December 29, 2024 • 47 mins
In 2018, while taking a picture of her son at a gathering, Nicole Madigan had a brief encounter with a stranger who asked her if she was photographing a man named Adam.
The exchange felt bizarre, but Nicole thought little of it. That is, until later that night when she received a text from the woman. What started as one odd message soon spiralled into years of harassment, ultimately leading to the woman, Karissa, being charged with stalking. But even in 2024, a conviction hasn’t stopped her.
Nicole joins Gemma on True Crime Conversations to share her story. A journalist herself, with extensive experience investigating stalking, Nicole has written a book about her experience.
Read Obsession: A journalist and victim-survivor’s investigation into stalking, here.
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Guest: Nicole Madigan
Host: Gemma Bath
Producer: Tahli Blackman
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and orders.
This podcast was recorded on Hello, It's your host Jemma
Bath jumping into your ears to tell you why this
episode of True Crime Conversations sounds a little bit different.
It's because we recorded it live at south By Southwest
(00:36):
Sydney in October. I was joined by journalist and author
Nicole Madigan to talk about her book obsession and her
experience of being stalked by her partner's ex girlfriend. I
interviewed Nicole in front of a live audience and we
had a great conversation that I didn't want you to
miss out on hearing, which is why we're releasing it
for you to listen to today now. If you've heard
(00:57):
Nicole's story before, it's because we did release an episode
with her last year where Emma Gillespie talked to Nicole
about the phenomenon of stalking. This episode dives much deeper
into da Coole's own experience and the newest developments in
her life, especially since her restraining order against her stalker
lifted and the messages started back up, albeit much more sneakily.
(01:20):
Let us know what you think of the conversation here
it is Hello everyone, I'm Jeremy Bath, host of True
Crime Conversations, a Muma Mia podcast exploring the world's most
notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the
most about them. True crime is big business. According to
(01:42):
recent insights into the podcasting landscape here in Australia, forty
five percent of US are devoted to the industry, making
it the most popular category. True Crime Conversations is regularly
in the twenty most downloaded podcasts in the country and
it's our third most popular podcast at Mamma Mia. Mama Mia,
for those who don't know us, is Australia's largest independent
(02:05):
women's media group and it's ultimately our goal to make
the world a better place for women and girls. Yes,
so how do we do that while talking about crime
on a podcast, you might ask, Well, true crime is
traditionally a very male dominated genre, one where women's stories
can often be sensationalized and sometimes even laced with subtle misogyny.
(02:25):
We make sure that women's voices are heard within their
own narratives, so that the horrible things that happen to
them or that they're accused of doing to other people
are just turned into trauma porn for the sake of
telling a good story. With thirty million lifetime downloads, we
at Mamma Mia interview everyone from detectives to victims to perpetrators, authors, podcasters,
(02:48):
and journalists about the biggest crimes of our generation. And
we have a very special live episode to share with
you today. Nicole Madigan is an author and journalist. She's
also a colleague of mine at Mamma MAA. Nicole is
also a victim survivor of stalking, and if that's a
topic that is triggering for you, consider this your warning.
(03:09):
Nicole's story starf in twenty eighteen and it remains ongoing.
Her experience is eye opening, and she's able to articulate
the nuances of a crime that for so long have
been misunderstood and underestimated in our country. Before we get
to Nicole, as we always do on true crime conversations,
allow me to set the scene. It's weirder when the
(03:31):
guest is sitting with me. It's a stinking hot day
in Brisbane in February twenty eighteen, and Nicole arrives at
her inner city apartment with her son Ben they're meeting
a group of his footy mates and their parents for
an off season sausage sizzle and some cricket, and Nicole
is looking forward to escaping from her own thoughts with
(03:52):
some small talk. She's currently in the final stages of
leaving a twelve year marriage and starting a new life
with her three young kids. It's messy and sad and strained.
The day unfolds without a hitch until a woman who's
been sitting off to the side asks are you taking
photos aout him? As she walks back past Adam, being
another dad at the gathering. The interaction is fleeting and
(04:16):
a bit weird taking photos of Ben, she replies, but
the woman is already walking away. Later that night, she
gets a Facebook message from a woman named Carissa Owens. Hi, Sorry,
totally didn't mean anything by my comment. I thought you
were taking photos for the footy page and I wanted
you to take one of Adam getting bowled out by
the kids.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Ha ha.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Anyway, really wanted to chat to you today. Weird but okay,
Nicole replies politely and moves on. But a week later
she gets another message, then another, and another and another.
This is the start of five years of pain and
harassment from a woman who would eventually be charged with stalking,
(04:58):
and Nicole joins us. Now, Nicole, that was the first
message you got from Carissa at nine o'clock at night
after a day at the footy. What happened next?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, So after that night, I didn't give it a
lot of thought, to be honest, And about a week later,
I was at the shopping center, just minding my own business,
and I got another text, a Facebook message, i should say,
from the same person, asking if I was married. And
at that point, privately, I was going through a separation
that had happened, but I hadn't told anyone about it,
so I didn't want to talk about it to anyone,
(05:29):
let alone a strange stranger. Yeah, so I just kind
of put it off and said, oh, why is that?
And she said I was just wondering, and I let
it go. And then a couple of days later, I
got another message to the same effect and I answered
it in a similar kind of a way. And this
happened two or three more times, and I mentioned it
to my mum at one point and she said, why
don't you just tell you that guy from the foot
(05:50):
eag you're telling him that this woman is kind of
sending you these messages, and because I had enough on
my plate at that point, so that's what I did.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
So you reached out to Adam, who you didn't really know, No,
not very well.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
We'd seen each other. He was a coach at the
football club, so we had met and spoken briefly, but
not in any kind of particularly friendly way.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
And what was his reaction to you kind of telling
him you'd been get these weird messages?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, I sent it in a message as well. I
didn't call him or anything like that, and he reacted
sort of, I guess as you would expect, kind of
sounded embarrassed, apologized, but I suppose he didn't sound as
surprised or shocked as you might expect. So I just
kind of thought, you know, poor guy, this is embarrassing,
but at least he knows and hopefully I won't get
any more messages.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Did he give you any context as to how we
knew her?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Not at that time. I mean, it's my impression was
that it was his girlfriend, but he had sort of
said this kind of behavior is why she's not in
my life anymore and left it at that, and I
didn't pry because I didn't really know him at that point.
So Carrissa's message has kind of died off, and in
the meantime you got chatting to Adam. Yeah. I guess
it was one of those things that just kind of
happened organically. A few weeks after that, he sent me
(06:55):
a message to check in and say, have you received
any more of those messages? You know, and apologize again?
And I hadn't, of course, which is what I said,
And we just sort of slowly developed a bit of
a back and forth in messaging which went over several
weeks and months and developed from there and.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Spoiler alone fell in love.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
M hm, we did. Yep.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So we skipped forward a year and you hadn't heard
from Carrisa in this time, and it's AFL grand final day.
You remember that day very specifically, Yeah, September twenty eighteen.
What happened? What changed? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I remember the day really well because, as I mentioned,
I had gone through a sort of ugly separation, which
most separations are not pleasant, so it was difficult, and
had really fallen into a nice, easy relationship with Adam
and the kids, and we just started mixing the kids
and things like that. So this was our first kind
of event that we were hosting together.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So you had three, he had two, yeah, one big, Yeah,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
And we had other family members. My parents were there,
and we had friends and things like that. So it
was a really kind of poignant special moment for me.
So I remember it well. And at the end of
that night, we were excited, you know, like and posted
a couple of photos on Facebook and things like that.
And late into that night, as we were doing the
dishes and getting the kids to bed, I got this
(08:12):
message request that was a really kind of vulgar and
expletely written message, and sort of that's where everything started
to go wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
How regular did the messages become, because I mean I
read out one of those messages at the start it
was very vanilla, I guess, But these messages that you
got a year later were anything. But I'll read one
of the more tasteful ones out to you. He's using
you to make me jealous. He still asks about me
and my children. You sleep on my side of the bed.
(08:42):
Ask him if he still has the pillow I bought
for him. He always said he hates blondes. Assuming you
were blonde at the time. So this and the ones
above are the kinds of messages you were getting how regularly.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, So that particular night I got a lot quite
in a flurry, and Adam got a lot as well,
And as you see, they were quite vulgar and ugly,
so they were more at that stage. It was just
an emotional response that I had. It was quite confronting
and I hadn't dealt with anything like that before. And
making that night more sort of concerning, I suppose, was
about an hour or two after I got those messages,
(09:15):
I received a text message from my ex husband just saying,
Carissa says, Hi. That was just a really horrible feeling
because in that moment, all in one sort of night,
I'd realized that this person was coming for me, and
she'd also somehow contacted my ex husband. From that point on,
the messages came really regularly, so most days I would
(09:36):
get them. Sometimes a few days would go by where
there was a break and then they would start again,
but they were always in a flurry, so that ding ding,
ding ding that would come in in a cluster.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I think all of us obviously not in this same scenario,
but know the fear of the ding if you don't
want a ding. But how did it make you feel
when it's starting to come every single day and we're
talking weeks, months, We're going to eventually start talking years.
But in their start, when you weren't used to this
and you started getting these dings at all hours of
the day, how did it start to affect you?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, So that feeling with the dings changed obviously as
time went on, because the motivation behind those messages was
becoming more concerning. But in those early days, I wasn't
thinking stalking or anything like that. I was just found
it all really confronting. It was really ugly and just confronting,
so it upset me. I never knew when it was coming.
(10:29):
They were really offensive, and I was starting to become,
you know, scared about what the motivation was because obviously
there was sort of thinly veiled underlining threats there all
the time too, that she was wanting to ruin my
life essentially.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So what did you know about her at this point?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Well, not a lot, only what I'd spoken to Adam about.
