Armchair Anonymous: Stalking III

Summary

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Armchair Expert - Armchair Anonymous: Stalking III

Release Date: July 17, 2026
Host: Dax Shepard (A), co-host Monica Padman (B)
Theme: Real-life, raw and vulnerable listener stories of being stalked—each unique, unsettling and, in true Armchair Expert fashion, discussed with sensitivity, curiosity, and humor.

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Episode Overview

In this third “Stalking” installment of Armchair Anonymous, Dax and Monica dive into intensely personal stories from listeners who survived being stalked. The episode explores the chilling reality of predatory intrusion, escalation of danger, and the lingering trauma—even as survival tactics, lessons, and resilient humor shine through. Every story is stranger-than-fiction, with the episode intentionally centered on storytelling and authentic reactions—both serious and supportive.

“This is a big trigger warning episode in that it’s Stalking part three. So you know, stalking is going to have all the stuff you might expect in stalking.”—Dax, [00:10]

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Featured Stories and Discussion

1. Kelly’s Window Watcher (Springfield, IL, 2002)

[04:05 - 15:58]

• Setting & Backstory:

  • Kelly (C), 16, described as a “lifelong scaredy-cat,” recounts how childhood pranks from friends blurred lines when real danger appeared.
  • Incident started with her friend claiming to see someone at her bedroom window; dismissed due to frequent pranks.

• Escalation:

  • Mother finds an empty case of beer outside Kelly’s window, blinds are faulty—allowing a potential peeper clear sight inside.
  • Realization: someone drank an entire case watching the girls sleep, confirmed by arrangement of empties—“presumably he stood outside of the window long enough to kill an entire case while he watched my friend and I sleep.” [06:09]

• Continued Incidents:

  • Subsequent “slow tap” on the window while Kelly does homework—repeated several times.
  • Kelly & her mother devise a plan: if she hears the tapping, she’ll kick the wall, her mom releases Buddy the labrador to chase the perpetrator.
  • “We could see all the neighbors' motion sensors going off as Buddy chased this person.” [09:41]

• Culmination & Police Involvement:

  • About six months later: Kelly finds her car's convertible soft top slashed, steering wheel covered with a suspicious substance, and a Polaroid of a man exposing himself left under the wiper [11:05].
  • The image: “He was shirtless, rocking some acid washed jeans... his zipper was completely down and he had pulled his genitals through the open zipper.” [11:35]
  • Police finally get involved, patrols begin, and—crucially—substances collected as evidence.
  • The stalker is never caught.

• Aftermath:

  • Ongoing anxiety decades later, hypervigilance with her own children’s windows.
  • Discusses persistent fear and how it shapes her as a parent.

• Notable Quotes:

  • “That’s my peeping Tom / stalker / unauthorized ejaculation story.” —Kelly, [13:01]
  • “It just stays with you.” —Kelly, [13:37]
  • “I can now carry compassion where I used to only carry so much anger. And that’s just such a gift.” —Kelly, on addiction and empathy, [15:26]

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2. Best Friend’s Husband Was the Stalker (Alberta, Canada, 2022-2023)

[16:04 – 29:25]

• The Setup:

  • Listener E recalls repeated, increasingly explicit texts from unknown numbers that escalate from odd requests (“Happy birthday, are you interested in making some money?”) [16:37] to stalking references (“I see you’re out tonight...”) and detailed, location-specific harassment.
  • Stalker knows birthdays, events, what they’re wearing, companions—all suggesting insider access.

• Escalation & Detection:

  • The stalker begins texting her friend (“the one in the middle” from Instagram stories), offering money for pictures.
  • Realization: only someone who sees specific Insta-stories and has both numbers could be responsible.

• Turning the Tables:

  • With her friend’s help, E baits the stalker: posts a private story visible only to the suspected account and waits for a reference.
  • When stalker references “espresso martinis” from this private story, she confronts him directly:
    “I’ve got you, motherfucker.” [25:35]
    His only reply: “Okay.”

• The Stalker’s Identity & Fallout:

  • The stalker is revealed as her friend’s husband, who is also texting his own sister-in-law.
  • E describes the fallout: uncertainty about whether to tell the wife; ultimately, she does not.
  • Her husband confronts the stalker after further online interaction.
  • She has avoided in-person contact since.

• Notable Quotes:

  • “The person who was stalking me, I have known since I was a kid, and he actually married at the time... one of my best friends.” [25:58]
  • “The friend who he had texted, my high school friend, is actually his sister-in-law, the one in the middle.” [27:10]
  • “All abuse, generally, it’s people you know.” —Dax, [29:13]

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3. Peephole Saved Her Life (Dallas, TX, 2000)

[29:32 – 43:32]

• Origin:

  • Christina (D) and her roommate Sarah live in a Dallas ground-floor apartment backing onto a highway, with a secluded patio.
  • One night, Christina catches a man with his face pressed against their patio’s sliding glass door.
  • They call the police, who find nothing.

• Red Flags & Near Miss:

  • They switch all “smoke breaks” to the more public front door.
  • About a week later, Christina nearly unlocks the front door when “an overwhelming urge” makes her check the peephole—she sees a man reaching for the handle from the outside. [35:21]
  • She panics, hides, and debates whether to call police; as she hesitates, she hears someone attempting to force entry.

• Twist & Relief:

  • Her roommate returns with her date, and their headlights catch a man hiding in the bushes outside the door.
  • Police respond, and from Christina’s better description, infer it matches a suspect already known for multiple sexual assaults in the area—one who stalks victims, learns their schedules, and attacks when alone.

• Reflection:

  • Christina reflects on how her “eldest daughter” hypervigilance and programmed hesitance about being a bother possibly saved her life.
  • The trauma does not cripple her, but validates her instincts.

• Notable Quotes:

  • “It’s just this voice that’s telling me, no, this time you need to check the peephole.” —Christina, [35:21]
  • “We were programmed not to inconvenience... even though that’s their given role, they’re there to be bothered.” —Dax, [36:24]
  • “[The police] told us the usual things... but the description matched a guy they’d been looking for that is sexually assaulted two women in the area.” —Christina, [39:38]
  • “The timing of everything is very fortunate... but also terrifying.” —Christina, [42:28]

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4. Escaping the Abusive Stalker Ex-Boyfriend (Windsor, ON, late 1990s–2000)

[43:36 – 56:01]

• Background:

  • Chloe (F), originally from southwestern Ontario, tells of a relationship starting age 16 with a charismatic yet controlling, eventually violent boyfriend. Red flags begin with mileage-checking, constant calls, and escalating isolation abuse.

