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The Insidious Abuse of Stalking · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry and
0:16
Speaker 1: this is Stuff you should Know. Jerry creepily in the background, right,
0:22
Speaker 1: she just has stopped working in this staring at us
0:26
Speaker 1: right now, that's right, which is not at all funny. No,
0:29
Speaker 1: it's not. It's like we can get around about this stuff,
0:32
Speaker 1: but nothing about it. It's funny. No, it's really like,
0:35
Speaker 1: but we just try to make light of things that
0:37
Speaker 1: are uncomfortable. That's what we do. Yeah, we did one
0:40
Speaker 1: on Coma's once, remember, that's right. That was hysterical question
0:44
Speaker 1: with a laugh. Right. It was like Leslie Nielsen and
0:47
Speaker 1: Priscilla Presley coming out from Platoon on Naked Gun. You remember,
0:52
Speaker 1: just laughing, all right, watch Naked Gun two and a half.
0:55
Speaker 1: The other days hold up, holds up and then some Yeah,
0:59
Speaker 1: especially once you've met the director personally, right, that's right. Man,
1:04
Speaker 1: we met him a thousand years ago, maybe maybe five
1:08
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. It was a while. So, Chuck, we
1:11
Speaker 1: have a good hundred and fifty pages on stalking here.
1:15
Speaker 1: It's at um and you say, like, no, it's not funny. Absolutely,
1:20
Speaker 1: it's not funny. And it's really tough to put yourself
1:23
Speaker 1: in the situation of a person who's being stalked. But
1:27
Speaker 1: there are there's a lot of quotes from people who
1:30
Speaker 1: um compare it to what's a form of abuse. It
1:34
Speaker 1: might not be physical, although if it frequently can turn
1:37
Speaker 1: into something physical or violent. There's a lot of blurred
1:40
Speaker 1: lines here. Um. But even if it never gets physical
1:44
Speaker 1: at all, it is a form of abuse. It's a
1:46
Speaker 1: form of psychological abuse, protracted torment wherein you the victim,
1:52
Speaker 1: feel like your life has been infected. It affects every
1:56
Speaker 1: part of your life and you're constantly you feel like
1:59
Speaker 1: you're certently being watched. And as one victim to put it,
2:03
Speaker 1: like not in any sort of flattering way. Yeah, I
2:06
Speaker 1: had the most minimal form of stalking happened to me
2:12
Speaker 1: in college, and I cannot imagine what like a serious
2:16
Speaker 1: stalking situation might feel like considering how that made me feel.
2:20
Speaker 1: Really yeah, and not, you know, very minimal. Trust me,
2:24
Speaker 1: I'm not saying like I know how it feels, man,
2:27
Speaker 1: but like, you know, a girl that I was dating
2:32
Speaker 1: in college and didn't date anymore. I couldn't get enough chuck.
2:36
Speaker 1: I mean a few times, like banging on my bedroom
2:39
Speaker 1: window in the middle of the night kind of thing,
2:41
Speaker 1: like come out here and talk to me, that kind
2:44
Speaker 1: of thing. Well, I mean that is that is stalking,
2:46
Speaker 1: especially if it happens repeatedly, if especially if she had
2:50
Speaker 1: like escalated over time. Yeah, this didn't really escalate, and
2:54
Speaker 1: it was only a couple of times. I think then
2:55
Speaker 1: that would probably qualify as what's called harassment. Yeah, her asthmate.
3:00
Speaker 1: But I will say this, I moved to New Jersey, uh,
3:03
Speaker 1: just a few months after that, because that was the
3:06
Speaker 1: end of college and that's what I did. Um, and
3:09
Speaker 1: I didn't go because of that. But it was definitely like, well,
3:13
Speaker 1: there's also the benefit of moving to New Jersey. And
3:17
Speaker 1: one week into being in New Jersey, we lived out
3:19
Speaker 1: in the woods. I had a dream that a bear
3:22
Speaker 1: came out of the woods and pounded on my windows
3:26
Speaker 1: and like pounded on my door until it fell down
3:28
Speaker 1: and the bear came in. It was one of those
3:30
Speaker 1: where I woke up and I was like, well, I
3:32
Speaker 1: know what that means. Yeah, the Blair the bear. Her
3:39
Speaker 1: name is not Blair, by the way, that wasn't a
3:41
Speaker 1: Freudian slop right, the bear definitely like resembled her in
3:45
Speaker 1: some way. It was her name wasn't Blair, but she
3:48
Speaker 1: looked exactly like Blair from Facts of Life. Oh wish. Yeah,
3:51
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have broken up with her now, To be fair, also,
3:56
Speaker 1: this was I was young and immature and probably wasn't
3:59
Speaker 1: the best breaker rupper. Oh, it's not to say I
4:02
Speaker 1: deserved it, but well, I really think that that's a
4:05
Speaker 1: really that's a good point. You've made like seventeen good
4:07
Speaker 1: points in there. Okay, So number one, men get stalked
4:11
Speaker 1: to UM, and depending on where you live, it can
4:14
Speaker 1: happen pretty close to UM in equal frequencies women being stalked,
4:18
Speaker 1: although I don't think anywhere it's equal. I think almost
4:21
Speaker 1: across the board, if not totally across the board. Women
4:23
Speaker 1: are stalked more frequently than men are. But men can
4:27
Speaker 1: be stalked pretty much evenly by women and other men. UM.
4:32
Speaker 1: Not just in the realm of like ex lovers, whether
4:35
Speaker 1: you're hetero or straight, but also like you might be stalked,
4:40
Speaker 1: and if you're a woman, you might be stalked by
4:41
Speaker 1: another woman to someone who's jealous angry or resentful of
4:45
Speaker 1: you or your arrival or something. Single white female, right exactly,
4:49
Speaker 1: somebody who's just going to become obsessed with you. So
4:52
Speaker 1: that was one thing. Men can be stalked, and that's
4:54
Speaker 1: very important. But um, but also you said like that
4:59
Speaker 1: you weren't the us to break her upper and there's
5:01
Speaker 1: a lot of um. There's a lot of perceptions, like
5:05
Speaker 1: misconceptions and misperceptions about what stalking is, what the victims
5:09
Speaker 1: of stalking do or don't deserve, what they did or
5:12
Speaker 1: didn't do wrong, and from everything that's kind of emerging
5:15
Speaker 1: over study of this for the last few decades. If
5:18
Speaker 1: you're a stalking victim, you basically did nothing wrong, but
5:21
Speaker 1: everybody assumed you did something wrong, Like you didn't break
5:24
Speaker 1: up with them properly. Yeah, mixed signals or yeah, maybe
5:28
Speaker 1: you flirted or you were too nice or whatever. Um
5:32
Speaker 1: or maybe you're making a big deal out of all
5:34
Speaker 1: this one Really it's not the guy just likes you
5:36
Speaker 1: or something. Maybe you're just seeing at Yeah, yeah, maybe
5:40
Speaker 1: you got it in your head from watching Sally Jesse
5:42
Speaker 1: Raphael or something like. We're not saying these things. By
5:44
Speaker 1: the way, this is like a lot of the misconceptions
5:47
Speaker 1: that that people who are victims of stalking run into
5:50
Speaker 1: even from law enforcement. Luckily, it's changed dramatically and the
5:55
Speaker 1: laws and law enforcement are taking it far more seriously
5:58
Speaker 1: than they did before. But it's definitely still not automatically like, oh,
6:02
Speaker 1: you're being stuck. Great, let me here's how they help you. Well,
6:05
Speaker 1: and especially I think of a certain age group, like
6:07
Speaker 1: your grandparents may think it's romantic. There's this great Hampton
6:11
Speaker 1: youw um joke. Yeah, remember him, he was at her Okay,
6:15
Speaker 1: so Hampton youw was saying, um, he was like our
6:18
Speaker 1: grandparents generation were nuts. It was like my granddad said,
6:23
Speaker 1: you know, for three and eight days in a row,
6:26
Speaker 1: I went to your grandmother's work and I asked her
6:28
Speaker 1: to marry me. And finally on days and yes, it's funny,
6:32
Speaker 1: like uh, yeah, I mean, stalking is a and we'll
6:36
Speaker 1: go ahead and tell you straight up, it's it's a
6:38
Speaker 1: new term that's only been around for a few decades,
6:41
Speaker 1: but it's an old behavior. It's an old yes, it's
6:44
Speaker 1: just we're finally waking up to the impact that Yeah, yeah,
6:48
Speaker 1: thanks granddad. So so um, let's talk about kind of
6:53
Speaker 1: the history of the understanding of stalking. It was actually
6:55
Speaker 1: not until the late eighties that the world really started
6:58
Speaker 1: to kind of wake up to this whole thing after
7:01
Speaker 1: a couple of high profile killings. Uh. Yeah, celebrity obviously.