So he had told me that he had dated her
and how things ended, and that was pretty much it,
you know, I didn't know anything else about her. I
had never met her or anything, and.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Knew she was a mum, she had two kids, she
lived in the same city reasonably, Yeah, but beyond that,
she was a stranger.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
She was just a stranger to me.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
You said that she started contacting your ex she also
started contacting your mum.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, so i'd gathered that she'd contacted my ex husband,
and then a few probably about six or so weeks
into this year, my mum called and said she had
got a message request from this person as well. My
mum and I are really close, so the content of
the messages wasn't going to affect my relationship with my mum,
But the intention behind that message was what I found
(11:31):
frightening because it was full of lies. She sort of
concocted a confrontation between us and a conversation and a
little story there. So my fear at that point was
if this happens to know a work colleague or you know,
a client or something like that, that it could start
to cause some damage.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
When did you first decide to involve police.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
It was quite a while in. I think it had
been going on maybe sort of eight or so month.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's a long time.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, it is a long time, but it was just
calling the police wasn't something that occurred to me. My
mom had suggested it. She's a more cautious person that
at that point, I was just sort of putting my
foot down and saying, I just don't want to feed
this or give it attention. I just didn't respond to
anything and I didn't do anything. Essentially, the moment when
I thought we should do something about it was when
(12:17):
I received some messages where it had become evident that
she'd created a profile in my name, a fake profile,
and send herself some messages from me, and then send
all of those screenshots to Adam and told him that
she'd be sending them around to my work associates and
family and friends and things like that. So, to me,
it had turned a little bit of a corner with impersonation,
(12:37):
and I thought, now is the time to involve police.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So you didn't call the police station. You involved a
cop that was a mate. So what did they suggest?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, So he said that often in cases like this,
and this is very similar to the early stages of
domestic violence cases, his advice was, if you make an
official complaint that you can't prove it could inflame the
situation and make the person angrier and make things worse,
so which is part of the problem with the way
(13:08):
these sorts of issues are handled. You're essentially left to
deal with it on your own. He did suggest, though,
writing an email or contacting her in some way to
warn her that we will take it further if the contact.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Persists, which we did do and what happened.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So we drew up the email and sent it to
her and then nothing. We were really excited. We were like,
this is all we had to do. We just had
to speak up, and it's worked and it's done. And
for about four or five months it was total silence.
But after that time, yeah, things started again, but in
a quite a different way.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And how was that.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, So what initially alerted me to her existence again
was my son had been on a weekend with his
father and he came home and said to me, oh,
Dad was talking to Carissa. And unfortunately my ex husband
had told the children about this person. It was just
part of that ugliness of the time. And I said, oh, okay,
(14:04):
and he said I heard him say, like, have you
done the thing yet? And I didn't hear the answer,
and I said, oh, well, don't worry about it. I
didn't want to talk to him about it, but it
was sort of in my mind, in the head. And
then a couple of days later, I got a text
message from an unknown number which was basically more of
the same. They were sort of claiming to be someone else.
(14:24):
They gave themselves a different name, but said all of
the same sorts of things, the same sort of insults
towards me and also Adam.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So it was Carissa, but instead of Facebook, she's gone
to text.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah yeah, with an unknown number and saying that they
was somebody else. But then I got several different numbers
texting me with all of the same sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Eventually, she also evolved to Instagram. Tell us about that evolution,
because before that it was all quite private. You know,
it's in your private text messages, in your private Facebook messages,
and suddenly it's on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, that's right, I guess. I remember that moment really
well because we were getting ready to move house because
we bought our first house together, so we were quite
excited and we were packing up my old house and
it was while I was doing that I got an
Instagram notification, and at that point, those notifications weren't giving
me that horrible feeling of dread, because this was something
that seemed completely separate to her world from my understanding.
(15:20):
But she had tagged me in a post and it's
really difficult to describe because it sounds so almost juvenile,
but it was just a really insulting, kind of ugly
post using my name and just kind of I guess,
putting down my physical appearance and a few other things
like that. And that's when I thought, oh my gosh,
she's going public with this, and I ran out to
(15:41):
tell Adam and it stayed public from that moment on.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
So she just kind of moved straight to Instagram, yes,
and her page kind of became just a target at you.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
It literally became just a series of posts about me.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I know that you said you didn't know much about
this woman, but obviously this far in, we're like a
year in. At this point, you did start doing a
little bit more digging. What did you find on the
internet about her?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
It was kind of difficult because when I put her
name in, nothing much came up. She didn't have much
there at all. I knew how she worked and that
was about it. But at one point I was just
sitting there, just feeling sort of lost about all of this,
and I put in her phone number. I had seen
it in Adam's block numbers, so I'd put it in.
I don't know if they still have these, but they
at that point in time, they had these websites that
(16:31):
warned you about spam numbers and things like that, where
people sort of put in, oh, don't answer this number
because it's a spam caller or whatever. Anyway, her phone
number had come up, and there were several warnings from
people saying that this is Carissa. I'd met her on
Plenty of Fish or another dating site, and stay away
because once she laures onto you, she starts to stalk
(16:52):
and harass you. And she's been kicked off several times.
So at that point, I'm thinking, Okay, so she's done
this before. And I sort of felt mixed feelings about that,
a little sort of relieved that it wasn't just me,
but also a bit alarmed that what does this mean
she had a history.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yeah, I want to articulate, because, like you were saying,
it's kind of hard to explain how much this can
permeate into your life, but she was interrupting really special
(17:30):
moments between you and your kids and your step kids
and your partner, who it was.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
A pretty fresh relationship. How much did this affect your
relationship and your kids and the world you were creating.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Well, it affected me internally quite a lot. I tried
to shield the people around me from how much it
was impacting me, and that was for a couple of reasons.
One was I didn't want it to impact my relationship.
On principle, I didn't want to be doing what she
wanted me to do, which was fall apart. It's sort
of a strange feeling because you feel like, on the
one hand, I'm overreacting. I'm thinking about this all the time,
(18:04):
and if you tell someone them, I think you're just
getting some text messages and some you know, ignore it.
But on the other hand, you know you can be
underreacting too because you just don't know how far someone
is going to go. And as someone who works in
that domestic violence space, you know, I am really aware
of how things can develop and escalate over time. And so, yeah,
(18:25):
it was affecting me quite a lot, but from a
lot of different perspectives. I guess there's that personal aspect
of this is emotionally draining, and it's also insulting and cruel,
But I think the bigger problem is the fixation that
someone has on you for such a long period of time,
and the effort they're putting in and the intent behind
those actions is the most alarming part, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Of course, Well, you ended up contacting the police again
about a year and a half in so December twenty nineteen,
timeline wise, What made you do that? What made you
reach out again and try and get help.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
So the second time we call police was after I
got those text messages, And the reason I did that
was because my understanding at that point was because of
the way the world had gone with terrorism and changes
to laws and things like that, was that you can't
get SIM cards anymore without putting your details in. That
was my understanding, So I assumed that if I told
(19:20):
police what had happened and a little bit about the history,
it would be easy for them to track down these
sims and who owned those sims and then maybe go
and have a talk to her. Yeah, that was my
assumption at the time, But that's not the response that I.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Got Well, they were pretty dismissive, weren't they.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, I mean it was. I don't think he was
intentionally trying to be condescending, but that's how I felt.
And I think especially when you're dealing with a female
victim and a female perpetrator, it can have that sensationalist
tone to it. And when you're talking to someone and
you can see that dismissive response, it makes you withdraw
as well, so you end up underselling or minimizing what
(20:00):
you're going through anyway, So the end result is kind
of disastrous. But yeah, he basically said that sort of
famous line, keep a diary and if you're in danger
culture below, which.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
You were already doing, you kept every single message.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
I kept everything, and in the end that's what saved me.
But yeah, I was keeping everything in it.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Like a year and a half in you've been getting
messages like every day for periods of time, and you
just kind of told deal with it on your own.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah. So after that day, like I was really devastated
after the police left that day because I really felt
like there's nothing I can do. I just have to
put up with this for as long as it goes on.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
And by this point, had she worked out where you lived.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
At that particular point when I called the police that
second time, No, I didn't know anything about what she
knew about me. But ultimately when we moved here, she
did find out those more personal details, and it took
that turn.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
And how did she use those personal details to kind
of increase her almost threats to you?
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, it's important to note that in both the messages
and the Instagram posts and the text, there was always
that underlining threat that something was about to happen, that
she was about to do something bigger, or was about
to reveal something else or involve someone else. So I
was always quite on edge as to what was going
to happen next, and sometimes something did and sometimes it didn't.
(21:16):
But it effectively makes you feel like that person is
there all the time and everywhere, and you're just waiting
all the time to find out what's going to happen.
But to answer your question about that personal information, that
sort of happened over time towards the last six months
of the stalking, So it really escalated on Instagram and
she started posting really personal information like my address online
(21:38):
and details about my upcoming wedding and also a couple
of places that we've been, so it had become really
scary at that point.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Well, you became engaged in twenty twenty. Did you post
that online? How did she find out about it and
how did she react?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Well? Yeah, we did post it alone, as people do.
She reacted to it with the flurry of posts. I
want to say that it didn't make it any worse
or any less severe. And I think it's really important
when talking about this kind of crime, is that a
lot of times people think they've triggered a reaction in
a store or in a same applies to domestic violence,
(22:12):
where if only I hadn't have done that, or if
only I hadn't have said that, I've learned through research
and experience it you don't control that person's behavior, and really,
if that didn't trigger something, something else would have. So
I think in her case, she just continued on.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
You ended up connecting with another one of Carrissa's victims.
Tell us about how that evolved.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Yeah. So I was sitting on my couch doing some
work and I got an Instagram message request and I
was kind of used to at that point getting those
message requests, and my heart sinking and thinking, oh, you
know what now, because that had happened quite a lot.
You know, she would often message me under her own name,
but also under a series of other names as well.