• Abuse & Escape:

  • Moves with him to Windsor, falls into deeper isolation, and experiences severe physical abuse.
  • Becomes pregnant in late 1999; after a breakup, begins to feel sense of self returning—until he comes back, assaults her, sending her to the hospital and causing the loss of the pregnancy.
  • With support from her family during recovery, Chloe finds a job (at a Windsor strip club), starts life over, but stalking resumes harshly: public lurking, sabotaged light bulbs, bus encounters, feeling watched.
  • “His energy really felt as if he was just going to be around and close by until I came to my senses and took him back.” [51:30]

• Nadir and Final Encounter:

  • After a violent confrontation in a Tim Horton’s restroom, his stalking takes on a more ominous tone.
  • Chloe, growing sicker, collapses in her apartment—he finds her through voyeurism, intervenes, and brings her to the hospital, saving her life from kidney failure.
  • He cares for her during recovery, but she has a moment of clarity, thanks him for saving her, and unequivocally ends contact.
  • She never sees him again.

• Positive Resolution:

  • Life improves: Chloe moves, meets her best friend, starts a family, and expresses gratitude for distance and new beginnings.

• Notable Quotes:

  • “He was peering in my fucking window and saw me passed out, came into my apartment and got me to the hospital.” —Chloe, [53:56]
  • “I forgive you for everything that you did in the past, but I can never forget it. For that reason... we will never be together again.” —Chloe, [55:13]
  • “When it was good, it was great... you can’t really get those really high highs without some of the really low lows... It was so confusing.” —Chloe, [54:01]

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Discussion Highlights & Memorable Moments

• Survival Instincts:

  • Dax and Monica repeatedly highlight the split-second decisions—checking the peephole, reading “vibes,” trusting one’s gut—that make all the difference.

• The “People You Know” Factor:

  • Both hosts emphasize how often stalkers are “people you know,” whether classmates, neighbors, friends or even relatives.
  • “All abuse, generally, it’s people you know.”—Dax [29:13]

• Compassion, Empathy & Recovery:

  • Many storytellers describe how these traumas permanently alter the way they move through the world—heightened vigilance, changed routines, lasting fears—but also how therapy, community, and the Armchair community’s candid conversations have shaped their healing.
  • Kelly, in particular, thanks Dax and Monica for reframing her view of her mother’s addiction: “Because of that, I can now carry compassion where I used to only carry so much anger.” [15:26]

• Humor & Humanity in Darkness:

  • Throughout, Dax and Monica remain sensitive but interject wit—such as brainstorming “pongee pits” or joking that Monica had a “sex dream about Brad Pitt” to break tension.
  • These moments provide necessary levity:
    • “That’s my peeping Tom / stalker / unauthorized ejaculation story.” —Kelly, [13:01]
    • “Don’t get stalked. And don’t stalk.” —Monica, [56:18]

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Kelly’s Story: [04:05 – 15:58]
• Alberta Listener—Friend’s Husband: [16:04 – 29:25]
• Christina’s Dallas Peephole Save: [29:32 – 43:32]
• Chloe’s Escape from Ex: [43:36 – 56:01]
• Closing Reflections: [56:06 – 56:29]
• Outro / Banter: [56:32 – End]

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Notable Quotes

• “This person just fucking haphazardly left the evidence.” —Dax, commenting on the beer bottles, [05:58]
• “I’ve got you, motherfucker.” —Alberta listener, confronting her stalker, [25:35]
• “It’s just this voice that’s telling me, no, this time you need to check the peephole.” —Christina, [35:21]
• “You can’t really get those really high highs without some of the really low lows... it was so confusing.” —Chloe, [54:01]

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Tone and Takeaways

The episode strikes a tone of empathy, incredulity, and care—balancing seriousness with moments of warmth and, occasionally, dark humor. The hosts foster a space for catharsis and affirmation, reflecting on the traumas and resilience of survivors.

Final message:
Don’t get stalked. And don’t stalk. Be vigilant, trust your instincts, and support those who come forward with their truths.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome, welcome. Welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman, who's currently trying to look up a fact to disprove me on something.

[B]

It's an opinion. Right.

[A]

But I'll carry right on. Today is this is a big trigger warning episode in that it's Stalking part three. So you know, stalking is going to have all the stuff you might expect in stalking.

[B]

It's really tough.

[A]

It's really tough. But it was really good too. Oh yeah, incredible.

[B]

I recommend listening to this one.

[A]

Please Enjoy Stalking Part 3. 3 We get support from Quints.

[B]

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[A]

Yeah, I've been wearing them a suspicious amount. Yeah. European linen ones. They're 34 bucks, which is genuinely insane for how nice they are.

[B]

It doesn't even make sense.

[A]

Well, here's the deal. They work directly with the factories, cut out all the middlemen. So you're paying for the actual quality and not some brand's marketing budget. Everything's 50 to 80% less than comparable stuff. I love it because it's all very classic and traditional and I know I'm going to be able to keep it for a very long time. And the quality's off the charts.

[B]

That's true. The style is very consistent. Whatever you get there, you walk down the street, you're going to look good. They have these lightweight cotton sweaters, which I love for when it cools down at night. It's nice. Drape around your shoulders in the summer and then throw it on when it gets a little cool. And it's not just clothes. They do home stuff. Ding ding ding. Travel stuff, everyday essentials. It's all the same model quality without the markup.

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

go Good times take them slow My life I had them both Remember one thing you gotta know I'mma keep on shining.

[B]

Oh, I got your shirt.

[C]

Oh, arm cherry.

[B]

That looks so cute on you.

[A]

Yeah, it does.

[C]

Stop. I can't take in a compliment from you right now.

[D]

It's fantastic.

[C]

Thank you so much.

[A]

What time zone are you in?

[C]

Central. Central.

[B]

Wow. Wow, that feels special. I'm already so sad you got stalked.

[A]

Oh, sure. Unless it was by Brad Pitt.

[B]

I had a sex dream about Brad Pitt last night.

[A]

You did? Can we pause Kelly to hear monic a sex stream about Brad Pitt?

[C]

I would love to.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

I don't really remember the details. You were just having sex.

[A]

It just cut to you having sex or you were on a date?

[B]

Yeah, we were hanging out and flirty.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

There was a lot of really good kissing.

[A]

Oh, there was a lot of kissing.

[B]

He's so hot, you guys. Especially in my dream.

[C]

I agree.

[B]

But he didn't stalk you?

[A]

Unfortunately, no.

[C]

Sadly, this was maybe the opposite of Brad Pitt.

[A]

Oh no.

[C]

We'll get there.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

Okay.

[A]

So Kelly, you're in the central time zone. You have really adorable leopard and or hyena print curtain behind you.

[C]

Thank you for noticing. They are blankets from my girls rooms. And there's a frozen one that you can't see. I almost put it behind me but that felt like too aggressive.

[A]

No, we're not afraid. We're not afraid of affection. Okay, so please set the scene for us. What happened? What year?

[C]

So to set the scene, this happened in my hometown where I still live in Springfield, Illinois. So we're three hours south of Rob's hometown of Chicago. We're in the lane land of Lincoln.

[A]

Okay, great, great, great.

[C]

This took place in 2002 when I was 16 years old.

