Inside a stalker’s obsession: Perpetrator tells how and why he targeted his victim
“THE more she weakened, the stronger I felt,” says convicted stalker James of his victim. His relentless pursuit landed him in jail, but even now he admits, “I honestly don’t know” when asked what would happen if he saw the woman again.
Book extract
Don't miss out on the headlines from Book extract. Followed categories will be added to My News.
WHAT possesses someone to become a stalker?
Author Rachel Cassidy knows all about the other side of the crime after being a victim of stalking herself.
In her book Stalked: The Human Target, she allows more Australian victims to share their stories and highlights the resources available to help.
But in trying to understand the crime, her most challenging encounter is with James, a stalker who despite the experience of being jailed, cannot say what he would do if he came face-to-face with the woman he targeted again.
WHY DO THEY DO IT?
Of all the work I’ve done in preparing this book, all the research and interviews, this is the moment I feared the most. I’m about to come face to face with a convicted perpetrator who was now free to walk the streets again. The fact that this is a person who targeted someone else, and is a complete stranger to me, doesn’t make me feel much better. My own experience of being stalked, and everything I’ve learned about stalking, make me certain this is someone to be wary of — someone who is capable of obsessive, manipulative, unpredictable and dangerous behaviours. And yet, at the same time, I fully expected to be underwhelmed when I met him. I know from first-hand experience that stalkers aren’t the bogeymen we see in our nightmares or in Hollywood films. They aren’t necessarily shadowy characters hiding in alleyways. They can be clean-cut, well-presented, educated professionals who can appear to be perfectly ‘normal’ to the rest of the world. Indeed, this is a huge part of their power and the way they convince others to support them against their target. They sometimes have what is considered to be high public standing, are known as ‘good citizens.’ As I approached the meeting place, I felt my heart rate increase and I wrestled with the old emotions of fear and helplessness, which were so cleverly instilled in me by the perpetrator who had torn my own innocent world apart.
When I entered the room, James was sitting quietly dressed in a suit and tie. He was clean-cut and very welcoming. I examined him closely, looking for the signs — a twitch, a villainous glance, a bullying stare. Nothing. He shook my hand. I waited for my instincts to evoke terror. Nothing. If I had not known of his relentless three-year pursuit of a woman in her 40s who had three children, I would have immediately regarded him as pleasant, and engage in conversation with him just as I would anyone else. And as we talked, I became more aware of his disarmingly charming manner.
True Crime Australia: Answers elusive in Underbelly graves mystery
Crime scenes: What it’s really like to be a forensics investigator
James had met Carly through a work colleague. He was from a stable family, had two sisters and one brother, and had grown up in a leafy, affluent suburb of a big city. To my knowledge he had no known prior stalking behaviour. He now works in the corporate sector and is in a senior management position with a multinational company, after having been found guilty and serving time in jail.
‘I am not hiding it any more’
‘So, James,’ I said, ‘why have you agreed to the interview?’ He replied calmly. ‘Well, I guess I want you to understand what it’s like, what they call stalking, what it’s really like — what it feels like to me. I want to talk about it now because I am not hiding it any more. For years I spent a lot of my life either actively stalking Carly, being punished for stalking Carly or recovering from stalking Carly. When I was doing it, I thought about her all the time — what was she doing, where was she, who was she talking to, how I could get closer to her. I couldn’t get the thoughts out of my head. I would wake up thinking about her and she was my last thought each and every night. I would write down plans to infiltrate her life. I used to have over 300 pictures of her on my computer and my phone. Sometimes I would sit outside her house and photograph her from across the road behind the big trees.
‘I scanned Facebook and the internet and tried to befriend her friends. I would follow her schedule every day of the week. If she changed the schedule, I got stressed, very stressed. My job involved being out on the road visiting clients and I would make sure the visits coincided with watching Carly at some point each day. Sometimes she caught me watching her, sometimes she didn’t.