(22:51):
But when I read this message, yeah, this woman had
said that she was a relative of Carissa's and that
she had experienced a similar thing. She had identified me
through her own detective work. I guess in the way
that Carissa was posting about me and wanted to reach
out basically to say, you know, I know how you feel,
and I support what you're going through. And at that time,
(23:14):
initially I was a little bit suspicious, like I wasn't
sure if it was actually Carissa contacting me, you know,
to get me to kind of lower my guard. But
I investigated that and it was clearly a specific person
and so I responded to that message, and she ended
up being a real lifeline for me. It was incredibly
validating to have someone say, you know, I went through this,
and I'm terrified, and I was really scared, and you
(23:37):
could sense that fear in her even reaching out to me,
and so I was really grateful.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
What was her story, obviously briefly, but what had Carissa
been doing to her?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Same sorts of things, so heavy contact, lots of abusive
messages and threats and things like that. This person believed
that she was responsible for her losing her job, so
she had contacted her workplace. When she was getting married,
she had contacted the wedding venue to cancel that. You know,
things like that just sort of interfering in her life,
and she had sort of caused a lot of estrangements
(24:08):
within the family as well.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Contacted the police again two point five years in So
two and a half years of being stalked by this
woman and you contact police again, this time via a
cybercrime report. How long did it take for them to
actually start taking you seriously?
Speaker 1 (24:24):
It was a long time, but that was a real
turning point. So I sort of got the courage to
do that after speaking to this other victim. It just
validated that something bad was happening and that I should
do something about it. Having those things posted online, particularly
our address and knowing where we were going and things
like that, I knew I couldn't just sit by and
let it happen anymore. As someone with children and a family,
(24:46):
I had to try something else. I think I tried
the cybercrime because that allowed me to put everything in writing.
I mean it was a really writer, yes, And it
was a very long cybercrime report that I put in
so I was able to put things in order and
list some dates and give some tangible examples of what
I was going through. And ultimately that got referred to
(25:07):
my local police station, and I think I was really
fortunate because I got a female police officer who really
listened to me. But look, it probably took several months
before I got that call.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Once you have this great cop on your side, what's
the next step. She has the report, she believes you,
she wants to go after Curissa, but she has to basically.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Get in touch with Carissa. Yeah, then that gets tricky, exactly, Well,
a lot has to happen. So the first step was
the conversation. And I think from my perspective, hearing her
response to what I was telling her, which was she
was alarmed and she was treating me as a victim
of crime, and that sort of gave me the courage
to really explain in detail what was happening. She had
(25:48):
to contact Carrissa, yes, and that took several months also
because she just wouldn't answer calls. And wouldn't respond to
knocks on the door and things like that. So it
was quite frustrating. But at the same time, I was
also asked to gather an extensive kind of dossier of evidence,
and without that we wouldn't have got anywhere.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
She was eventually charged. Yes, how did you find out
about that?
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I got an email basically, so I had put all
of my evidence together in a little file and sent
that to her, and she ultimately did get in touch
with Carissa, and she let me know when she had
got in touch and said that Caissa had said it
was all a big misunderstanding, as expected, I suppose, which
kind of caused me to panic a little bit. I
really didn't think it was going to go any further
(26:33):
than that. But yeah, maybe a month later I got
an email to say that she had been charged with
unlawful stalking.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
When you contact a police for this third time and
they started taking it seriously, was that the first time
the word stalking was used?
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Yes? Yeah, so I personally hadn't attached that word to
what was happening, But it was only when I was
having a conversation with that policewoman and I said, what
are you trying to achieve as you look into this,
and she said, I think that we'll probably charge her
with stalking. And that was when I first realized how
serious it was, what was happening.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
So that was three years in three years, in three
years in Carissa gets charged with stalking. I don't know
if anyone here has been to court, don't recommend, but
that is also a long process.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
The court hearing didn't actually take place for probably another
six months because she was able to continue to adjourn
those initial proceedings.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Was she contacting you in that six months?
Speaker 1 (27:24):
In that six months, No, that was a really and
everything got deleted from her pages and it was a
quiet six months. And that was sort of around the
time I got married.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
And how did court play out? You had to be there.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
I didn't have to be there because it's essentially police
charging her, so I don't have to be there. I
chose to go there. I went there with my mum.
I just wanted to get that sense of closure around it.
But it was kind of really nerve wracking because I
hadn't actually come face to face with her since that
day at the OH.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
That would have been so nerve wracking. Tell us about
the moment she walked in.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, So it was really strange because it was during COVID,
so we all had masks on, and Mum and I
sat through an entire day of court proceedings and they
were all domestic violence cases and it was just interestingly shocking,
horrible thing to witness in itself. That's the whole other story.
But so she was the last case of that day.
So we've been sitting there all day and she walks
(28:18):
in through the door and literally as she gets to
my feet, stops, must have sort of clocked that I
was there and just stares at me for it felt
like seconds, but it was probably just half a second,
and then walks on and sits down and she didn't
turn back after that.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I didn't feel.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, awful. Yeah, it was a really strange feeling, really
hard to describe.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
This is not the kind of wording that you put
into court.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Like, Yeah, it was just sort of like on this
dodgy piece of paper.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
But going back to the court proceedings where it is
about caruser, she's been charged, she's before a judge, did
she try and give a defense? What was her excuse
to the court.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
It was really awful. Being in court because obviously I'm
sitting there just listening, and her lawyer on her behalf
sort of started to give her version of the story,
which a lot of it was just sort of false
things anyway, So I could feel my heart beating and
there's nothing I can do about it. But she sort
of justified it as she was like hurt person and
was just reacting to that and tried to sort of
(29:15):
just really diminish it. But I was very fortunate that
the judge that was there that day was very dismissive
of her and really supportive of what I had written
in my victim impact statement and ultimately asked me a
couple of questions on the day, which was really nerve wracking,
but it was also really positive in the end because
I was able to articulate things a lot better than
(29:36):
the prosecutor on the day.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Well, the prosecutor hadn't even kind of put forward a
desire or like spoken to you about what.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Nah Don it was like. To be honest, the entire
day of court was a fiarsceco in my opinion, Like
there was including all the cases before mine, all these
domestic violence cases, and I can see why there's such
terrible outcomes for women all the time. But yeah, the prosecutors,
I think the police do all this work and then
they handed it over and it's up to the prosecutor
(30:03):
how much they read and how much they put forward
on the day, and mine put very little, but the
judge was very open to hearing more. Yeah, ultimately, she
was the one that recommended the restraining order.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
So what was the sentence? She got a two year
restraining order.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
She got a two year restraining order and a two
year probation order. So ultimately she pleaded guilty and that
was the sentence that she got.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Were you happy with that?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Well, yes or no? Obviously, when you go through something
like that, I think everyone would hope for a more
serious consequence. But having been sitting there all that day,
the five or six men that went before her who
had breached domestic violence orders in really really serious ways,
and often multiple times, none of those people got jail time,
(30:45):
And the maximum sentence that was given out that day
was a two year probation order. So with that in mind,
I was happy.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
So you probably won't have been expecting that, No, you'll
probably expected Oh no, yeah, yeah, I said to my
mum we are going to be laughed out of this place, like, well,
thank goodness you weren't. No, did it work? Did she
stop contacting you?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Well, she couldn't contact me at all for two years
or post anything about me, or come near my home
or anything like that, and those things were all adhered
to to my knowledge.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
The thing about stalking is that because it goes for
such a prolonged period of time before anything happens, there's
a lot of time to kind of develop almost a language,
a shared language between the two of you, so that
by the end you're able to send messages that no
one else can really decode except you. So the downside
(31:34):
of that is stalkers can learn over time and with
these legal proceedings that happen, how to send their messages
without breaking any laws, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
So she was doing that, yeah, how like with Instagram
posts that weren't tagging you, that were subtle.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, correct, I mean, and they certainly died off for
a really long time. So she closed down all the
social media for a little while. There was an article
that went into the paper after that course.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
About her face.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, there was obviously a journalist in the core room,
nothing to do with me. It was just we saw
it the next day, and yeah, everything shut down and
it went quiet for quite a while. But yeah, over time,
posts did start to come back, and she did find
ways to let me know that she's still there and
aware of what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
You've written a book on your experience, and you didn't
just look at your own experience. You kind of looked
at stalking more broadly across Australia. What did you discover
about it? How common is it? Is it men? Is
it women?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Yeah, so it's really common. So about twenty five percent
of women will be stalked at some stage in their
life and about one in eight men. I wanted to
research it because I think, you know, I was really intrigued,
I suppose, at the purpose behind it and what motivates
someone to do this for such a long period of time.
In my case, obviously in the beginning, it seemed like
(33:01):
she just wants to break up a relationship. But after
quite a long period of time, when that was sort
of we were well past that stage, she didn't stop
and seemed more intent than ever to try to cause trouble.
But I've just sort of always wondered, like what needs
to happen to me for this to stop? Like what
needs to happen? Like you know, So that's why I
(33:21):
investigated it. But I think, yeah, it's a really really
common crime. And what's also common is that people don't
talk about it. They keep it to themselves.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Well, there are many different types of stalkers and I
want to touch on a few of them. To start
with Carisa, an expert told you after you told your
story that she was what you would call a resentful stalker. Yes,
what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yeah, so there are five different typologies and they were
developed by an Australian professor actually, but they're generally considered
worldwide now. So a resentful stalker is someone who's stalking
for the purpose of revenge or retribution. So they feel
angry basically about something, and their goal in their stalking
is to cause damage to that other.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Person and take us through the other four quickly.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
So there's the rejected stalker, which is a really common
found stalking in domestic violence cases. So someone who's been
rejected in some way, whether that be most commonly by
a partner, but it could be by a workplace, they've
been lost their job or something like that. So their
goal in their stalking is to rekindle that relationship, but
that can often then develop into a sort of resentful
(34:30):
response anyway, because if they don't get that reconciliation that
they're after, then they become angry. Another type is what
is known as an incompetent suitor. That's someone who you'd
find stalking a celebrity or someone of a higher status,
and it's more commonly associated with people with mental illnesses
and things like that, because they've sort of conjured up
(34:50):
a relationship in their mind and might feel like the
queen is also in love with them, or sort of
the man who stalked Delta good Room who believed that
they were in.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Some which is a kind of stalking that we would
see a lot of headlines about.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yes, yeah, yeah, that's the kind that people tend to
think of. Then there is one called the intimacy seeker,
and that is basically someone who's met someone and they
want to either sleep with them or start a relationship
with them, and that stalking might be more short term,
so they're just harassing that person and stalking them over
a shorter period of time, and then the final one
is the predatory stalker, which we also see in movies,
(35:22):
which might be a stranger who literally is hiding around
in the bushes and is more likely to ultimately lead
to a physical.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Attack, which probably is not as common, far less common. Yeah, yeah,
and you've kind of alluded to this, but stalking is
a precursor or it exists in pretty much all domestic
violence cases or a lot of domestic violence cases. And
some of the most famous that you might remember in
the audience is Hannah Clark. Hannah Clark, she had stalking
as part of her case. Celeste mannow, which was a
(35:50):
Sydney woman. Yeah, all have stalking as part of their story.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, that's right. And those two cases are really interesting
because in Hannah Clark's case, that was a domestic violence
case and the stalking that had happened with him was
quite prolonged, and she had reported those behaviors, but again
not a lot was done about that, and in domestic
violence murders, stalking is incredibly common. In Celeste's case, she
didn't know this man at all. So it's a really
(36:16):
interesting case to look at for non domestic violence stalking,
which is an element of stalking in Australia in particular,
that's not really looked at, and there are not a
lot of protections or support for people who are stalked
from someone who is not a current or former partner.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
What really shocked me, which I found out in your book,
is that stalking only became ilegal in Australia in nineteen
ninety three.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
I interviewed the expert who developed those five typologies, Paul Mullen,
and he sort of described it as an old behavior
but a new crime.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
An old behavior but a new crime. Well, I guess
the woman who stalked you used technology. So as technology
escalated everything.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
It's changed it and made it easier, and it's enabled
people to be anonymous, I guess, and get away with
a lot more so it's easier. On top of that,
it's enabled people to engage in those behaviors far more frequently.