[A]

That's too young for a sudoker. I already don't like it.

[C]

Bad news. So one thing about me, I'm a lifelong scaredy cat. So I was that friend at the haunted houses that would wait in the car because even to wait in the parking lot just felt too risky. That's the level of scaredy cat that we're dealing with. And my friends knew this about me and they loved messing with me, especially one friend in particular. And it was that friend who was sleeping over at my house on the night that this all began. So as we were falling asleep in my room, she asked if I noticed someone outside of my window. And I know that that sounds alarming to you, but she would jump, scare me all the time, and just was constantly keeping me on my toes. So I really didn't think anything of it. I brushed her off. I told her to knock it off and just go to bed. And for whatever reason, she just, like, went along with it. And I don't know if she convinced herself she didn't see anything or she was just that tired. Either way, we went to bed. That was that. So a few days later, my mom came into the house after mowing our grass, and she asked me if I'd been sneaking people in through my window. Oh, I said no. And I asked her why. Well, when she was mowing the side yard, she found an empty case of beer right outside of my window.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. This person just fucking haphazardly left the evidence.

[C]

It's important to note here that we had those retro, like, vertical slat hanging blinds. I don't know if you remember those.

[A]

The Nation.

[C]

Yes. Yes. So to close those blinds, they would be flush, like, side by side, and they would be flush against the window. Well, mine were broken. And so when I would try to close them all the way, they would get tangled up. So I would just set them to almost closed. So they were stacked kind of by each other, but they were at an angle. That's important to note because the person outside of the window could just stand at an angle and see into the room very clearly. So my mom found this case of beer, and all of the bottles were still inside, but they were all empty. So presumably he stood outside of the window long enough to kill an entire case while he watched my friend and I sleep. Oh, and it was summertime, so it's not like he had a couple left. Came back another night unless he really enjoyed a hot beer. So, needless to say, I was very freaked out. I did not sleep in my room for a good long while. I did tack a dark sheet up over my wind. I don't know why I went with a sheet instead of a thick blanket, but I was 16 and my brain was doing the best that it could. There were just questionable choices being made. Maybe a month or so passed without incident, and things kind of went back to business as usual. And then I was in my room doing homework at my desk after school one day, still not sleeping in there, but during waking hours, I was still spending some time in there. So my back was to the window and I was sitting at my desk doing homework, when all of the sudden I heard a sound. Slow tap, no tap on my window.

[B]

Oh, my God. And what time are we talking? Like five or six or like night?

[C]

No, this is daytime this time. So I jumped up, I ran out of the room, screamed for my mom, my mom ran outside, but by then the person was gone. He probably saw me through that flimsy sheet or he heard me scream.

[A]

Can I ask how densely populated your neighborhood was? Were you like 20ft from the next house? Were you a half acre?

[C]

We were on the corner, but we did have really close next door neighbors, but we were surrounded by a lot of elderly neighbors, and so there wasn't a lot of people outside and nobody saw him. And we also didn't have that kind of relationship with our neighbors. It's not like everybody was chatting and comparing notes. So to our knowledge, nobody saw this person. So over the course of the next few weeks, this happened a few more times before finally my mom and I came up with a plan. But the plan should have been contact the police, obviously, and maybe, like, install security cameras.

[A]

I'm thinking pongee pit. Do you know what those are?

[C]

I don't.

[A]

It's like a trap you make in the jungle for a jaguar. You put palm fronds over a hole you've dug, and then at the bottom is bamboo spikes, so when it falls in, they're impaled. I would have installed a pongee pit in front of the window.

[C]

The plan that we came up with was hair brained, but maybe somewhat similar to your train of thought of handling it on our own. So my mom's bedroom butted up to my wall that had the desk against it. And she also had a sliding glass door in her room that opened up into our yard. So her idea was, if you hear it again when you're at the homework, kick underneath the desk, kick against the wall. I'll hear it. We had a big black lab named Buddy. I know best boys are only humans, but Buddy was the best boy dog. She said, I'll let Buddy out and he'll catch the perp. So sure enough, like a week later, I'm at my desk. This time, Monica. It was evening, and I'm sitting there when I hear that terrifying slow tap.

[B]

Oh, the slowness.

[C]

I heard the tapping. I held it together enough to kick under the wal. My mom heard the signal, she sent Buddy outside and he tore off after the person. So my mom and I went out onto the back porch and we were up at the top of a hill. And like I said, it was nighttime, so we could see all of the neighbors motion sensors going off as Buddy chased this person. So unfortunately, Buddy did not catch the perp, but he did effectively scare the person off. Or so we thought. Oh, okay, fast forward about six months maybe. I was walking out to my car to go to school in the morning and I parked out and front of our house on the street. Dax, I don't know anything about cars, but I can tell you that I drove an early 90s Pontiac Sunbird convertible.

[A]

Know it well? Yeah, two liter, four cylinder, apparently.

[C]

Sure, I believe you.

[B]

We have no choice but to believe it.

[C]

I mean, it's all we can do. So as I'm walking out to my car, I notice that there is a sizable hole that's cut out of the soft top of my convertible.

[B]

What?

[A]

Oh boy.

[C]

So I go around to the driver's side of the car and I open the door to assess the situation. And I quickly realized two things. Number one, there is a substance all over my steering wheel and up onto my windshield. And number two, there's a Polaroid picture that's underneath my driver's side windshield wiper facing into my car.

[A]

Oh my God, I wish that I

[C]

still had the photo just so I could have submitted it to Emma to show you guys. But it was confiscated as evidence, so I'll have to describe it to you. So it was a man from the neck down. A selfie. He was shirtless, rocking some acid washed jeans. The top button of his jeans was still fastened, but his zipper was completely down and he had pulled his genitals through the open zipper.

[A]

Thanks for referring to it as genitals. We are in a criminal case now,

[C]

keeping it above board. And it's that creative choice of keeping that top button fastened that I think really still sticks with me to this day.

[B]

Oh my God, it's so unnatural. Was he in the car in the picture?

[C]

No, he was not in my car in the picture. He was standing upright.

[A]

Were you able to ascertain or take a stab at what age this abdomen looked like?

[C]

I would say 30s to 40s.

[A]

It's not a classmate and it's not one of your geezer neighbors. It's not a granddad?

[C]

No. There were some apartments that were a little bit sketchy that were a few blocks from our house. And the night that we saw the motion lights going off, he appeared to be running in that direction. So I think it was somebody who was maybe 30 to 40, age range that was possibly living over in that complex. I don't know for sure. But the police did get involved after that finally, and they did patrol our house for quite a while after that and would come by at night and shine their light on my window that I was no longer like anywhere near for a long, long time. But they never caught the guy.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

I have a necessary but terrible question, which is, did they take the semen sample so that they would have, like, DNA if necessary to match?

[B]

It was.

[A]

Okay, well, it had to be, right?

[B]

That was the substance.

