Obsession book extract: Frightening messages from a female stalker

She says I tried to stab my ex-husband. She says I look like a rat, I’m clingy and a bad mother. What the hell is happening? She’s met with my ex-husband, and in time, she will also track down my mother.

Nicole Madigan was stalked by a woman who was obsessed with her partner, Adam.

It is just after 9pm, and I am exhausted from a long day of sun and small talk. The kids are out cold and I am slumped, alone, on the couch, ready for a date with Netflix.

Ding.

It’s a message request on my phone from a “Karissa Owens” – a name I don’t recognise. It says: “Hi! Sorry, totally didn’t mean anything by my comment when the boys were playing football …”

OK, so it’s a woman from the barbecue I’d attended earlier in the day. She’d asked me whether I’d been taking photographs of one of the school dads, Adam. It had seemed odd at the time – I didn’t really know Adam; we hadn’t yet started dating – so I shot back a neutral response.

“No worries … Have a great week.”

I thought nothing more about it. Then, about a week later, as I strolled through Westfield:

Ding.

Obsession by Nicole Madigan details her frightening encounter with a female stalker

I rummaged around in my bag, digging through lip gloss, old wrappers and tampons, and pulled out my phone.

It’s Karissa, saying: “Can I ask you a question?”

‘Sure,’ I reply, although I’m wary.

“Are you married?”

Alarm bells ring, but I’m curious.

Me: “Can I ask why?”

Karissa: “But you aren’t married, right?”

Me: “Can I ask what’s prompting the questions?”

Karissa: “Sorry, it’s quite weird hey! Haha. Guess I’m trying to ask if you are married.”

I tossed my phone back into my bag. Whatever this is, it has nothing to do with me – and whether I am married or not is none of this woman’s business.

Later that evening:

Ding.

“Is that a no?”

I ignore the text.

“All good.”

I ignore some more.

“No worries! You have beautiful kids!”

Now I feel concerned. I decide to contact Adam, asking whether he knows this woman. The reply comes within seconds. He didn’t know about the messages, he said, but I got the sense he wasn’t entirely surprised either. He said he was sorry. Karissa was a woman he’d dated about a year ago. She’d wanted to remain friends, but it had become clear that wasn’t a good idea.

You don’t say! I thought, The poor guy, how embarrassing!

■ ■ ■

Anyone who has left a marriage knows how incredibly complex and traumatic a decision it is. It rips at your heart and tugs at your brain, and you wait, and you hope things will get better. You try until you physically have nothing left to give.

Mine was a marriage of 12 years to a man I met when I was just 18; we were together for almost half my life, I knew nothing else. When I left, I honestly believed it would be me and my children against the world, forever. And I was quite happy for it to be that way. Love found me, though, and it did turn out to be with Adam, after we connected on the phone.

Over time, and many messages, I discovered that he was an old-fashioned romantic and a total gentleman.

When time came to have our first date, he organised for a stunning bunch of flowers to be delivered to my home, as I tossed outfit options around my room and my mum wrangled the kids for a day at the movies. It was a lunch, and from the moment we sat down, we picked up in real life where we left off on our devices, talking as feverishly in person as we did in writing, about our lives, our feelings and our worlds. Our relationship developed organically, with love, respect and family at its core.

Several months after we started dating, we decided to host a football finals party at Adam’s apartment. Our children, extended family and friends came along, and at the end of the night, Adam posted a bunch of photos from the party to Facebook. One by one, our guests left and all that remained was a messy apartment, dirty dishes and full hearts. We carried my sleeping daughter, hair a tangled mess of knots and remnants of hair paint, and placed her on a blow-up mattress. We said good night to four excited but exhausted boys, happily crammed into two single beds.

Texts send to Nicole Madigan’s phone

Standing in the kitchen, we were tired but content. Silly grins adorned our faces and we prepared to make what felt like the biggest decision of the night – Should we clean up now or in the morning? – when my phone told me I’d received a message.

I pick it up. It’s a Facebook message request from an “Adam Isaloser”.

There is no profile photo.

“How do you like my sloppy seconds? Might go hit up your ex-husband on Plenty of Fish. I used to sleep in that West Coast jersey.”

As I try to process the words, another message comes through.

“Enjoy sleeping in the bed we f*ked in hundreds of times.”

A fifth message follows, too vulgar to repeat. I stare at my phone in shock. My eyes are wide, my hands shake. One of my biggest anxieties about going into a relationship after the divorce was the dynamics surrounding ex-spouses. But this isn’t Adam’s ex-wife. She is a reasonable person, and their marriage has long been over.

Ding.

My eyes shoot open.

Ding.

Seconds pass.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

Without speaking, I reach for the phone, my stomach a tangle of knots. Six messages from “Karissa Owens” using the same account she used to message me about whether I’d taken any photographs of Adam, almost a year earlier.

“He’s using you to make me jealous.

He still asks about me, and my children.

You sleep on my side of the bed.

Ask him if he still has the pillow I bought him.

He always said he hates blondes.”

The final message is graphic, sexually explicit and full of expletives.

Ding.

This time it’s Adam’s phone, sending my butterflies into an even more frantic fluster. It’s a message request from Karissa, from a newly created account, as he’d previously blocked her usual one. The message is long, and again filled with expletives and vulgarity.

She tells him she’s met my ex-husband in person. She says that I’m a crazy bitch who tried to stab him, that I stole from him, cheated on him and have plans to do the same to Adam. She tells him I look like a rat, that my nose is too big and that I’m a desperate whore, but also sexually boring. I’m clingy and a bad mother, and he will regret his decision to be with me. She will make sure of it. Fury is replaced with fear. What the hell is happening? None of what she says about me is true. I don’t know if she’s really met my ex-husband, but it will turn out that she has, and in time, she will also track down my mother. She will use aliases to “friend” and “follow” me on social media – but I still feel helpless. So I say nothing. I just sit in the bed and cry. Adam wants to reply, warn her to leave us alone, but I refuse to allow it. My irrational mind tells me this is nothing more than a jealous woman after attention. And there’s no way I’m going to give it to her.

■ ■ ■

As a journalist I’ve spent years writing extensively about domestic abuse, intimate partner violence and family law. I know leaving an abusive relationship is the most dangerous time for victim-survivors. I know perpetrators are overwhelmingly men. Victims are overwhelmingly women.

I know stalking is common among domestic abusers, particularly after the relationship ends. But that’s about all I know about it. And at this stage, the idea of stalking doesn’t even cross my mind. I’m not thinking of criminal behaviour of any kind. Instead, I just feel shock, disgust, embarrassment. What can I do? I block the fake account and put what we hope is a one-off incident behind us. It isn’t. It won’t be, for years.

Extract from Obsession: A journalist and victim-survivor’s investigation into stalking by Nicole Madigan published 2 May 2023 by Pantera Press