So during COVID stalking escalated quite dramatically the research. Yeah,
(37:16):
and that's because I guess people have more time on
their hands and they can do it to stalk. Yeah,
they can do it. So because interestingly, like in my
case as well, when you see the text or the
comments or whatever it is, it's however they're communicating, there's
no pattern to it, and it happens at all times
of the day or night, which makes you think, whenever
this person has free time, this is what they're engaging in.
(37:38):
So in times like COVID, if you've got someone who's
developed an obsession of some kind, there's all this time
for that obsession to mushroom and grow and expand, and
technology allows us to do that at any time of day.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
You have interviewed dozens, probably hundreds to nearly of victim
survivors who have all had different stories within those five categories.
How many of those have actually seen convictions very few.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
It's very difficult to get a conviction for a number
of reasons. So stalking is illegal, it is a crime,
and you're not allowed to do it, but it's really
difficult to prove, and there's not a lot of understanding
about what it is and the nuances around it within
the community or within the police force as well, because
and this again I'm sort of paraphrasing what the experts
(38:29):
have told me here, but when it comes to police,
you know, they're sort of used to dealing with crimes
that have happened, whereas stalking is a crime that's ongoing,
and it's made up of a series of often legal
behaviors that in isolation, aren't particularly alarming. So if you
go in to report unwanted flowers at your door, for example,
(38:51):
you'll probably get told make a note of things, keep
a diary, and all of that. So if you go
ahead and do that and then you go back to
the police station and it's a different police officer, you're
going to get the same kind of response. So without
that education and guidance, there's really not a lot of
support for those victims. All about documentation, It's very much
(39:12):
about documentation. I think attitudes also play into this as well,
because all the research shows that generally society of vieuse
stalking as something that's either not very serious, possibly a
bit romantic, and often victims are to blame in some
way because of their behavior or what they are or
aren't doing. So with all of that, it just makes
(39:34):
for a really difficult situation.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Who's watched Baby Reindeer on Netflix? Yeah, the Whole Room.
It was the top grossing on Netflix for a reason.
If you forget what it was about. It was the
true story of a barman slash comedian who was stalked
by a patron, and you've described that show as a
masterclass in stalking. Expand on that. Because there's so much
(39:57):
content out there, often the predatory stalking is on screen,
why were you so impressed by this depiction.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yeah, I've watched a lot of movies about stalking, and
that I mean that everyone likes to watch them. They're
interesting to watch, and there's always a real sameness about
them when there's either a really scary male stalker or
a you know, really unhinged female stalker who ultimately they
end up getting physically violent at the end. When I
saw the first opening scene of Baby Reindeer where he
(40:24):
goes into the police station, he's sort of embarrassed and
he's got that sort of coy look on his face.
Then he shows a message and it says something like
I ate an egg, and the police officers looking at
him like what are you doing here and why did
you wait so long to come in? So as soon
as I saw that opening scene, I'm like, this is
a realistic depiction of stalking. His face, the police reaction,
(40:46):
the whole thing, and I think the way that played
out where he was so honest with his mixed emotions.
So until you know someone's stalking you, you don't know
they're going to stalk you. So it may take weeks,
it could take months, It could take years before you
suddenly go, I'm scared now. It just depends on the situation.
So I think he articulated that really well.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
And I mean we showed the text messages at the start.
You could see that they were so similar to the
kind of wording and like lower case, and like the strangeness, just.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
The strangeness of it, and being able to send a
message without sending a message. The longer it goes on.
In his case, after six months, she might write, you
know something that seems innocuous to somebody else, but he
knows what it means.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I want to give some positive things that have happened
in the world of stalking, because we've done a lot
of negativity. Coercive control laws they've recently passed in Queensland,
how are they going to help this kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
There's a lot of similarities between coercive control and stalking,
and I think the biggest similarity is the fact that
it's a series of behaviors, often legal behaviors and patterns
of behaviors, and those laws that have come into play,
I think really are a direct result of people talking
more and sharing stories and speaking out about it. So
the more people understand and are educated, the more change
(42:07):
that happens. I guess, you know, in terms of stalking,
though it is already a it's just awareness and attitudes
that need to change.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Aaron Mullin, media commentator, she's also done a lot in
this space.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, again, really similar. So her main focus was trolling,
which has a lot of similarities to stalking because it's
often done online and people, again, they underestimate the impact
of stalking, so I think and trolling as well. And
I think she did an incredible job of talking about
how much it impacted her in the face of a
lot of ridicule and you know, the embarrassment and humiliation
(42:40):
that comes around talking about it, because both stalking and trolling,
it's often very distasteful content and it's not something that
a lot of people feel comfortable talking about.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
So it's like we're getting there with little bits.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
We're getting there, I think, And yeah, I think we're
talking about stalking a lot. I mean, I've seen it
talked about a lot more in the last couple of years,
and particularly in relation to domestic violence.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Cris's restraining order expired in early twenty twenty four. Were
you nervous?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah, I was really nervous because I'd been made aware
of sort of like a little countdown that she'd set
up on social media that wasn't specific, like I wasn't
mentioned or anything like that, but the date was mentioned,
so I was aware that it was coming up, and
that she was aware it was coming up, So I
was conscious of it.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
And when that date did come up, what happened or
what's happened since? Is she contacting you?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
No, she's not contacting me at all. So direct contact
has stopped, and public posts or anything that directly mentioned me,
those things have all stopped. So that's been a really
positive outcome of all of this. There's two elements, I guess,
to my experience, one was just the fear of the
public humiliation that came with it and being constantly harassed
all the time, So that has stopped. But they have
(43:52):
been social media posts and similar things like that that
have let me know that she's still watching what I'm doing.
And I guess the most significant thing that has happened
since then was a post she put out saying that
she was moving to the street that was adjacent to mine,
naming the street online, and that sort of yeah made
me anxious.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Of course, do you think she's moved or was it
a threat?
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I don't know. I don't I have any evidence to
suggest that she has moved into the area. But what
it has caused for me is that, not knowing, she
went as far as posting a photo of a menu
from a local takeaway store, So there's some effort that's
gone into that. So even though it's not public or
it's not direct, I still am aware that there's a
(44:36):
person out there still fixating on this six years later,
and it's a really uncomfortable and seek disconcerted.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Feeling, and like you didn't know this woman. It's just
wild to try and comprehend. Does it make your experience
now that she's still doing it different though, because you are.
When it first happened to you, you were very isolated. You
weren't telling anyone apart from your partner and your mum.
But now you're sitting on a stage talking to people,
You've got a book. When you do stuff like this,
(45:03):
Does it make you nervous that she's gonna kind of
give you a barrage of messages or.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
It's really strange because I've been that a lot, especially
since I wrote the book. This is my experience only
because I'm always very conscious of people's safety, so everybody's
experience is going to be different. And for some people,
speaking publicly about things can be dangerous, and we've unfortunately
seen that sometimes, as we know with domestic violence, where
people leave their relationships, it's the most dangerous time. But
(45:31):
at the same time, that doesn't mean we encourage people
to stay either. So it's complicated. But in my case,
since I stopped being silent and alone, it's reduced things
for me and it's empowered me a lot as well.
And I think I've been contacted by dozens and dozens
of people who have had similar experiences, and they report
(45:52):
feeling so much better having read about someone else's experience,
but they're also giving that same validation to me. And
I've been fortunate enough to have that many people validate
how I feel. And I think there is a strength
in numbers, and when we're all talking about things publicly,
that takes away the power of perpetrators who thrive off
(46:13):
fear and silence.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
What would your advice be if there was anyone in
this audience that is at the early stages and they
think they might be getting stalked, what would you say
to them to try and nip this in the bud early.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, two really important things. The first thing is to
record absolutely everything from the moment you feel uncomfortable, because
I think importantly nobody can predict that something is going
to evolve into stalking. Someone might just send you four
or five nasty messages and you never hear from them again.
But it's critical to record from the second that you
(46:46):
feel uncomfortable. If you never have to use them, then
it doesn't matter. But if it does escalate, you've got
the evidence to say this is a pattern, because that's
the critical part of stalking, a pattern of behavior. The
second thing I would say is to tell somebody, anybody,
whether it's a friend, a family member, a therapist, or
the police, Tell somebody. That's for a couple of reasons.
(47:08):
It will help you, of course anyway, but it's also
for your own safety. If things do escalate or change
or evolve, somebody knows that that person is out there,
and I think secondly to that, when you do tell someone,
chances are they will be dismissive, but then tell somebody else.