[C]

I was going to say that's my peeping Tom slash stalker slashed what I would like to call an unauthorized ejaculation story.

[A]

Oh, wow,

[B]

you got a lot of it.

[D]

It.

[A]

Unauthorized ejaculation. Oh, man. I guess. Can you ever get comfortable in your house?

[C]

It took a really long time for me to be able to sleep in my room again. And even now to this day, my daughter's bedrooms face our street. And every night when I put them to bed, I pull the blinds all the way, make sure that curtains are around. And it just stays with you.

[A]

Absolutely. Did you ever get an eerie sense that you were being watched before you actually knew you were?

[C]

I don't know. Like I said, I was such a chicken that I kind of always felt impending doom at all times. But since then, definitely.

[A]

Man, it's hard to guess what happened because obviously this person's behavior was escalating. They were fearless. If they sat there and drank a 12 pack, they're out on the street cutting a hole in your car, they're jerking off in your car. I mean, so all the fear is gone. They're not afraid of this. So why did they disappear? A person doing this also could have gotten arrested for any number of things. If they're like impulse control, you just gotta wonder why it stopped.

[C]

I don't know if it was because the police were driving by at night that they just were like, well, I'll find a new person then to start this up with, or what. But regardless, it did stop.

[B]

That is so upsetting.

[C]

It's a humdinger. But I am so excited, you guys, because it got me here. Well, it's like my only good story. And I never check your. Your prompts ever. But I was listening to Armchair Anonymous last week, and you had said something about make sure that you're checking the prompts. I was walking the dog. I was like, oh, I'm gonna check it out. I submitted, and here we are.

[E]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Finally I got two.

[B]

Well, we're happy to meet you, but I do wish that didn't happen to you.

[C]

Same. Same. Is it okay if I shout out?

[A]

Absolutely.

[C]

My husband Henry, and then our three kids, Charlie, Willow, and Lola. Willow and Lola are not allowed to listen to this episode for many years, but I would love to be able to f forward through to the end so that they can hear their names. They did also make me promise that I would ask you to tell Kristen hello for them. Dax.

[A]

Consider it done.

[B]

The Princess Anna says hello.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Yes. Oh, so cool. And then I wanted to just quickly thank both of you for being so candid about addiction from the perspective of an addict, and also Monica as a loved one. Even though my mom is not in my life, and that's incredibly difficult, you guys have offered me a new lens to view her through and view her addiction through. And because of that, I can now carry compassion where I used to only carry so much anger. And that's just such a gift.

[A]

Aw. Thank you, Callie. We appreciate that so much.

[C]

Yeah, thank you guys so much. This was a dream come true.

[A]

All right, take care.

[C]

Bye.

[D]

Hello.

[A]

How are you?

[E]

I'm good.

[A]

Tell us where you're at.

[E]

I am in Alberta, Canada.

[A]

What kind of temps do we have up in Alberta? Has it gotten nice yet?

[E]

We've had a really rough spring. It's been, like, raining, nonstop flooding, and it's been kind of shitty. But today's not too bad.

[A]

Okay, so please set the scene for us. What year was this? What happened?

[E]

My story starts a couple years ago, back in 2022, and my best friend and I, we were out for my birthday. We were at a Taylor Swift dance party at a bar.

[B]

Hell, yeah.

[A]

Perfect birthday.

[E]

Yeah, it was fantastic. We were having lots to drink. We were at the bar getting another round of shots, and I got a text message from a random number. It said, happy Birthday. Are you interested in making some money? I would love some photos. So we were both pretty drunk. We were like, this is probably just some, like, bot or some scam. Didn't really think that much of it, but because we had been drinking a lot, we thought it was hilarious if we were like, yeah, we'll send you some videos of us belting out Taylor Swift. Throw in a little extra. We'll even show you, our feet. We didn't really think too much about the fact that whoever this person was knew it was my birthday.

[A]

Yeah, weird for a bot.

[E]

Yeah, we didn't think of it at the time. And so the person responded back, oh, I have something a little sexier in mind. And at that point we were like, okay, weird, delete, block. And so flash forward a couple months. I was out with another friend out for drinks for this friend's birthday. We weren't doing anything too crazy, but I started getting texts from another random number saying, I see that you're out tonight. Have you given any thought to those photos I asked for?

[A]

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[F]

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[A]

That turns on a dime now. It's terrifying.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

Again, we'd had a little bit to drink, so I responded like, sorry, I don't send random pictures to strangers. There's a website called OnlyFans. I think that might be what you're looking for the person was like, oh, I'm not a stranger. And I was like, okay, now I'm really creeped out. Block, delete. And so every once in a while, I would be waking up in the morning to texts from random numbers just being like, $500 question mark. Have you thought about me at all? Just weird things like that and never responded. Block, delete. Then flash forward a couple months again, and I'm at a concert with my mom and another friend, and it's a country concert. I start getting messages that are like, I love a country girl.

[B]

What the fuck?

[E]

I'd love to see you with nothing but that cowboy hat on. And I'm like, okay, now you know where I am. You know what I'm wearing. There was also references to who I was with. So I started to get, like, a little worried. At this point, I hadn't really told anybody that much yet. I hadn't told my husband. I hadn't told my parents. But at this point, I was like, okay, this is what's going on. If something happens to me, like, look into this, because somebody is clearly paying attention to where I am and what I'm doing. At this point, I didn't respond, but I was getting messages that were like, I've lusted after you for so long, you wouldn't believe it. Just weird things. And I'm like, okay, who is this? And they also kept using two things that were really weird. A lot of emojis in their text messages. And then also they kept calling me dear. That seems like an old man term.

[A]

Yeah, totally. And just to be clear, I heard you were married at the time.

[E]

Time, yeah. Again, flash forward probably one or two months, and I'm out again with a couple friends. Well, we're not out yet. We're getting ready to go out. And these are my high school friends. And I start getting the messages again, and they're like, seriously, I'm willing to pay more than 500. Like, just consider these photos. I really, really, really have some things in mind. And they start going into, like, pretty explicit details about what they want. And then they start saying, I want pictures of you and the one in the middle. So then I start looking, and I realized that my friend had posted some stories of us getting ready on Instagram.

[A]

Okay. Yeah. Cause I'm like, is the dude an Uber driver? Like, how does he know every time she goes out? Is he a local driver? Is he a neighbor?

[E]

That night we go out, I didn't respond or anything. But my friend, who is the one in the middle, she then gets a text from the same random number. All it says is, $500, question mark. This is somebody who has access to my number and her number, and somebody who I think is following us on social media. And all throughout this year, randomly, I'm waking up to messages from random numbers. Every time. I'm blocking it every time Newman number is popping up. And then one night, this is almost a full year after the original text message, and I was having dinner at my mom and dad's house, and I get a text message, and it's like, I see you're out having some fun tonight. Maybe you finally are willing to send me those photos. And I thought, maybe my sweatpants of my mom and dad's, like, I am not out tonight. What are you talking about? And so I go and I look at my best friend's Instagram, and she had posted a story of us from a couple months ago, but didn't tag that it was from a couple months ago. I texted my friend instantly, and I'm like, who has seen your Instagram story right now? Because whoever has seen your story, somebody on that list is who is harassing me and my online stalker, essentially. And so she was scrolling through, and out of everybody who had seen her stories, there was two that kind of stood out to us. So one of them was a person that I used to date, and then the other was our friend's husband.

