Georgia Firearm Forums - Georgia Packing banner

Wife Being Stalked or Harrassed, Advice Needed

2K views 53 replies 28 participants last post by  BirdMan 
#1 ·
First, let me give you the story. Then I'll explain a bit. I'm trying to remain as calm, logical, and unemotional about this as possible. My normal reaction to this would be to text them back, tell them that I know about this, and if it doesn't stop their will be consequences. I realize how that may turn out badly, though, if the person is malicious or has bad intent.

Last year, for her birthday, she found a Happy Birthday Card telling her how gorgeous she was, how she was all that he could think of, and a ton of other very inappropriate lovey-dovey writings as she left from work. It was not signed, but it was clearly in very poor hand-writing, we would guess a man's handwriting just from looking at it. Now, fast forward, 11 months.

Monday, my wife gets a text on her phone. It says "Hey Beautiful," at work.

She doesn't recognize the number, but thinks it me, just messing around with her over some internet website. You know the kind where you can send a text message, yet you can make it come from any number that you want. Yeah, if you didn't know that, check it out. I heard about it not too long ago, and actually told my wife about it because I was trying to let her know that your phone can be tricked on the sender info when it comes to text.

Back to the story. She thinks its me, and says "Great, how are you doing?"

The person then answers back, "Do you know who this is?"

Well this goes back an forth quite a few times between my wife and this person she asks, "Who is this?" The other person returns with, stuff that he/she knows about my wife. This person knows quite a bit about my wife.

This person knows her name, her eye color, where she works, knows we are married, and knows what car she drives (Of course knows her cell phone number)

Now take into account, the person writing the text appears to be male, and they are representing whoever they are as a male. That doesn't mean its true, though. I understand it could be anyone.

The only information the person gave about themselves was 6'0" Blue eyes and 200 lbs. The person goes on into more detail that I won't go into here, because its probably not relevant, but is indeed disturbing to my wife and I.

After she is thoroughly creeped out, she tells the person that if they don't tell her who they are, she isn't going to send any more text. The text stop.

She goes out to her car to find another, "love letter," on the car, same manly and bad penmanship, everything.

Then today, three days later she gets more love type text with some sexual content. She was not at work.

Weird, almost a year between the two. But now the person has stepped it up to electronically harassing her.

I understand it could be anyone, male or female. I really cannot count anyone out. My wife helps around 1,000 people a day in her job, that is not an exaggeration at all. Sometimes less of course.

It could be someone from her work, it could be a customer that she helps, ect. We've fairly narrowed it down to the bank.

Also, in fairness of me being completely honest here, an attractive girl she works with at the bank received similar text from the same s/n 7 months ago. They got sexual in nature, she quit answering and she says they went away after a very long time. However, she never got "love letters" on her car, either. They also never went into all the specifics about how much the person knew about her, either. They were mainly sexual, so creepy, but not quite as creepy.

My guess is we might have a creep employee there. How did they find out the cell phone numbers? That is kind of a big clue. If not, maybe a person who goes to her place of business, and has access to find that sort of thing out. Also, my wife wears her full name on her name tag. Ridiculous, but that is there policy.

It could really be male or female. To be honest, we just don't know. It could be a female at her work that is jealous of or doesn't like my wife. Maybe even secretly. I now know this isn't my wife doing this, because she was receiving text from this person and conversing back and forth in front of me. I do trust my wife completely as well. I don't think she is doing this as an attempt at attention. As I said, I'm thinking cold, calculated, and I'm thinking of every possibility right now.

I also want to tread lightly here, I want to find out who this is before I get myself or anyone else involved. I also, know nothing about his person. It could just be complete innocent fun, that they get some kind of a thrill out of, or it could be more malicious. You just never know. I just do not want to text something threatening and then all the sudden my wife goes missing next time she goes to try to fill up her car with gas after work.

I don't know if the information from the text will help any of you technology guru's here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

If the number and s/n that are appearing on the text would help any of you find more about this person, or just find out anything about this person, I'll send it to you through PM. The reason for that being, I don't want anyone on the internet to harass this person in anyway, as I will not put my wife in any danger, although, it doesn't appear she is in any immediate danger, right now.

Again, I repeat. I do not want anyone contacting this person until we know more about them.

The number is also too short to be a telephone number. The number is eight digits. Two shy of a telephone number.