If you keep talking and telling someone, someone will eventually
listen to you. And I think that's the main thing
(47:29):
to remember.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
If you'd like to hear more from Nicole, please go
and get her book. It's called Obsession. You can get
it at any good bookstore, or you can listen to
it on Audible. And if you liked this episode, we've
got two hundred episodes that you can go and listen
to on the True Crime Conversation Speed. You can get
it wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you so much
for being here. Thank you so much to Nicole for
(47:51):
being my guest today.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and orders.
This podcast was recorded on Hello, It's your host Jemma
Bath jumping into your ears to tell you why this
episode of True Crime Conversations sounds a little bit different.
It's because we recorded it live at south By Southwest
(00:36):
Sydney in October. I was joined by journalist and author
Nicole Madigan to talk about her book obsession and her
experience of being stalked by her partner's ex girlfriend. I
interviewed Nicole in front of a live audience and we
had a great conversation that I didn't want you to
miss out on hearing, which is why we're releasing it
for you to listen to today now. If you've heard
(00:57):
Nicole's story before, it's because we did release an episode
with her last year where Emma Gillespie talked to Nicole
about the phenomenon of stalking. This episode dives much deeper
into da Coole's own experience and the newest developments in
her life, especially since her restraining order against her stalker
lifted and the messages started back up, albeit much more sneakily.
(01:20):
Let us know what you think of the conversation here
it is Hello everyone, I'm Jeremy Bath, host of True
Crime Conversations, a Muma Mia podcast exploring the world's most
notorious crimes by speaking to the people who know the
most about them. True crime is big business. According to
(01:42):
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(02:05):
women's media group and it's ultimately our goal to make
the world a better place for women and girls. Yes,
so how do we do that while talking about crime
on a podcast, you might ask, Well, true crime is
traditionally a very male dominated genre, one where women's stories
can often be sensationalized and sometimes even laced with subtle misogyny.
(02:25):
We make sure that women's voices are heard within their
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at Mamma Mia interview everyone from detectives to victims to perpetrators, authors, podcasters,
(02:48):
and journalists about the biggest crimes of our generation. And
we have a very special live episode to share with
you today. Nicole Madigan is an author and journalist. She's
also a colleague of mine at Mamma MAA. Nicole is
also a victim survivor of stalking, and if that's a
topic that is triggering for you, consider this your warning.
(03:09):
Nicole's story starf in twenty eighteen and it remains ongoing.
Her experience is eye opening, and she's able to articulate
the nuances of a crime that for so long have
been misunderstood and underestimated in our country. Before we get
to Nicole, as we always do on true crime conversations,
allow me to set the scene. It's weirder when the
(03:31):
guest is sitting with me. It's a stinking hot day
in Brisbane in February twenty eighteen, and Nicole arrives at
her inner city apartment with her son Ben they're meeting
a group of his footy mates and their parents for
an off season sausage sizzle and some cricket, and Nicole
is looking forward to escaping from her own thoughts with
(03:52):
some small talk. She's currently in the final stages of
leaving a twelve year marriage and starting a new life
with her three young kids. It's messy and sad and strained.
The day unfolds without a hitch until a woman who's
been sitting off to the side asks are you taking
photos aout him? As she walks back past Adam, being
another dad at the gathering. The interaction is fleeting and
(04:16):
a bit weird taking photos of Ben, she replies, but
the woman is already walking away. Later that night, she
gets a Facebook message from a woman named Carissa Owens. Hi, Sorry,
totally didn't mean anything by my comment. I thought you
were taking photos for the footy page and I wanted
you to take one of Adam getting bowled out by
the kids.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Ha ha.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Anyway, really wanted to chat to you today. Weird but okay,
Nicole replies politely and moves on. But a week later
she gets another message, then another, and another and another.
This is the start of five years of pain and
harassment from a woman who would eventually be charged with stalking,
(04:58):
and Nicole joins us. Now, Nicole, that was the first
message you got from Carissa at nine o'clock at night
after a day at the footy. What happened next?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, So after that night, I didn't give it a
lot of thought, to be honest, And about a week later,
I was at the shopping center, just minding my own business,
and I got another text, a Facebook message, i should say,
from the same person, asking if I was married. And
at that point, privately, I was going through a separation
that had happened, but I hadn't told anyone about it,
so I didn't want to talk about it to anyone,
(05:29):
let alone a strange stranger. Yeah, so I just kind
of put it off and said, oh, why is that?
And she said I was just wondering, and I let
it go. And then a couple of days later, I
got another message to the same effect and I answered
it in a similar kind of a way. And this
happened two or three more times, and I mentioned it
to my mum at one point and she said, why
don't you just tell you that guy from the foot
(05:50):
eag you're telling him that this woman is kind of
sending you these messages, and because I had enough on
my plate at that point, so that's what I did.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
So you reached out to Adam, who you didn't really know, No,
not very well.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
We'd seen each other. He was a coach at the
football club, so we had met and spoken briefly, but
not in any kind of particularly friendly way.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
And what was his reaction to you kind of telling
him you'd been get these weird messages?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, I sent it in a message as well. I
didn't call him or anything like that, and he reacted
sort of, I guess as you would expect, kind of
sounded embarrassed, apologized, but I suppose he didn't sound as
surprised or shocked as you might expect. So I just
kind of thought, you know, poor guy, this is embarrassing,
but at least he knows and hopefully I won't get
any more messages.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Did he give you any context as to how we
knew her?
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Not at that time. I mean, it's my impression was
that it was his girlfriend, but he had sort of
said this kind of behavior is why she's not in
my life anymore and left it at that, and I
didn't pry because I didn't really know him at that point.
So Carrissa's message has kind of died off, and in
the meantime you got chatting to Adam. Yeah. I guess
it was one of those things that just kind of
happened organically. A few weeks after that, he sent me
(06:55):
a message to check in and say, have you received
any more of those messages? You know, and apologize again?
And I hadn't, of course, which is what I said,
And we just sort of slowly developed a bit of
a back and forth in messaging which went over several
weeks and months and developed from there and.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Spoiler alone fell in love.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
M hm, we did. Yep.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
So we skipped forward a year and you hadn't heard
from Carrisa in this time, and it's AFL grand final day.
You remember that day very specifically, Yeah, September twenty eighteen.
What happened? What changed? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I remember the day really well because, as I mentioned,
I had gone through a sort of ugly separation, which
most separations are not pleasant, so it was difficult, and
had really fallen into a nice, easy relationship with Adam
and the kids, and we just started mixing the kids
and things like that. So this was our first kind
of event that we were hosting together.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
So you had three, he had two, yeah, one big, Yeah,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
And we had other family members. My parents were there,
and we had friends and things like that. So it
was a really kind of poignant special moment for me.
So I remember it well. And at the end of
that night, we were excited, you know, like and posted
a couple of photos on Facebook and things like that.
And late into that night, as we were doing the
dishes and getting the kids to bed, I got this
(08:12):
message request that was a really kind of vulgar and
expletely written message, and sort of that's where everything started
to go wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
How regular did the messages become, because I mean I
read out one of those messages at the start it
was very vanilla, I guess, But these messages that you
got a year later were anything. But I'll read one
of the more tasteful ones out to you. He's using
you to make me jealous. He still asks about me
and my children. You sleep on my side of the bed.
(08:42):
Ask him if he still has the pillow I bought
for him. He always said he hates blondes. Assuming you
were blonde at the time. So this and the ones
above are the kinds of messages you were getting how regularly.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, So that particular night I got a lot quite
in a flurry, and Adam got a lot as well,
And as you see, they were quite vulgar and ugly,
so they were more at that stage. It was just
an emotional response that I had. It was quite confronting
and I hadn't dealt with anything like that before. And
making that night more sort of concerning, I suppose, was
about an hour or two after I got those messages,
(09:15):
I received a text message from my ex husband just saying,
Carissa says, Hi. That was just a really horrible feeling
because in that moment, all in one sort of night,
I'd realized that this person was coming for me, and
she'd also somehow contacted my ex husband. From that point on,
the messages came really regularly, so most days I would
(09:36):
get them. Sometimes a few days would go by where
there was a break and then they would start again,
but they were always in a flurry, so that ding ding,
ding ding that would come in in a cluster.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I think all of us obviously not in this same scenario,
but know the fear of the ding if you don't
want a ding. But how did it make you feel
when it's starting to come every single day and we're
talking weeks, months, We're going to eventually start talking years.
But in their start, when you weren't used to this
and you started getting these dings at all hours of
the day, how did it start to affect you?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, So that feeling with the dings changed obviously as
time went on, because the motivation behind those messages was
becoming more concerning. But in those early days, I wasn't
thinking stalking or anything like that. I was just found
it all really confronting. It was really ugly and just confronting,
so it upset me. I never knew when it was coming.
(10:29):
They were really offensive, and I was starting to become,
you know, scared about what the motivation was because obviously
there was sort of thinly veiled underlining threats there all
the time too, that she was wanting to ruin my
life essentially.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So what did you know about her at this point?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Well, not a lot, only what I'd spoken to Adam about.