[A]

Oh, no, now we're getting somewhere.

[E]

I didn't think it was the person that I used to date because he wouldn't have had my high school friend's phone number to text her. Alarm bells kind of start going off for us where I'm like, oh, gosh, this is even more upsetting than we even thought. So we devised a plan where I said, okay, what you're going to do is you're going to post another story, and we're going to have something very specific in this photo, and I'm going to respond to him, and I'm gonna, like, make him think that I'm actually starting to consider this. Like, oh, you've worn me down. I just need to know that you are who I think you are, because I'm not comfortable sending this to stranger.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[E]

And then we decide that she's gonna post the story, and she's literally going to only allow him to be the one with access to that story.

[C]

Ooh.

[E]

We're gonna change the settings, and then I'm gonna try to bait him essentially,

[A]

into referencing, they need you at Quantico where they train the FBI agent.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

I'd be willing post a picture of us, like, cheersing an espresso martini. So I start responding and I'm like, well, I could use the money. I just. I'm really not comfortable sending pictures to strangers. And keep in mind, I'm sitting at the dinner table with my mom and dad.

[B]

Yeah, this is wild.

[E]

It's a little uncomfortable, but I'm gonna figure this out. So then I am like, I think I might have figured out who you are, and I'm fine with that. I just. Just need to know that you're going to keep this secret. So then he goes, those espresso martinis should really loosen you up for these photos I have in mind. And I'm like, bam. Got you.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

Really good sleuthing.

[A]

You set a trap and now he's in it.

[E]

I immediately send him back a tag and I'm like, I've got you, motherfucker.

[A]

You did?

[D]

I did.

[E]

Yeah. I know exactly who you are, and I could ruin your entire life. If you ever contact me again, I will not hesitate to do it. And his only response was, okay.

[D]

Oh, boy.

[A]

How good of friends were you?

[E]

So this is where things get a little bit dicey. We were really close. The person who was stalking me, I have known since I was a kid, and he actually married at the time. She was one of my best friends. They were high school sweethearts. They got married and they had a son. I mean, already, obviously, the whole situation was dicey. But at that point, things got a little hard because I wanted to tell our friend. My other friend didn't want to tell her.

[B]

Oh, this is so hard.

[A]

This is not a clear cut decision. No.

[B]

I don't know what the answer is, really.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

And so to this day, actually, she still doesn't know.

[B]

Oh, until now.

[E]

Until now, maybe. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, God, we're letting the universe decide.

[E]

It ended up causing some rift between me and my best friend because she was like, well, if you're gonna tell her, you can't involve me in the story. Which is like the whole way we figured it out.

[D]

And I'm like, wait, I can't really

[E]

say anything if I can't say that's how we figured it out. Because then I'm just accusing somebody for no reason. The other side note that was also kind of creepy is that the friend who he had texted, my high school friend is actually his sister in law, the one in the middle.

[B]

Ew.

[D]

What?

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

He's only shopping in his Immediate circle. He's like, okay, my sister in law's hot. My wife's best friend is hot. More than, I wonder if the wife of this person's gonna hear this. I more wonder if five other girls are gonna go, oh, yeah, he did that to me. I wonder how many people he was doing this to.

[E]

That's what I was wondering too, because I had thought, I don't want him doing this to other people. But yeah, we ended up deciding going to tell her. And then the day that somebody was arranged to like meet with her and tell her, she announced that she was having another baby.

[A]

Oh, did you tell your husband?

[C]

Oh, I did.

[E]

He was really angry. My husband is like a very gentle, loving person. Like, he's never been in a fight. I had blocked this person on all social media, phone number, everything. And then my husband had ended up posting a picture of me on his social media because my husband forgot to block him on all his stuff. So then this person went and was liking photos of me and my husband sent him a message and she's like, leave us the alone. Like, if you ever go near her, I will kick your ass. Essentially.

[B]

So wait, so did you have to see him again in person?

[E]

I've been able to avoid him. I feel a little guilty because I haven't really seen my friend since then because I didn't know how to look her in the face after this. So we text and luckily, like, everyone's busy with kids and life, so we had already kind of grown apart a little bit. But there is like weird things. Like she had given us some stuff for my son when he was born. She had her husband drop the stuff off on our porch. So I was in the house and then our doorbell camera went off and he's just standing on my porch dropping off a bin of things. And I'm like, creepy, leave me alone. Like, you know where I live. It was just a really crazy scenario. So that's the story of my friend's husband. Was my stalker.

[B]

Well.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Yeah, that was really good.

[A]

They say it's generally people you know, Right. All abuse. Generally people you know.

[B]

Thank you for telling us.

[A]

Yeah, big time.

[E]

Thank you for having me.

[A]

So nice meeting you.

[B]

Have a great day.

[C]

Bye.

[A]

Hi, how are you?

[E]

I'm good.

[D]

I'm so excited to talk to you guys.

[A]

Is this Christina?

[E]

Yes.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

And do you have a nickname?

[D]

We pretty much answer to any version. Christine, Christy, Chris.

[A]

And where are you at?

[D]

I am right outside one of your favorite cities, Austin, Texas, in New Brumfels, close Georgetown.

[A]

How long have you been there?

[D]

Actually, we just moved down here from the place that my story actually takes place in Dallas.

[A]

Oh, in Dallas. Okay.

[D]

My story takes place in Dallas back in 2000. I had recently moved out there with my college roommate to start our careers. And her name is Sarah. So we had a two bedroom apartment there. And our apartment was in the back of the complex. So all the buildings along the back of the complex backed up to a highway. So there was a probably, I'd say 40 foot cement wall not too far from our back patio of our apartment. Pretty secluded, which was nice because we did like to go on our back patio for smoke breaks. Back then, of course, we were starting our careers. We'd work, come home, make dinner, watch TV together. So one random. I think it was a Tuesday evening. We were watching TV together in our living room. And we had two couches that were parallel to each other. So she would usually lay on one couch, I'd lay on the other. We'd watch TV and kind of talk back and forth. And I look over to Sarah to tell her something. And when I look over, I see a man standing on our back patio with his face pressed up against our sliding glass door. Okay, I know. So his hands are kind of cupped over his eyes. He has a hat on that he has pushed up so he can really

[C]

get in there and look.