7:05
Speaker 1: If you know, if you want to get something sadly
7:08
Speaker 1: in the news, if you want to get something in
7:10
Speaker 1: the news, it's having a celebrity undergo that or be
7:13
Speaker 1: a victim to that is the best way. Uh. And
7:16
Speaker 1: that did happen a few times. Um. Well, first of all,
7:20
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of movies over the years, like
7:23
Speaker 1: a lot, and Robert de Niro was in a lot
7:26
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, victim and uh taxi driver no wait,
7:32
Speaker 1: and and the fan he was he was also he
7:35
Speaker 1: was the stalker in there. I think it was Wesley
7:37
Speaker 1: Snipes was baseball player, he was a fan. I was thinking,
7:40
Speaker 1: was he the baseball player? But that was banged the
7:42
Speaker 1: drum slowly. Oh yeah, he's a baseball player in that. Yeah,
7:45
Speaker 1: he played catcher Thurman monthson of the Yankees who died young. Um,
7:49
Speaker 1: but yeah, Taxi Driver, Stalker, Cape fear Stalker. What was
7:55
Speaker 1: the other one with the fan? Not a very good movie,
7:58
Speaker 1: but I remember the two were good. I remember reading
8:00
Speaker 1: he hung out with knife salesman to understand his character better. Uh,
8:07
Speaker 1: fatal attraction, of course, of course. Um the crush single
8:11
Speaker 1: white female one our photo. Do you see that, Robin Williams. Yeah,
8:15
Speaker 1: but I forgot all about it. Was that that was
8:16
Speaker 1: sort of family obsessed, like they have the perfect family.
8:19
Speaker 1: I want to be that husband. Um, so what do
8:22
Speaker 1: you do? Well, I'm not going to ruin it. Was
8:25
Speaker 1: he like scary Robin Williams in it. Yeah, he was
8:27
Speaker 1: a photo processor, like a photo booth guy, and so
8:31
Speaker 1: he would look at his pictures of the family and
8:33
Speaker 1: sup unnerving in that. Yeah, it's always portrayed the same way. Um,
8:38
Speaker 1: The King of Comedy Classic. These are just a few
8:41
Speaker 1: of my favorites in that he was. That's what I'm
8:46
Speaker 1: saying that that's four. I think he likes these roles. Boy,
8:50
Speaker 1: I had never thought about that. And then there was
8:52
Speaker 1: one I want to shout out from a few years
8:54
Speaker 1: ago called The Gift that was really good. Jason Bateman. Oh,
8:58
Speaker 1: I didn't see that one. It's good. And I saw
9:00
Speaker 1: that as well. I thought you were talking about the
9:02
Speaker 1: one with that Billy Bob Thornton directed with Kate Blanchet
9:06
Speaker 1: as a psychic and oh no, that was good too, though,
9:08
Speaker 1: was he was just I don't think he directed that
9:10
Speaker 1: though he did? Did he? I thought that was Sam
9:13
Speaker 1: Rami Now I've always positive did he write it then?
9:16
Speaker 1: And I don't know he did something for it. Well.
9:20
Speaker 1: It's interesting though, to look at these movies. I like
9:23
Speaker 1: so many of them, and there are a lot of them,
9:25
Speaker 1: considering that stalking hasn't been around that long. Well, I
9:29
Speaker 1: also thought, like, there's also comedies too. There's something about
9:31
Speaker 1: Mary stalking through and through. Oh yeah, say anything standing
9:35
Speaker 1: outside with the boom box. That's romantic stalk, right, That's
9:39
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, all right, Grandpa, I just wonder what this.
9:42
Speaker 1: It's interesting, though, the obsession with entertainment about stalking, Like
9:46
Speaker 1: people are into these movies, right, and dozens and dozens
9:49
Speaker 1: of them. We know it's creepy and weird to stalk
9:52
Speaker 1: before we even called it stalking, though, is I mean
9:55
Speaker 1: based on this this body of movies, Yeah, and I
9:59
Speaker 1: think not. Actually a lot of these are post like nine,
10:05
Speaker 1: but not all of them. But not all of them,
10:07
Speaker 1: You're right? Uh? The Grabster wrote this though, and he
10:10
Speaker 1: points out Peter Lawford from The rat Pack Um was.
10:16
Speaker 1: He talked about it in his book Without There wasn't
10:19
Speaker 1: a name for it though, that shows just how new
10:21
Speaker 1: it is, because this was and he said, they are
10:24
Speaker 1: crazies who become so obsessed with celebrity that their fantasies
10:28
Speaker 1: are lived as though they're a reality. They can walk
10:31
Speaker 1: your streets, follow you everywhere, telephone you, send you letters,
10:34
Speaker 1: generally harass you. They can threaten you, discuss the scene
10:37
Speaker 1: X they're planning to perform on your body. Can do
10:39
Speaker 1: almost anything they wish, but as long as they do
10:41
Speaker 1: not physically hurt you, the police have limited power and
10:45
Speaker 1: elaborate rules to follow. Yeah, because that's a that's a
10:47
Speaker 1: confounding factor for years, was that you know, you've got
10:52
Speaker 1: like First Amendment protection, you can say weird things and
10:56
Speaker 1: you can be in public places. But after the death
11:01
Speaker 1: of well first actually, the first taste of stalking in
11:05
Speaker 1: real life that that America at least had was with
11:08
Speaker 1: an actress named Teresa Seal Donna who was in Raging
11:11
Speaker 1: Bowl with de Niro. Yeah, pet played Petci's wife. Huh
11:15
Speaker 1: and um, she was very publicly stabbed in front of
11:19
Speaker 1: her apartments like I think ten times, very violently, like
11:22
Speaker 1: the knife bent even it was really horrific. Fortunately she
11:27
Speaker 1: survived and she actually became a victim's advocate for stalkers
11:30
Speaker 1: for the rest of her life. But that was like
11:33
Speaker 1: kind of a big whoa, whoa what what was that? Like?
11:36
Speaker 1: The guy the guy was a drifter, had become obsessed
11:38
Speaker 1: with her. Yeah, he was mentally ill, and we'll talk
11:42
Speaker 1: a lot about mental illness throughout this this show. But um,
11:46
Speaker 1: he eventually was extradited to the UK on another murder charge. Uh,
11:52
Speaker 1: and they found him not guilty. I guess whatever they
11:54
Speaker 1: call reasons of insanity as different wording over there. But
11:58
Speaker 1: he was committed and died in a hospital in two
12:01
Speaker 1: thousand four. But she went on to you know, I
12:04
Speaker 1: think she made a TV movie about it. Yes, it
12:07
Speaker 1: was scary stuff. Yeah, but Rebecca Schaeffer was the one
12:11
Speaker 1: seven years later that really hit the news. My sister
12:15
Speaker 1: Sam that that was. I mean, these are all equally
12:18
Speaker 1: horrifying and sad, but this she was stalked for three
12:23
Speaker 1: years by this man who um again an obsessed fan
12:28
Speaker 1: yeah who who did the same thing to other famous women,
12:30
Speaker 1: Like she wasn't the only one, but he is, She's
12:33
Speaker 1: the one, um who he killed and Marcia Clark actually
12:38
Speaker 1: tried that case. A little known fact. Huh yeah, yeah,
12:44
Speaker 1: he's he's still in prison actually, um and he was
12:47
Speaker 1: shanked in prison like ten years ago eleven times. Yeah,
12:53
Speaker 1: so he's still in jail. So um they they actually
12:56
Speaker 1: the guy who stalked Rebecca Schaefer took a lot of
12:59
Speaker 1: his cues from the playbook of the guy who uh
13:02
Speaker 1: stalked Teresa Seldana actually use things like um, something called pretexting,
13:08
Speaker 1: which is a really uh pretty common way that stalkers
13:12
Speaker 1: will get information about their victims is pretending there's somebody
13:15
Speaker 1: either not and then get it get info from unsuspecting
13:18
Speaker 1: like family members or whatever. UM. Hiring a private detective
13:22
Speaker 1: to get info used to be a lot easier way easier,
13:26
Speaker 1: like you could go to the d n B and
13:27
Speaker 1: be like, hey, where does this person live? Right, it
13:30
Speaker 1: might tell you up until it wasn't your information wasn't
13:35
Speaker 1: federally protected at the UM. And then there was actually
13:39
Speaker 1: a website, one of the early websites, and I think
13:41
Speaker 1: the nineties UM helped you stalk people easily, Like I
13:47
Speaker 1: cannot remember the name of the site, but they would
13:50
Speaker 1: basically socially engineer a chance meeting with whoever you wanted,
13:54
Speaker 1: and they would give you all this information on them
13:56
Speaker 1: and teach you how to strike up a conversation and
13:59
Speaker 1: talk about all the stuff that you knew they already knew,
14:01
Speaker 1: they liked. And it was a website that was dedicated
14:04
Speaker 1: to helping stalking. It almost sounds like a dating app
14:09
Speaker 1: social media, right. And then Letterman also really shined a
14:15
Speaker 1: light on this with his stalker, who was a woman
14:18
Speaker 1: who used to break into his house pretty frequently. Yeah,
14:20
Speaker 1: that was a very sad case. Um, and we'll get
14:23
Speaker 1: into where she fits in the modern definitions, but uh,
14:28
Speaker 1: she was afflicted with schizophrenia and he was he was.
