Chilling Obsession

Kylie Bearse, a meteorologist at a local news channel in Denver, joins us to discuss what it feels like to be stalked by an obsessed man. When Kylie took legal action, she thought she’d be protected—until one night in September, when it became clear his obsession was far from over. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of
the speaker and do not necessarily represent The Knife or
exactly Right Media.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
I feel very sick to my stomach because clearly what
has happened is someone has been pretending to be me.
I'm like, you need to call the police. This is
a crime. Someone has been impersonating me that is not me.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Welcome to the Knife. I'm Hannah Smith, I'm Patia Eton,
and today we're speaking with Kylie Burse. Kylie is a
meteorologist living in Colorado. She loves her job and connecting
with her local community, but for the last three years,
she's been the victim of a stalker. Kylie walks us
through the events that led to her feeling unsafe in
her own home. She's recently gone public with her story

(01:02):
and hopes to shed light on the systems that fail
victims of stocking and how we need to do better.
Let's get into the interview, Kylie. Welcome to the Knife.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, we're really excited to speak with you today. If
you can just start by introducing yourself, that'd be great.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, I'm a local news meteorologist. I am here on
the local Fox ability in Denver. I'm a morning meteorologist,
so we're on from four thirty until about eleven o'clock
every morning and I've been doing it for almost fifteen
years now. Been here in Denver for about eight years.
I originally studied journalism. I thought I wanted to be
a work correspondent, you know, an investigative reporter. And I

(01:45):
did it for about a year. And I remember in
my first job, my boss goes, I saw on you're
reel from college. You did ski reports at Cuboulder. He's like,
can you do weekend weather for a little bit? We
just need them help. And I'm like, okay, sure, I'll
take you know, whatever job I can get. This was
just after the recession, so you took the job and
you did whatever. And I really loved it. And I
remember I covered really horrible crime cases. I covered an

(02:06):
execution at one point, and I was like, this is
not for me. I'm a very empathetic person. And what
I loved about the weather and meteorology is that you
got to be on the forefront of before the disaster happened.
So hopefully you could educate people, and when you showed
up to a scene, you know that you did everything
you could to help them. Know how to get through
a tornado safely, how to drive safe in a snowstorm,

(02:28):
don't drive through flooded waters. I liked the education part
versus just showing up when tragedy had already happened and
there was nothing you can do. You felt very helpless.
I felt like as a journalist versus as a meteorologist,
I felt like I was actually doing something that was
helping people.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
As a local meteorologist, Kylie is someone that people are
going to every morning for reliable information in a place
where the weather can be pretty extreme. This cultivates a
sense of familiarity and also a sense of trust. And
sometimes when Kylie's out around town, she gets recognized. And
most of the time she loves.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
It when someone comes up to you and they say, Hi,
I watch you every morning, we wake up with you,
we turn you know, the TV on every morning, and
they feel comfortable enough to come up and tell you.
That's when I feel like I've done a really good job.
Because you want people to feel like we are your friend,
we are part of your morning routine. We're someone that
you can trust, right and if they feel comfortable enough
to come up and say hi to you, it's the

(03:22):
world's the biggest compliment. You've done something right in your job.
And I can remember the first time someone recognized me
and it's such a it's a weird feeling. But now
it's just like you're you're grateful every single time. Ninety
five percent of the time is extremely positive. There are cases,
and it's happened in my entire career where it's immediately
uncomfortable and you kind of know, Okay, I just need

(03:42):
to keep like hence, you know, arms distance away from
this person. But I'd say that's a very small fraction
of the time.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Take us to the beginning of this interaction with the
person that we're going to talk about. What's the first
kind of interaction that you remember having.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
I remember it really well actually because it was an
unusual interaction, but there were some red flags in it.
I was one of the they called a celebrity judges
for all the local news. Friends. We got together and
we judged a firefighter chili cookoff, which is a blast.
You go, you're interacting with the fire men and women
they're incredible, and we invite the public. For years, I've

(04:19):
always put charity events on the news, but on my
Instagram it said come support this amazing cause. So sometimes
you get people who come up they say, Hey, I
saw you talking about this, I wanted to come out.
I wanted to meet you. Normally, when people come up
to you, they come up and they say it quick hello,
and then they're able to mingle them with the crowd.
Go try the chili.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Over three thousand people attend the annual Denver Firefighters Chili Cookoff.
It's a massive event. People come together to taste the chili,
but more importantly to raise money for local organizations that
help firefighters and their families. And in twenty twenty two,
Kylie was attending as a judge. Kylie and the other
judges made their way around the event, going from booth

(04:58):
to booth, trying the different chilis, and that's when she
first noticed him.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
I remember he followed our group, probably about thirty forty
feet away, just kind of stood in the background. You know.
We usually had a couple of bigger guys with this group,
just to kind of know if people were to get
a little bit too aggressive. They could kind of step in,
but he wasn't aggressive by any means. He was just
in the background. He came up a few times. He
told me he drove over an hour to come and
meet me. I was very flattered, and he kind of

(05:26):
followed the whole time, just kind of watched, and at
the end came and said goodbye, and we said goodbye.
I didn't really think too much of it from there.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
I'm curious in those interactions, like does someone who recognize
you do you hug, do you handshake? Is it more
of just like a wave or what does that interaction
look like?

Speaker 3 (05:46):
You know, I mean, it can be so different. I've
had people who I've absolutely wanted to hug it and
they'll be like respectful. Most people don't. I'd say it's
usually a handshake. Usually it's just they come up and
they say hello, and you talk for a little bit.
It's usually extremely pleasant, at least on my end. I
hope they able pleasant experience too, that's always the goal
of it. But sometimes they want to give you a hug.
And most of the time that's totally fine. And a

(06:08):
lot of times the last two did he want to
give you a hug? I don't remember in this circumstance.
He did in later interactions would go in for the hug,
but in this one I don't remember specifically. This was
at this point someone that was just a viewer who
I didn't know anything about.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
So we aren't going to use his name, But Kylie,
could you tell us a little bit about what this
man looked like?

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah, he seemed very non threatening. He was very kind,
very jolly. He was in his mid sixties, He had
a mustache. He was extremely friendly to everyone who interacted
with him.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
And so, you know, you go to this charity event,
you meet him, you sort of notice him, at least
in the moment. It's a little noticeable. Oh, he seems
to be sort of maybe sticking around a little longer
than other people do, but he doesn't seem that thattning.
And then when is the next time that this same
person comes on your radar?

