room. It took me two more days to even get the courage to leave my house and go back to the police station, the same police station that laughed at me before. However, this time they weren't laughing.The process to get an order against him was rather quick. The evidence was presented through my phone.

Two months later I did the mistake of answering an "UNKNOWN" number. It was "Bob." He was extremely drunk. He yelled into the phone "I am going to get you half bred gook, just like I did to the others!" I hung up on him. I haven't seen him following me around since the order, but I was terrified once it expired. The reason I couldn't get a permanent one was because he didn't cause me any physical damage. I say, if anyone makes a threat to another person with good evidence that they are stalking then that person should be permanently not be allowing them!


Ever since there I have been somewhat different, but not too much. For one thing, I'm paranoid about meeting new people. I don't give out my number to males unless they are a mutual friend or I've known them for at least a month. I don't even answer unknown phone calls unless I'm expecting one from the hospital. Even then, I tell them they have to leave a voice mail with a contact number because of my experience. The biggest irritant I gained from the experience was I get heated by strangers taking pics of me. I know that sounds strange, but I live in a tourist city. People take random pics all the time, however I did slap a couple of men who took pics from about 2 feet from my face and tried to kick a guy who took an up skirt pic of me. Not only that, I'm more aware of my surroundings. Because my vision is so poor, I've focused more on my hearing and lights. I laugh about the fact he added me to his tattoo collection now, but honestly he probably would have hurt me and it definitely wasn't funny to me back then.

I'm not flattered. I'm not honored by this experience. The police system is very much flawed. I wasn't even taken seriously the first time I tried to report this. Any type of death threat or a person standing outside a house taking pics should be allowed a permanent restraining order. It shouldn't be because of rape, romantic past, or physical battery. That's just stupid. Also don't you think that anyone with a restraining order should at least have their mental health evaluated? Do you think the other women on his arms could have been injured? There needs to be a change in the system for both getting an order as well evaluating mental health for unprovoked death threats.

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