14:31
Speaker 1: He often didn't press charges, and he was pretty like
14:34
Speaker 1: cool about it. He joked about it here and there
14:36
Speaker 1: on the show. I think too. She made his top
14:38
Speaker 1: ten lists a lot. Yeah, just to try and make
14:40
Speaker 1: light of it, I guess. But um, she went on
14:42
Speaker 1: to stalk and Astronaut as well. Yeah, and they both expressed, um,
14:49
Speaker 1: just sort of a general condolence and sadness when she
14:52
Speaker 1: took her own life, like I think Letterman knew, uh,
14:57
Speaker 1: and you know she would they would wake up with
14:59
Speaker 1: her on her pretty she stole his car one time,
15:01
Speaker 1: like serious stuff, but as we'll learn later, she falls
15:05
Speaker 1: into a category that generally is not physically dangerous to
15:11
Speaker 1: her victim, but still like it's just unnerving. So all
15:16
Speaker 1: these celebrities being stalked kind of shine a light on
15:21
Speaker 1: stalking in general, although not necessarily the most the correct
15:25
Speaker 1: light initially, but they definitely brought it to everyone's attention
15:29
Speaker 1: and that kind of brought it under the jurisdiction of
15:32
Speaker 1: the law. That the law got much more involved after that.
15:36
Speaker 1: And um, let's take a break and then we'll get
15:38
Speaker 1: into that. You want to, Yeah, okay, we'll be right back,
16:02
Speaker 1: all right, Chuck. So the America said Letterman's being stalked,
16:08
Speaker 1: Rebecca Schaefer's killed, Teresa s al Donna went through this,
16:11
Speaker 1: let's do something about this finally. Yeah, And and it's
16:15
Speaker 1: tough to get good statistics because you know, it depends
16:19
Speaker 1: on what states you're in, what the definition of stalking is,
16:22
Speaker 1: whether or not. And this is one of the big
16:25
Speaker 1: problems is the actual crimes committed. Like now stalking is
16:29
Speaker 1: a crime, but before that it was it's like, you know,
16:33
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily crime, like you said, to be waiting
16:36
Speaker 1: for someone in a parking lot. Right, it's creepy, but
16:39
Speaker 1: a law isn't broken, or if laws are broken, they're
16:42
Speaker 1: little misdemeanors usually. Yeah, So it was always a sort
16:47
Speaker 1: of legal gray area until you know, like you said,
16:50
Speaker 1: the high profile incidents happened. Um, and that's when the
16:53
Speaker 1: d O G A U d O G, the d
16:57
Speaker 1: double ghg uh, the d O J went um got
17:03
Speaker 1: serious and they created a legal definition of engaging in
17:07
Speaker 1: a course of conduct directed at a specific person that
17:10
Speaker 1: would cause a reasonable person to fear for his or
17:12
Speaker 1: her safety or the safety of others, or suffer substantial
17:15
Speaker 1: emotional distress. And that definition is really important because it
17:20
Speaker 1: says cause a reasonable person to fear. And while that's
17:26
Speaker 1: open to inter interpretation, it's not a It doesn't say
17:30
Speaker 1: like there has to be a literal, vocalized threat to
17:34
Speaker 1: to count, you know, like they don't have to say
17:37
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna get you in in you know where
17:40
Speaker 1: you for a raincoat, Like you can just feel that
17:44
Speaker 1: threat if you're a reasonable person. Um, And that and
17:48
Speaker 1: that counts, thank god, because that's that really opens opens
17:52
Speaker 1: it up, you know, right. Um, And it doesn't even
17:55
Speaker 1: have to be The threat doesn't even have to be um,
17:58
Speaker 1: a physical threat. Either could be like I'm going to
18:02
Speaker 1: make up lies about you on the internet or I'm
18:04
Speaker 1: going to go tell your parents. Um, you know, all
18:08
Speaker 1: the all the like stuff we did together, like we
18:11
Speaker 1: did drugs. Like, there's all sorts of different ways you
18:14
Speaker 1: can threaten somebody beyond violence. I'm going to trample your
18:17
Speaker 1: flower bed exactly. Um, there's a lot of like ways
18:21
Speaker 1: you can threaten and intimidate somebody, and all of these things,
18:23
Speaker 1: each of these acts is considered harassment. I was looking
18:26
Speaker 1: up to try to figure out what is the distinction
18:28
Speaker 1: between harassment and stalking, and it's really tough to find
18:33
Speaker 1: an obvious distinction. But from what I could get, harassment
18:37
Speaker 1: are the individual acts that people do when they're stalking,
18:41
Speaker 1: and stalking is a pattern of harassment frequently escalates over time. Yeah,
18:47
Speaker 1: and it also obviously blurs lines with domestic violence, like
18:51
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, and I think you can you can
18:53
Speaker 1: even say it as a form of domestic violence. Um,
18:56
Speaker 1: depending on you know the person at all, right, then
19:00
Speaker 1: it doesn't count. Yeah, there's a lot of categories of stalking.
19:03
Speaker 1: We'll get into him in a second, but um, domestic
19:05
Speaker 1: violence is definitely one of the cradles that stalking is
19:10
Speaker 1: born from. Yeah, And one of the really sad things
19:13
Speaker 1: about it is there's a a lot of times it
19:17
Speaker 1: it just there's no possible uh good result, Like oftentimes
19:25
Speaker 1: a start a stalker might stop but then start back up,
19:28
Speaker 1: like too often the end result is like someone's death
19:32
Speaker 1: or a physical attack. It can be or there's just
19:34
Speaker 1: no closure resolution, right, Like even if the stalker stops,
19:39
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that the victim is like, oh good,
19:41
Speaker 1: I can have my life back. I don't worry about
19:43
Speaker 1: that guy anymore. Like that that the trust, the security,
19:46
Speaker 1: all of those things that that most of us just
19:49
Speaker 1: take for granted on a daily basis have been lost
19:51
Speaker 1: and they're not just immediately regained, because it's like you said,
19:55
Speaker 1: with stalkers, the behavior can just be discontinued and then
19:59
Speaker 1: it can start back up, get out of the blue,
20:01
Speaker 1: and so you never know when they're going to pop
20:03
Speaker 1: back by, or it probably freaks you out even more
20:06
Speaker 1: when they stop communicating, because what are they doing? Right? Yeah,
20:10
Speaker 1: and even if they get even if your stalker gets
20:13
Speaker 1: thrown in prison or gets hit by a bus, like
20:16
Speaker 1: there can be irreparable psychological damage done to you. You
20:20
Speaker 1: may never be able to trust another man or woman again,
20:24
Speaker 1: and and have a hard time finding a love relationship
20:27
Speaker 1: that you can trust, you know. And this happens so
20:30
Speaker 1: much more to women. And it's not I think these
20:33
Speaker 1: statistics you can kind of just flush down the john
20:37
Speaker 1: because so many of it, so much of it goes unreported,
20:40
Speaker 1: and so much of it is stuff that women have
20:42
Speaker 1: just dealt with since you know, the beginning of time,
20:48
Speaker 1: Like the guy who's a little too handy or a
20:49
Speaker 1: little too creepy, or a little too forward, or doesn't
20:53
Speaker 1: take Noah on a you know, ask me out for
20:55
Speaker 1: a date, like Grandpa showed up every day. You know.