‘It started at a barbecue. She was very attractive and friendly and her personality was so bright. I had never met anyone like her before. She gave me a lot of attention and, after I offered to help financially with a charity she was involved in, she suggested we could catch up the next week for coffee. She was kind, smart and lived a completely different life to mine. She made it clear at the start that she had a partner, but I just didn’t want to hear that. I didn’t care. I wanted her. I had never experienced anything like the feeling I instantly had for her. I couldn’t get enough of her and when she got scared off and stopped our catch-ups I didn’t cope. I was depressed and I constantly thought about her and how I could get her. My thoughts scared me sometimes, but I kept up my job and my friendships. All the other parts of my life looked very normal.
‘When the stalking increased and I started doing sneaky things to bully her into seeing me, I convinced people around me that Carly was the crazy one. I had a good reputation, so why wouldn’t anyone believe me? I was popular and had been around for years — I guess I played off that a bit because people trusted me and I got a lot of them on side. I never stopped to think about her. I only thought of me — and us.
‘I tried to make her feel vulnerable’
‘I convinced one of my friends that Carly was a crazy, neurotic woman who wanted to hook up with me. He believed me and helped me hack into her computer — which allowed me to send these crazy emails to her work colleagues so they would think she was mad. I thought that if they sacked her, she would come running to me. I tried to make her feel vulnerable — well, as much as I could. In the early stages I told her that people were saying nasty things about her. Then, when she’d send me an upset text message in response, I’d show other people what she had sent me, not what I had said to her to provoke that reaction. I would then turn to Carly and be the hero. In her eyes I was defending her against wicked people spreading vicious rumours. She started to feel unbalanced. I could see it affected her.
‘I would phone her over and over just to hear her voice. Then, when she changed numbers, I tricked one of her friends into giving me the new number. I continued calling her over and over again — sometimes 50 or 60 times a day, sometimes at night. I would get a fix when I heard her voice and then hang up.
‘I could tell she was worn down, stressed and depressed. The more she weakened, the stronger I felt. When she sent her brother to my house to plead with me to stop, I got a high just knowing that my relentless advances were affecting her and she was noticing me. It was working. I never stopped.
FOLLOW: True Crime Australia on Facebook and Twitter
‘A lot of it was anonymous and whenever I did have direct contact with her I was always careful that there were no witnesses to hear my threats. I sent parcels to her door but they couldn’t track them to me. I would spend hours working out my next move. I told mutual friends very convincing stories about her being crazy, neurotic and harassing me and that she was the culprit.
‘Then I guess I went too far. I saw her talking to an older man one night, a stranger, outside her house. He left and she lingered with her little dog outside the front of her house. I knew her partner was out of town. I was already planning ways I would separate them but now there was this new guy. I went crazy because he wasn’t in the plan. I was blinded by jealousy — Why was she talking to him and not me? Who was he? I ran out of the bushes and grabbed her, shaking her, threatening her, screaming at her. I was obsessed by her. She was driving me crazy. She broke away from me, ran inside and locked the door. I belted on the door. I could hear her kids screaming inside, but I couldn’t stop. I don’t even remember how long I was there. When the police arrived, it all sort of went downhill from there. Then they found the pictures of her and the computer stuff. I guess there was a lot they uncovered. It went bad for me and I ended up serving time.
‘I hear she moved away,’ James says. ‘I don’t know where. Just talking about it now is bringing it all back.’
He was more preoccupied about what it had done to his life. ‘I guess I am still not totally over it,’ he says. ‘I don’t know whether I can continue talking about it. Best I stop now.’
‘So, James, if Carly walked into this room what would you do?’ He stared out of the window for what seemed like an eternity. Finally he said, ‘I honestly don’t know. But I know I haven’t felt this way about anyone else in my life, or anyone I met before Carly. I wouldn’t know until she was in front of me.’
I hoped that he never had contact with Carly again.
• Names have been changed by the author to protect identities
• This is an edited extract from Stalked: The Human Target (Rockpool Publishing $29.99) by Rachel Cassidy, available 1 October at all good book stores and online at www.rockpoolpublishing.com.au
Originally published as Inside a stalker’s obsession: Perpetrator tells how and why he targeted his victim
‘Shrapnel and faeces’: Shock of Bali bombing victims
A new book has revealed what happened inside the walls of the burns clinic treating Aussies injured in the Bali bombings. Read the extract.
My coffee date with two gangland killers
In his book extract, Enzo Condello — the brother of slain gangland figure Mario Condello — describes the day he saw the dark side of Carl Williams.