[D]

I guess I'm sure you guys are familiar with the sliding glass doors, but there's those vertical blinds, right, that hang down so I can see him, but he can't necessarily see me the way that the blinds are. So I kind of sit back and I look at Sarah and she can see the look of my face, and I just say, do not move. There is a guy staring into our apartment right now standing on the back coat. She's just kind of frozen by the time I look at her to say that and look back up, he's gone. So then I start freaking out. Oh, my gosh, he's not there. She flips over the back of the couch goes, locks the patio door, which wasn't locked because we went out there for our snug breaks all the time. So easy access to get out there. So she locks the door, we close the blinds. We don't see him anywhere out there. We call the police.

[B]

Good girls. I like that.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of these stories, most of them, the cops entered the story way later than you'd want.

[B]

Yeah. Once things have.

[D]

Well, don't give me too much credit yet. I do have a misstep later on. But for this part, we do end up calling the police and they come out. There's not a whole lot of information I can give them.

[E]

I can.

[D]

I had a brief glance, couldn't really see his face because his hands were kind of covering him. I could tell it was a white male, looked like maybe a slender build, but didn't know. Hair color, eye color, he had the hat on. They checked the area, searched all over the complex, didn't see any signs of him. So they just took the report, told us the usual things, stay cautious, keep your doors locked, give us a call if you see anything suspicious.

[A]

I do want to just make one good faith argument which is it's also possible that the dude's visiting friends, he stepped out their patio, he's smoking a cigarette, he's walking around, he's trying to get back to the right apartment and he looked in to see if it's his friend. I mean, there is a conceivable non threatening version of this you might be able to talk yourself into.

[D]

We did go through that thought process. Maybe he was walking his dog. We did kind of have that moment of, you know, maybe this is a benign situation and he's lost. We were like, worst case, maybe it is kind of a weird peeping Tom and isolated incident and didn't see much and he went about his day. So we decide just to be safe, instead of taking our smoke breaks on that back patio that's kind of secluded, we were going to go in the front to take our smoke breaks. The front of our apartment faced the parking lot, so more traffic, pedestrian and vehicles driving by. So we felt that was the better scenario there. So we did that. You know, I would go out there by myself sometimes, sometimes we would go out there together. That was probably the big change that we made. But otherwise we kind of just went back to our lives, really. Nothing suspicious. A week goes by, nothing. We're excited because actually my roommate has a first date with somebody later that week. So that kind of of takes over and we're really excited about that. So yeah, the day of her first date comes up. It's I think maybe a Thursday. So it's been maybe eight, nine days since the original incident. And her date comes to pick her up. I meet him, we all chat, I send them on their way and lock the door behind them and I just kind of settle in for the night. I go make myself dinner, watch tv. And as usual, it's about that time for my, my smoke break. So I grab my stuff Head to the front door like I had that whole week prior. I go to turn the deadbolt, and I've almost completely turned it and unlocked it. And this overwhelming urge comes over me to look through the peephole.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[D]

It's just this voice that's telling me, no, this time you need to check the peephole. So I do that, and as I'm turning the deadbolt, I check the peephole, and on the other side of the door is a guy reaching out to grab your handle. So I immediately reverse the deadbolt.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And take off and go run to my bedroom. Back in those days, there's no cell phone, or at least for me, I had a corded landline. This is the part I am embarrassed to admit, especially as the mother of two girls. I start to hesitate whether I should call the police. Am I overreacting to your point, Dax? Maybe this is just a neighbor coming by to say hi randomly.

[A]

You don't want to be a bother.

[B]

You also don't want it to be that. You don't want it to be something really bad is happening.

[D]

Yeah, I think that is a lot of it, too. And I'm an eldest daughter, right. We were programmed not to inconvenience. So it's really like, do I really need to bother the police about this? All these things are going through my mind. So what I decided to do is call my boyfriend, who is in New York City working at the doc, and

[A]

he'll be very helpful.

[D]

Pretty quickly into that conversation, he tells me I need to hang up and call the police.

[A]

Okay, good, good, good.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

So I hang up with him. And when I do that, I hear the front door handle jiggling.

[A]

Oh, boy.

[D]

So now there's a big sense of urgency. I need to, one, get the police out here, and two, I need to hide. And I'm attached to this landline. So I'm trying to hide behind a door with this landline. So I jump behind my bathroom door. It's an en suite bathroom. I get back there, and then all of a sudden, I hear the front door bust open.

[E]

No.

[D]

However, my roommate starts screaming my name when that happens. So I hear her screaming, christina, where are you? Where are you? And I just felt such a sense of relief. I run out there. We're running towards each other. We hug each other. We're both screaming. I'm screaming at her, oh, my gosh. I think that guy came back. I think he tried to break in. And I stopped long enough to hear her screaming. We pulled up and the headlights shined and there was a guy hiding in the bushes just outside the front door. And my date started chasing after him.

[A]

There we go. Welcome to Texas.

[D]

So we're just hysterical together, hugging each other.

[A]

Had you already connected with the police department at that point?

[D]

I had not. So we do that very quickly. We called the police and they sent somebody out pretty quickly. I'd say it was probably less than five minutes. We tell him what happened and they take off trying to find now this guy and her date that's chasing after him, see if they can catch him. So while they're doing that, another police car shows up. And there's two officers in this car and they seem to be maybe a little higher ranking. They have some notebooks that the other officers didn't have. We're talking to them. In the meantime, her date and the other officers return. They could not catch him.

[A]

No second date for him. He tried and now he failed. That was the test.

[D]

They decide to take our statements. This time I have a better description because I saw him pretty close with the people. So I start to tell them he had a shaved head. He had, sorry, Dax. Tattoos along his one arm.

[B]

It was you.

[A]

I just want to smoke a cigarette together. Gee, I just wanted to see if you had a lighter.

[D]

I will say he was not very imposing in stature. Maybe 5, 8, 5, 9. The police officers that I'm telling the description to give each other a look, and it's one of those. They look briefly at each other and keep writing.

[A]

They know it's Kyle.

[D]

They know it's somebody. So I look at them and I go, no, no, no, no, I need to know what was that. And they proceed to tell us that the description we're giving matches the description of a guy they've been looking for that is sexually assaulted. Two women in the area. They proceed to tell us that from what they know from those two instances. He watches his victims for several days, learns their schedules, learns when they're by themselves, when they're the most vulnerable. And he typically waits for them to either be entering or exiting the apartments and forces his way in.

[A]

Oh, my God. My God. You look through the peephole.

[D]

Of course, we're officially disturbed at this point. We give the statement. Of course they leave their card, let us know to reach out to them. The next day, we call the apartment complex, tell them they need to move us to a second floor apartment immediately with more visibility. My roommate's dad, who. They're about 30 minutes away, he drove in that night. And slept on our couch with a shotgun. Unfortunately, we don't know if they ever caught him or not. We did see a sketch of him on the police department website. Wanted for violent sexual assault. And it just really made me realize how close I came to a very scary situation.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Wow, wow, wow. Can I ask a personal question? Well, I'll ask it and you can decide whether or not to answer it.