Speaker 3 (07:01):
I started to notice there were some emails and some
Instagram messages, nothing that was particularly noteful. I get a
lot of people who respond. When you're trying to build
a personal brand and get to know people, you're responding
to just about everyone, So I'd say there was some
light interaction that had happened via email and on Instagram.
And then the next time of note was when I

(07:22):
threw my own personal fundraiser for I have a hiking
website called Approach we Outdoors, and we were raising money
for children here in Colorado. It was a dream that
I'd always had, and I obviously advertised it to the public.
I had family that came up to help me put
it on. And that day I showed up about an
hour and a half early to the restaurant to get
set up, and there were a couple of people and

(07:45):
he was one of them who had showed up early
to help. And I was trying to say, thank you
so much. It's actually a little bit more helpful if
you just wait downstairs. We haven't actually opened up tickets yet.
He kind of whenever I would go to open a box,
he'd go grab the box and start on doing the box. He's,
you know, he's saying, I'm here to help. Put me
to work, and I'm here to help, so I'm assuming

(08:05):
very kind intentions on his part. At that point, I
just needed me and my friends and family to get
the fundraisers set up as quickly as possible. He stayed
for the whole fundraiser, and a lot of people interacted
with him and they said, oh, that really nice older man.
You know, he drove over an hour to come and
see you today. That's so sweet. And I describe it
as overzealous at this point, which I'd experienced with a

(08:28):
lot of viewers in the past. But it was a
little bit annoying to have someone while you're trying to
dictate and order, kind of jump in and try and
mitigate that for you. So it was a little frustrating.
He stayed and then he helped kind of unpack again.
I said, no, no, but he wasn't leaving.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
It's like the house guest who keeps trying to help
in the kitchen and you're like, please just literally go
sit on the couch until I'm done. And here they're
unloading the dishwasher and they're putting everything away in the
wrong spot.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Where does this go?

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Where does it?

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yea yeah, okay, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Firs Kylie chalked up this man's enthusiasm to just being
excited to meet her. Even him driving an hour to
show up at one of her events didn't really face
her because fans did that. Sometimes it's when he began
reaching out to her on Instagram and leaving this steady
stream of direct messages and comments that it all became
very off putting. This gave Kylie pause, but it didn't

(09:23):
quite feel dangerous, at least not yet.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
In the months after the fundraiser, it more so became
extremely frequent and started to become a little obsessive. And again,
I have dealt with this for a long time, but
then he started reaching out to my friends and family
to the point where people were contacting me and saying, hey,
this guy's reaching out, and that became odd. It was

(09:50):
at that point that he started reaching out to my
friends and family that I started to then block his
social media accounts. And when you block someone on Instagram,
it blocked any newccount that they might make with that
email address, right if anyone's ever blocked someone who says
that he probably by the end of this had seven
or eight different accounts, which means he had to make
different emails every single time, and they always had his

(10:11):
name in it, so they were very easy to spot.
And he would go through and constantly on each new
account be adding my friends who were private messaging them.
And I remember what really kind of broke the back
for me was when he reached out to my sister
in law and he was pretending like he was going
interested and she was an artist, she's a beautiful artist,
and he's going on and on about what he wants

(10:32):
to buy and everything, and then the interaction gets very
odd and she tells my brother, and my brother goes,
that's the guy that Kylie's been dealing with, and he
messaged me and he's like, look, he can't be reaching
out to my wife, Like this is completely inappropriate. And
at this point I've changed, not only with all the blocking,
I've changed my social media habits. No family members are
being tagged anymore. Anyone who's not public, I'm not using

(10:56):
their handle because he would go and find them and
message them.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
When he reached out to your sister in law. How
long had this been going on?

Speaker 3 (11:04):
Oh, about a year year and a half at this.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Point, Wow, who all in your life did you notify
that this was going on?

Speaker 3 (11:12):
I noticed by several other meteorologists. I kind of went
through my list and saw who he was following and
just gave them a heads up. We do that a
lot if someone's a little extra creepy we'll send each
other a quick message. Hey, heads up, this guy he's
following you. You may just want to block him. He
got a little bit weird in X, Y and Z ways,
so I just let a couple other people know this
guy's following you. It's gotten a little bit too much

(11:35):
to the point I've had to block, and he kind
of talked to my friends and family a lot. And
I also want to say at this point, like there's
nothing threatening, there's nothing mean. It's just a lot of
messages and then the new accounts and whatnot. So it's
borderline where you're like, this feels wrong and it is wrong,
But is he technically officially at this point doing anything wrong.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Can you give me an example of one of the
messages that comes in. I mean, I wouldn't expect you
terms remember verbatim, but like something close in nature to
one of those messages, like was it hope you have
a good day, or like, what kind of messages was
he sending early on?

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Yeah, just responding to like I would travel and every
single story I would post, love this, hope you're having
fun again, Nothing that's raising any red flags. So it's
more just commenting on every single one, I'd wake up
in the morning and he would have spent hours going
back through and liking every single one on my posts
from a new Instagram account after I had already blocked him,

(12:33):
so I would see the hundreds and hundreds of likes
in the notifications. So it didn't necessarily strike me as
concerning in a threatening way at this point, but the
obsession is what started to make me feel a little uneasy.
And then when it really reached a point was my
friend was traveling and she was in Thailand and he

(12:54):
responded to her story saying, I can't wait to take
Kylie here, And so she messaged me and she's like,
now it's getting weird.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, that's sort of I mean already, the knowing that
someone's blocked you and then creating another account to then
continue messaging them, and then this happening multiple times is
an indicator that maybe someone's mental state. But that message
is so concerning, right, It's like, what reality is this
person living in?

Speaker 3 (13:20):
I remember at the time saying, if we can just
block and ignore, I really hope his obsession stops. If
I can kind of cut off the source, you know,
because sometimes when you're dealing with people who send you
nasty emails, and not that this person was being nasty,
but when people are targeting you in a way online.
I've dealt with this for years in the local news.
If you give them the response, it's what they want

(13:43):
and it almost escalates them further. And so that was
always my thought was, I don't want to escalate this further.
I don't want to escalate this.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Kylie pretty reasonably hoped that if she simply ignored this person,
then surely they would take a hint. He would leave
her alone, he would understand that she was not interested,
and the whole thing would just fizzle out. But that
did not work. He wouldn't go away. Kylie really didn't
want to escalate this, but soon she wouldn't have a choice.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
In summer of twenty twenty three, I'm blocking multiple accounts
at this point, and I lead hikes for a local
wine classic, and so I was up in the mountains
and at this point I had called the company ahead
of time because I'd worked with them for a couple
of years, and I said, can you just double check
that this man didn't buy tickets? We've just had some issues.
I was like, nothing to worry about but we've had
some concerns. And they looked and they were like nope,

(14:41):
and I was like, great, we are good to go.
I'm like, please flag that name if he does, you know,
buy a ticket and whatnot. I would like to know.
And the way that it works is we lead a hike,
we're with a wine maker, we have a little wine
on the trail, and then we come back down for
a paired meal. I'm leading a group about twenty to
thirty people, so I'm responsible for all of these people.
We come down off of the hike and I had

(15:01):
publicly said come join us on this hike and whatnot.
And we get down from the hike, we're heading into
the restaurant and he shows up and he's holding a
box and he kind of stops me as I'm walking.
He gets in front of me and I know exactly
who he is, and so I say, Hi, I go
what are you doing here? He's like, I haven't been
able to get you to respond. You know, I've been

(15:22):
trying to see you. I've been trying to see you.
And I was like, I'm so sorry, I don't know
what you're talking about. I was like, I'm actually here
with a group and he's got a box in his
hand and he goes, I have your hiking boots and
I said, you know, I'm so grateful, this is really nice,
but I can't accept these. And he's insisting and I say,
you know, like they're not my size, maybe you could
return them, and he goes, you told me these were

(15:45):
your size. And at this point, this is when I
start to realize that something else had been happening here.
And he pulls out his phone because I said, I
didn't tell you my size. I haven't been talking to you.
Pulls out his phone and he shows me thousands of
messages he's just scrolling and he goes, I've been talking
to you. We've been in a relationship for the last year.