So he had told me that he had dated her
and how things ended, and that was pretty much it,
you know, I didn't know anything else about her. I
had never met her or anything, and.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Knew she was a mum, she had two kids, she
lived in the same city reasonably, Yeah, but beyond that,
she was a stranger.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
She was just a stranger to me.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
You said that she started contacting your ex she also
started contacting your mum.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, so i'd gathered that she'd contacted my ex husband,
and then a few probably about six or so weeks
into this year, my mum called and said she had
got a message request from this person as well. My
mum and I are really close, so the content of
the messages wasn't going to affect my relationship with my mum,
But the intention behind that message was what I found
(11:31):
frightening because it was full of lies. She sort of
concocted a confrontation between us and a conversation and a
little story there. So my fear at that point was
if this happens to know a work colleague or you know,
a client or something like that, that it could start
to cause some damage.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
When did you first decide to involve police.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
It was quite a while in. I think it had
been going on maybe sort of eight or so month.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's a long time.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, it is a long time, but it was just
calling the police wasn't something that occurred to me. My
mom had suggested it. She's a more cautious person that
at that point, I was just sort of putting my
foot down and saying, I just don't want to feed
this or give it attention. I just didn't respond to
anything and I didn't do anything. Essentially, the moment when
I thought we should do something about it was when
(12:17):
I received some messages where it had become evident that
she'd created a profile in my name, a fake profile,
and send herself some messages from me, and then send
all of those screenshots to Adam and told him that
she'd be sending them around to my work associates and
family and friends and things like that. So, to me,
it had turned a little bit of a corner with impersonation,
(12:37):
and I thought, now is the time to involve police.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So you didn't call the police station. You involved a
cop that was a mate. So what did they suggest?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Yeah, So he said that often in cases like this,
and this is very similar to the early stages of
domestic violence cases, his advice was, if you make an
official complaint that you can't prove it could inflame the
situation and make the person angrier and make things worse,
so which is part of the problem with the way
(13:08):
these sorts of issues are handled. You're essentially left to
deal with it on your own. He did suggest, though,
writing an email or contacting her in some way to
warn her that we will take it further if the contact.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Persists, which we did do and what happened.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So we drew up the email and sent it to
her and then nothing. We were really excited. We were like,
this is all we had to do. We just had
to speak up, and it's worked and it's done. And
for about four or five months it was total silence.
But after that time, yeah, things started again, but in
a quite a different way.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And how was that.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, So what initially alerted me to her existence again
was my son had been on a weekend with his
father and he came home and said to me, oh,
Dad was talking to Carissa. And unfortunately my ex husband
had told the children about this person. It was just
part of that ugliness of the time. And I said, oh, okay,
(14:04):
and he said I heard him say, like, have you
done the thing yet? And I didn't hear the answer,
and I said, oh, well, don't worry about it. I
didn't want to talk to him about it, but it
was sort of in my mind, in the head. And
then a couple of days later, I got a text
message from an unknown number which was basically more of
the same. They were sort of claiming to be someone else.
(14:24):
They gave themselves a different name, but said all of
the same sorts of things, the same sort of insults
towards me and also Adam.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So it was Carissa, but instead of Facebook, she's gone
to text.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah yeah, with an unknown number and saying that they
was somebody else. But then I got several different numbers
texting me with all of the same sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Eventually, she also evolved to Instagram. Tell us about that evolution,
because before that it was all quite private. You know,
it's in your private text messages, in your private Facebook messages,
and suddenly it's on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, that's right, I guess. I remember that moment really
well because we were getting ready to move house because
we bought our first house together, so we were quite
excited and we were packing up my old house and
it was while I was doing that I got an
Instagram notification, and at that point, those notifications weren't giving
me that horrible feeling of dread, because this was something
that seemed completely separate to her world from my understanding.
(15:20):
But she had tagged me in a post and it's
really difficult to describe because it sounds so almost juvenile,
but it was just a really insulting, kind of ugly
post using my name and just kind of I guess,
putting down my physical appearance and a few other things
like that. And that's when I thought, oh my gosh,
she's going public with this, and I ran out to
(15:41):
tell Adam and it stayed public from that moment on.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
So she just kind of moved straight to Instagram, yes,
and her page kind of became just a target at you.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
It literally became just a series of posts about me.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I know that you said you didn't know much about
this woman, but obviously this far in, we're like a
year in. At this point, you did start doing a
little bit more digging. What did you find on the
internet about her?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
It was kind of difficult because when I put her
name in, nothing much came up. She didn't have much
there at all. I knew how she worked and that
was about it. But at one point I was just
sitting there, just feeling sort of lost about all of this,
and I put in her phone number. I had seen
it in Adam's block numbers, so I'd put it in.
I don't know if they still have these, but they
at that point in time, they had these websites that
(16:31):
warned you about spam numbers and things like that, where
people sort of put in, oh, don't answer this number
because it's a spam caller or whatever. Anyway, her phone
number had come up, and there were several warnings from
people saying that this is Carissa. I'd met her on
Plenty of Fish or another dating site, and stay away
because once she laures onto you, she starts to stalk
(16:52):
and harass you. And she's been kicked off several times.
So at that point, I'm thinking, Okay, so she's done
this before. And I sort of felt mixed feelings about that,
a little sort of relieved that it wasn't just me,
but also a bit alarmed that what does this mean
she had a history.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Yeah, I want to articulate, because, like you were saying,
it's kind of hard to explain how much this can
permeate into your life, but she was interrupting really special
(17:30):
moments between you and your kids and your step kids
and your partner, who it was.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
A pretty fresh relationship. How much did this affect your
relationship and your kids and the world you were creating.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Well, it affected me internally quite a lot. I tried
to shield the people around me from how much it
was impacting me, and that was for a couple of reasons.
One was I didn't want it to impact my relationship.
On principle, I didn't want to be doing what she
wanted me to do, which was fall apart. It's sort
of a strange feeling because you feel like, on the
one hand, I'm overreacting. I'm thinking about this all the time,
(18:04):
and if you tell someone them, I think you're just
getting some text messages and some you know, ignore it.
But on the other hand, you know you can be
underreacting too because you just don't know how far someone
is going to go. And as someone who works in
that domestic violence space, you know, I am really aware
of how things can develop and escalate over time. And so, yeah,
(18:25):
it was affecting me quite a lot, but from a
lot of different perspectives. I guess there's that personal aspect
of this is emotionally draining, and it's also insulting and cruel,
But I think the bigger problem is the fixation that
someone has on you for such a long period of time,
and the effort they're putting in and the intent behind
those actions is the most alarming part, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Of course, Well, you ended up contacting the police again
about a year and a half in so December twenty nineteen,
timeline wise, What made you do that? What made you
reach out again and try and get help.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
So the second time we call police was after I
got those text messages, And the reason I did that
was because my understanding at that point was because of
the way the world had gone with terrorism and changes
to laws and things like that, was that you can't
get SIM cards anymore without putting your details in. That
was my understanding, So I assumed that if I told
(19:20):
police what had happened and a little bit about the history,
it would be easy for them to track down these
sims and who owned those sims and then maybe go
and have a talk to her. Yeah, that was my
assumption at the time, But that's not the response that I.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Got Well, they were pretty dismissive, weren't they.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Yeah, I mean it was. I don't think he was
intentionally trying to be condescending, but that's how I felt.
And I think especially when you're dealing with a female
victim and a female perpetrator, it can have that sensationalist
tone to it. And when you're talking to someone and
you can see that dismissive response, it makes you withdraw
as well, so you end up underselling or minimizing what
(20:00):
you're going through anyway, So the end result is kind
of disastrous. But yeah, he basically said that sort of
famous line, keep a diary and if you're in danger
culture below, which.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
You were already doing, you kept every single message.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
I kept everything, and in the end that's what saved me.
But yeah, I was keeping everything in it.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Like a year and a half in you've been getting
messages like every day for periods of time, and you
just kind of told deal with it on your own.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah. So after that day, like I was really devastated
after the police left that day because I really felt
like there's nothing I can do. I just have to
put up with this for as long as it goes on.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
And by this point, had she worked out where you lived.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
At that particular point when I called the police that
second time, No, I didn't know anything about what she
knew about me. But ultimately when we moved here, she
did find out those more personal details, and it took
that turn.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
And how did she use those personal details to kind
of increase her almost threats to you?
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, it's important to note that in both the messages
and the Instagram posts and the text, there was always
that underlining threat that something was about to happen, that
she was about to do something bigger, or was about
to reveal something else or involve someone else. So I
was always quite on edge as to what was going
to happen next, and sometimes something did and sometimes it didn't.
(21:16):
But it effectively makes you feel like that person is
there all the time and everywhere, and you're just waiting
all the time to find out what's going to happen.
But to answer your question about that personal information, that
sort of happened over time towards the last six months
of the stalking, So it really escalated on Instagram and
she started posting really personal information like my address online
(21:38):
and details about my upcoming wedding and also a couple
of places that we've been, so it had become really
scary at that point.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Well, you became engaged in twenty twenty. Did you post
that online? How did she find out about it and
how did she react?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Well? Yeah, we did post it alone, as people do.
She reacted to it with the flurry of posts. I
want to say that it didn't make it any worse
or any less severe. And I think it's really important
when talking about this kind of crime, is that a
lot of times people think they've triggered a reaction in
a store or in a same applies to domestic violence,
(22:12):
where if only I hadn't have done that, or if
only I hadn't have said that, I've learned through research
and experience it you don't control that person's behavior, and really,
if that didn't trigger something, something else would have. So
I think in her case, she just continued on.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
You ended up connecting with another one of Carrissa's victims.
Tell us about how that evolved.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Yeah. So I was sitting on my couch doing some
work and I got an Instagram message request and I
was kind of used to at that point getting those
message requests, and my heart sinking and thinking, oh, you
know what now, because that had happened quite a lot.
You know, she would often message me under her own name,
but also under a series of other names as well.
(22:51):
But when I read this message, yeah, this woman had
said that she was a relative of Carissa's and that
she had experienced a similar thing. She had identified me
through her own detective work. I guess in the way
that Carissa was posting about me and wanted to reach
out basically to say, you know, I know how you feel,
and I support what you're going through. And at that time,
(23:14):
initially I was a little bit suspicious, like I wasn't
sure if it was actually Carissa contacting me, you know,
to get me to kind of lower my guard. But
I investigated that and it was clearly a specific person
and so I responded to that message, and she ended
up being a real lifeline for me. It was incredibly
validating to have someone say, you know, I went through this,
and I'm terrified, and I was really scared, and you
(23:37):
could sense that fear in her even reaching out to me,
and so I was really grateful.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
What was her story, obviously briefly, but what had Carissa
been doing to her?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Same sorts of things, so heavy contact, lots of abusive
messages and threats and things like that. This person believed
that she was responsible for her losing her job, so
she had contacted her workplace. When she was getting married,
she had contacted the wedding venue to cancel that. You know,
things like that just sort of interfering in her life,
and she had sort of caused a lot of estrangements
(24:08):
within the family as well.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Contacted the police again two point five years in So
two and a half years of being stalked by this
woman and you contact police again, this time via a
cybercrime report. How long did it take for them to
actually start taking you seriously?