I'm sure no large crime has been committed in any of this, so at the moment, I'm reluctant to involve law enforcement, unless something changes for the worst. It was my first inclination to get law enforcement involved, but I realize this doesn't sound very serious at the moment, and they have a lot bigger things to do right now, than dealing with a harassment or stalking case. However, if this was a prank, I'm sure someone would have come out and admitted to it by now.

I don't think this person is going to reveal who they are through text, so I have told my wife to just stop replying to them. But to keep them. She has started to save them as of today, under my say so.

I will say that this has creeped my wife out and tonight she asked me to hurry up and buy her a carry pistol and to help her get her GWL. I don't have the cash right now, or else I would do it immediately. She does carry pepper spray, though.

Alright, give my your thoughts, if you think you can find out anything about this person from the eight digit number or screen name, I'll PM it to you, and I ask that you keep it to yourself for the time being. If I want it released, I'll do so myself. Only when it is safe to do so.

Do you think it would help to go get any information from her cell service provider? Anybody works for one, or has worked for one in the past? Will they be able to tell us anything?

I know all digital things leave some sort of a trace.

Thank you for your time to read this, and I appreciate any help that you can give us. My wife is really creeped out and scared, and I'm just ticked, and worried about the safety of my wife at this point.

Hopefully this, will just go away with time, but I still want to know who this person is, and also, if it doesn't stop or escalates, I want to be able to say I did all that I could.

Edit for clarity.
 
See less See more
#4 ·
Re: Wife Being Stalked or Harassed, Advice Needed

The person is probably using an internet based texting site. They are completely anonymous. I would have her report it to the bank. They may already have an active investigation you guys don't know about. Short of that, keep her armed.

Ok, here's an unhelpful but entertaining true story about how disgusting "stalker" types can be. A friend of mine had this happen when she was in college and living in a co-ed rental house at UGA. She had two male roommates. The one guy was cool. The other creeped her out and was always jokingly trying cheesy pickup lines on her. At the end of the lease...last day of the lease, she was eating a sandwich at the kitchen table. The creepy roommate walked out of his room with a mason jar he had been keeping in his mini refrigerator. Grinning, he set it on the table in front of her and said, "This is because of you". You probably guessed, the contents of the jar were an off-white color. She said it was real and unfortunately, not a bad joke. She walked out of the rental never talking to the guy again.
 
#5 ·
Call the police or the Feds! Have them record & trace his calls to her. He/ she is commiting a crime!

She MUST tell the person FIRMLY, she has no interest in any type of involvment with him. She MUST tell the person to stop calling her, as it is scaring her!
If that does not work. If the police or the Feds don't wish to get involved for some reason...
Have her carry a firearm or some other means of self defence! Sadly, There are nut jobs out there, that will not take NO for a answer.

The non-PC / New York City or old style way, would be to wait for him, to put another communication or note on her car.
Have her invite him/ her to a out of the way place for a meeting....
Then smash all his/her fingers with a baseball bat! :shattered:

I DO NOT recommend this in anyway! YOU can & will go to jail !

A friend of mine had just this type of problem years ago. He was charged with aggravated assault. The (Bad?)guy can barly use his hands to feed himself! The guys hands are a real mess, I saw the X rays at my pals trial!

Best,
broom
 
#6 ·
Through some Google-Fu, and some luck, I believe I may have caught a break. Since there is a screen name attached to every one of these text, I believe they may be coming from Yahoo Messenger. Yahoo Messenger also allows you to send a SMS (text) directly from your yahoo messenger program to a cell number for free.

The screen name pinged somebody. No name, but that profile does read 28/m/Georgia. It was activated on 8/11/2010.

Also, there is a hit on google on a website named penpals.net. He goes by P.J. over there, and that he is "shy, but easy to get along with." Telling people to email him at his yahoo account. That's how I got the yahoo connection. However, the age over there is different. 54 to be exact. He states that he owns his own business over there. Wonder if that is the harassing young girls business?

We indeed have a shy boy here.
 
#8 ·
Call the FCC, police and the GBI. What they are doing is a crime and needs to be reported. You can't go around harrasing people ove the phone or stalking them by leaving notes on the car. Play it safe for yourself and your family and let the proper authorities deal with it. Do not let her tell anyone where she works it has been turned over to law enforcement. Since it could be any of them you don't want to tip them off.
 