(16:07):
And I immediately I feel very sick to my stomach
because clearly what has happened is someone has been pretending
to be me. I'm like, you need to call the police.
This is a crime. Someone has been impersonating me. That
is not me. I'm so sorry. We are not in
a relationship. And he's crying. Keep in mind, I have

(16:28):
a group of people who are walking past me, and
I said, you know, I'm really sorry. You need to
file a police report. I hope you haven't given them
any money. I would never ask for money. And he's crying.
But there's also something that's weird because he's pulling out
the phone and my friend looks at it and she goes,
that's not an area code she's associated with it. All
He goes, I know she's not from there, and she

(16:50):
was like, well, if you knew that wasn't her area code,
why would you think that was her? She goes, none
of these this is not how Kylie speaks. And now
it's getting just a little bit funky. At this point,
an employee, actually the head of the festival, comes out
and he's like, is everything okay. I'm like, I'm so sorry.
So I've been trying to leave for several minutes at
this point, and he's crying. It's a very just horrible

(17:12):
situation because at this point I feel very guilty that
someone has potentially scammed someone using my name. But then
we go inside and I get alerted that he has
now tried to come back into the building multiple times,
and each time one of those employees kind of knew
what was happening and stopped him and said, you know,
you're making Kylie really uncomfortable. You need to leave. He'd
be like, he'd leave and then he'd come back. I
need to talk to Kylie. I need to talk to Kylie.

(17:34):
And then I start getting text messages from him. He says,
I'm so sorry. If you and your boyfriend break up,
maybe we can start over. By the way, your information
is out there.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Even after having been told by Kylie in person that
she did not know him, that she wasn't the person
he was speaking with online, and that likely someone was
actually just impersonating her, she tried completely ignoring him on
social media, and he still managed to track down her
number and send her a text. It was all really alarming.

(18:08):
Kylie had made it so clear that she had no
desire to be in contact with this man, but then
came the emails, and in those emails, this man addressed
Kylie as his wife.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
And at this point, in order to then pursue a
restraining order of some kind, you need to say you
have to please stop contacting me, and so I go,
please do not contact me again, and he says, I'm
going to talk to on the other number. And that's
when I realized that he does not believe that I
am not a relationship with him.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
As this interaction is happening and he's becoming emotional and upset.
Who all is around and seeing it and what is
the reaction.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
I had a very good friend with me who is
also in the local news, and she knew all about
the situation with him. She was one of the people
that he was reaching out to and whatnot. So she
was with me, and she was the one who kind
of clocked faster than I did, and we got insign
She's like, no, I'm not buying it. She goes, this
is clearly a scam. Anyone could see that, So she's

(19:09):
clocking it before I did. The director of the festival
was there and the photographer, who were both men and
quite physically much bigger than this person who was here,
and they were witnessing it, and they came and they
helped extricate me from the situation, get him to leave,
and then again asked him to leave multiple times after that.
So I think most of the people in my group

(19:29):
were kind of unaware of what was happening, but the
people who are running the event and whatnot were amazing
in helping kind of diffuse that situation.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
When he pulled this up, you know you and your
friend saw that it wasn't just one side a him
texting a number. There was a back and forth. He
was texting someone and he said he believed that was you,
or was pretty convinced it sounds like that that was you.
And even when you said that's not me, that's not me,
I don't know what you're talking about, he couldn't be convinced.

(20:02):
It sounds like that that wasn't you.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
And that's what was scary. When he said I'm going
to keep talking to any other number after he'd gone.
I don't know how he found my cell phone number
that time, but after he's texting me, I'm saying, please
don't talk to me again. I won't text you here,
but I'm going to talk to any other number. So
it became very apparent that he did not believe. Maybe
he thought I was lying in front of other people
and whatnot, but there was no convincing him that it

(20:26):
wasn't me.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah. We had an interview with someone recently, professor in
Canada who his identity has been used multiple times to
scam people online. His picture and interesting. One of the
things he said is that he's had women it's mostly women,
not a woman that they've used to scam, you know,
scam with his photo. And then he'll have people reaching

(20:50):
out to him looking for answers, right like, haven't we
been in a relationship for two years? And he talked
about the process of convincing someone that, no, you have
not been talking to me. He was married at the time.
He said, I've never heard of you.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
This is not me.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Someone else is using my identity online. And sometimes people
got it right away. Sometimes people could not be convinced
and were combative and just refused to believe him, you know,
for a lot of probably different reasons. But one of
the things that probably was happening I can guess is
that he goes back and he's texting this other person

(21:26):
and they're saying any number of excuses as to why
you're acting this way. That's such a tricky position for
you to be in because it's like, what are you
supposed to do? You don't want to keep interacting with
this guy.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah, to hear that there is some kind of reasoning
behind it and that someone else's experienced, Okay, you couldn't
convince them to doesn't make me feel a little less
alone in that situation and lends a little bit of credibility.
You're telling this person it's not me and not understanding
why they're not believing.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
It, Yeah, exactly, and then not knowing what they're capable of.
So you did respond to him, you know, and said
please stop contacting me. Is that because you had already
looked into what you needed in order to get a
restraining order?

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah. Since it was escalating, especially with the point of
my family, I had talked to a couple of people
in law enforcement about what next steps might be. And
that was the advice that I was given is you
have to tell them, like you have to have the
proof of do not contact me again. And that's the
beginning of the restraining order process. So in Colorado, I
can't speak for you know, other states and whatnot, but

(22:29):
this was just my experience going through it. For a
temporary restraining order, you first go to the judge and
you say, here is the evidence. Do you see cause
for this? And then you have to serve them and
then there's a hearing. So I had to have in
order to serve him his birthday. This is a stranger
to me. A lot of times it's like domestic violence situations,

(22:50):
and I kept telling people this is a stranger of you,
or I don't know who this person is. I don't
have their address, and they go, well, you can't get
a restraining order unless you figure all of that out.
You're almost becoming your own investigated person, using all my
resources to find him. And then eventually there is a
court date they are allowed to show up as well.
And the way that the process works is you have
a couple of different choices. You can go to a

(23:12):
hearing and battle it out, or you can choose to
do a temporary restraining order and that is one year.
There's no contact within that year, which the judge says
is ninety something percent of the time. It goes away.
It's not on their permanent record. It's not something they
have to disclose for housing or for work or anything
like that.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Eventually, Kylie succeeded in having this man served, and in
September of twenty twenty three, they both stood in a
courtroom in front of a judge. This man had been
spamming Kylie's email, her phone, her social media accounts, completely
refusing to accept that he and Kylie were not in
a relationship, that she did not know him, that she
did not want to hear from him at all, and