Speaker 1 (24:24):
It was a long time, but that was a real
turning point. So I sort of got the courage to
do that after speaking to this other victim. It just
validated that something bad was happening and that I should
do something about it. Having those things posted online, particularly
our address and knowing where we were going and things
like that, I knew I couldn't just sit by and
let it happen anymore. As someone with children and a family,
(24:46):
I had to try something else. I think I tried
the cybercrime because that allowed me to put everything in writing.
I mean it was a really writer, yes, And it
was a very long cybercrime report that I put in
so I was able to put things in order and
list some dates and give some tangible examples of what
I was going through. And ultimately that got referred to
(25:07):
my local police station, and I think I was really
fortunate because I got a female police officer who really
listened to me. But look, it probably took several months
before I got that call.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Once you have this great cop on your side, what's
the next step. She has the report, she believes you,
she wants to go after Curissa, but she has to basically.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Get in touch with Carissa. Yeah, then that gets tricky, exactly, Well,
a lot has to happen. So the first step was
the conversation. And I think from my perspective, hearing her
response to what I was telling her, which was she
was alarmed and she was treating me as a victim
of crime, and that sort of gave me the courage
to really explain in detail what was happening. She had
(25:48):
to contact Carrissa, yes, and that took several months also
because she just wouldn't answer calls. And wouldn't respond to
knocks on the door and things like that. So it
was quite frustrating. But at the same time, I was
also asked to gather an extensive kind of dossier of evidence,
and without that we wouldn't have got anywhere.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
She was eventually charged. Yes, how did you find out
about that?
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I got an email basically, so I had put all
of my evidence together in a little file and sent
that to her, and she ultimately did get in touch
with Carissa, and she let me know when she had
got in touch and said that Caissa had said it
was all a big misunderstanding, as expected, I suppose, which
kind of caused me to panic a little bit. I
really didn't think it was going to go any further
(26:33):
than that. But yeah, maybe a month later I got
an email to say that she had been charged with
unlawful stalking.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
When you contact a police for this third time and
they started taking it seriously, was that the first time
the word stalking was used?
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Yes? Yeah, so I personally hadn't attached that word to
what was happening, But it was only when I was
having a conversation with that policewoman and I said, what
are you trying to achieve as you look into this,
and she said, I think that we'll probably charge her
with stalking. And that was when I first realized how
serious it was, what was happening.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
So that was three years in three years, in three
years in Carissa gets charged with stalking. I don't know
if anyone here has been to court, don't recommend, but
that is also a long process.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
The court hearing didn't actually take place for probably another
six months because she was able to continue to adjourn
those initial proceedings.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Was she contacting you in that six months?
Speaker 1 (27:24):
In that six months, No, that was a really and
everything got deleted from her pages and it was a
quiet six months. And that was sort of around the
time I got married.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
And how did court play out? You had to be there.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
I didn't have to be there because it's essentially police
charging her, so I don't have to be there. I
chose to go there. I went there with my mum.
I just wanted to get that sense of closure around it.
But it was kind of really nerve wracking because I
hadn't actually come face to face with her since that
day at the OH.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
That would have been so nerve wracking. Tell us about
the moment she walked in.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Yeah, So it was really strange because it was during COVID,
so we all had masks on, and Mum and I
sat through an entire day of court proceedings and they
were all domestic violence cases and it was just interestingly shocking,
horrible thing to witness in itself. That's the whole other story.
But so she was the last case of that day.
So we've been sitting there all day and she walks
(28:18):
in through the door and literally as she gets to
my feet, stops, must have sort of clocked that I
was there and just stares at me for it felt
like seconds, but it was probably just half a second,
and then walks on and sits down and she didn't
turn back after that.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I didn't feel.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, awful. Yeah, it was a really strange feeling, really
hard to describe.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
This is not the kind of wording that you put
into court.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Like, Yeah, it was just sort of like on this
dodgy piece of paper.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
But going back to the court proceedings where it is
about caruser, she's been charged, she's before a judge, did
she try and give a defense? What was her excuse
to the court.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
It was really awful. Being in court because obviously I'm
sitting there just listening, and her lawyer on her behalf
sort of started to give her version of the story,
which a lot of it was just sort of false
things anyway, So I could feel my heart beating and
there's nothing I can do about it. But she sort
of justified it as she was like hurt person and
was just reacting to that and tried to sort of
(29:15):
just really diminish it. But I was very fortunate that
the judge that was there that day was very dismissive
of her and really supportive of what I had written
in my victim impact statement and ultimately asked me a
couple of questions on the day, which was really nerve wracking,
but it was also really positive in the end because
I was able to articulate things a lot better than
(29:36):
the prosecutor on the day.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Well, the prosecutor hadn't even kind of put forward a
desire or like spoken to you about what.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Nah Don it was like. To be honest, the entire
day of court was a fiarsceco in my opinion, Like
there was including all the cases before mine, all these
domestic violence cases, and I can see why there's such
terrible outcomes for women all the time. But yeah, the prosecutors,
I think the police do all this work and then
they handed it over and it's up to the prosecutor
(30:03):
how much they read and how much they put forward
on the day, and mine put very little, but the
judge was very open to hearing more. Yeah, ultimately, she
was the one that recommended the restraining order.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
So what was the sentence? She got a two year
restraining order.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
She got a two year restraining order and a two
year probation order. So ultimately she pleaded guilty and that
was the sentence that she got.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Were you happy with that?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Well, yes or no? Obviously, when you go through something
like that, I think everyone would hope for a more
serious consequence. But having been sitting there all that day,
the five or six men that went before her who
had breached domestic violence orders in really really serious ways,
and often multiple times, none of those people got jail time,
(30:45):
And the maximum sentence that was given out that day
was a two year probation order. So with that in mind,
I was happy.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
So you probably won't have been expecting that, No, you'll
probably expected Oh no, yeah, yeah, I said to my
mum we are going to be laughed out of this place, like, well,
thank goodness you weren't. No, did it work? Did she
stop contacting you?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Well, she couldn't contact me at all for two years
or post anything about me, or come near my home
or anything like that, and those things were all adhered
to to my knowledge.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
The thing about stalking is that because it goes for
such a prolonged period of time before anything happens, there's
a lot of time to kind of develop almost a language,
a shared language between the two of you, so that
by the end you're able to send messages that no
one else can really decode except you. So the downside
(31:34):
of that is stalkers can learn over time and with
these legal proceedings that happen, how to send their messages
without breaking any laws, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
So she was doing that, yeah, how like with Instagram
posts that weren't tagging you, that were subtle.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, correct, I mean, and they certainly died off for
a really long time. So she closed down all the
social media for a little while. There was an article
that went into the paper after that course.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
About her face.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, there was obviously a journalist in the core room,
nothing to do with me. It was just we saw
it the next day, and yeah, everything shut down and
it went quiet for quite a while. But yeah, over time,
posts did start to come back, and she did find
ways to let me know that she's still there and
aware of what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
You've written a book on your experience, and you didn't
just look at your own experience. You kind of looked
at stalking more broadly across Australia. What did you discover
about it? How common is it? Is it men? Is
it women?
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Yeah, so it's really common. So about twenty five percent
of women will be stalked at some stage in their
life and about one in eight men. I wanted to
research it because I think, you know, I was really intrigued,
I suppose, at the purpose behind it and what motivates
someone to do this for such a long period of time.
In my case, obviously in the beginning, it seemed like
(33:01):
she just wants to break up a relationship. But after
quite a long period of time, when that was sort
of we were well past that stage, she didn't stop
and seemed more intent than ever to try to cause trouble.
But I've just sort of always wondered, like what needs
to happen to me for this to stop? Like what
needs to happen? Like you know, So that's why I
(33:21):
investigated it. But I think, yeah, it's a really really
common crime. And what's also common is that people don't
talk about it. They keep it to themselves.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Well, there are many different types of stalkers and I
want to touch on a few of them. To start
with Carisa, an expert told you after you told your
story that she was what you would call a resentful stalker. Yes,
what does that mean?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yeah, so there are five different typologies and they were
developed by an Australian professor actually, but they're generally considered
worldwide now. So a resentful stalker is someone who's stalking
for the purpose of revenge or retribution. So they feel
angry basically about something, and their goal in their stalking
is to cause damage to that other.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Person and take us through the other four quickly.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
So there's the rejected stalker, which is a really common
found stalking in domestic violence cases. So someone who's been
rejected in some way, whether that be most commonly by
a partner, but it could be by a workplace, they've
been lost their job or something like that. So their
goal in their stalking is to rekindle that relationship, but
that can often then develop into a sort of resentful
(34:30):
response anyway, because if they don't get that reconciliation that
they're after, then they become angry. Another type is what
is known as an incompetent suitor. That's someone who you'd
find stalking a celebrity or someone of a higher status,
and it's more commonly associated with people with mental illnesses
and things like that, because they've sort of conjured up
(34:50):
a relationship in their mind and might feel like the
queen is also in love with them, or sort of
the man who stalked Delta good Room who believed that
they were in.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Some which is a kind of stalking that we would
see a lot of headlines about.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yes, yeah, yeah, that's the kind that people tend to
think of. Then there is one called the intimacy seeker,
and that is basically someone who's met someone and they
want to either sleep with them or start a relationship
with them, and that stalking might be more short term,
so they're just harassing that person and stalking them over
a shorter period of time, and then the final one
is the predatory stalker, which we also see in movies,
(35:22):
which might be a stranger who literally is hiding around
in the bushes and is more likely to ultimately lead
to a physical.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Attack, which probably is not as common, far less common. Yeah, yeah,
and you've kind of alluded to this, but stalking is
a precursor or it exists in pretty much all domestic
violence cases or a lot of domestic violence cases. And
some of the most famous that you might remember in
the audience is Hannah Clark. Hannah Clark, she had stalking
as part of her case. Celeste mannow, which was a
(35:50):
Sydney woman. Yeah, all have stalking as part of their story.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, that's right. And those two cases are really interesting
because in Hannah Clark's case, that was a domestic violence
case and the stalking that had happened with him was
quite prolonged, and she had reported those behaviors, but again
not a lot was done about that, and in domestic
violence murders, stalking is incredibly common. In Celeste's case, she
didn't know this man at all. So it's a really
(36:16):
interesting case to look at for non domestic violence stalking,
which is an element of stalking in Australia in particular,
that's not really looked at, and there are not a
lot of protections or support for people who are stalked
from someone who is not a current or former partner.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
What really shocked me, which I found out in your book,
is that stalking only became ilegal in Australia in nineteen
ninety three.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
I interviewed the expert who developed those five typologies, Paul Mullen,
and he sort of described it as an old behavior
but a new crime.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
An old behavior but a new crime. Well, I guess
the woman who stalked you used technology. So as technology
escalated everything.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
It's changed it and made it easier, and it's enabled
people to be anonymous, I guess, and get away with
a lot more so it's easier. On top of that,
it's enabled people to engage in those behaviors far more frequently.