20:59
Speaker 1: It's just it's just sad. I mean, I think things
21:01
Speaker 1: are starting to change. But um, as far as stats go,
21:05
Speaker 1: it's hard to even take those seriously sometimes, and before
21:09
Speaker 1: these incidences in the early nineties, it was hard to
21:12
Speaker 1: even get cops sometimes to investigate or like either they
21:15
Speaker 1: didn't have power, they didn't take it seriously. UM in
21:20
Speaker 1: Violence Against Women Act really broadened um well like training, advocacy, counseling,
21:27
Speaker 1: but really like law enforcement, giving them broader powers to
21:30
Speaker 1: investigate and arrest um was a big deal, and Joe
21:34
Speaker 1: Biden was actually one of the the champions and big
21:37
Speaker 1: supporters of and drafting that violence. Yeah. Yeah, So part
21:42
Speaker 1: of our national shame from the shutdown is that that
21:44
Speaker 1: law was allowed to expire in the um Stalking Awareness Month,
21:50
Speaker 1: which is January. Yeah, everything about that sucked. Yeah, but
21:55
Speaker 1: it has been signed immediately like after Like that was
21:59
Speaker 1: one of the first things that happened was they they
22:01
Speaker 1: re up to that Act as soon as the government
22:04
Speaker 1: went back to work, which I mean, it is a
22:06
Speaker 1: big deal that there is. I mean, that's a larger
22:08
Speaker 1: Umbrella Act, but it does include all sorts of funding
22:11
Speaker 1: for stalking support and resources. And as we'll see, if
22:14
Speaker 1: you're being stalked, there's a lot of places for you
22:16
Speaker 1: to turn, but those places need to get federal funding
22:20
Speaker 1: because they're usually pretty small nonprofits that can't float themselves. Yeah.
22:25
Speaker 1: Two thousand eighteen, you want to talk about another feel
22:27
Speaker 1: good act, the Pause act Um, which had you know this,
22:31
Speaker 1: it wasn't just about this, but under that Umbrella act
22:35
Speaker 1: Um it included threats to your pets, because that's a
22:40
Speaker 1: big one. People. A lot of times part of the
22:42
Speaker 1: pattern of stalking is you know, you come home and
22:45
Speaker 1: you find your animal dead, fatal attraction, that bunny got boiled.
22:50
Speaker 1: UM and not only protecting the pets, but UM grants
22:54
Speaker 1: and funding for shelters to allow you to bring your pet,
22:58
Speaker 1: because that's some people rightfully won't leave their pets behind.
23:05
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's a decision you shouldn't have to make.
23:07
Speaker 1: But you like, I can't go to that that home
23:10
Speaker 1: that can protect me because they won't take my dog.
23:13
Speaker 1: Right And it's not just with UM, with people who
23:15
Speaker 1: are being stalked. Homeless shelters have the same problems too.
23:19
Speaker 1: There's there's very few homeless shelters that have accommodations for
23:23
Speaker 1: pets as well. UM. So one of the other, UH,
23:28
Speaker 1: one of the other big laws came in that Clinton
23:32
Speaker 1: signed in UM which basically made stalking a federal crime.
23:36
Speaker 1: It extended UM protection like UM restraining orders. Basically they
23:42
Speaker 1: enjoyed nationwide protection, like no matter where you were, if
23:45
Speaker 1: you had a restraining order, it was good across the
23:47
Speaker 1: United States. UM. If you went to stalk somebody across
23:52
Speaker 1: state lines, it was now a federal crime and the
23:54
Speaker 1: FBI was on you. If you use the mail to
23:57
Speaker 1: stalk somebody just sending lighters. It was now a federal crime.
24:01
Speaker 1: So it became a big deal. And we're talking like seriously, um,
24:05
Speaker 1: nineteen nine, Rebecca Schaeffer was kind of when it really started.
24:10
Speaker 1: By ninety four, Um, California had the first law. Six
24:16
Speaker 1: the Feds had a law, and I believe um, within
24:19
Speaker 1: a couple of years after that, every state in the
24:21
Speaker 1: Union had a law. So no, I'm sorry, California had
24:25
Speaker 1: a law that same year in nine and by every
24:28
Speaker 1: state in America had anti stalking law. It happened like
24:31
Speaker 1: that fast. Yeah, And in nine nine the l a
24:34
Speaker 1: p D actually started the Threaten Management Unit, which was
24:38
Speaker 1: a big deal because now you have an actual unit
24:40
Speaker 1: of dedicated officers that will study behavior and trying to
24:45
Speaker 1: determine risk and things like that, whereas before it was
24:48
Speaker 1: just like yeah, like we'll get to it. Yeah, we'll
24:51
Speaker 1: send We'll send a couple of our heavy hitter cops
24:54
Speaker 1: over to to tell them to leave you alone. Send over,
24:57
Speaker 1: Russell Crowe remember, like of an a job that's a
25:01
Speaker 1: great character, so that I advocate for Vendetta's and like
25:06
Speaker 1: extra judicial I think, like beating down. But you said
25:09
Speaker 1: it's a great character. It was pretty great in that
25:11
Speaker 1: movie when he would stick up for the abused women
25:14
Speaker 1: and go beat down those jerks. Um, there's a good character.
25:19
Speaker 1: I agree, So, Chuck, we kind of we kind of
25:23
Speaker 1: kind of defined um stalking here there, but let's talk
25:26
Speaker 1: about like what some of the behaviors of that stalkers have.
25:30
Speaker 1: Like there are there are some set things that just
25:33
Speaker 1: about any stalker will engage in that it's basically a
25:36
Speaker 1: pattern of stalking behavior, which is really surprising because when
25:41
Speaker 1: we talk about stalker psychology and a little bit, you'll
25:43
Speaker 1: see there's a lot of different people and a lot
25:46
Speaker 1: of different personality types that engage in stalking, but they
25:49
Speaker 1: all kind of tend to do the same stuff. And
25:51
Speaker 1: one of the first things that they'll do is just
25:54
Speaker 1: show up where you are. Yeah, showing up now obvious
26:00
Speaker 1: slee um calling and texting, like texting is a big one, um,
26:06
Speaker 1: and social media harassment and stuff like that. But I
26:09
Speaker 1: mean that falls, I guess under cyberstalking. It does, so
26:12
Speaker 1: cyberstalking kind of deserves its own episode, but it so
26:18
Speaker 1: it's its own thing where you might just be targeted
26:21
Speaker 1: by someone you've never met before and just found you
26:23
Speaker 1: on the internet, and they're using the internet exclusively to
26:26
Speaker 1: stalk you and harass you and maybe even extort you.
26:29
Speaker 1: That's cyberstalking. But also using email or um, you know,
26:34
Speaker 1: location tracking or spyware to stalk under the traditional definition,
26:39
Speaker 1: that's also technically cyberstalking. It's like two things. Yeah, it's
26:43
Speaker 1: scary though with all those personal things that people have
26:45
Speaker 1: online now, it's certainly not like the old days. People
26:49
Speaker 1: can see so much about your life. Um, even if
26:52
Speaker 1: you think you've protected yourself in that way. Yeah, we'll
26:55
Speaker 1: do a whole episode on cyberstalking. Okay, so they're showing up.
27:00
Speaker 1: There's um non consensual communication. You kind of hit on emails, texts,
27:04
Speaker 1: letters that can be UM and apparently a lot of
27:07
Speaker 1: stalkers will communicate in ways that they think is totally
27:10
Speaker 1: obvious to their victim, but their victim has no idea
27:14
Speaker 1: what they're saying. Like some examples I saw in real life,
27:17
Speaker 1: or like fingernail clippings, a stack of Texas monthly magazines,
27:23
Speaker 1: a rat, a dead rat wrapped in cell What did
27:26
Speaker 1: that stack of magazines? Had no idea what that meant.
27:28
Speaker 1: It was like it was like a message. No one
27:31
Speaker 1: knows what it meant except for the stalker is the
27:33
Speaker 1: only person that made sense to But the stalker felt
27:36
Speaker 1: like they were communicating in their opecial stack of magazines. Yeah,
27:41
Speaker 1: or left him outside of their house, gotcha, gotcha. Um.