#10 ·
EJR914:

As others had said, you, or rather her, need to start a paper work trail of instances with the police, fbi, gbi or whoever needs to be notified for these things. That paper trail will portrait her as the "victim" in case either she or you come face to face with the stalker and things "go south" from there.
 
#11 ·
EJR,

I've been down this road before with a collegue of mine and what a mess it was. You need to contact the authorities, and possibly the FBI to let them know the situation. The only way for them to locate this guy will be by IP addresses and mac addresses and those records have to be gotten by warrants. You can't believe what profiles say but It's very safe to say its the older one if any of the two: Because why would you fake a profile and say you're 50+ when you're 28? Yep no 28 year old would do that. You need to save all text messages and things that he sends to your wife. And as in my case that I helped a friend on, it turned out to be a co-worker, thats how they got her cell and the rest of her info about her because of normal conversation and what not. Facebook has and can be the root of all evil. If your wife hasnt done so already, make her go on there and put her account on private for everything. But seriously consider contacting the appropriate authorities in regards to this. I would probably go straight to the FBI with a phone call and explain the situation with a detective or something and see what can be done. I'm not sure if local LEO's would put forth much effort. Let me know if you need any help.
 
#12 ·
+1 to everyone that says get the authorities involved. You can google what you have till you're blue in the face, and it won't lead you to an address with a real person who can be charged with a crime. The cops however, once involved, can easily have the cell phone records pulled to see exactly where the texts are coming from and trace it back from there. This isn't something you can do yourself, unless you're good enough at hacking that you can get into the cell phone companies records. The most you can get yourself is what's on the bill. Hand this over to the authorities, before it gets worse. This way, if it does come to any sort of confrontation at all--there's a least a record of what has been going on.

ETA: oh, and a bullet cam in the car attached to a recording device may help you to identify someone too--or simply you (or someone else) in another car with a video recorder set up keeping an eye on her car. ;)
 
#13 ·
I agree with Jeff. Paper trail is important, and having this reported is as well. that way this guy is a possible threat, it'll stand up in court a little better if you ever have to draw on this guy. Like it or not, this guy or girl is a possible threat to your wife, and until its figured out who he is, I would treat it very seriously. Kid or not, someone will learn a valuable lesson that stalking someone is illegal and can be very dangerous. Now its up to you to show this person how illegal and very dangerous it can be. Keep us informed EJR. I'm sorry ur wife is going through this.
 
#14 ·
all I can add is to emphasize the importance of keeping notes, saving both the messages AND a paper-and-pen log or journal of them.
And make sure to tell the guy in no uncertain terms that his contact with her is unwelcome, offensive, scary, and she feels harassed. That will make it clear that he's doing it for the purpose of harassment, making it a crime (even if he doesn't say anything obscene or threatening). (16-11-39.1, I think is the Code section).
 
#15 ·
You and she should ALSO involve the company's H.R. department, and document all communications with them. If the company doesn't have H.R., go up the chain, and end-run any person who attempts to trivialize the response, and communicate the additional problem of "lack of response" to the next higher person in the chain. Document everything. If the birthday card was delivered or placed at work, it's likely to be workplace related.

Edited.
 
#16 ·
My sis-in-law just went through something similar, although it wasn't a stranger. Ex-boyfriend was going the same thing thing, texting, etc. She finally called the cops and he ended up back in jail (yeah, he was a real winner).

Your situation is a little different in that you don't know exactly who it is. But the behavior is the same, so as soon as you or the cops do figure out who it is, they can actually get in trouble for it. But yes, it is VERY important that your wife "stop contacting me" or something else equally clear. The cops will definitely ask if she's said it and having the text message on her phone to show them will really help.

Hope you figure it out. I can only imagine what I'd feel like doing if it were my wife or daughter.
 
#17 ·
If I'm reading correctly, since some of this seems to be occurring on bank property, and I can't remember, but was some of it arriving to her work email ?, it would be a good idea to to ahead and get her HR department involved. If any of this is originating or passing through her work network it should be easy to detect and trace.

I would advise she bypass bosses and co-workers for now and go straight to HR with examples just in case the offender is one of them. Even if laws haven't yet been broken (yet), certainly corporate harassment rules have.
 