(23:53):
his behavior in this courtroom was, to say the least,
pretty bizarre.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
Heart's laughing to the judge and he's like, I don't
know why I'm here. I have no reason to talk
to this woman. This is all a big misunderstanding. Da
da da da da. So I'm actually relieved at this point.
The judge is like, well, then there shouldn't be any problems,
and we agree to that temporary restraining order. And she
makes it very clear we had extra stipulations in the

(24:20):
restraining order about absolutely no social media contact, and she
told him if you even follow her, if you like
any pictures, all of that is a violation of that
restraining order. And there was also no coming to events.
She says, if you show up at an event and
she's there, you must leave. That's on you. And he's yes, ma'am, absolutely,

(24:41):
and again it's just he's laughing. He's like, there's no
reason for me to ever speak to this woman again
until two months later when he broke it more than
fifty times.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
And so at this point, do you feel like he's
fully registering that you are not the person he's been
talking to, that whoever he's talking to is not you.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
At the time, Yeah, thought I thought he had it.
He's standing up in court. Yeah, these are very real
consequences for what's happening. And again, if we had just
stuck to that temporary restraining order and he never contacted
me again, he would have absolutely nothing to do with
me when it comes to the criminal justice system. He
would be done. He'd be living his life. I'd be

(25:23):
living my life. And so it wasn't until he broke
it that I realized this man may not be well
because he's not understanding the consequences of his actions at
this point.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah, and I just can't help. But wonder if he's
still talking with that other person, and if that other
person is saying, oh, I have to do this for
my public persona, but you should reach out to me.
I don't know, or maybe he's not talking with the
other person, maybe this is all sort of in his head,
like I have no idea, but alarming neither way. What
kind of stuff was he saying to you when he

(25:58):
broke the temporary restraining RM It.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
Was a new Instagram account, Because again he's blocked, so
it's a brand new one. He's going back through. He's
liking photos and he's commenting nice things on all of
the photos. He's responding to every story and whatnot. And
the judge had told me, and this feels very uncomfortable.
She said, even for a social media post, you have
to call nine one one and report it as a

(26:21):
criminal report. And so I remember, like I had all
the screenshots and everything, and it was about two days
and finally I blocked him again. I was like, I'm stopping.
I'm saving from yourself. Just stop. And the police came
to my door and they're like, I don't know if
this counts, and I'm showing him the restrainer. I'm like,
the judge said, I had to do this, like this
is part of the orders here. And that's when I

(26:41):
went back in to get the permanent restraining order. He
made all the comments in December of twenty twenty three,
and then it was January twenty twenty four we went
back in for that permanent restraining order hearing.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Kylie attended the January twenty twenty four hearing. Virtually for
two years now, this man had been sending her unwanted
messages referring to as his wife and just simply refusing
to leave her alone. But when he showed up in court,
Kylie said it was like watching this completely different person
that it almost felt like whiplash. He'd been aggressively reaching

(27:12):
out to her online, he'd broken their temporary restraining order,
and here he was the seemingly calm, affable person. Kylie
wondered how the judge might then see him.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
He was still, you know, very jovial and kind of
joking with the judge, but there was definitely more of
a well, I didn't say anything, mean, there's nothing threatening.
He's like, I didn't do anything wrong, and she just
kept trying to tell him it doesn't matter. You have
a restraining order, like you're not supposed to speak. We
talked about this is you know, actually it was a
different judge. It was listed in there, so it was

(27:44):
stated in the restraining order that you cannot with social
media and whatnot, so it became very different. And then
at one point he's kind of giving a speel I'm
not speaking at all. I'm just muted on zoom and whatnot,
and then he goes, you know, judge, I think she
has a drinking problem, and I was like, what, And

(28:08):
so then he's like, I'm like, are you trying to
blame me for this? Like it was just bizarre, and
I was like And once that final cour interaction was
when all sympathy and empathy that I had for this
human was out the window, because I feel like I
gave him a lot of chances and I felt very
badly that there was someone who was potentially scamming him.

(28:29):
But then after I saw how manipulative he was in court,
and first the laughing in the first time and then
turning it back on me as if being stalked is
somehow my fault for drinking. And I don't even know
where that would how that even plays any sort of relevance.
But that was when the permanent restraining order was given
and I did not hear from him for a year

(28:50):
and a half.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
A year and a half, I mean that's a long time.
How many months or weeks into that year and a
half did you feel like, Okay, it's over, or did.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
You after three or four months? I thought okay. But
what I was worried about, and I've mentioned this a
couple of times, was I was worried about further escalation,
the fact that I took him to court. Is he
mad at me? Is there retaliation that he wants? So
it definitely took several months for me to feel settled
and not constantly just kind of keeping an eye out

(29:21):
for a new name and a new profile and whatnot.
And then six months later and for the next year,
I felt really good and really safe, and I hadn't
thought about it.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
The more time that passed without Kylie being contacted by
this man, the more it felt like maybe she'd gotten
what she'd wanted all along, which was just to be
left alone, that this might finally be over. But on
the evening of September eleventh, twenty twenty five, just a
couple of months before we ended up speaking with Kylie,
the relief and sense of safety that she'd finally started

(29:54):
to get back it all went away again.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
And I pulled into my garage. I back into it,
and as I'm backing in, I had noticed a truck
about to kind of pull via all the garages, and
I didn't know. I don't know all of my neighbors
on the alleyway, so I didn't think too much about it.
I'm parking my car and I look up and a
truck has pulled right in front of me and their

(30:18):
windows down, and it takes about a half second before
I realize who it is, and I just feel immediately sick.
My stomach dropped. I remember thinking, oh my god, if
he has a weapon, you need to get down as
quickly as possible. So I slowly reach up, hoping you
can't see my hands moving, and he's trying to talk

(30:39):
to me, and I just close my garage and I
go inside by going through the back. When it comes
to my garage and I'm in the house and I'm
calling my neighbor. I'm trying to ask if they have
cameras in the back, and that was when the doorbell
started ringing and my dog runs over to the door.
I look through the people and he's standing there, and

(31:01):
I just go, oh my god, Oh my god, and
my neighbor's like hang up, Call nine of one, Call
name on one right now.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
In the neighborhood where Kylie lived at the time, the
garages were all in the back of the homes, so
you entered every garage through an alleyway and the front
doors are of course in the front of the house.
When Kylie went inside. She was for a moment hopeful
that he had just driven away, but he'd actually just
driven a couple of streets down and circled back to
the front of her house, and now he was standing

(31:36):
at her door. We don't know how he found out
where Kylie lived. Maybe he followed her home from work
or was able to look up her address somehow. Either way,
it was terrifying.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
I hang up my call name on one. I literally
just grabbed my dog, grabbed my keys, run back out
the back door. So he had gone all the way
around to the front and he was standing on my
front door. And again, I don't know if he has
a weapon. I don't know what his intentions are. Why
is he at my garage, in my alley and then
around the front door? And so I call nine on
one and I'm running And I actually hadn't had a