27:45
Speaker 1: Obviously you don't even have to, like like if you
27:47
Speaker 1: there could be a coworker that you see every day
27:50
Speaker 1: in the office and they can stalk you at work
27:53
Speaker 1: even though they're also supposed to be in the same
27:56
Speaker 1: office as you. Like the line is very fine. They
27:59
Speaker 1: can someone can stop by your desk too much and
28:02
Speaker 1: pay you too many compliments. Uh. Again, that overlaps with
28:07
Speaker 1: harassment too. But like if you go to your bosses
28:10
Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, I want to be in a
28:13
Speaker 1: different part of the building, because this guy's really giving
28:15
Speaker 1: me the creeps, then he starts showing up over there
28:17
Speaker 1: every day. Like that's stalking, right absolutely, you know. Um.
28:22
Speaker 1: There's also threatening family members, friends, anybody that the person
28:28
Speaker 1: cares about, pets, making threats, whether explicit or otherwise. Um,
28:33
Speaker 1: And all of these combined. They can be separate. They
28:37
Speaker 1: can be um. They can be repeating the same one
28:40
Speaker 1: over and over again. They can be a random assortment.
28:42
Speaker 1: There's also very frequently like trespassing, breaking into your house,
28:46
Speaker 1: breaking into your car, um, just basically getting into your stuff,
28:50
Speaker 1: and then sometimes making it so like you can't tell
28:52
Speaker 1: how they got in there, but you just know they
28:54
Speaker 1: were there. Like I read one account of a woman
28:56
Speaker 1: who was being stalked, and like she went and unlocked
28:59
Speaker 1: her car and there was a rose on the seat,
29:02
Speaker 1: like the passenger seat, and she's like, how did this
29:05
Speaker 1: even get in here? She had no idea how the
29:07
Speaker 1: guy got in there, but he got in there. So
29:10
Speaker 1: just just knowing that this person is watching you, could
29:13
Speaker 1: could show up wherever you are um and can get
29:16
Speaker 1: to you. Is all of these things that combine that
29:19
Speaker 1: makes stalking so insidious. Yeah, and it's and like the
29:23
Speaker 1: effect goes beyond just psychological harm, of which that's obviously
29:28
Speaker 1: the worst part of it. But like financially, you can
29:32
Speaker 1: you can have missed work and lost wages and you
29:35
Speaker 1: might have to move, uh, Like people have picked up
29:40
Speaker 1: and moved house at great loss, changed jobs, changed jobs
29:44
Speaker 1: at you know, salary loss, Like it has like a
29:47
Speaker 1: real financial impact as well. Yeah, and you were saying,
29:50
Speaker 1: like how technology enables people to stalk so so much
29:54
Speaker 1: more easily now, Um, that's a big one. Like if
29:57
Speaker 1: you especially if you m we're already if you had
30:02
Speaker 1: a relationship with your stalker previously, um, and they had
30:05
Speaker 1: access to your computer or your phone. Most stalking advocate
30:09
Speaker 1: groups say, if you can afford it, get a new computer,
30:12
Speaker 1: get a new phone, because those are compromised, and that's
30:15
Speaker 1: that's too expensive for a lot of people. So there's
30:19
Speaker 1: some tricks and stuff you can deal with or work
30:21
Speaker 1: with if you can't replace it, which we'll get to.
30:24
Speaker 1: It's hard to research this without feeling a sense of
30:28
Speaker 1: unease for sure, you know, and just the injustice of it,
30:33
Speaker 1: like like considered you just were nothing but but passingly
30:36
Speaker 1: friendly to a stranger and all of a sudden they're
30:39
Speaker 1: doing all of this to you and disrupting your life
30:41
Speaker 1: like this and robbing you of your security and you
30:43
Speaker 1: have no idea what they're going to do next. That's
30:46
Speaker 1: about as unfair as it gets. Yeah, and uh, I
30:49
Speaker 1: think we'll probably take a break now, but and come
30:51
Speaker 1: back and talk about the different types. But you know,
30:53
Speaker 1: one of the types specifically is like the photo matt guy,
30:58
Speaker 1: or you know, the casual acquaintance, the bank teller or
31:02
Speaker 1: or you're the bank customer, and the bank teller is
31:06
Speaker 1: the victim. Like these these short little communications that someone
31:11
Speaker 1: who uh has mental illness maybe and is prone to this,
31:14
Speaker 1: you get a too nice of a have a great
31:16
Speaker 1: day and a smile and yeah, and that sends them
31:21
Speaker 1: down the road. Scary man, because you don't want to
31:23
Speaker 1: like stop being friendly to people, or should we all?
31:28
Speaker 1: I think we should. It's the only way to protect ourselves.
31:31
Speaker 1: All Right, we're gonna take a break and we're gonna
31:32
Speaker 1: talk more specifically about the different types um of stalkers
31:36
Speaker 1: right after this, So Chuck, remember we said like California
32:01
Speaker 1: was like the first state to really take this seriously. Well,
32:04
Speaker 1: l A was the first city to take it seriously
32:06
Speaker 1: because at first people thought, oh my god, celebrities are
32:09
Speaker 1: in trouble. And now that we've done more research, we
32:11
Speaker 1: know like, actually celebrities are the least stocked group and
32:15
Speaker 1: they're actually the probably the safest of all the stocked groups.
32:20
Speaker 1: But initially l A really went a whole hog on
32:23
Speaker 1: studying stalking and that's where we got some of our
32:26
Speaker 1: earliest data and understanding of the stalking mentality. They created
32:30
Speaker 1: the Threat Management Unit with some forensic psychiatrists and some
32:35
Speaker 1: security guys, and they came up with basically some early
32:39
Speaker 1: stalker profiles, And one of the first things they figured
32:41
Speaker 1: out is you can roughly categorize stalkers into three different
32:46
Speaker 1: pigeon holes. Basically, all right is the first one arato mania? Yes, right,
32:54
Speaker 1: which is uh. If you just sound that word out,
32:57
Speaker 1: you probably have a pretty good idea what that means, um,
33:00
Speaker 1: and that is uh. That is someone who feels like
33:06
Speaker 1: are those the ones who feel like they're in love?
33:09
Speaker 1: Those are the with the person. Those are the ones
33:11
Speaker 1: who who feel like they're in love but also that
33:14
Speaker 1: the other person loves them, right, Like Letterman's stalker was
33:18
Speaker 1: an erotomaniac, a person with a rotomania, but she also
33:22
Speaker 1: was someone with schizophrenia. Right, Yeah, there's all these are
33:25
Speaker 1: co morbid. I guess there's a lot of overlap with
33:27
Speaker 1: mental illness. But from what I've seen, um, depending on
33:31
Speaker 1: the type of stalking you're engaged in. When when an
33:34
Speaker 1: actual diagnosable mental illness comes into play, the stalking kind
33:39
Speaker 1: of takes a back seat to that diagnosable mental illness.