So during COVID stalking escalated quite dramatically the research. Yeah,
(37:16):
and that's because I guess people have more time on
their hands and they can do it to stalk. Yeah,
they can do it. So because interestingly, like in my
case as well, when you see the text or the
comments or whatever it is, it's however they're communicating, there's
no pattern to it, and it happens at all times
of the day or night, which makes you think, whenever
this person has free time, this is what they're engaging in.
(37:38):
So in times like COVID, if you've got someone who's
developed an obsession of some kind, there's all this time
for that obsession to mushroom and grow and expand, and
technology allows us to do that at any time of day.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
You have interviewed dozens, probably hundreds to nearly of victim
survivors who have all had different stories within those five categories.
How many of those have actually seen convictions very few.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
It's very difficult to get a conviction for a number
of reasons. So stalking is illegal, it is a crime,
and you're not allowed to do it, but it's really
difficult to prove, and there's not a lot of understanding
about what it is and the nuances around it within
the community or within the police force as well, because
and this again I'm sort of paraphrasing what the experts
(38:29):
have told me here, but when it comes to police,
you know, they're sort of used to dealing with crimes
that have happened, whereas stalking is a crime that's ongoing,
and it's made up of a series of often legal
behaviors that in isolation, aren't particularly alarming. So if you
go in to report unwanted flowers at your door, for example,
(38:51):
you'll probably get told make a note of things, keep
a diary, and all of that. So if you go
ahead and do that and then you go back to
the police station and it's a different police officer, you're
going to get the same kind of response. So without
that education and guidance, there's really not a lot of
support for those victims. All about documentation, It's very much
(39:12):
about documentation. I think attitudes also play into this as well,
because all the research shows that generally society of vieuse
stalking as something that's either not very serious, possibly a
bit romantic, and often victims are to blame in some
way because of their behavior or what they are or
aren't doing. So with all of that, it just makes
(39:34):
for a really difficult situation.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
Who's watched Baby Reindeer on Netflix? Yeah, the Whole Room.
It was the top grossing on Netflix for a reason.
If you forget what it was about. It was the
true story of a barman slash comedian who was stalked
by a patron, and you've described that show as a
masterclass in stalking. Expand on that. Because there's so much
(39:57):
content out there, often the predatory stalking is on screen,
why were you so impressed by this depiction.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yeah, I've watched a lot of movies about stalking, and
that I mean that everyone likes to watch them. They're
interesting to watch, and there's always a real sameness about
them when there's either a really scary male stalker or
a you know, really unhinged female stalker who ultimately they
end up getting physically violent at the end. When I
saw the first opening scene of Baby Reindeer where he
(40:24):
goes into the police station, he's sort of embarrassed and
he's got that sort of coy look on his face.
Then he shows a message and it says something like
I ate an egg, and the police officers looking at
him like what are you doing here and why did
you wait so long to come in? So as soon
as I saw that opening scene, I'm like, this is
a realistic depiction of stalking. His face, the police reaction,
(40:46):
the whole thing, and I think the way that played
out where he was so honest with his mixed emotions.
So until you know someone's stalking you, you don't know
they're going to stalk you. So it may take weeks,
it could take months, It could take years before you
suddenly go, I'm scared now. It just depends on the situation.
So I think he articulated that really well.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
And I mean we showed the text messages at the start.
You could see that they were so similar to the
kind of wording and like lower case, and like the strangeness, just.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
The strangeness of it, and being able to send a
message without sending a message. The longer it goes on.
In his case, after six months, she might write, you
know something that seems innocuous to somebody else, but he
knows what it means.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I want to give some positive things that have happened
in the world of stalking, because we've done a lot
of negativity. Coercive control laws they've recently passed in Queensland,
how are they going to help this kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
There's a lot of similarities between coercive control and stalking,
and I think the biggest similarity is the fact that
it's a series of behaviors, often legal behaviors and patterns
of behaviors, and those laws that have come into play,
I think really are a direct result of people talking
more and sharing stories and speaking out about it. So
the more people understand and are educated, the more change
(42:07):
that happens. I guess, you know, in terms of stalking,
though it is already a it's just awareness and attitudes
that need to change.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Aaron Mullin, media commentator, she's also done a lot in
this space.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, again, really similar. So her main focus was trolling,
which has a lot of similarities to stalking because it's
often done online and people, again, they underestimate the impact
of stalking, so I think and trolling as well. And
I think she did an incredible job of talking about
how much it impacted her in the face of a
lot of ridicule and you know, the embarrassment and humiliation
(42:40):
that comes around talking about it, because both stalking and trolling,
it's often very distasteful content and it's not something that
a lot of people feel comfortable talking about.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
So it's like we're getting there with little bits.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
We're getting there, I think, And yeah, I think we're
talking about stalking a lot. I mean, I've seen it
talked about a lot more in the last couple of years,
and particularly in relation to domestic violence.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Cris's restraining order expired in early twenty twenty four. Were
you nervous?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah, I was really nervous because I'd been made aware
of sort of like a little countdown that she'd set
up on social media that wasn't specific, like I wasn't
mentioned or anything like that, but the date was mentioned,
so I was aware that it was coming up, and
that she was aware it was coming up, So I
was conscious of it.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
And when that date did come up, what happened or
what's happened since? Is she contacting you?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
No, she's not contacting me at all. So direct contact
has stopped, and public posts or anything that directly mentioned me,
those things have all stopped. So that's been a really
positive outcome of all of this. There's two elements, I guess,
to my experience, one was just the fear of the
public humiliation that came with it and being constantly harassed
all the time, So that has stopped. But they have
(43:52):
been social media posts and similar things like that that
have let me know that she's still watching what I'm doing.
And I guess the most significant thing that has happened
since then was a post she put out saying that
she was moving to the street that was adjacent to mine,
naming the street online, and that sort of yeah made
me anxious.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Of course, do you think she's moved or was it
a threat?
Speaker 1 (44:14):
I don't know. I don't I have any evidence to
suggest that she has moved into the area. But what
it has caused for me is that, not knowing, she
went as far as posting a photo of a menu
from a local takeaway store, So there's some effort that's
gone into that. So even though it's not public or
it's not direct, I still am aware that there's a
(44:36):
person out there still fixating on this six years later,
and it's a really uncomfortable and seek disconcerted.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Feeling, and like you didn't know this woman. It's just
wild to try and comprehend. Does it make your experience
now that she's still doing it different though, because you are.
When it first happened to you, you were very isolated. You
weren't telling anyone apart from your partner and your mum.
But now you're sitting on a stage talking to people,
You've got a book. When you do stuff like this,
(45:03):
Does it make you nervous that she's gonna kind of
give you a barrage of messages or.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
It's really strange because I've been that a lot, especially
since I wrote the book. This is my experience only
because I'm always very conscious of people's safety, so everybody's
experience is going to be different. And for some people,
speaking publicly about things can be dangerous, and we've unfortunately
seen that sometimes, as we know with domestic violence, where
people leave their relationships, it's the most dangerous time. But
(45:31):
at the same time, that doesn't mean we encourage people
to stay either. So it's complicated. But in my case,
since I stopped being silent and alone, it's reduced things
for me and it's empowered me a lot as well.
And I think I've been contacted by dozens and dozens
of people who have had similar experiences, and they report
(45:52):
feeling so much better having read about someone else's experience,
but they're also giving that same validation to me. And
I've been fortunate enough to have that many people validate
how I feel. And I think there is a strength
in numbers, and when we're all talking about things publicly,
that takes away the power of perpetrators who thrive off
(46:13):
fear and silence.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
What would your advice be if there was anyone in
this audience that is at the early stages and they
think they might be getting stalked, what would you say
to them to try and nip this in the bud early.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, two really important things. The first thing is to
record absolutely everything from the moment you feel uncomfortable, because
I think importantly nobody can predict that something is going
to evolve into stalking. Someone might just send you four
or five nasty messages and you never hear from them again.
But it's critical to record from the second that you
(46:46):
feel uncomfortable. If you never have to use them, then
it doesn't matter. But if it does escalate, you've got
the evidence to say this is a pattern, because that's
the critical part of stalking, a pattern of behavior. The
second thing I would say is to tell somebody, anybody,
whether it's a friend, a family member, a therapist, or
the police, Tell somebody. That's for a couple of reasons.
(47:08):
It will help you, of course anyway, but it's also
for your own safety. If things do escalate or change
or evolve, somebody knows that that person is out there,
and I think secondly to that, when you do tell someone,
chances are they will be dismissive, but then tell somebody else.
If you keep talking and telling someone, someone will eventually
listen to you. And I think that's the main thing
(47:29):
to remember.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
If you'd like to hear more from Nicole, please go
and get her book. It's called Obsession. You can get
it at any good bookstore, or you can listen to
it on Audible. And if you liked this episode, we've
got two hundred episodes that you can go and listen
to on the True Crime Conversation Speed. You can get
it wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you so much
for being here. Thank you so much to Nicole for
(47:51):
being my guest today.
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