[D]

Okay.

[A]

Was one of your parents real mercurial?

[D]

Not necessarily. Like I said, I'm the eldest daughter, so there's a lot of things that I'm intuitive about.

[A]

I was gonna say you're like, hyper vigilant. You're dialed into your spidey senses. You are afraid to bother anyone. Even though that's their given role, they're there to be bothered.

[D]

It is hard programmed, for sure.

[A]

I'm not saying what your situation is, but it is weird when these things that you wouldn't have chosen end up saving your life down the road or they end up benefiting you in these weird situations. It's hard to know what programming is beneficial long term.

[D]

I don't know.

[A]

That's where my head goes exactly.

[D]

No, I've had those same thoughts, for sure.

[B]

Also, what if the date dropped off your friend and then your friend was walking up? He would have attacked her.

[D]

Well, what's also interesting is, is he parked in a place we would normally park, but because he's not familiar with it, it just so happened he pulled in in a spot where his headlights just happened to shine on those bushes. I mean, just so many pieces to this that the timing of everything is

[B]

very fortunate for me, but also terrifying. Did it scar you for life or no?

[D]

Maybe there's a little bit that's like, okay, I survived that. I trust my instincts. They're pretty spot on. So maybe a little more the other way.

[B]

Yeah, that's good.

[F]

Yeah.

[A]

I would say your odds of an event like this happening again are exceedingly low. They're already low. And then happen to you.

[D]

Exactly. I'm gonna knock on wood with you.

[A]

Everyone's. Everyone's knocking on wood.

[B]

Everyone in your car, knock on wood. Find some wood.

[A]

It can be plastic wood.

[B]

It's the thought that counts.

[A]

Well, thank you for telling us that.

[D]

Absolutely. So, real quick, can I give one shout out? I would be remiss if I didn't to my roommate Sarah in this situation. We're still very dear friends, and she is an amazing single mother of two very active twin teenagers.

[E]

Whoa.

[D]

And I'm just endlessly impressed by her as a mother, as a career woman, all those things. So I just want to give her a shout out.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Love that.

[A]

All right, take care. Have a good day.

[E]

Bye, guys.

[B]

Hello?

[D]

Hello.

[A]

Where are you?

[F]

I'm in the Okanagan in Vernon, bc.

[A]

Is that like a state parky area or what is that?

[F]

It's like our wine country. We call it Napa of the North. It's beautiful here.

[A]

Wonderful. Okay, so does your stalking story take place up there or elsewhere?

[F]

I am from southwestern Ontario, and the stalking story actually happened in Windsor.

[A]

In Windsor. Ding, ding, ding. Monica. That's directly on the other side of the Ambassador Bridge.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[A]

That's what borders Detroit.

[F]

Windsor.

[A]

You can drink at 19. There's a ton of strip clubs and there's casinos. So Americans go over there and get too drunk and are a problem for the fine folks of Windsor.

[B]

Okay.

[F]

One of those strip clubs is actually part of the story.

[D]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Wonderful. Okay, let us have it.

[F]

My stalker was actually my ex boyfriend. But to set the scene, I kind of have to give a little bit of backstory about how that happened. So the story started in 1997. I was 16 years old, and he was so charismatic. Everybody loved this guy. He was so funny. He could make a rock cry laughing. He was the life of the party, and everybody wanted his attention, but he chose me. So I was like, oh, hello. Although I was young, it was my second kind of like serious ish relationship. And I was definitely very much into boys and so went hard. And then the control started to happen, you know, like he would clock my mileage. He would call everywhere I was supposed to be. If I was at work, he would call to make sure I was there. If I was at a friend's house, he would call to make sure that I was there.

[A]

This is the most unattractive behavior.

[F]

I didn't know what gaslighting was in the 90s, and so I just was like, no, no. Like, you can trust me. I'm not lying. And so I just really played into it. It got bad pretty quickly, but I was was fully in. And so the alienation started from friends and family. And then by 98.

[A]

Was he older than you?

[F]

Just a year. So I moved to Windsor, Ontario with him, which is about an hour ish away from my hometown. We moved in with some of his relatives, and I have like a moderately high ace score, but substance abuse in my home was not one of them. And These adults were actual 90s rock smoking crackheads.

[A]

You might have met Aaron Weekley in that Scenario I could have.

[F]

By the time we moved to Windsor, the abuse really ramped up. And at this point, like, I was away from all of my friends, I was away from all my family. There were always signs that he was beating the crap out of me. And so I didn't want to be around my family. And I was always in, like, a car accident. I was not a bad driver to put that out there, but I felt so isolated and so alone and so full of shame, which is ridiculous because I didn't do anything wrong.

[A]

Was he an addict? Was he partaking?

[F]

Oh, yeah. He took things to an extreme. He took everything to an extreme. And by the fall of 99, I got pregnant. And obviously I take responsibility for that too, but, like, I think there might have been some sabotage happening because I definitely was trying not to be pregnant. And by New year's Eve of 99, we got in a huge fight and we broke up and he left and he went back to our hometown, and I was alone for two weeks. I mean, I still lived with his relatives, but things were starting to, like, okay, I'm going to be okay. At this point, I started looking into, like, adoption options because I just thought, I can't be tied to this person for the rest of my life.

[A]

Is it fair to guess that your own perspective starts returning in his absence? Like, when you're with someone that controlling and gaslighty, you have a very warped reality of what's real. And then in his absence, reality returns.

[F]

Yeah, like, you can start to breathe. And things started to feel good. I was looking for an apartment. I was going to get a new job because I worked with one of these relatives. Everything was just so controlled. And so I was finally gonna do stuff on my own. And then he came home mid January one day, and everything was great. We were having great conversation. He seemed really positive, almost, looking back, a bit manicy. But we're making dinner and we bring it into my room and I'm sitting down on my floor bed. The next thing I know, I woke up in an ambulance being told that I was losing the baby and that I was pretty banged in and I was going to have surgery, but that I was safe and that everything was going to be okay. And so I was in the hospital for a week. And the worst part of it was that my parents then found out because obviously they got called.

[B]

Well, worst part and best part, probably yes.

[F]

But just the look of my dad's face when he walked in the hospital,

[A]

it breaks my heart. I know all of us kids Feel this shame with our parents. But now that I'm a parent, the notion that there would be anything you should be ashamed of.

[B]

I know, but it's just, like, it's

[A]

impossible to understand that. But I just know there's no version of any state I could find my children in and think they deserve to feel shame.

[F]

I am also a parent now, and there's nothing. I can't imagine my kids hiding it from me, first of all. But just to find out that this has been going on for so long.

[A]

Not to catch up on.

[D]

Yeah.

[F]

So I was released from the hospital after about a week, but I went back to my mom's for another about two weeks just to, like, heal and sort things out, because I knew I couldn't go back to that relative's house other than to grab the rest of my stuff.