33:43
Speaker 1: It's it's like it's it's a byproduct of it or
33:46
Speaker 1: a symptom of the mental illness, rather than the stalking
33:50
Speaker 1: being the main part, you know what I mean. Yeah, Like,
33:52
Speaker 1: if she didn't have schizophrenia, she probably wouldn't have been
33:55
Speaker 1: stalking Letterman exactly. But it's it's characterized by a deep,
33:59
Speaker 1: profound illusion that that the stalker and the celebrity victim
34:04
Speaker 1: who has no idea that the stalker exists, at least
34:06
Speaker 1: at first, are are basically bound souls, that they have
34:12
Speaker 1: their soul mates. It's rarely sexual, very rarely sexual. It's
34:16
Speaker 1: sometimes it's not even necessarily romantic, but it's so hyper
34:19
Speaker 1: romantic it it transcends romance. It's just complete and utter
34:24
Speaker 1: delusional obsession. That's erato mania. Yeah, and this is the
34:27
Speaker 1: one that I mentioned early on, which I think very
34:30
Speaker 1: interestingly has an inverse proportion of danger. So the more
34:36
Speaker 1: distant or unattainable the relationship, like this woman and David Letterman,
34:40
Speaker 1: or really any any of the celebrity cases, um, the
34:44
Speaker 1: less likely they are to actually injure the victim, and
34:47
Speaker 1: the less likely they are to ever even meet them
34:49
Speaker 1: face to face. Right. It's usually like in Letterman's case,
34:52
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't think he ever met her
34:55
Speaker 1: face to face in an incident. No, but I mean, like,
34:58
Speaker 1: I'm sure she would have liked to have him face
35:00
Speaker 1: to face, but um, like her, his in her case
35:05
Speaker 1: is very much an outlier. Although because of the medium,
35:08
Speaker 1: because it's celebrities, we think, like that's very common. That
35:11
Speaker 1: is extremely rare, first of all, in a rodomania's stalking
35:15
Speaker 1: situation with the celebrity, but one where the person actually
35:19
Speaker 1: tries to physically get in touch with the victim, that's
35:23
Speaker 1: pretty rare. Yeah. Yeah, so a rodomania is one. And
35:26
Speaker 1: that's also the that's the smallest group from what I understand, Yeah,
35:31
Speaker 1: but the most probably press Grabby Yeah, and movie Mackey Yeah,
35:36
Speaker 1: movie Mackey. Um, like De Narro's got It cornered. Love obsessional, Yeah,
35:43
Speaker 1: that's another one. Uh, And that is one that I
35:45
Speaker 1: was talking about with Like, could be a fleeting acquaintance,
35:49
Speaker 1: could be a co worker, um yeah, those are like
35:52
Speaker 1: two types. Yeah, Like it's either someone like you work
35:56
Speaker 1: with every day, or it could be the bank teller
35:58
Speaker 1: right or again and you could be the bank I
36:03
Speaker 1: saw that the healthcare worker UM is very frequently the
36:06
Speaker 1: victim of love love obsessional stalking because the UM, like
36:11
Speaker 1: the experience of being in the hospital or whatever and
36:14
Speaker 1: having somebody, some stranger take care of you. It is
36:17
Speaker 1: they're healing you. So they're very frequently a target of that,
36:20
Speaker 1: but it can be something like a grocery store clerk
36:22
Speaker 1: or a bank teller or something like that, anybody, Um,
36:25
Speaker 1: just this the most fleeting casual acquaintance ship can turn
36:30
Speaker 1: into a full blown stalk, and in that case, the
36:34
Speaker 1: person who is doing the stalking is aware that the
36:39
Speaker 1: other person isn't in love with them yet, but has
36:43
Speaker 1: seen basically too many rom coms and believes that that
36:46
Speaker 1: if they diligently pursue this person and show up at
36:49
Speaker 1: their work and send them all these unwanted gifts, that
36:52
Speaker 1: that the person will eventually their heart will melt as
36:55
Speaker 1: they see how wonderful they are, and um, they will
36:58
Speaker 1: be together forever. The problem is, first of all, it's obnoxious, annoying, well,
37:03
Speaker 1: it's it's also a real like narcissistic personality disorder totally,
37:08
Speaker 1: but it can also once once you reach people have
37:11
Speaker 1: a breaking point, and if you become obsessed with somebody
37:13
Speaker 1: and it finally becomes clear to you that they're not
37:15
Speaker 1: going to reciprocate you, already feel like you're entitled to
37:19
Speaker 1: their attention, to their love, and now they're they're withholding
37:23
Speaker 1: it from you, So that might turn into rage, which
37:26
Speaker 1: is extremely dangerous in a stalking situation. And that's almost
37:29
Speaker 1: every movie the way it goes down. Yeah, it wasn't
37:32
Speaker 1: there one with like Marky Mark or Donnie Fear Market. Yeah,
37:35
Speaker 1: Fear Fear with Reese Witherspoon, Markey Marker, Donny Mark. You
37:39
Speaker 1: know the Marks? Did you know Reese Witherspoon listens to
37:44
Speaker 1: Did I know that? I don't know. I read it somewhere. Yeah,
37:50
Speaker 1: I can't remember. She listens in the car. She said
37:54
Speaker 1: in some magazine art. Well, we think you're great. Yes,
37:58
Speaker 1: come on movie crush and come on into the world.
38:02
Speaker 1: You could work her in there somehow. I think her
38:04
Speaker 1: son also, she said, her son makes like music or whatever.
38:07
Speaker 1: He should make like jingles for stuff you should know.
38:09
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, totally play this um so uh oh. The
38:14
Speaker 1: other interesting thing I thought about the love obsessional, uh,
38:18
Speaker 1: is that it says oftentimes they are affluent and well
38:21
Speaker 1: educated and they are high strung professionals who have no
38:25
Speaker 1: personal life except for this obsession. Right. Basically, Patrick Bateman
38:30
Speaker 1: types who are interested in a relationship, yep. But who
38:33
Speaker 1: were just like, yeah, this is in this this article,
38:36
Speaker 1: this is that that was kind of old, but they
38:38
Speaker 1: were basically saying like, yeah, they we could tell when
38:41
Speaker 1: it said, uh, they're usually like the next door type,
38:44
Speaker 1: like Olivia Newton John, not like Joan Collins. And I
38:47
Speaker 1: was like, wait, years I read a victim's handbook that
38:52
Speaker 1: was written clearly by a victim who like wrote a
38:54
Speaker 1: book on what to do if you're being stalked, and
38:57
Speaker 1: it was from I think, and she had advice on
39:00
Speaker 1: what to do if like they were blowing up your
39:02
Speaker 1: page or this is dated, dated information. She's not a
39:06
Speaker 1: Joan Colin stype. But but they made a really good
39:09
Speaker 1: point and it's still going on today that the distinction
39:13
Speaker 1: between work and social life is so blurred because everybody
39:17
Speaker 1: works so much that it's like, yeah, I mean the people.
39:21
Speaker 1: You spend all your time with the people at work.
39:23
Speaker 1: So if you um are already, as they put it,
39:26
Speaker 1: high strung neurotic narcissist types, you may feel entitled to
39:30
Speaker 1: this person's affection or attention, and that so that becomes
39:33
Speaker 1: the coworker stalking situation of love obsessional Yeah, in the
39:38
Speaker 1: movie version, that's the well, let's just work late and
39:41
Speaker 1: like order some Chinese in the office, and then they
39:45
Speaker 1: have this like kind of funny exchange candles and that's
39:48
Speaker 1: an Act one, and then you know, Act two is
39:51
Speaker 1: all the hey, this is getting out of hand, and
39:54
Speaker 1: then Act three is she rejects, rejects them, and then
39:57
Speaker 1: it's it gets violent and angry. I think she'd reject
40:01
Speaker 1: him in act two, and then Act three is all
40:04
Speaker 1: the oh god, and then the resolution. Yeah, I think
40:07
Speaker 1: the end of the first the first plot point that
40:10
Speaker 1: the end of act one is probably the rejection, You're right,
40:12
Speaker 1: and then that would set up the act to action,
40:15
Speaker 1: the building of the tension, and then act three is
40:18
Speaker 1: the yeah. But something always kicks off Act three, like
40:20
Speaker 1: and I guess in Cape Fear it was I think
40:23
Speaker 1: the kickoff Tact three might have been them getting out
40:26
Speaker 1: of town and going to Cape Fear. That's what would
40:29
Speaker 1: be my guess. It's so funny movies, you can almost
40:32
Speaker 1: you check your watch next time you're watching a movie
40:34
Speaker 1: and everything happens in thirty minute increments. Almost it's funny. Uh.
40:38
Speaker 1: And then the last one, I think of the three
40:40
Speaker 1: that we were talking about is um is this one
40:43
Speaker 1: simple obsessional and this is this is the worst. I mean,
40:47
Speaker 1: they're all bad, but most typically violent. Yeah. This is
40:51
Speaker 1: like the someone who you generally had an intimate relationship
40:55
Speaker 1: at some point and you don't want to be with
40:58
Speaker 1: him anymore, and they harass you and stalk you, and
41:02
Speaker 1: it seems like almost always it ends in violence. Well, no,
41:05
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily true, but it's at the highest risk
41:08
Speaker 1: of all of the types. Like if there's some dud
41:11
Speaker 1: who comes into your bank every day and has a
41:14
Speaker 1: crush on you, he's far less likely to become violent then.
41:18
Speaker 1: And but that's not a former intimate, is it. No,
41:20
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. That's a different category. The former
41:23
Speaker 1: intimate is more likely to perpetrate violence, But that doesn't
41:27
Speaker 1: mean that every time it's going to resolve in violence.
41:30
Speaker 1: That granted, though. One of the first tips I've seen
41:35
Speaker 1: for um stalking, like advocacy groups like their their lists
41:39
Speaker 1: of stuff you should be doing, one of the first
41:42
Speaker 1: ones is take yourself seriously, trust your gut than your instincts.
