Stalking

[katmg]

Does anyone know how difficult it is to prove that someone is stalking you?

My MIL finally got divorced from my FIL after over a year of court battles. He abused her throughout their marriage and is now stalking her. He is extremely dangerous and has already violated his probation and protective orders. He is known to carry firearms and explosives. Their divorce was about 2 weeks ago and she took possession of their house (she had moved to an apartment last year) last Thursday. Since then he has broken into the house 2x, broken into her car (at her apt.), attempted to gain access to the apt. complex and followed her to the house and waited for her up the street.

We'd like to have him charged with stalking and are trying to document all these incidents with the police. Does anyone know what sort of difficulties we might have with proving this? Any advice on how to help?

[paiger]

I don't know about law wise, but does she have enough money to hire some kind of body guard/security detail or even a Private Investigator to take pictures of this. I'm sure most people don't have the money for this, so I would think she should call the police EVERY time she sees him and fill out a report. I would hope it would be cheaper, but also to install an alarm system with survelliance cameras would be good documentation.

[lawyerlee]

I'm going to send you a PM. :)

[camberne]

It's MUCH easier to prove this now than 30 years ago when my mother was going through it, I'm thrilled to say!! We've worked hard in our area to make it so.

First step you/she should take is to take out a restraining order on your FIL. Did she call the police when he broke into her house and into her car? If she is keeping records and making sure that the police are keeping records, it will be so much easier to establish a pattern of conduct which makes it much easier (at least here where I am) to get a stalking charge conviction. Stalking laws are extremely different in different cities. Check with your local law enforcement to see what you can/need to do.

Email me if you want details on what we had to do in our case.

[Zelda Von Yitz]

This is indeed stalking. This is a case for the police and have it done pronto.

Please tell her to act diligently -- to park her car where the area is well lit and to circle around her car and look under it as well as in the back seat before she gets in.

If she can park head out, it'd be a bonus for her -- I do that whenever possible; you never know when you have to leave somewhere in a hurry.

A cellphone is necessary for her -- tell her to keep it charged completely and make sure she has it on her at all times.

Good luck.

[chrisinluv]

If the guy is on probation right now, hopefully he is on a Domestic Violence caseload. But it does not sound like he is, because she would be getting better support from the probation dept. Nonetheless, your friend must get ahold of the Probation Officer. Every time she sees him, she needs to call the PO and if he/she does not answer, leave a message. They might send an officer out to check up on him immediately. This will help, because ***he will be in violation if he is not where he is supposed to be.*** Every time your friend calls the PO, the information she gives will be ***documented*** and kept in his file. This is important when the PO prepares his petition to the judge after he is arrested. Also, if she needs to contact the police, tell her to make sure she tells the dispatcher that he is on probation. This will help the police. They can get all the information they need before they even get to the house, and will know a little bit about the situation. This will work in everyone's favor. The PO will probably also be notified at this time.

Does she have a digital video camera? She needs to get one! It will be money well-spent. Any contact she has with him can be documented, and given to the PO.

She needs to let ALL of her neighbors know that she is being stalked. So what if they talk. They will keep an eye on her house, even if it is for curiosity's sake.

That's all I can think of right now. I'll keep her in my prayers, and hopefully that psycho will get his probation revoked asap.

[katmg]

Thank you all for your advice!

ardathpaige - Unfortunately, a body guard isn't really feasible for her moneywise. She had a P.I. install a camera in her car but it never worked and only drained the battery. :mad: I'm hoping that she will continue to call the police to report each incident.

lawyerlee - Thanks for the PM. :)

camberne - It's been hard to get a restraining order/order of protection. Part of his probation is to stay away from MIL, DH and his brother and sister but it hasn't been all that effective - we've had 2 incidents that we've had to report of him contacting DH. She has filed police reports on all the incidents that have taken place in the past few days. The D.A. told us it would take 15-20 police reports in order for them to prosecute him on stalking.

Zelda - Yes, the police are involved although there's not much to *prove* that he's the one that broke in the house, other than circumstantial evidence. That's great advice about parking head out - I'll pass that along to her.

chrisinluv - No, he's not on probation for domestic violence, that charge was dropped in order to get him to plea to something else - telephone harrassement, maybe? That's interesting that you're saying to call the P.O. I don't think we've done that - we have contacted her previously but not lately. We've been having her contact the police but not the P.O. I'll pass that along. She has a camera phone that she's been taking pictures of him/his destruction of property but she's not really great about remembering to take the dam# pictures. Most of her neighbors are aware of the situation, but haven't been much help.

We really had hoped that things would start to cool down after the divorce but they just seem to be getting worse. Argh!