[A]

Was he arrested?

[F]

No, because I refused to press charges. He should have just been arrested anyway. Like, the cops should have just kind of taken over. There was a few ER visits in there where, like, a social worker would come in and do you know how you look right now? And there were some Polaroids taken and like, oh, no, it was just a car accident.

[E]

Okay, I'm just gonna get out of here.

[F]

They knew exactly what was going on, but I refused to even admit it. So I got some papers before I went back to my mom's place, and I found myself an apartment. And it was a shitty little basement apartment, and I. And it was perfect because it was all mine. So I went to go get all my stuff, and I may have shredded all of his important documentation on the way out the door, but, you know, think it was well deserved. So I'm in this apartment and I got a new job at a strip club around the corner from my house. And I was serving, and at the time, it was like a $60 Canadian for $1American. I was making bank. I was almost 19 years old. I was hot. I was single. I had a newfound no fucks given attitude, and I was making up for a lot of lost time.

[B]

It was.

[F]

Was pretty fantastic, but this apartment was pretty shitty. Like, the windows were these little, like, ship windows. If there was a fire, get out your roasting sticks. Like, we're going up. But I didn't even care. So I get to making up for lost time. And very quickly he starts coming into the bar and he's trying to kind of, like, assert a little bit of dominance. Like, he owns me. And so I put a stop to that right away. And the bouncers were very kind Also, I didn't want to let anybody know what had just happened. I didn't want anybody to see me as that person. And so it was like, oh, we dated, and, like, he's just bothering me. They got rid of him. He wasn't allowed to come in anymore. But then he's waiting outside when I'm done work. And just very quickly, everywhere I am, he's there. I walked everywhere at the time, I didn't have a car. I would be walking down the street, and I would get that feeling, like the air just gets lost for a second. And I would look around, and he's, like, dipping into a vestibule or he's jumping into a bush or he's trying to hide behind. Like, he knows that I see him, but it didn't feel scary yet. I would get on the bus, and he would get on the bus at the next stop and just be on the other side of the bus. His energy really felt as if he was just going to be around and close by until I came to my senses and took him back. This was early 2000. I didn't have a cell phone. I had a pager and a home phone. He couldn't have just checked my location. Like, how did this man know where I was at all times? But one night after the bar, we were at Tim Hortons, very Canadian. He cornered me in a bathroom, and he decided that he was gonna get what was rightfully his. It was the first time I ever actually fought back. And I got myself out of the bathroom, and I made it very clear that he was never gonna get this again. And that is when the energy really shifted. And it felt like he was showing up even more, but I saw him less. It took a turn to feeling a bit more dark and unstable.

[A]

Well, let's just state it. It maybe feels like if he can't have you now, he's gonna kill you.

[F]

Yeah. At my apartment, there's, like, these tiny little windows at the top of the ceiling, and so you can kind of see when feet walk by. The only reason anyone be walking by was to go into my apartment, and I got a motion sensor light installed, and I would come home and the bulb would be unscrewed. And at the same time, I really wasn't taking great care of myself. I was drinking a ton, whatever drugs were on offer. And so there was a maybe 10 days where I was just feeling really not great, but pushing through. And then I woke up one day, and it went from bad to worse. I was so sick. I Thought I had the flu. And at the time, it was like, I'd rather die in a ditch than ask somebody for help. So there's about three days of feeling like I'm actually going to die. And I was laying on my futon in the living room, and I'm like, I need some water. And I go to get up, and then I remember opening my eyes, and dude is above me upside down, holding my face and, like, slapping my cheeks. And he has scared me before, but, like, the level of terror that I felt in that moment, I didn't know what happened. I was confused. I was delirious. Like, did he do this? And is he gonna kill me?

[E]

Me?

[F]

And he calls a cab. He picks me up. He brings me outside to a cab. I don't remember him telling me where he was taking me. I was so weak, I probably couldn't have even asked anyway. And then we pull up to the hospital, the same fucking hospital that he had put me in not even five months earlier. A lot of it is a little bit blurry. I wasn't gonna ask for confirmation, but immediate action was taken at the hospital. And then a little while later, the doctor tells me my kidneys were actively shutting down. He said if I hadn't gotten there in the next 12 hours, that I likely would have been on dialysis for the rest of my life.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[F]

So he was peering in my fucking window and saw me passed out, came into my apartment and got me to the hospital.

[A]

Dude, your attacker saved you. This is so complicated.

[F]

And we were still pretty fresh out from all of it, you know? Like, we were together for two and a half years, and for most of that two and a half years, he beat the shit out of me. But when it was good, it was great. I now understand you can't really get those, like, really high highs without some of the really low lows. And it was so confusing. So I was in the hospital for 18 hours, and then they let me go home and get home healthcare to come in a few times a day at my mom's house to get, like, the IV antibiotics to get better from the kidney infections. So he stayed with me for the entire 18 hours. He was so loving. He didn't sleep. He barely at. He took such good care of me. He advocated for me with the doctors. It was so good, and it felt really comforting. Like, I felt so taken care of by him, and it was so confusing because he practically took my life not five months ago. And we are getting ready to leave, and I'm Getting ready to go back to my mom's to, like, heal and get the rest of these antibiotics. And he really thought that we were gonna leave the hospital and ride off in the sunset together, and. And we were just gonna pick up right where we left off, and I had to have, like, a come to Jesus moment with him and explain.

[C]

Thank you.

[F]

I genuinely appreciate what you just did for me, and I forgive you for everything that you did in the past, but I can never forget it. And so I told him, for that reason and that reason alone, we will never be together again. And he finally listened. It is the very last day that I look that man in the eyes. I have never seen him in person again.

[B]

Wow. Well, good. Maybe he locked into something different.

[D]

Hopefully.

[A]

That's wild.

[F]

Yeah. But the story does have a happy ending because life is really good. And shortly after that, I met my best friend, Erin Weekley. She's the reason that we moved to VC here. And I met my husband two weeks later. We've been together for 23 years.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[C]

Great.

[A]

Wonderful. Oh, well, Chloe, it's been so nice meeting you.

[B]

Have a great summer.

[C]

You as well.

[E]

Well, bye.

[B]

Stalking's bad.

[A]

It is. The hardest part is, like, trying to determine both for the victim and the police that get called, like, is it a peeping Tom? That's terrible. But that's one thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is it something much darker?

[B]

There's levels of severity, and it's slippery starting out. Oh, gosh. Well, all right, guys. Don't get stocked. And don't stalk.

[A]

Yes. Don't stalk.

[F]

All right.

[A]

Love you.

[B]

Love you.

[D]

Do you want to sing a tune or something? One of a theme song.

[A]

Oh, okay, great. We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go. Go, go. We're going to ask some random questions, and with the help of arm cherries, we'll get some suggestions on the fly rhyme dish. On the fire rhyme dish.

[C]

Enjoy.