41:47
Speaker 1: Very frequently family and friends will just kind of blow
41:50
Speaker 1: off this all these signs. If you feel insecurely nervous
41:53
Speaker 1: about it. Go with that. But that is that you
41:56
Speaker 1: should take this seriously because it can turn into something
42:00
Speaker 1: dangerous for you, and you should treat it that way
42:03
Speaker 1: and take it seriously. Yeah, because I'll say this, if
42:07
Speaker 1: let's say you me quote and not you, let's say
42:11
Speaker 1: one quote unquote overreacts. Um, fine, that's okay, sure overreact
42:19
Speaker 1: do it, because if this person is not a stalker,
42:23
Speaker 1: it would just be just like, I'm really sorry. Things
42:28
Speaker 1: obviously you got out of hand and you'll never hear
42:31
Speaker 1: from me again. Um. The only person that would really
42:35
Speaker 1: get super rag about that is probably a stalker. Yeah,
42:38
Speaker 1: that's true. You know, so air on the side of
42:41
Speaker 1: caution because um, I mean, a restraining order is one
42:46
Speaker 1: thing I wrote in here. They are worthless. They're not worthless.
42:50
Speaker 1: They're worthless in that it doesn't stop anyone from doing anything.
42:53
Speaker 1: But I think the main juice of a restraining order
42:56
Speaker 1: is so you officially have legal precedent that person has
43:00
Speaker 1: done something. You're documenting it. Although I did see I
43:04
Speaker 1: read a guardian Um article about a woman who was
43:07
Speaker 1: stalked by like an ex boyfriend from high school or
43:10
Speaker 1: college or something, and he stalked her for nine years,
43:14
Speaker 1: and um, I think he broke fifty six restraining orders
43:19
Speaker 1: over that time. So it's like, yeah, that's and then
43:23
Speaker 1: he finally got two years in prison at the end
43:25
Speaker 1: of this nine years after the restraining I'm not sure
43:29
Speaker 1: exactly what he finally did that landed him in prison,
43:32
Speaker 1: but the idea that you can break fifty six restraining
43:35
Speaker 1: orders and still not go to prison or jail is
43:39
Speaker 1: is it's got to be extremely discouraging for the victims
43:42
Speaker 1: of stalking. Yeah, here's the saddest stat of this whole
43:45
Speaker 1: podcast to me is that, uh, seventies six percent of
43:50
Speaker 1: women who are murdered by an intimate partner, we're also
43:55
Speaker 1: stalked by that partner and half of them or have
43:59
Speaker 1: been reported as stalker. So they they half of the
44:03
Speaker 1: murdered women were reported that they were being stalked before
44:07
Speaker 1: they were murdered. Yeah, so yes, you should take it
44:10
Speaker 1: seriously and cops. And that's with cops taking it seriously supposedly.
44:18
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, So there's a So we were saying, like,
44:22
Speaker 1: the um, what's what's it called, the significant not significant
44:25
Speaker 1: other stalker, the simple obsessional. Yeah, the simple obsessional one
44:28
Speaker 1: where like you've had a relationship with this person and
44:30
Speaker 1: they didn't basically take the breakup very well. You belong
44:33
Speaker 1: to them very frequently if you are a victim of
44:37
Speaker 1: domestic abuse, that will turn into that. But it that
44:41
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily jibe with that. It can be it can
44:44
Speaker 1: also kind of just come out of what you would
44:47
Speaker 1: call a bad breakup. Um, but it's still like the same,
44:51
Speaker 1: roughly the same. But I think if the abuser was
44:53
Speaker 1: already a domestic abuser, the chances of which of violence
44:58
Speaker 1: are much greater. That's the group that is the greatest
45:02
Speaker 1: at the greatest risk of violence. Our domestic abusers turn stalkers. Yeah,
45:08
Speaker 1: it says of women who are murdered were murdered by
45:13
Speaker 1: boyfriends and husbands. Yeah, that's why they always look at
45:17
Speaker 1: the husband and the boyfriend first. I'm surprised. Thirty percent.
45:21
Speaker 1: That seems low even you know. Yeah, I mean that's stats,
45:24
Speaker 1: so it's super old. But um, I bet it's somewhere
45:28
Speaker 1: in that wheelhouse now, you know. Yeah, that's two different
45:30
Speaker 1: and just real quick, it's um. You know, this is
45:32
Speaker 1: not just an American issue. There are countries around the
45:36
Speaker 1: world that have stalking um stalking laws, anti stalking laws.
45:41
Speaker 1: I should say, it's much easier to list ones that
45:43
Speaker 1: don't have it than the ones that do, because just
45:46
Speaker 1: in the last like couple of decades, countries have really
45:50
Speaker 1: started to take this seriously, which is heartening because it says, oh, okay, good,
45:55
Speaker 1: we value women, the women in our society, and we
45:58
Speaker 1: want to them to feel protected. Um. There's some that
46:01
Speaker 1: just absolutely don't, like Cypress, Greece, Namibia, Spain, they don't
46:06
Speaker 1: have anti stalking laws, but for the most part, most
46:09
Speaker 1: countries do, and very frequently they follow like a high
46:13
Speaker 1: profile murder at the hands of a stalker. UM. Japan
46:17
Speaker 1: started to take it very seriously since I think like
46:20
Speaker 1: two thousand or two thousand one. Um, Great Britain's like
46:24
Speaker 1: really well aware of its stalking problem, and they have
46:27
Speaker 1: a really high incidence of men being stalked too. And
46:30
Speaker 1: then I read an article that France, Sweden, and Luxembourg
46:36
Speaker 1: have the highest rates of stalking and I was like,
46:38
Speaker 1: that seems a little weird, and then the article pointed out, well,
46:42
Speaker 1: these are these are also probably countries where women feel
46:46
Speaker 1: empowered to report stalking, whereas some of these other countries
46:50
Speaker 1: that have very like artificially low rates of stalking and
46:53
Speaker 1: the EU are probably um countries that are a little
46:57
Speaker 1: more macho and where women feel like the cops are
47:00
Speaker 1: going to just tell them to like feel flattered for
47:02
Speaker 1: the attention, which happens actually sadly, and so are like that,
47:07
Speaker 1: like you said originally, like the data and the stats
47:10
Speaker 1: on stalking are are really hard to come by, but
47:14
Speaker 1: it's it's basically a universal thing. Well, and it's hard
47:17
Speaker 1: to come by too because not everyone can agree on
47:22
Speaker 1: what behaviors even qualifies stalking. Um, there's this one interesting
47:28
Speaker 1: thing that Ed put in here about incompetence. Did you
47:31
Speaker 1: see that? Yeah? Yeah, not incompetence with the ce butt
47:35
Speaker 1: Yeah e n T s uh. This is a category
47:38
Speaker 1: of stalker. And this is someone who is so awkward
47:42
Speaker 1: and unaware of social cues and norms that they're clumsy
47:46
Speaker 1: attempts at initiating relationships feel like stalking. They might have
47:51
Speaker 1: some sort of cognitive disability or something like that, or
47:54
Speaker 1: just made not pick up on social cues and not
47:58
Speaker 1: realize that you don't stopped by and compliment the ladies
48:02
Speaker 1: dress every day right, like don't do it right? And
48:06
Speaker 1: the guy's like, what, I'm just being nice? Sure, or
48:11
Speaker 1: it might be like, uh, you know, or he may
48:13
Speaker 1: be a legit stalker. Sure, but I think in that
48:16
Speaker 1: case he wouldn't be an incompetent. He would be a stalker.
48:19
Speaker 1: Well right, but that's what I'm saying. The guy who's
48:21
Speaker 1: an incompetent is just like, oh, and then he never
48:25
Speaker 1: speaks to her again. But that's so that's that seems
48:27
Speaker 1: to be another whole, the other class of stalker. There's
48:30
Speaker 1: the incompetent, there's the aratomaniac, there's a love obsessional. And
48:34
Speaker 1: then there's even like subtypes to those larger types, like
48:38
Speaker 1: there's the um scorned lover, there's UM, the the the
48:43
Speaker 1: guy who UM is experiencing rage because he's not getting
48:48
Speaker 1: his affection reciprocated. There's all these different little sub types,
48:53
Speaker 1: and all of them, to one degree or another, have
48:56
Speaker 1: some sort of mental illness associated with them. It's not
49:01
Speaker 1: necessarily like diagnosable mental illness. And that's what makes stalking
49:05
Speaker 1: so weird, is that a lot of stalkers are otherwise
49:10
Speaker 1: utterly saying sure, or narcissism or something like that. But
49:16
Speaker 1: you can diagnose that um, and yes you maybe we'll
49:20
Speaker 1: we'll study them enough in the future that will be like, Oh, well,
49:23
Speaker 1: when you put this this degree of narcissism with this
49:26
Speaker 1: degree of sociopathy together and UM, mix in a little
49:30
Speaker 1: bit of of an overly critical mother, you've got a
49:33
Speaker 1: stalker situation. Right. But but socially speaking, especially UM, coworker
49:41
Speaker 1: love obsessionals and um, the simple obsessional ones, those very
49:48
Speaker 1: frequently seem to be people who have become obsessed with
49:50
Speaker 1: somebody and have become so obsessed with that person they've
49:54
Speaker 1: lost their their marbles basically in that in that respect,
50:00
Speaker 1: in every other respect, they can kind of keep their
50:01
Speaker 1: life together until the obsession leads them down the path
50:04
Speaker 1: to where they're full time stalking and they like will
50:07
Speaker 1: lose their job or whatever something. So we should probably
50:11
Speaker 1: give a few tips, um before we go in case
50:14
Speaker 1: you are being stalked, First and foremost that I've seen
50:17
Speaker 1: is number one, take it seriously. But number two, if
50:20
Speaker 1: you believe you're being stalked, or you feel like you're
50:22
Speaker 1: being stalked, like go find a local stalking advocacy group.