(32:10):
panic attack since the last time I had had to
deal with him, and I'm having a panic attack as
I'm driving, and nine one one is saying, Okay, where
are you going? I go? I don't know. I don't
know where I'm going. I go. I have a restrainer
or against a man, a permanent one he's outside my
front door. I don't know what to do. So they
say you need to find a park or something, and
I'm just in tears, going I don't know. He could

(32:31):
be following me. I don't know. I don't want to
stop my car. And finally they convinced me to pull
over to a park and the officer comes and she's,
you know, we're talking, and she sent another officer to
my house. So at this point, maybe ten to fifteen
minutes have gone by, and she goes, I'm sending an
officer over. He's probably gone, but we'll check out the
area and then we can all go back to your

(32:51):
house together, and I go, okay. He had been sitting
out in front of the house in his truck. He
had not left, so he'd just been sitting there. And
at this point, my permanent restraining order never got put
into the system, and so the police officer is telling
me your temporary restraining order expired. We can't arrest this man.
I don't know if you guys have had a panic attack,

(33:13):
but for me, my hands are shaking. You know, you're
trying to type and figure it out, and I'm going, no, no, no,
you have to believe me. I have a permanent and
please don't let him leave. And I said, did he
say why he's there? He told the police that he
was trying to talk to someone at the station, and
this was the address that came up for the station.
So it's bizarre on every single level. The court does

(33:35):
get back to me right away. Give them a lot
of credit. And then I was able to find my
own copy, because you do have to have a copy
of that permanent restraining order, and so I found it.
They were able to arrest him, and they told me
at the time that it was for felony stocking and
he was heading to jail that night. Wow.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Just to make sure I'm tracking this correctly. So he
shows up to your house and you managed to leave.
You go to a park. Officer comes to where you
are and says, an officer to your home, but he
is still at your home while you're at this park,
and he tells that officer he was looking for the
police station. Sorry, TV station, TV station, TV station. Okay,

(34:15):
I see, okay, Sorry that could be confusing, but.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
He was clear that he was looking for you.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Oh, I mean, I don't think you can interpret it
any other way. My house is seven hundred square feet.
There's not a television station studio inside of.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
It, but he didn't admit that to them. He was like,
I'm looking for the station.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Yeah, And I did not see him. I had a
friend with me and he he's like, he's laughing again.
I've seen this man. He's very, very jovial, and you know,
he can kind of talk his way through a lot
of things. So he was taken to jail that night.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
According to an article on the Denver Post, you know,
he was arrested in charge with violating a protection order
and notably did not get a stocking charge. Can you
kind of walk us through that and what was the
explanation given to you as to why he was charged
with violating a protection order?

Speaker 3 (35:08):
So when I initially spoke to the detective and he
explained we are asking for felony stocking charges and that
he was still in jail, and they had said bond
very high on that charge for it was twenty thousand cash.
And the detective told me, he's like, I'm thrilled with this.
This is good news. He's likely not getting out of jail.
With him in jail, I felt very safe and he
is in jail. I know exactly where he is. I'm

(35:30):
not looking over my shoulder. And then I get a
call the next week from the detective and he said
he heard back from the DA's office in Denver and
they were not pursuing felony stocking. They did not believe
that it met the requirements. And he said the reason
was that there was that year and a half gap
in the stocking. So from January twenty twenty four to

(35:51):
September of twenty twenty five was a year and a
half and that timeline was too big of a gap
to be considered repeated. Because a big line is that
stalking has to be repeated for it to be at
this point in.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
The state of Colorado. For something to be considered stalking,
a person has to knowingly make a threat, and crucially
for Kylie's case, those threats have to happen repeatedly. And
it was that word repeatedly that Kylie couldn't stop thinking about.
This man had shown up again and again at events
where he knew that she would be, He'd sent her

(36:26):
inappropriate messages, he'd even violated a temporary restraining order. But
then he went quiet for more than a year. Raising
the troubling question did that long silence break this legal
definition of repeatedly? Kylie told us that she spoke with
multiple attorneys trying to get a straight answer to the
same question how much time can pass between contacts for

(36:50):
it to still count as repeated harassment.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
I have the conversation with the DA and it doesn't
provide much clarity because I kept saying, hey, there's no
timeline listed the statue, and he's telling me there's something
called common law practice and whatnot, and you know, basically
it's within the judge's discretion, but we don't think we
can get the conviction. We want to get him on something,
so we're going for the misdemeanor versus the felony, and

(37:13):
I'm pushing back on him. I go, okay, well, just
so I know, how long does this man have to
wait to come at me again, to contact me again,
to the point where you're going to go, oh, it's
not stalking anymore. Is it a year and a half?
He's like, I don't have an exact timeline, but a
year and a half is too long. I go, is
it a year in the car starcing? I can't say.
I can't say and I'm pushing back and find that

(37:33):
he goes it's a judgment call. And that was when
I realized that this wasn't a me situation. If this
was happening to me, they were probably doing this with
other cases, which just broke my heart for all those
other women and of course men who had dealt with this.
But I wasn't able to win that argument, and a
few days later he was let out of jail and
I went and moved into hotels.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
That's mind blowing because to me, it's like, this guy
has had a year and a half of not contacting
you and still clearly not gotten over whatever he's grappling with.
He's still thinking about you, like a year and a half.
There are people who are in real relationships that are
over it in a year and a half. I mean, yeah,

(38:17):
that's awful to think about it being a judgment call
just because he had given you a little bit of
a break.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
Yeah, and again, I don't know, Like I'm on TV
every day, I have no idea how he's interacting and
consuming any content that I'm putting out into the world.
I don't know. I keep an eye out for new
Instagram accounts and whatnot. But it's a public account. People
can go and they can look at it. So I
think it's almost scarier in a way that I didn't
hear from him and then escalated to the point of

(38:45):
following me home.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, because for a year and a half he didn't
hear from him, And so then how do you know
going forward to be comfortable or not, because there's clearly
he can go a long period of time not contacting you,
and then we don't know what it is that makes
him feel like he should go do this thing right,
like come find your house. And changing that from a
potential felony charge to a misdemeanor has real consequences. As

(39:11):
you mentioned the bail. You know, his bill got less
into like fifteen hundred dollars and so he was able
to get out. And then I think also potential sentencing
is dramatically lower based on.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
My brief googling and speaking with lawyers. Yeah, it's very
likely he wouldn't face jail time for a misdemeanor. He
still might, but it would be more like one hundred
days or something like that. Yeah, but I'm not positive
on the specifics.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Where did that leave you, Like, how did you feel
learning this and then also learning that he was released
and is out in the world, I.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Felt very helpless. I felt like I did everything I
was supposed to do. I did the restraining order path,
I documented everything. I have put so much time in
my life into doing what the core system is telling
me to do correctly, and then I felt like it
was failing me. There was just nothing I could do
about it because I had tried to fight, I had