I forgot in my original post to mention that the District Attorney said it would take 15-20 police reports in order for them to prosecute him on stalking. Does this sound excessive to anyone? I guess part of it is the frustration that we can't *prove* he's the one that broke in or the one that broke in her car. Circumstantially we could, but we don't have any hard evidence. DH forwarded a "stalking log" for her to start keeping but that still isn't necessarily hard evidence.

[lawyerlee]

I forgot in my original post to mention that the District Attorney said it would take 15-20 police reports in order for them to prosecute him on stalking. Does this sound excessive to anyone? I guess part of it is the frustration that we can't *prove* he's the one that broke in or the one that broke in her car. Circumstantially we could, but we don't have any hard evidence. DH forwarded a "stalking log" for her to start keeping but that still isn't necessarily hard evidence.
As we discussed by PM, that is NOT what the law says, so please stick to your guns.

[paiger]

A cellphone is necessary for her -- tell her to keep it charged completely and make sure she has it on her at all times.
oh...how about a cellphone w/ a camera. you can get those relatively cheaper these days. she wouldn't need to pay to be able to send pictures, b/c she can store them on her phone. then, she could get a glimpse of him skulking about.

[Zelda Von Yitz]

oh...how about a cellphone w/ a camera. you can get those relatively cheaper these days. she wouldn't need to pay to be able to send pictures, b/c she can store them on her phone. then, she could get a glimpse of him skulking about.

VERY excellent suggestion!

There was a youth a few towns over in Clifton who had a cell phone with a camera. Lucky he had it: somebody tried to abduct him...and the kid took a pic of the guy.

About a week later, they caught the guy who did it.

[camberne]

I forgot in my original post to mention that the District Attorney said it would take 15-20 police reports in order for them to prosecute him on stalking. Does this sound excessive to anyone? I guess part of it is the frustration that we can't *prove* he's the one that broke in or the one that broke in her car. Circumstantially we could, but we don't have any hard evidence. DH forwarded a "stalking log" for her to start keeping but that still isn't necessarily hard evidence.This sounds extremely excessive to me. I don't know where you live, but here it is not like that at all anymore. Actually, there was/is a guy in my neighborhood (we call him "creepyguy") that parks his truck on our street and just sits in it for 45 mins - 1 hour at a time. Sometimes he's facing my house (I can see him out my office window) and sometimes he's facing the other direction. The neighbors in the other direction came to see me two weeks ago, because they were getting really nervous and were going to call the police on him. I had done that already a month earlier... just called the police and asked them to swing by and see what was up with him. He hasn't even technically done anything and they told him that he's not supposed to park there anymore. I keep a log of when he's there and for how long.

Another suggestion for your MIL... I still have mine that my mom gave me and my mother still has hers... get one of those boat air horns. Talk to the neighbors and tell her to keep it somewhere that she can get to it rather easily. When she sees him, hears him, or knows that he's coming around ~ have her blow the horn. (1) It will scare any intruder off and (2) it will alert the neighbors that she's in trouble. I will tell you that the air horn literally saved our lives when I was a young'un.

I don't know how I missed the fact that he was on probation and carrying firearms and explosives!?!? DEFINATELY talk to his PO!! The law here states that anyone who has had a protective order filed against them is not allowed to carry. Period. As soon as the order is issued, a carry permit is withdrawn. This is a HUGE offense in our neck of the woods.

[katmg]

Well, I'm definitely going to start sticking my foot in it now. I've decided to start calling the D.A. All the information I've been getting has been 2nd and 3rd hand through either my MIL or my DH. We're all tired of hearing that no one can do anything at this point.

Lawyerlee - You're right. I'm calling the D.A. today to try to start moving this process along.

ardathpaige & Zelda - She just recently got a cell phone with a camera. The hardest part has been getting her to use the durn thing. She did get a picture of him following her down the street from the house. However, when he broke into her car she cleaned up the mess before taking a picture or calling the police. Grrr.

camberne - I sent a stalking log to my MIL, whether or not she uses it is another story. I should probably start recording the incidents for my own records because, as I've learned over the past year, it's easy to have things blur together. The boat air horn is a great suggestion - I'll go pick one up for her today!

The guns and explosives are the most frustrating part of all this. He has the highest licenses that the federal government issues for firearms and high explosives. The ATF has been investigating him and has confiscated some illegal explosives but otherwise hasn't done crap. Part of the crappy plea bargain that the D.A. gave him last July was that he gets to keep his licenses (b/c it's his "livelyhood") but was supposed to have 2 years with no contact for MIL, DH and his brother and sister. He has been called into for a probation hearing since he has broken the terms of his probation. We'll find out what happens next Thursday but apparently there's the potential for him to get off of probation. :mad:

DH and I talked last night and we seem to be running into dead ends everywhere we turn. We're thinking that if the D.A. doesn't pursue the stalking charges we may go to the local news stations. With all the p.r. the city has been doing on cracking down on domestic violence it might be a good story to show how they actually handle these cases.