#18 ·
mb90535im said:
If I'm reading correctly, since some of this seems to be occurring on bank property, and I can't remember, but was some of it arriving to her work email ?, it would be a good idea to to ahead and get her HR department involved. If any of this is originating or passing through her work network it should be easy to detect and trace.

I would advise she bypass bosses and co-workers for now and go straight to HR with examples just in case the offender is one of them. Even if laws haven't yet been broken (yet), certainly corporate harassment rules have.
+1
 
#19 ·
For all of you that are saying what is happening is a crime, please point out the relevant code section in either the Georgia code or the U.S. Code.

The FBI can't get involved unless there is a federal crime at play.

The GBI has no original jurisdiction over such an incident (if it is in fact a crime) and could only get involved if requested to do so by the local agency with original jurisdiction.
 
#22 ·
legacy38 said:
For all of you that are saying what is happening is a crime, please point out the relevant code section in either the Georgia code or the U.S. Code.

The FBI can't get involved unless there is a federal crime at play.

The GBI has no original jurisdiction over such an incident (if it is in fact a crime) and could only get involved if requested to do so by the local agency with original jurisdiction.
GA Code 16-5-90. Stalking; psychological evaluation

(a)(1) A person commits the offense of stalking when he or she follows, places under surveillance, or contacts another person at or about a place or places without the consent of the other person for the purpose of harassing and intimidating the other person. (emphasis mine)
http://www.lexis-nexis.com/hottopics/gacode/

But definitely a local issue at this point I would think. EJ, contact the local authorities first and just lay out for them everything that has happened.
 
#23 ·
BSCLibertarian said:
legacy38 said:
For all of you that are saying what is happening is a crime, please point out the relevant code section in either the Georgia code or the U.S. Code.

The FBI can't get involved unless there is a federal crime at play.

The GBI has no original jurisdiction over such an incident (if it is in fact a crime) and could only get involved if requested to do so by the local agency with original jurisdiction.
GA Code 16-5-90. Stalking; psychological evaluation

(a)(1) A person commits the offense of stalking when he or she follows, places under surveillance, or contacts another person at or about a place or places without the consent of the other person for the purpose of harassing and intimidating the other person. (emphasis mine)
http://www.lexis-nexis.com/hottopics/gacode/

But definitely a local issue at this point I would think. EJ, contact the local authorities first and just lay out for them everything that has happened.
Note the key element that you have in bold.

What is the purpose and intent of the person sending the texts? According to ERJ, the original message addressed her as "beautiful", and she responded in a manner that engaged the person in communication.
 
#24 ·
Hi EJR914,

As I read this I could not help but remember another post in which you mentioned your wife had been physically followed home at least 4 times. http://www.georgiapacking.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=49797&start=0&hilit=wife

Did any of those incidents occur after the first contact from this stalker? I sure don't mean to add fuel to the fire but if they are somehow related, all the more reason to heed the many points of good advice in this string. Start keeping records and get the law / HR involved.

In my opinion, it's better to embarrass a secret admirer today than risk a physical confrontation tomorrow.

Good luck.
 
#25 ·
two anonymous notes on a windshield are disturbing, insulting, bothersome and rude as he^^, but will not lead to a stalking conviction.
She consented to the text conversation, whether or not she knew or not who was texting her. His (assuming a male perpetrator) phone records would reflect that.....as well as the State's own evidence.
Ain't a DA in the State that would take that case....
Before someone here suggests that we are insensitive to stalking cases, I suggest that our 100% conviction rate for stalking cases, leading to prison or jail time in all of them, are suggestive of our accurate assessment of what the OP has posted.
Now, should the OP call the police. Yes. The OP should start making a record and log of any and all contact this person is having.
Is there enough to charge an individual yet?? I haven't seen the notes or cards.....but there is an element of INTENT to INTIMIDATE or HARRASS that has to be proved BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT. That means that the State must prove that there is not other theory save that of the guilt of the defendant to convict.
IF the texter and note leaver are the same person, the evidence so far is that he thinks the OP's wife is beautiful, she texted with him back and forth. and he left her a few notes.
Enough to call the cops...certainly. Enough to convict...I don't think so.
 
#26 ·
Tell her to make it absolutely and positively clear to this person that communication should cease immediately and that she wants no further contact whatsoever. Have her make it clear that any further communication will be considered harassing and that she is in fear.

To this point, nothing in the provided indication is indicative of illegal activity.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top