(40:03):
talked to other das, I had taught like I had
lawyers fighting for me, and I wasn't getting anywhere.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Learning that this man had been released while continuing to
speak with lawyers and fight for her own personal safety,
it's all been exhausting. As long as he's out in
the world, there's nothing to assure Kylie that he won't
come after her again, and each time he contacts her
it seems to be an escalation, which makes it really
hard to move on.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
It changed my perspective on everything. Once your safety is threatened,
your whole world just shifts in perspective. I found other housing.
I was like, I can't be looking over my shoulder
sleeping here, and so I had a lot of relief
in that, which was nice at work. I felt safe.
We have a lot of security systems in place and whatnot,

(40:50):
so that was good. But it's interesting because now it's
been about two months, and every day that I wake up,
I look back and I go, WHOA, you were in
a really dark place and you didn't realize it. I
can't describe it as anything other than and forgive me.
I know a meteorologist. I felt like I was walking

(41:12):
around through fog, trying to navigate my life where nothing
seemed quite clear. People would ask me something and I
was like slow to respond. I felt like I just
couldn't find myself again. And at the time you were like, okay,
Like yeah, something weird just happened. You're kind of just
living through it. Two months later, looking back on the

(41:34):
mental state that I was in is astonishing how horrified
and terrified I was on a regular basis.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
This is directly after when he came to your house
that you're talking about that period of time.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
This is when I let him out of jail. I
felt safe when he was in jail. When he's in jail,
I know where he is. That's an easy thing to
feel safe with. It was when they let him out
of jail, and I'm the one who just put him
in jail. It's his fault. But again I'm just I'm terrified.
I'm looking over my shoulder for his truck everywhere I go.
And I can't describe it other than you feel physically

(42:10):
sick and you feel extremely exhausted. I remember just being
so tired and you know, unable to get out of
bed on like a Saturday. After I was like, oh
my gosh, like my body won't move, Like what's happening
to me? This is very odd? And I was like,
I work early mornings. You know, I'm kind of writing
everything off at this point, But again two months later,
looking back on it, I have a lot of lot

(42:33):
of empathy for myself and like what I was going
through when I didn't even realize how bad it was.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Of course, now looking back on her experience, Kylie understands
that even though this man never explicitly threatened her with
violence or threatened her life, his behavior, his messages, it
was all still a threat to her safety. And this
is the gray area that stalking victims sometimes find themselves in.
How many messages is too many messages? Should I wait

(43:01):
to report this to law enforcement? Until things escalate and
to what point.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
It's so incredibly violating in a way that is hard
to put into words because I think that and I've
talked to people who have dealt with emotional abuse and relationships,
and I can kind of in my mind it's similar
when you're explaining it, because if you're in an emotional
abuse of relationship, you go, well, no one hit me,
no one's hit me, so and they're telling me that

(43:29):
I'm wrong, And there's that trying to wrap your mind
around something is wrong when you're looking at oh, I
love you, my wife and you know, have great trip
and whatnot. And it's obsessive, but it's not overtly threatening.
I think that's why I waited so long to pursue
that initial restraining order, because you're telling yourself, well, they're

(43:51):
not threatening me, they're not doing anything mean, they're not
showing up with a gun or you know, saying that
they're going to hurt me. They just they seem to
love me. They're obsessed. I just can't describe it in
any other way than it's a complete mind book. Trying
to wrap your head around this person who's obsessed with you.
You feel so violated. Your sense of safety is completely gone,

(44:13):
and no one's made an overt threat to you, but
you know there's a danger, and you know there's a threat.
You know it in your gut and everything in your body.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Kylie decided to go public with her story. She spoke
with the Denver Post, who published an article about her experience.
She wanted to raise awareness about how horrible it is
to be the victim of a stalker and how helpless
you can feel even when you pursue all the legal
options available to try to protect yourself. Kylie did this
in part because she knows she's not alone, and since

(44:45):
going public, she's received hundreds and hundreds of emails from
people who say they are experiencing the same thing. This
is both comforting and deeply unsettling.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
And I will say I felt like I had a
secondary wave of emotional trauma after the article came out,
because I'm hearing from women and I had been hopeful,
like maybe this will stop at some point, But when
you're hearing from women and they're saying it's been years,
it's been five years, it's been ten years, and I
just went, oh my gosh, this might never end. Until

(45:16):
he dies and this might be my life looking over
my shoulder for a long time, all because I do
the weather on the local news and this person thought
we had something that wasn't there. I don't know. I'm
still trying to wrap my mind around that and if
I ever feel safe.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Again, yeah, and like you are a local news mediorologist,
but still you're really a part of the community that
you're speaking to every morning, and so like it's just
making me think about even the way that we live
in LA Like a celebrity walks down the street and
there could be a camera in their face and that's

(45:53):
still loud, and like it's expected almost well, if you're
a public figure and people are gonna I'm out of
the woodwork, But it's like where is the line? And
obviously not everyone who is a victim of stalking is
in the public eye at all, But if I had
been in your shoes, I probably would have rationalized it
as like, well, I'm on TV and they feel like

(46:16):
they know me and try to just push it away.
And also just I think that the way the justice
system reacts when we try to pursue something like a
restraining order, it sounds like you the first time got
a judge that understood that this guy needed some pretty
strict rules in place, and understood that you had no

(46:38):
association with him. This was in his head and that's
not always the case. And then you think about, like, well,
if then the justice system kind of minimizes it, what
do you do mentally even or emotionally You're like, am
I Am I making this up?

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Yeah? I was actually warned by a DA in a
different county in Colorado and they said, you know, he goes,
it's important that you're coming forward with this story. He goes.
The unfortunate flip side is that a lot of people
are going to see this and feel discouraged and not report.
And that broke my heart. And he said, you know,
that doesn't mean don't do it. It's just you're experiencing what

(47:18):
a lot of people have experience. And that I think
is why I wanted to share my story. You know,
I'm granted, I do not think I'm a celebrity on
any level. I am on the local news. Most of
my life is extremely normal, very very boring. I tell
people the weather, and I love what I do. But
I knew that I had just enough of a platform
to hopefully have people in the Justice Department, And I

(47:42):
didn't really have a lot of hope that it would
change my case, but maybe going forward they would take
another woman's case or another person's case seriously in this situation,
and I am still working with the DA's office. They
have told me that they are investigating and that they
are not ruling out additional charges. So I am still hopeful,
hopeful that if I can give them all the inflot

(48:02):
that they need, which I know is there, that this
would hopefully be an easy case for them. And whatnot.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
How has this changed the way that you interact with
people who innocently approach you at the store or wherever
in town and just want to meet you.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
It hasn't changed that, to be honest. If I'm in
a safe public space and people are kind, it hasn't
changed that. I'm still very grateful, and in fact, a
lot of people have come up and said, I am
so sorry that has happened to you. We love watching
you every morning, We're so grateful. We hope that this
doesn't make you want to leave your job and whatnot.
So I would say that it hasn't in that way.
It has just made me much more hyper aware of

(48:44):
if something's in my gut telling me, Okay, this person's
a little bit off, I need to get out of
that situation immediately, or I need to let someone know
or get help and whatnot. And then my threshold for
just tolerance within my Instagram, DMS or you know, whatever
it is. We're not even letting things get beyond like
that's a little bit creepy. You're done. That's weird. You're done.
You're not even having access to me where I let

