STALKING IS A CRIME!
Once you’ve been a victim, you know how life-destroying stalking can be.
A Victim's Assistant speaks out about a double homicide/suicide-by-cop case. It was related to a stalking case I worked last year. My stalking victim was stalked by her ex-husband, primarily through their 3-year-old daughter. He had also done the same thing to his first wife and son (who is now 10). After the stalking conviction, he moved on to another woman. When she broke up with him in January and tried to end the relationship he began stalking her, too. Finally, he showed up at the hospital where she worked as a physical therapist on a night when he had unsupervised custody of the child (my client was with her new husband at an awards banquet 6 hours away). He had made a cassette tape of his plans the night before and carried them out in the hospital parking lot. He shot his ex-girlfriend in the face and killed her, then dragged her body to a grassy area.
Then he went to his vehicle, unbuckled his 3-year-old daughter by his 2nd wife (my stalking victim) and carried her to his ex-girlfriend's body. He placed the child on his knee and shot her in the face/head, killing her. Then he shot his ex-girlfriend again two more times and stabbed her with a knife several times. Then he kneeled between the two bodies and tried to kill himself, but the gun jammed. By then the police had arrived, so he pointed the gun at them and forced them to shoot and kill him.
All of this happened in the hospital parking lot in front of several employees. On the tape he left behind, he mentioned his plans to also kill his son from his first marriage (luckily, he could not find his son in time so he carried on without him).
The man was a firefighter/EMT. He stalked his victims through his job. He used the 911 system to obtain my victim's new unlisted phone numbers every time she changed them. He used the emergency cell phone in the ambulance to harass my victim (and probably his ex-girlfriend too). He used his job to track license plates of vehicles in my victim's driveway and would then call her and tell her who was/had been at her house. He would follow her, harass her, leave hundreds of phone messages, and stake out her home for hours on end. He would page my victim constantly, and use his daughter as his excuse for calling my victim many times each day, even when he had her that day. When He was convicted of stalking, he received two years of supervised probation and ten counseling sessions. Because he was a fireman, the judge also made his conviction eligible for expungement at the end of his probation, meaning the conviction would not exist on his record. The judge justified this by saying he wanted the defendant to keep getting promotions and pay more support for the daughter.
Charles saw his probation officer just hours before his murdering spree. This man was a classic abusive partner / stalker and had a pattern of abuse / stalking at least three women before committing these murders. He left behind many torn lives and a legacy of grief. His daughter would have turned four just four days after the murders.
Thoughts and prayers go out to all the victims in this case. I am truly sorry that this had to happen but I hope that by printing this story it brings to light some of the awful things that do happen.
If you are being stalked or are in fear of being stalked, please reach out and get the help you need, call 911 and/or your local agencies. Remember, no one deserves to be physically, sexually or emotionally abused.
Take care and STAY SAFE!
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