50:26
Speaker 1: They have them all over the place and they are
50:29
Speaker 1: experts at what you need to do things like, Um,
50:33
Speaker 1: if you are being stalked by a former intimate. Um,
50:37
Speaker 1: you should assume that your computer and your phone are
50:40
Speaker 1: being spy or spying on you. Um, you want to
50:42
Speaker 1: change the passwords to your accounts, don't use your computer,
50:45
Speaker 1: don't use your phone, Go use a computer at a
50:47
Speaker 1: church or a library, and then change your past codes
50:50
Speaker 1: and then don't log in on your phone or computer
50:53
Speaker 1: until you can get a new one. From the get go,
50:57
Speaker 1: you should log all activity, just say you can. When
51:01
Speaker 1: you go to the cops, they're not like, oh, well,
51:04
Speaker 1: this guy just came by your house once, Like let's
51:06
Speaker 1: just see where this heads. You can hand over piece
51:08
Speaker 1: of paper that says that these seventeen things happened in
51:11
Speaker 1: the past four days. Uh, so you just have a
51:14
Speaker 1: good log of activity. You also want to engage in
51:17
Speaker 1: what's called like safety planning, where you, um, you don't
51:22
Speaker 1: just think about what the socker just did. You have
51:24
Speaker 1: to think about what your stocker is going to do.
51:27
Speaker 1: And that really kind of gets to the heart of
51:29
Speaker 1: how again unfair this is? Well, yeah, because then all
51:31
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're obsessed with trying to figure out, yeah,
51:35
Speaker 1: something that's going to happen in the future or may
51:37
Speaker 1: not happen in the future. That's like how they bruin
51:40
Speaker 1: your life, right Exactly. You're constantly thinking about them and
51:43
Speaker 1: where they're going to show up or whatever. But you
51:45
Speaker 1: want to um tell people at your school, at work, um,
51:49
Speaker 1: at at at home, like here's a picture of this person.
51:52
Speaker 1: If they show up, call the police. Do not give
51:55
Speaker 1: out personal information to anybody because again they might be pretexting. Um.
51:59
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of stuff that you wouldn't normally think
52:03
Speaker 1: of to where if you're being stalk go find a
52:06
Speaker 1: group that that helps people like this. They would probably
52:10
Speaker 1: say get off social media. Now, yeah, that's I think
52:13
Speaker 1: that's another one. But also I think it has an
52:15
Speaker 1: effect where like not only do you get off social media,
52:18
Speaker 1: you like stop going out because you're afraid they're going
52:20
Speaker 1: to show up. You stop, so you like you lose
52:23
Speaker 1: contact with friends, you lose your life, you know. So
52:26
Speaker 1: the group that I found that I thought was pretty great,
52:29
Speaker 1: it's called SPARK s p a r C. Stalking Prevention
52:33
Speaker 1: Awareness and Resource Center. They have a lot of good
52:36
Speaker 1: like starter tips, but they'll tell you, just like I did,
52:39
Speaker 1: go find a local group to help you like come
52:42
Speaker 1: up with a safety plan to be safe. Yeah, because
52:45
Speaker 1: the one thing that won't happen there is they won't
52:48
Speaker 1: disregard your fears and not take you seriously. And sometimes,
52:52
Speaker 1: especially in those early moments, that's exactly what you need
52:57
Speaker 1: is some support and someone to say like, you're not crazy, Uh,
53:01
Speaker 1: this might actually be happening to you, and then um
53:05
Speaker 1: to end on kind of a hopeful note, as distasteful
53:08
Speaker 1: as it sounds. There's a growing awareness, um that stalkers need,
53:13
Speaker 1: that they're, in a weird way victims too, and that
53:16
Speaker 1: they need to be treated, that they need to be
53:18
Speaker 1: pulled out of there this life that they've built for
53:21
Speaker 1: themselves and basically, over the course of some very intense therapy,
53:27
Speaker 1: be brought back to reality and to have pointed out
53:30
Speaker 1: to them what they're doing and just how off their
53:33
Speaker 1: views of this other person are, because very frequently stalkers
53:37
Speaker 1: are found to be giving their victims tons of power
53:40
Speaker 1: that the victim doesn't even know they have. And um,
53:44
Speaker 1: and when they're reminded like, no, this person isn't doing
53:47
Speaker 1: this to your No, they're not getting what you're saying
53:49
Speaker 1: or anything like that, UM, it can there. It's starting
53:53
Speaker 1: to look like stalking can be treated, and that that's
53:56
Speaker 1: part and parcel with saving a victim is treating the
53:59
Speaker 1: stalker to you? Yeah, sure, then the victim can have
54:02
Speaker 1: resolution at some point without the stalker having to die
54:05
Speaker 1: or spend the rest of their life in prison, you know. Yeah,
54:09
Speaker 1: So that's that's kind of a growing thing, is treating
54:11
Speaker 1: stalkers as well. Yeah, I could see it being something
54:14
Speaker 1: that could be rehabilitated, you would hope, and then hopefully
54:18
Speaker 1: you just don't bum into one another two years later. Yeah,
54:21
Speaker 1: they'd be I swear I'm feeling better. Usually don't shop here.
54:27
Speaker 1: This is just I'm gonna just go right, in which
54:30
Speaker 1: case the victim would what I don't know, back slowly
54:32
Speaker 1: out of the grocery stores. Yes, and never stopped there again.
54:36
Speaker 1: So that's it for stalking. If you're being stalked, hanging
54:40
Speaker 1: there and get in touch with this let us know
54:42
Speaker 1: how it's going. Since I said that, it's time for
54:44
Speaker 1: listener now. Hey, guys, love the show just started listening
54:50
Speaker 1: into my surprise, one of the first episodes I listened
54:52
Speaker 1: to was about the biggest misconception in my industry, bread
54:56
Speaker 1: count the softness of betting. This is from a short stuff.
55:00
Speaker 1: Softness of bedding comes down to the quality of the
55:02
Speaker 1: material that's being used, not necessarily how many threads, which
55:07
Speaker 1: I think we said that right. This person's just restating
55:10
Speaker 1: everything we said. Long staple cotton only makes up three
55:13
Speaker 1: percent of the global cotton production, yet it's best kept.
55:16
Speaker 1: It's the best option for betting. The longer threads provided
55:19
Speaker 1: smooth surface for sleepers to enjoy. It's also more durable
55:23
Speaker 1: short staple cotton threads. This is what we said, isn't it.
55:25
Speaker 1: The more popular and cheaper option are rougher and scratchier
55:29
Speaker 1: because the shorter threads are tied together throughout the weave
55:32
Speaker 1: of the bedding. In order to get the softest, best
55:34
Speaker 1: performing sheet, a long staple cotton, preferably one that is
55:38
Speaker 1: responsibly sourced, is necessary. Anyway, I just wanted to say
55:42
Speaker 1: what you guys already said. Thanks for thanks for being
55:45
Speaker 1: what you are. Uh, congratulations on the billion downloads guys.
55:48
Speaker 1: Oh nice, there you go. Here's to another billion. That's
55:51
Speaker 1: how you get your email read And that's from Ed.
55:53
Speaker 1: Thanks Ed. We're glad you joined us. Um, welcome to
55:57
Speaker 1: the family. That was a baptism by fire right. If
56:00
Speaker 1: you want to be like Ed and get baptized by
56:03
Speaker 1: Reverend Josh and Reverend Chuck and Cardinal Jerry. You can
56:08
Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff
56:11
Speaker 1: works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
56:18
Speaker 1: other topics, is it how stuff works dot com