(49:06):
it get to the point at least I hope.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
I really appreciate you making time for us. I know
you've been very busy since your story blew up, and
I am just really grateful that you made the time.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
Yeah. No, and I definitely took a step back from
media in a few days after because it was very
overwhelming and I just knew that this was going to
be a safe conversation, and so I just appreciate you guys,
And yeah, I'm hoping for some from normalcy again soon.
I'm really looking forward to that, so, you know, and

(49:39):
I hope that other women out there, if this has
happened to you, and that you don't feel as alone
it's awful and it's extremely isolating in a very lonely way.
So just know that you're not alone.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yeah, we hope that things become normal for you too,
and that you don't have to deal with this in
the future. And thank you so much for coming on
our podcast and trusting to tell your story. Means a lot.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, well, thank you for advocating for other women and
and other people within the criminal justice system that they're
fighting for what they hopefully deserve and can get some justice.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
This is our last episode of twenty twenty five, and
that's kind of hard to believe.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
Yeah, I can't rerum my head around it. I'm so
glad that we were able to speak with Kylie because
I think her story and her reasons for telling it
really speak to the mission of the show.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
The fact that Kylie is using her platform to speak
about this and has already made national news, I think
really speaks to the power of storytelling. And you know,
you and I have talked about this so many times,
but especially in developing this show, is true crime can
mean such a range of things, and we wanted to
have this like mission driven platform for these stories and Yeah.

(50:57):
Kylie's mission was to in part, to help people take
this seriously.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yeah, which is awesome. I mean, the fact that she
has this platform as a public person just helps get
the word out about her experience. And there's so many
people that this is happening to who don't have a
public platform to be able to speak about it. So
I love that Kylie's doing that, you know. I was
looking at the website Stop stocking us dot com, which

(51:26):
is a nonprofit organization, and they have some statistics on
their website. One of them, which is pretty shocking, says
about one in six women and one in seventeen men
have experienced stocking in their lifetimes. That is a surprising
number when you think about it. Like I think also

(51:46):
at least in maybe public perception in the media, it's like, well,
what is stoking? You know, And I think part of
the problem here is there seem to be a lot
of varied opinions, but in my opinion, after listening to
Kylie's story and other people who have been victims of stalking,
stalking is taking away someone's sense of safety, and whether

(52:08):
that's unwanted messages or showing up at their home, maybe
there is still an escalation that has to be quantified legally,
but you're taking away someone's sense of personal safety and
that's huge. Yeah, I mean, what is stocking is such
a good question. There's like how it is defined by
the law, and then like what it feels like if

(52:29):
you are experiencing being stocked? Right, Yeah, And it's one
of those things that I feel like is sort of
hard to define. And Kylie talked about this a little
bit in the interview, and there's a Denver Post article
that she mentioned, and in that article they talk about
the definition of stalking being in Colorado specifically when a

(52:49):
person knowingly and repeatedly follows, approaches, contacts, or communicates with
another person in a way that causes that person serious
emotional stress. So that's a pretty good definition, yeah, But
she also talked about how, like the words like repeatedly
is kind of vague and then how do you define that?

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Right?

Speaker 1 (53:11):
And it's this complicated thing that we see a lot
of trying to put someone's experience into a law that
hopefully will protect victims, but it still doesn't even come
close to describing what that actually is like for a victim,
Like that feeling you're talking about of someone encroaching on
your personal space and freedom. Honestly is what it feels like.

(53:33):
It would feel so invasive to me.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
Yeah, and obviously men can also be victims of stalking,
but from my perspective as a woman, and I think
probably a lot of people have shared this experience, you know,
growing up in the media, there's sort of this common
trope of like a guy that's really persistent, he's chasing you,
and that ends up being the guy, and it's like

(54:00):
situation differs from that this was never someone she had
any relationship with at all. But I think that sometimes
that can sort of twist people's way of thinking about it,
and you have to wonder, like to what degree is
that infiltrating, how seriously this is taken or not taken. Yeah,
it's such a problematic, I know, trope or outlook on

(54:21):
what's appropriate behavior, right, this idea that, oh, this guy
likes you, he's mean to you, even it's like, no,
we got to evolve past that, right, Like he must
be flirting with me. I feel uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah, if
you feel uncomfortable, I know, it's not a good sign.
When I first moved to La actually i went on

(54:42):
maybe like two dates with this person who he was nice.
It wasn't a match. I told him that and all
was well, and then he asked me out again, and
I don't remember what I said, but I remember that
I said no, and then he started emailing me, and

(55:02):
there was some time that passed in between, maybe it
was like a couple of weeks, and I would kind
of respond and say, oh, you know, no, thank you,
and then he would email again, and they were kind
of joking, like I know, you're dying to hear from me,
And honestly, I think that in his case, like overall,
was well intentioned, but at a certain point I still

(55:24):
remember having to tell him, like I don't want to
hear from you. Like now I feel kind of weird
and I feel bad even saying this and I shouldn't,
but like, I don't want.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
To hear from you.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
And to his credit, I never heard from him again.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Well that's good.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Yeah, but like I remember, he was, you know, someone
who was like highly educated, and he was great in person.
It was very kind, but still didn't seem to get that. Uh,
if someone says they don't want to go out with you,
maybe stop asking.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Yeah, yeah, that should be a pretty clear thing. Yeah,
you know, one thing that came to mind that we
didn't talk about in the episode, but that later I
thought of that there's a tiny little sliver of crossover
with this story and Sweet Bobby.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
I kept thinking about Sweet Bobby, which I'm sure a
lot of people are familiar with, and I've watched the
great Netflix documentary Sweet Bobby. It was about this woman, Kirat,
who's a British radio presenter, so similarly also had like
this you know, public persona, and she believed for like
nine years or something that she was in an online
distance relationship with this guy named Bobby who was a

(56:34):
real person that she kind of knew or like they
had similar friends online or something, you know, spoiler alert,
wasn't Bobby, but she was chatting with this person she
thought was Bobby, messaging all this stuff, and even saw
Bobby in person a couple of times.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
Oh yeah, that one moment when she sees him at
the club and he.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
Sort of like doesn't recognize her, but then she's like,
well that was weird. But then when she's typing and
texting with who she thinks is Bobby. Later, of course
he has all the right excuses to make her think
that this is normal, that he wouldn't recognize her or
acknowledge her in public, right, And we have no idea
if that's actually what is going on with the guy

(57:19):
that has been stalking Kylie, Like it could be a
situation where he just made all of this up in
his head, Like, we have no idea, but the fact
that there was a text message back and forth that
he showed her that he's texting somebody, you know, he
could have fabricated that as well, Like, we don't know,
but it does seem like someone has been impersonating her.

(57:39):
And I'm not trying to give this guy the benefit
of the doubt. He's had many chances to like snap
out of it, and he's been to court.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
He's been told the truth by her.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
He's been told the truth. But it does make me
think about how strong when people are, So when they're
scammed like that and they're convinced that they're in love
and they're talking to someone, like, how strong of a
grip that can get on you?

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Well, yeah, I mean even in our conversation with Alex Coros,
who his photos had been used to scam so many people,
and he said, in some cases, even when he would
have to tell people, hey, I'm not who you are
being told I am. Someone's using my photos, none of
this communication was with me, the person that you're looking at.
And he said they would then start to sort of

(58:23):
fall in love with him.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Yes, I had forgotten about that.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Because they were sort of used to interacting with him,
looking at him, like they're sitting across from the person
now or on the phone with the person now that
they know from the pictures. Yeah, and there's something happening psychologically, Yeah,
even though they know the truth, it's like their brain
still wants them to fall in love with this person, right,

(58:48):
and kind of thinks that there's a chance that will happen.
But it's like no. And in this case, I mean,
this person had been yeah, corresponding with someone who's impersonating Kylie.
But then during this moment on the hike, he gets
his phone messages out, He's told like very clearly, Nope,

(59:08):
that's not me. I'm not interested. I think you've been scammed.
And at that point you have to draw a line
for yourself, even if your heart is broken over this.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Well, that's where I think about sweet Bobby and the
grip that scammers can have on someone, because I can
just imagine the scammer saying, oh, well, I just couldn't
acknowledge it in public, but believe me, of course, I
know I've been communicating with you and I love you
and could spend this whole thing.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Mm hm.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
But you would think that going to court, like having
the law involved, having a restraining order filed against you,
would be enough to wake you up. Yeah, but maybe
there's some deeper hole that this person has on him.
I don't know, Yeah, and like, certainly not to excuse it. No,
it makes it even scarier because it's like, if this

(59:59):
guy true is convinced that she's secretly still in a
relationship with him, how in the world is kylie like that?
To me, it would feel like you have no power,
Like it would be so scary that. I mean, the
truth is, we never have that much power to influence
what people believe. You know, they can believe wild, untrue things.

(01:00:20):
But it's scary to think that he's he was so
convinced of this thing that's not true, and then you
have no idea what he's believing and what he's gonna do.
That's terrifying.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Yeah, I mean showing up at someone's home who has
no relationship with you and who had a restraining order
against you is baffling. And I don't know what's going
on in his head, but like regardless, if he has
no respect for boundaries even after the legal system is involved, Yeah,

(01:00:52):
very scary and I'm so glad Kylie's talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
It, one hundred percent. I agree. One of the things
she talked about this difference between what she thought he
was going to be charged with and what he ended
up being charged with. Yeah, she was hoping that he
would get charged with a felony stocking charge. Instead he
was discharged with a violation of a protective order. And
I was reading about the difference of those in Colorado,

(01:01:17):
a class one misdemeanor. There's class one in class two,
but class one violation of a protective order you can
get up to three hundred and sixty four days in jail,
so less than a year, just a day, less than
a year would be the maximum sentence, whereas if he
got a felony stocking charge, he could get up to
five years in prison. So those are really big differences.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Yeah, And Kylie said in our conversation with her, while
he was in prison briefly during his first arrest, she
felt safe, like that was the time that she felt safe.
And so you know, you're thinking about someone's loss of freedom, Okay,
this person who's been convicted of stalking, but you also

(01:02:01):
have to think of it in terms of like Kylie
being able to live her life and feel safe in
her body at her home, and if he's in prison
less than a year, that's the amount of time she
gets to feel safe.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
One of the reasons that was given to her that
she communicated to us, was given to her for not
bringing a felony stocking charge was this idea that we'd
just talked about earlier, the definition of stalking in the
Colorado law right repeatedly. And there was some worry that
because he hadn't contacted her for a year and a half,

(01:02:36):
they would have a hard time proving in court that
he had repeatedly harassed and stalked her, even though he'd
done it repeatedly over the course of years. So that
was sort of like, what are we talking about here?

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
And to me, it's so counterintuitive because it's like, if
a year and a half can go by and that
person still has you at the forefront of their mind. Yes,
that is what I think is so scary about it
all so scary. And there was a mention in the
same article that a staff attorney at Project Safeguard, which
is a nonprofit that helps victims of domestic violence, sexual assault,

(01:03:13):
and human trafficking, talks about that it's actually not uncommon
for victims of stalking to experience long breaks or long
lolls in the stalking behavior, and so this one and
a half year period is not that shocking to her.
She sees that a lot. She also says that lole

(01:03:33):
that can be common has an effect of making the
victim begin to feel like they will never be safe
because no matter how much time passes, they worry that
this person could come back around, which is horrible. Yeah,
it's just so unfair. And one of the articles I
was reading about Kylie's case and her issue with this

(01:03:56):
is I think the prosecutor used the word judgment call
when they were speak about, well, what is he going
to be charged with? It's a judgment call, And I
think that just perfectly encapsulates the issue with the way
that we prosecute stockings it's just a judgment call, but
it's to me, I think, pretty measurable. There are ways
to see if someone is being stocked. Are they contacting

(01:04:18):
you when you've asked them not to, do you feel unsafe?
Are they ignoring their protection orders? Or the day that
they're lifted showing back up at your home. I mean,
these are like pretty cut and dry. Yeah, signs to
me totally. The fact that it's this judgment call feels
so subjective, really so subjective, like, let's hope you get

(01:04:39):
a prosecutor that cares, yeah, and believes you and understands
the violent nature of being stalked and doesn't just say, well,
what's the big deal?

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
And in that same article from the Denver Posts, that
the one you're talking about, but it made me think
of this what you just said. The reporter looked at
a st wide review and showed that Denver prosecutors bring
felony stocking charges less frequently than prosecutors in other counties
that have like similar population. So, you know, we don't
know all the factors that go into that, but to me,

(01:05:12):
it really speaks to that judgment call aspect of you know,
bringing charges against people.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Yeah, it's like, well, I guess they're being judged a
little differently there. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
Totally.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Stop Stalking Us is a five oh one c three.
It was founded by a filmmaker, performer, and stalking victim,
Lily Baldwin, after she went public with her stalking story.
Lily has been stoked by a man she doesn't know
for the past fifteen years, a harrowin experience that she
recounted in her Peabody nominated audible podcast series Stories of
the Stalked. Stop Stalking Us offers victims assistants and allows

(01:05:49):
them a place to tell their stories. If you would
like to donate to Stop Stocking Us, you can go
to their website at www dot stop stalking us dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
We also just wanted to say thank you so much
to everyone who listened to the Knife this year. Hannah
and I have just put so much into the show
and every time we hear from you guys, it really
means so much to us. So thank you for your support.
Thank you so much, and we will be back in
your ears in twenty twenty six. Happy New Year, Happy

(01:06:20):
New Year. If you have a story for us, we
would love to hear it. Our email is the Knife
at exactlyrightmedia dot com, or you can follow us on
Instagram at the Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at the
Knife Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:06:32):
This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
by me Hannah Smith and.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Me paysha Ety. Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in
the Airport Artwork five andsa Lilac executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff,
Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer