January 20, 2025 • 47 mins
Every January, we're reminded of the chilling reality of stalking and its devastating repercussions. This month, we echo the courage of Debbie Riddle, who transformed her grief into advocacy after the murder of her sister Peggy by a stalker. Together with Jennifer Landhuis from the Stalking Prevention Awareness and Resource Center (SPARC), we tackle the difficult nuances of stalking, from the subtle signs to the overt, with a critical eye on how law enforcement and the public acknowledge and respond to such danger. Their insights expose the gaps in our system and ignite a vital discussion on the need for consistent intervention against this crime.
The narrative of Peggy's ordeal is both heartbreaking and a powerful catalyst for change. Debbie's relentless pursuit to raise stalking awareness has not only memorialized her sister but has also pioneered educational reforms. We reflect on the systemic failures that had dire consequences and highlight the importance of initiatives like Stalking Awareness Month. By examining Debbie's journey and Jennifer's expertise, the episode underlines the crucial role of education and the immediate need for law enforcement to develop a deeper understanding and more effective protocols when facing stalking cases.
As we wrap up this intense episode, we underscore the importance of community response and SPARC's role in providing resources to better address stalking cases. We delve into the trainings offered to criminal justice agencies, the alarming prevalence of stalking, and the available support systems on college campuses. This session is not just a tribute to Peggy but a call to action for everyone to participate in the national day of action against stalking, to bring awareness and to restore a sense of safety for those affected.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following episode was previously aired in 2024,
but it is a story we can nevershare enough because it
profoundly exemplifies thedevastating consequences that
ensue when stalking victims arenot believed, listened to or
supported.
This is the story of PeggyKlinke and the movement inspired
by her tragic death.
The subject matter of thispodcast will address difficult
(00:23):
topics multiple forms ofviolence and identity-based
discrimination and harassment.
We acknowledge that thiscontent may be difficult and
have listed specific contentwarnings in each episode
description to help create apositive, safe experience for
all listeners.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
In this country, 31 million crimes 31 million crimes
are reported every year.
That is one every second.
Out of that, every 24 minutesthere is a murder.
Every five minutes there is arape.
Every two to five minutes thereis a sexual assault.
Every nine seconds in thiscountry, a woman is assaulted by
someone who told her that heloved her, by someone who told
(01:03):
her it was her fault, by someonewho tries to tell the rest of
us it's none of our business andI am proud to stand here today
with each of you to call thatperpetrator a liar.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women.
I'm Maria McMullin.
Many people tend to minimizethe grave dangers of stalking,
due in large part to lack ofknowledge or the pervasiveness
of myths and misconceptionssurrounding the subject.
There was a time when stalkingwas viewed from narrow
perspectives, such as aperpetrator hiding behind a bush
(01:34):
or tailing someone in their car, and was never considered a
form of domestic abuse.
But times have changed andstudies reveal that stalking can
be just as abusive as otherforms of abuse and as such, is
considered a serious crime.
And while stalking isexperienced by both men and
women, statistics show thatwomen are disproportionately
(01:56):
stalked by men, especially whenit occurs in the context of an
intimate partner relationship.
Moreover, with theinnovativeness of technology,
both stalking and the stalkerhave become much more
sophisticated, and stalking hasnow taken on many treacherous
and terrorizing forms.
Unfortunately, the danger canbe so great that, for some women
(02:17):
, the crime has led the stalkerto murdering their victim.
This episode will talk aboutsuch a case that prompted the
loving sister of a woman stalkedand murdered by her
ex-boyfriend to initiate majorchange on a massive scale by
bringing about nationalawareness to the overlooked
issue of stalking.
In January of 2003, debbieRiddle's youngest sister, peggy,
(02:40):
was murdered by a man whostalked her for almost a year.
Shortly after Peggy's death,debbie began working with the
National Center for Victims ofCrime and the Stalking Resource
Center.
In July 2003, debbie was askedto speak at a congressional
briefing requesting US Congressto recognize January, the month
Peggy was murdered, as StalkingAwareness Month.
(03:01):
After educating herself onstalking, the laws and police
protocol, debbie became heavilyinvolved in educating others and
raising awareness as a nationalspeaker for the Stalking
Resource Center.
While working with them andLifetime Television, debbie
helped create the Roll Callvideo, an 18-minute stalking
awareness training videoproduced primarily for use with
(03:23):
law enforcement training.
Today, the video is utilizedacross the United States to
train all divisions of ourcriminal justice system, as well
as forensic nurses, victims,advocates and college women's
centers and their staff.
Today, debbie continues tospeak at training sessions,
webinars, college campustrainings, high school and youth
(03:44):
groups throughout the UnitedStates.
Jennifer Landhuis brings over 26years of experience as an
educator and advocate on theissues of stalking, domestic
violence and sexual assault toher current position as the
Director of the StalkingPrevention Awareness and
Resource Center, otherwise knownas SPARC.
As Director, she oversees thedevelopment and implementation
(04:05):
of multifaceted resources,programs and publications on
stalking, collaborates withnational partners and provides
robust trainings to criminaljustice and victim service
professionals.
Jennifer has led the SPARCinitiative since its founding at
Equitas in 2017.
Debbie and Jennifer welcome tothe podcast.
Good morning.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Good morning.
So great to be here.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Thank you both for being here and Debbie.
I want to start with you,because 2024 marks the 20th year
for Stalking Awareness Month,an initiative that you started
as a result of your sister,peggy's murder.
Tell us what happened to Peggy.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Sure.
So Peggy is my youngest sisterand she had moved out to
Albuquerque, new Mexico, fromOhio, where our family is based,
and she actually met herstalker on a college campus and
they were in a relationship fromthe fall of 98 till about, I
(05:04):
would say, january of 2002.
It was a relationship that wasfilled with psychological and
emotional abuse.
There was an awful lot of redflags during that relationship.
Peggy had a very hard timeleaving that relationship solely
for the reason that she wasvery afraid of what was going to
(05:26):
happen to her should she leave.
So the day she left, which wasin January of 2002, she became a
stalking victim and herelentlessly pursued her for a
full year under the watchful eyeof our criminal justice system
and he started, I guess, which Iwould call very basic stalking
(05:50):
techniques.
You know he was calling heraround the clock, he was texting
her cell phone.
You know she began datingsomeone shortly after their
relationship broke up and hefound out who he was and he
began stalking him.
Broke up and he found out whohe was and he began stalking him
.
He followed Peggy to work, toher yoga studio, to her hair
(06:15):
salon, did an awful lot ofsurveillance.
Peggy wasn't giving himanything, she wasn't encouraging
any conversation with him, shewas completely ignoring him.
So he offered up a weddingproposal one morning when she
was walking into work and hejumped out from behind some
bushes and he had a wedding ringand some roses and said I love
you, would you marry me?
And Peggy walked by him,completely ignored him, and this
(06:39):
seemed to absolutely fuel thefire.
He became, you know, very upset, very angry, and he took a
photo of Peggy and he put it onan eight and a half by 11 piece
of paper and he wrote her nameon it, he put her cell phone
number on it and just all sortsof obscenities.
(07:00):
You know, I'm a slut, I'm awhore, I'd love to sleep with
you, please call me.
And he posted those flyers allthroughout the city of
Albuquerque, new Mexico,specifically in spots where he
knew Peggy would see them.
And sure enough, the followingday Peggy walked into her yoga
studio and one of theinstructors said I hate to be
(07:22):
the one to tell you this, butthis was taped to our door when
we walked in this morning.
So for Peggy, this was probablythe first piece of concrete
evidence I guess she had anddecided to go to the police and
she went with her cell phonerecords her cell phone and a
piece of paper and talked to thepolice and she was told you
(07:44):
know, there's nothing we canreally do about it, it's a piece
of paper.
And talked to the police andshe was told you know, there's
nothing we can really do aboutit, it's a piece of paper.
You know, please come back tous when something happens.
And you know he, because therewas no, you know, law
enforcement intervention at thispoint, he was free to continue
to harass her.
He knew our family, he knew thedynamics of our family, he knew
(08:04):
that we were going to be inFlorida for my brother's wedding
and while we were all inFlorida, he flew from
Albuquerque to Ohio and spraypainted PK as a whore on my
mother's garage door.
He went back to Albuquerque andthe man that Peggy was dating at
the time, mark he went andopened up a gas line on Mark's
(08:26):
house and torched the back ofMark's home and, like I said, we
were all in Florida for thiswedding and Mark had calls from
Albuquerque police, albuquerquefire, from his mother, from his
neighbor, and Peggy knewinstantly that this was Patrick
and Peggy knew instantly thatthis was Patrick.
And so Peggy and Mark went backto Albuquerque and Peggy
(08:50):
pleaded with these officerssaying I know you're
investigating arson, but thereason why there's arson is
because I have a stalker.
And she worked harder at tryingto prove that this was Patrick,
looking at footprints in themud and saying you know, these
are hiking boots that I boughthim.
Please go to his house and findthese boots.
(09:11):
And she was shut down,continuously saying you know,
saying, ma'am, this isn't anarson, we're investigating.
And you know, like I said,peggy kept coming back saying
there is an arson because I havea stalker, there is an arson
because I have a stalker.
This prompted Peggy to file toget an attorney to file stalking
charges, to file an order ofprotection.
(09:31):
When she filed an order ofprotection, patrick went in and
filed an order of protectionagainst her.
So while they are waiting forthis court date, peggy and Mark
feel that it's best to get herout of Albuquerque because he is
going to continue to stalk herrelentlessly.
He knows where she lives, heknows where Mark lives.
(09:52):
So they took Peggy and movedher from Albuquerque out to
Turlock, california.
And you know we're waiting forthis trial to happen, which was
pushed into September, which waspushed down into late fall, and
now we have a court date ofJanuary.
So in these few months from thetime the protection order and
the papers were filed in August,he's got an awful lot of time
(10:16):
to continue to, you know, stalkand harass Peggy, but now he
can't find her.
So Patrick is doing an awful lotof work to try and find Peggy.
He gets a hold of her movingcompany and he poses as a police
officer and the woman at themoving company won't give him
(10:36):
Peggy's most current address andhe is reaching out to Peggy's
co-workers trying to find outwhere she's at.
One of the co-workers actuallydenies knowing Peggy and calls
Peggy and tells her about thisphone call and Peggy said that's
my stalker, patrick Kennedy.
He's trying to find me.
(10:56):
Patrick worked very closelywith private investigators and
his story was he needed to findthis woman and he had to pick up
some money from her, and so theprivate investigator had given
Patrick a street where hethought Peggy might be, but he
(11:20):
couldn't give him the exactlocation.
So what Patrick did was flyfrom Albuquerque out to San Jose
and started casingneighborhoods up and down the
coast of California and you knowmy family's back in Ohio
thinking that you know Peggy issafe.
Peggy is thinking that she issafe.
(11:41):
And meanwhile you know all thisactivity is happening.
And it wasn't until Thanksgivingof 2002.
And I happened to be at mymother's house with my girls for
the holidays.
We got a phone call and it wasPatrick's voice and he said I
know where she's at and in twominutes she'll be dead.
And I'm thinking to myself okay, patrick is either hiding in
(12:07):
the woods in my mother'sbackyard, he's going to open
fire and kill whoever thosebullets reach because he thinks
Peggy's home for the holidays,or he's out in Albuquerque and
knows that Peggy is back in town.
So we, you know, we call thepolice, we file another police
report for a death threat phonecall.
You know, peggy said please geta hold of the district attorney
.
I call him, I leave a message.
(12:29):
Peggy finally gets a hold ofhim and when the district
attorney hears Peggy's voice onthe phone, he starts laughing
and goes oh my God, you're stillalive.
What?
And Peggy said to him is itgoing to take a bullet to my
head for you to understand howserious this is?
In December it's very quiet.
(12:49):
We're waiting for Peggy to comehome for Christmas.
Patrick's family, you know,probably assumes that Peggy is
going to be home for Christmasand they call my mother and they
say you know, we just want tolet you know.
We don't know where Patrick is.
If Peggy's home for Christmas,you might want to call your
local law enforcement and keep awatch on your house.
(13:09):
So that was really fun for thefew days that Peggy was home.
The last time I saw Peggy waswhen she left my house in
December of 2002.
I hugged her.
I told her it was going to befine to get back to California,
(13:30):
get back to working.
That trial was coming up at theend of January and things were
going to be okay.
And on Saturday morning, january18th, peggy walked into her
garage where Patrick had beenhiding.
He had found her addressthrough a conversation with a
(13:51):
local UPS driver who gave himPeggy's exact location.
He beat her relentlessly with agun.
He was able to tape her mouth,tape her hands behind her back.
Somehow, some way, peggy wasable to break free from that and
(14:11):
God bless the neighbor that wasstanding on Peggy's front
doorstep waiting to go forcoffee.
The surprise that she had whenthat door opened and Peggy came
out covered in blood, callingyou know, we've got to go.
My stalker's here.
He found me.
He's going to kill me.
They were able to run toRachel's condo, who was next
(14:32):
door, locked themselves in thebedroom.
Peggy was able to make a 911call.
The officers were on their way.
In the meantime, patrick brokein and found out where they were
hiding.
He had Peggy face down in thecloset with a gun to the back of
her head.
(14:53):
And when the officers arrived,peggy warned the officers don't
come in here, he's going to killme if you open up that door.
And the officer standing outsideof that door, you know, said
Peggy, let's, let's not talkabout that, let's talk about
your family.
And Peggy very, very calmlysaid look, I need you to call my
(15:14):
mother in Ohio and tell herthat I love her.
I need you to get in touch withmy young niece, who's been sick
all winter, and tell her she'llhave a guardian angel watching
over her.
I also need you to get in touchwith my sister who's pregnant
and please tell her to name herbaby after me.
And shortly after Peggy wasable to deliver those messages,
(15:36):
patrick shot her in the back ofthe head and he shot himself.
The officers got in, got Peggyout on the front lawn where she
died moments later.
So while this is transpiring outin California, my family is in
Ohio getting ready to celebratemy niece's sixth birthday.
We have absolutely no idea thatthis is happening.
(15:58):
And on that evening I just putmy girls to bed, my mother and I
were sitting in a room watchingTV and the doorbell rang, and
when I walked to the front doorI saw two police officers
standing on my mother's frontporch and I knew instantly that
Peggy was dead.
It was the first thing that Isaid to them was just tell me,
(16:19):
did Patrick Kennedy find mysister and kill her?
In the weeks that followed, Ifound myself I mean, obviously,
as the oldest sibling tellingthis story over and over again,
as people had asked you knowwhat had happened to Peggy.
And as I told the story againand again, and as I told the
(16:42):
story again and again, for me italmost became like therapy.
It was something that, littleby little, was healing my heart
and thinking about that, I knewthat I wanted to do something.
I didn't know what that was, Ididn't know how to do it, I
(17:03):
didn't know what path it wasgoing to take.
But I thought about how manyPeggy's are out there, how many
women does this happen to?
Why are we not having aconversation about this?
Why could she not find any help?
Why would law enforcement notbelieve her?
So a month after her death, Iwas able to connect with Tracy
(17:26):
Baum, who was the director ofthe Stalking Resource Center,
and I asked her is it possibleto get funding for every law
enforcement agency across theUnited States to have a
dedicated officer to helpvictims dealing with the crime
of stalking?
And a few months after that, inJuly of 2003, so just six
(17:48):
months after Peggy was killed,the Stalking Resource Center,
the National Center for Victimsof Crime, lifetime Television,
mark Wynn, who's my hero he'sretired law enforcement,
specializes in stalking andHeather Wilson, who was in the
House of Representatives fromthe state of New Mexico, all met
(18:10):
in Washington DC to askCongress to recognize January as
National Stalking AwarenessMonth, and that, for me, was
that's what I wanted to do.
I wanted to bring this crime tolight so there wouldn't be any
more victims like my sister andthere wouldn't be families that
(18:33):
would be in such immense painover something that was so
incredibly preventable.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Debbie, first of all, I'm very sorry for the loss and
all of the pain you and yourfamily experienced due to this
situation with Peggy and herstalker, and I thank you for
sharing all of that with usbecause, knowing the story and I
(18:59):
know how painful it is to youknow, perhaps tell the story
again and again, it is to youknow, perhaps tell the story
again and again, but I do thinkit gives a lot of perspective to
the audience to understand theseverity of stalking.
This is not a trivial matter,right?
Because I think very often it'strivialized and it's overlooked
(19:23):
and people don't realize thatsomething that you know, someone
following you or tracking you,could actually lead to the end
of your life.
As you said, you met withCongress, you met with others
(19:51):
and experts to help put aspotlight on the issue of
stalking and you also helped tofound National Stalking
Awareness Month, which isJanuary every year, and we're
approaching, as we said, the20th year of marking National
Stalking Awareness Month.
What did you hope to accomplishby doing that?
Speaker 4 (20:11):
One of the earliest conversations I had was with
Heather Wilson and you know wehad talked about the laws the
laws that are in place and thelaws that do exist but the
education was lackingenforcement about the crime of
(20:38):
stalking to really really listento what these victims are
saying and believe what they aresaying.
But I also wanted to educatethe general public about what
stalking is.
I talk an awful lot on collegecampuses and the word stalking
means so many different thingsto so many different people.
That piece of language.
People use it in conversationas in I'm looking for you, so I
(21:00):
was stalking you in the library.
You know we make light ofthings like that.
So you know it was education asa very, very broad platform,
from your general public all theway up through our criminal
justice system, your lawenforcement, your advocates,
your judges, your prosecutors,to really, really elevate this
(21:24):
conversation.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, and I think you've done just that, Jennifer.
Let's talk a little bit aboutstatistics and give our
listeners a way to grasp theseriousness and progressiveness
of stalking.
Can you provide statistics thatillustrate what victims of
stalking and stalking deathslooks like from a quantitative
perspective?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Absolutely.
I think one of the things thatpeople fail to realize is how
prevalent stalking is.
I mean, the national estimatesare that one in three women and
one in six men will experiencestalking at some point in their
lifetime and about half of thoseare intimate partner related.
And those intimate partnerstalking cases are some of our
most dangerous.
And one of the things that weknow is that oftentimes what
(22:08):
happens is when that stalking ishappening within the context of
domestic violence, it getsinflated with the issues of
power and control and notnecessarily identified as
stalking.
And what we know is if there isintimate partner violence plus
stalking, a victim is in threetimes greater danger of being
killed by that person.
(22:29):
And oftentimes what happens ispeople might have some training
on intimate partner violence,they might have some
understanding about lethalityfactors, but they miss the
stalking element, they don'tname it as stalking, they don't
recognize it as stalking, thesystem might fail to charge it
as stalking, and so we miss theopportunity to intervene in
(22:50):
those particular cases.
And what we know a lot of timesis that the most common use of
the criminal justice system iswhat happened in Peggy's case
that when victims go forward andthere's eventually an intimate
partner homicide.
The most common use of thecriminal justice system prior to
(23:11):
that homicide was reportingintimate partner stalking.
Prior to that homicide wasreporting intimate partner
stalking.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
So I just want to make sure I understood what you
just said.
So not reporting stalking orreporting it and then it not
being taken seriously.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Reporting it and then it not be taken seriously.
So there was an eventualhomicide and the victim had come
in prior to that homicide andreported that there was intimate
partner stalking.
That's the most common use ofthe criminal justice system.
When that happens, and whatoftentimes happens is it gets
overlooked and we know that,like an 85% of attempted
(23:46):
femicides where a male kills afemale victim and 76% of
completed femicides, the victimwas being stalked.
There was an episode ofstalking within the year prior
to the murder.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
So I could see that stalking being overlooked would
be one of the challenges thatassists the numbers you know, or
the statistics related tostalking, being so high.
Are there other things thatallow stalking to continue at
the rate that it does, you know,I think?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
that Debbie alluded to a lot of the things that we
see as challenges and barriers,in that oftentimes the stalking
behaviors in and of themselvesmight not be criminal.
So it's not criminal to send atext message.
It's not criminal to drive downa public street.
But, what's happening within thecontext of a stalking situation
.
If you put those pieces of thepuzzle together, then it's part
(24:43):
of that course of the conductthat is criminal.
But in a system that's veryincident-based, where one person
might be responding to oneincident, another person
responding to another incident,and those incidents in and of
themselves aren't criminal andthey might not involve physical
violence.
What happened in Peggy'ssituation unfortunately isn't
(25:04):
unusual.
That people look at thoseparticular things that happened
and say, oh, it was just a flyer, it was just a text message.
Somebody just happened to showup at the grocery store at the
same time you did, and theydon't necessarily identify the
potential dangerousness in thosesituations.
And so victims of stalkingoftentimes feel, like Peggy did,
that nobody's doing anything,no one will listen to me, and
(25:27):
that it's going to takesomething big.
You know, victims often say isit going to take something?
Is it going to take me beingharmed, is it going to take me
being killed before anyone willlisten to me?
And so that response can leadto victims feeling like no one's
going to listen to them and sothey might not continue to
engage with the system and, asDebbie said, even society, that
(25:47):
common use of the word stalking.
It means that it's become sonormalized in our society that
people are reluctant to believevictims.
They don't necessarily identifywhat's happening and victims
don't necessarily understandwhat is happening is stalking.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Now to all of those points, and this question might
be for both of you have thingsimproved?
Has the response to when awoman says she's being stalked
by especially by, an intimatepartner, former intimate partner
has the response to thatimproved in the 20 years that
you all have been bringing thisto?
(26:27):
You know, really the center ofthe conversation.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I would, just because I do.
I do spend time on collegecampuses.
I sometimes I feel like ithonestly depends on where you're
at, what jurisdiction you arein, what law enforcement officer
you engage with, what, what isthe programming on your campus
like?
I've met with students thatwill say, oh my gosh, your story
(26:53):
saved my life because I knewwhat to do, I know who to talk
to, I knew who to report to.
But I've also talked to peoplethat said you know, I went.
I went to talk to lawenforcement.
They didn't do anything becauseI didn't have any proof or I
didn't, I wasn't harmed, or soFor me, from what I hear, it
really depends on where you'reat.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I would echo that particular thought.
You know, my soapbox withstalking is always that victims
shouldn't have to luck into agood response.
They shouldn't have to hopethat the person that responded
to them happens to be the personwho's had training on this
particular issue.
That response should be acrossthe board, a response that
listens to and believes victims,but unfortunately that doesn't
(27:36):
happen, and so, while I thinkwe've come a long ways in the
training and understanding, Ithink we have quite a ways to go
, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, and I want to talk a little bit about the
training that's available, butfirst I want to ask you just
give us a refresher.
What are the warning signs ofstalking, so people understand
what to look for.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
So I think one of the challenges is, a lot of times
people look at stalking as whatthey believe to be like
stereotypical following someonearound behavior.
And the framework that weactually encourage people to
think about is that surveillancebehavior, which is, you know,
following around and monitoring,but also things like life
invasion, where the offender isinterfering with the either
(28:23):
private or virtual space of thevictim's life, so showing up
places, interfering with theiremployment.
There's also things likeinterference through sabotage or
attack, so sabotaging avictim's workplace you know, for
Peggy it was sabotaging, youknow every aspect of her life,
she couldn't go to the yogastudio without worrying about
(28:45):
things like that and then theaspect of intimidation, so that
surveillance, life invasion,interference and intimidation
oftentimes gets overlooked whenthose individual incidents are
happening.
So really looking at thoseparticular behaviors as warning
signs that this is a stalkingsituation can be effective, not
(29:08):
only for responders but forvictims and understanding that
what is happening to them isstalking.
So often we hear things likewell, this person, you know,
isn't respecting my boundaries,or they're creeping me out, or
you know, I know this soundsreally off the wall, but this
person happened to show up, likeeverywhere I go.
Oftentimes that isn'tunderstood as stalking, but very
(29:31):
much is stalking behavior.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, and what I've heard from a lot of other
experts is a couple of thingslike your gut, yes.
So typically there's anintuitive response to when
something is not right, whensomeone is doing something that
is not right or dangerous ormakes you feel uncomfortable,
and that should be sign for youas an individual, and we should
(29:57):
really listen to that intuitionwhen it's telling us or when it
sends our radar up thatsomething is going on here.
And then the other thing I hearvery frequently is
documentation, and in this case,like a lot of cases of domestic
violence and crimes againstwomen, the onus is on the victim
to document, document, document, because we have to prove the
(30:20):
case to the powers that be thatthis is a dangerous situation,
that my life might be in dangerby this stalker.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I would absolutely agree with you that that
struggle of you know I often saystalking is one of the few
crimes that we rely on victimsto essentially prove the case
for themselves, they have tobring that evidence forward,
that documentation forward.
And so, while I think that wehave made some progress in
helping understand what thatmight look like and empowering
(30:50):
victims to be able to keep thatinformation, but also really
understanding that it's on us toput those pieces of the puzzle
together, it's our job to listento the individuals who are
coming forward and figure outwhat kind of evidence we can
gather in these particular cases.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I'll just I'm going to reiterate on the trust your
gut, because every time I speakI will tell the students trust
your gut, because if your gut istelling you that something
isn't right, it's it's not right.
And we do talk about thestalking log a lot.
I mean, yeah, it's unfortunatethat we do have to dump this
responsibility on these victims,but you know it, it helps track
(31:30):
things, it empowers them alittle bit, because oftentimes I
will hear I don't have anyproof.
So if you keep this stockinglog and you can journal it there
, you are starting to build yourproof.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, and a lot of times when it's digital stalking
, it's easy, you know, to kindof build the case because
there's a footprint ofinformation and sometimes IP
addresses and such that giveconcrete facts about behaviors,
(32:07):
about who was doing what and howmany times you were contacted
and so on.
So there are ways to documentit that aren't that challenging.
But you're right, I mean, itjust becomes our responsibility
to prove the case.
Now let's talk about trainingand what we can learn about
stalking in order to improveresponses and our overall
understanding.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Well, it's interesting when I, when I speak
and I tell you know Peggy'sstory, um, I will say it's a
twofold uh emotion I get.
So I get the um you knowthey're so sympathetic and um
very responsive to that.
Uh, one of the one of the keythings that I will always
(32:48):
remember this was a long, longtime ago, when I first started
telling Peggy's story in publicwas a woman came up and thanked
me immensely for doing thisbecause she said you know, we
look at data, we look at reports, we look at PowerPoints.
You can put all of that infront of us, but nothing hits
home like a victim story.
So I mean that for me, thatcirculates in my head all the
(33:13):
time when I have to stand up andtalk about this.
But on the other side, I see aton of shock on people's faces
because they just can't believehow the behavior continued to
escalate and was permitted toescalate and it was never, ever,
(33:36):
it was never stopped.
So those are the two bigresponses that I typically will
get.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And you had said something earlier about.
You know responses to stalkingtoday may be dependent on your
jurisdiction.
Looking back now, do you thinkthe jurisdiction that your
sister was living under at thetime that most of this stalking
occurred, did that response fromthat jurisdiction contribute to
(34:07):
you know kind of the outcomesof this case?
In other words, perhaps if shehad lived in a different
jurisdiction and I'm beinghypothetical, you know maybe
things wouldn't have gotten thisfar.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
And I found that out very early on, because one of
the first things I did was geton the internet and look at
other law enforcement agencies.
And what was I mean?
I literally sent emails tosergeants and chiefs that I mean
I had no idea who they were,but I had told them what had
happened to my sister and askedthem what was going on in their
(34:41):
community.
And I specifically remember anofficer in Connecticut telling
me that's not how they dealtwith stalking victims, that this
was sort of their protocol.
And then when I began speakingand met different law
enforcement officers across theUS, I had learned you know, they
had shared stalking cases withme how they had handled them.
(35:02):
You know, and I had alsolearned from you know, talking
to people, that that's not.
We don't deal with that kind ofstuff around here.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
So talking to people that that's not.
We don't, we don't deal withthat kind of stuff around here.
So, in other words, there werebetter responses available in
the country, just not in thatparticular jurisdiction.
Is that correct?
Correct?
Yeah, and I, and I ask thatonly because it doesn't.
It doesn't make or breakanything.
Right, it doesn't changeanything about this case, but
the reality is is that Peggy wasfailed by the jurisdictions
(35:33):
that she was living under, Imean, as well as a lot of other
things, but that particularlocation really failed to do
anything in response to theinformation she brought to them,
anything at all.
And then the DA laughing at her, correct?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Yeah, they did.
I mean there was nothing.
There was nothing they ever didfrom her.
And I know when we broughtPeggy's stuff home she had a bin
, a very large bin of papers andthe legwork that she had to do,
all the proving that she had todo, the documenting that she
had to do.
I mean she went so far as shehad to pay for a handwriting
(36:13):
analysis because Patrick hadforged her name on a document, a
financial document, and Peggywas like I never saw that
document, I did not sign thatdocument and they didn't believe
her.
So out of her pocket, out ofher time, she had to go and pay
for that handwriting analysis toprove it was not her.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Were you able to confront the jurisdictions that
she lived under when all of thiswas happening?
So I'm thinking like New Mexicoand then California After she
was murdered, and get some aftershe was murdered and get some
resolutions from them.
I mean about how they did not,how they did not respond to her,
(36:56):
how they did not handle hercase.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
No, no, we, we, we've never heard from them, I've
never talked with them.
You know, shortly after Peggywas killed and they posed this,
as there was some guy and hefound this girl and he killed
this girl, and I was like youare wrong, you are absolutely
wrong.
So we reached out to I rememberit was the Modesto Bee, it was
another newspaper in Turlock,and then it was a newspaper in
(37:20):
Albuquerque.
We had reached out to reportersand started saying, hey, this
is this is what happened.
This girl was relentlesslystalked for a year.
She had an order of protectionout there, and so then these
reporters started, you know,putting these articles together
and releasing these articles.
And they did interview anofficer out in Albuquerque and
(37:43):
his line, his quote, was ifsomeone wants you bad enough,
they're going to find a way toget you.
If someone wants you bad enough, they're going to find a way to
get you.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
And that said to me I'm not doing my job.
Wow, that is really abysmal.
I mean, it's just like he doesnot deserve to be in whatever
position.
He was in Correct.
So those are some of thebarriers right to having
stalking cases investigated, togetting responses to allegations
(38:15):
of stalking.
Are there other barriers forsurvivors?
And then, what improvementswould you like to see?
We oftentimes hear fromstalking survivors is that
they're screened out meaningthey it's a stalking situation.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Or people will say we're funded for domestic
(38:52):
violence and sexual assault, butnot stalking.
And with a criminal justicesystem, what oftentimes happens
is the people who have extratraining and understanding on
these particular gender-basedviolence issues might not
receive the case because it'snever forwarded to them.
So if a stalking victim hasslashed tires, it's treated as a
property crime.
(39:12):
Nobody puts the pieces togetherthat this might be a stalking
situation.
So we see those as huge barriersthat oftentimes, while it's
great that the response tostalking might sit in the
response to domestic violenceand sexual assault, because
perhaps we've made furtherstrides with those it can
sometimes cause further harmbecause people don't identify
(39:33):
the stalking as part of thedomestic violence or as part of
the sexual violence.
So we see that as a huge issue.
And I think the other thingwould just be lack of training.
We train all over the US.
We've trained 50,000 peoplesince Spark started in 2018 and
in over 600 trainings and everysingle time we're in a training
(39:55):
we'll ask is this your firsttraining on stocking?
And you'll have professionalswho have been doing this work
for 20 plus years and it's theirfirst training on stocking, or
maybe their second.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
So the fact that oftentimes they don't have that
training and understanding to beable to identify the stalking
behavior or understand what todo or how to refer victims, it
creates a huge barrier for thesevictims who are reaching out
and basically told well, there'snothing we can do right now now
(40:33):
and you know, one of the one ofthe things that I ran into and
it's happened a couple times onewas just a close friend who
experienced a pretty brutal caseof stalking, where she had
actually sell her house, moveand then move out of state is
that she was offering up to thatjurisdiction to.
You know, bring spark in and,you know, do some training.
And I mean after they didn'ttake care of her and their
(40:56):
response was we don't needtraining.
So those types of responses forme are very concerning.
When people are saying we don't, we've got this, we don't need
training, but you have problemsin your community and you don't
have resources for victims,that's a murder waiting to
happen.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, for sure.
Now you've both mentioned SPARKand, just for our listeners,
spark is the Stalking PreventionAwareness and Resource Center,
jennifer, a place where youcurrently work.
Let's talk about thosetrainings real quick and tell us
what someone can expect if theyattend a SPARC training.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
So we're funded by the Department of Justice Office
on Violence Against Women to betheir training and technical
assistance provider on the issue, meaning that anybody who gets
one of those grants from theOffice on Violence Against Women
, or the important part, is apotential grantee.
So pretty much everyone is apotential grantee with their
agency in the criminal justicesystem.
They can reach out to us andrequest a free training.
(41:56):
So we provide a training forfree.
We cover all our travelexpenses and we come out and
typically request to do a fullday training where we're talking
about those behaviors thatconstitute stalking, where we're
talking about the intersectionwith domestic violence, on how
to identify risk in stalkingcases and then how to
investigate these cases to looktowards accountability as well
(42:20):
as victim safety.
So those particular trainingsare offered to jurisdictions
across the country and we'vedone lots of them but still have
lots of work to do.
So we sit in an office calledEquitas, which is known for
their prosecution work as well.
So we have the pleasure ofworking with both the criminal
(42:41):
justice system but also focusingon college campuses etc.
So that particular aspect, Ithink, is one of the things that
we can really offer in theseparticular situations.
It's just the need.
We can barely keep up with therequests and the need and so
really helping people figure outhow do they bring training in
(43:03):
their own jurisdiction, whatinformation can they offer, what
can they do internally tochange the way that stockings
responded to within their ownagency Everyone a lot of times
when we do training, wants topoint the finger at other
agencies and say, well, if lawenforcement would do this or
prosecutors would do this.
And then when you ask them butwhat about your own agency?
(43:23):
How much training have you had?
How much training do you dointernally?
Then there's a lot of well,yeah, we could probably think
about.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Well, what comes to mind when you say that is
coordinated community response?
Yes, yep, and is there now acoordinated community response
for stalking?
Speaker 3 (43:44):
We encourage it Absolutely.
So what we oftentimes find,though, is places that tell us
they do have a coordinatedresponse to stalking, have a
coordinated response to intimatepartner stalking, which is only
50% of stalking.
So they're not working on thenon-intimate partner stalking
situations.
So, automatically, they're notworking on 50% of the cases.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
And what is some of those non-intimate partner
stalking cases look like.
Are they, you know, juststrangers obsessed with someone
or something else?
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Typically they're acquaintances, so somebody that
you know through work, throughschool.
So on a lot of college campusesit's somebody that you know
might be in my class, that Irecognize but I don't
necessarily know their name.
So those acquaintance cases areabout.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
You know 40 to 45% of those cases and the majority of
stalking cases, are theyhappening with a particular age
group or within a particularsetting, like college campuses?
Speaker 3 (44:43):
So we know that the 18 to 24-year-old age group
experiences the highest rate ofstalking.
College campuses are actually aprotective factor.
A lot of people want to say, oh, it's happening because it's on
a college campus.
Well, what we know is it's theage group.
It's the 18 to 24-year-old agegroup who are engaging in dating
or figuring out relationshipsand that if they're residing on
a college campus or they'reenrolled in college, they
(45:06):
actually have a protectivefactor because there's more
resources.
They might be more familiar ofwhere to go for help, versus an
average 18 to 24 year oldwouldn't necessarily know those
things.
So, absolutely, we see thehighest percentage happening
within the 18 to 24 year old agegroup, but I would say that we
see more individuals reachingout to the criminal justice
(45:28):
system and advocacy agency inthe like 18 to 40 year old age
group, just because of thoseparticular dynamics.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
I'd like to give our listeners some resources before
we go.
What are the websites that youwould recommend they visit to
learn more about this issue?
Speaker 4 (45:47):
So for me and reaching out to the public and I
really like to share you knowPeggy's story, so if anybody
wants to know any anything moreabout me or about Peggy's story,
you can visit my site atstalkingmuststoporg.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Certainly, you can go to Spark's website, which is
stalkingawarenessorg, and wehave all the information for
Stalking Awareness Month, so weprovide a ton of resources that
folks can use for social mediaposts and doing activities, etc.
One of the things that wehaven't mentioned yet is in
January, because it's the 20thanniversary.
(46:25):
On January 18, in honor ofPeggy, we're encouraging folks
to participate in the firstNational Day of Action against
stalking, and one of the thingsthat Debbie mentions a lot about
Peggy is that as Patrick beganto stalk Peggy, they saw Peggy's
sparkling personality disappear, and so, in honor of Peggy, we
(46:48):
are encouraging people to bringback the sparkle, and so, on
January 18th, we're encouragingfolks to take pictures, post
social media wearing somethingsparkly and trying to recognize
that we want to bring back thesparkle for Peggy and everyone
that is in a situation likePeggy's.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
That is so beautiful and I can't wait to wear
sparkles in honor of Peggy onJanuary 18th.
Thank you both for talking withme today.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The 2025 Conference on CrimesAgainst Women will take place in
Dallas, Texas, May 19th throughthe 22nd at the Sheraton Dallas
.
Learn more and register atconferencecaworg and follow us
on social media at National CCAW.
The following episode was previously aired in 2024,
but it is a story we can nevershare enough because it
profoundly exemplifies thedevastating consequences that
ensue when stalking victims arenot believed, listened to or
supported.
This is the story of PeggyKlinke and the movement inspired
by her tragic death.
The subject matter of thispodcast will address difficult
(00:23):
topics multiple forms ofviolence and identity-based
discrimination and harassment.
We acknowledge that thiscontent may be difficult and
have listed specific contentwarnings in each episode
description to help create apositive, safe experience for
all listeners.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
In this country, 31 million crimes 31 million crimes
are reported every year.
That is one every second.
Out of that, every 24 minutesthere is a murder.
Every five minutes there is arape.
Every two to five minutes thereis a sexual assault.
Every nine seconds in thiscountry, a woman is assaulted by
someone who told her that heloved her, by someone who told
(01:03):
her it was her fault, by someonewho tries to tell the rest of
us it's none of our business andI am proud to stand here today
with each of you to call thatperpetrator a liar.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women.
I'm Maria McMullin.
Many people tend to minimizethe grave dangers of stalking,
due in large part to lack ofknowledge or the pervasiveness
of myths and misconceptionssurrounding the subject.
There was a time when stalkingwas viewed from narrow
perspectives, such as aperpetrator hiding behind a bush
(01:34):
or tailing someone in their car, and was never considered a
form of domestic abuse.
But times have changed andstudies reveal that stalking can
be just as abusive as otherforms of abuse and as such, is
considered a serious crime.
And while stalking isexperienced by both men and
women, statistics show thatwomen are disproportionately
(01:56):
stalked by men, especially whenit occurs in the context of an
intimate partner relationship.
Moreover, with theinnovativeness of technology,
both stalking and the stalkerhave become much more
sophisticated, and stalking hasnow taken on many treacherous
and terrorizing forms.
Unfortunately, the danger canbe so great that, for some women
(02:17):
, the crime has led the stalkerto murdering their victim.
This episode will talk aboutsuch a case that prompted the
loving sister of a woman stalkedand murdered by her
ex-boyfriend to initiate majorchange on a massive scale by
bringing about nationalawareness to the overlooked
issue of stalking.
In January of 2003, debbieRiddle's youngest sister, peggy,
(02:40):
was murdered by a man whostalked her for almost a year.
Shortly after Peggy's death,debbie began working with the
National Center for Victims ofCrime and the Stalking Resource
Center.
In July 2003, debbie was askedto speak at a congressional
briefing requesting US Congressto recognize January, the month
Peggy was murdered, as StalkingAwareness Month.
(03:01):
After educating herself onstalking, the laws and police
protocol, debbie became heavilyinvolved in educating others and
raising awareness as a nationalspeaker for the Stalking
Resource Center.
While working with them andLifetime Television, debbie
helped create the Roll Callvideo, an 18-minute stalking
awareness training videoproduced primarily for use with
(03:23):
law enforcement training.
Today, the video is utilizedacross the United States to
train all divisions of ourcriminal justice system, as well
as forensic nurses, victims,advocates and college women's
centers and their staff.
Today, debbie continues tospeak at training sessions,
webinars, college campustrainings, high school and youth
(03:44):
groups throughout the UnitedStates.
Jennifer Landhuis brings over 26years of experience as an
educator and advocate on theissues of stalking, domestic
violence and sexual assault toher current position as the
Director of the StalkingPrevention Awareness and
Resource Center, otherwise knownas SPARC.
As Director, she oversees thedevelopment and implementation
(04:05):
of multifaceted resources,programs and publications on
stalking, collaborates withnational partners and provides
robust trainings to criminaljustice and victim service
professionals.
Jennifer has led the SPARCinitiative since its founding at
Equitas in 2017.
Debbie and Jennifer welcome tothe podcast.
Good morning.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Good morning.
So great to be here.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Thank you both for being here and Debbie.
I want to start with you,because 2024 marks the 20th year
for Stalking Awareness Month,an initiative that you started
as a result of your sister,peggy's murder.
Tell us what happened to Peggy.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Sure.
So Peggy is my youngest sisterand she had moved out to
Albuquerque, new Mexico, fromOhio, where our family is based,
and she actually met herstalker on a college campus and
they were in a relationship fromthe fall of 98 till about, I
(05:04):
would say, january of 2002.
It was a relationship that wasfilled with psychological and
emotional abuse.
There was an awful lot of redflags during that relationship.
Peggy had a very hard timeleaving that relationship solely
for the reason that she wasvery afraid of what was going to
(05:26):
happen to her should she leave.
So the day she left, which wasin January of 2002, she became a
stalking victim and herelentlessly pursued her for a
full year under the watchful eyeof our criminal justice system
and he started, I guess, which Iwould call very basic stalking
(05:50):
techniques.
You know he was calling heraround the clock, he was texting
her cell phone.
You know she began datingsomeone shortly after their
relationship broke up and hefound out who he was and he
began stalking him.
Broke up and he found out whohe was and he began stalking him
.
He followed Peggy to work, toher yoga studio, to her hair
(06:15):
salon, did an awful lot ofsurveillance.
Peggy wasn't giving himanything, she wasn't encouraging
any conversation with him, shewas completely ignoring him.
So he offered up a weddingproposal one morning when she
was walking into work and hejumped out from behind some
bushes and he had a wedding ringand some roses and said I love
you, would you marry me?
And Peggy walked by him,completely ignored him, and this
(06:39):
seemed to absolutely fuel thefire.
He became, you know, very upset, very angry, and he took a
photo of Peggy and he put it onan eight and a half by 11 piece
of paper and he wrote her nameon it, he put her cell phone
number on it and just all sortsof obscenities.
(07:00):
You know, I'm a slut, I'm awhore, I'd love to sleep with
you, please call me.
And he posted those flyers allthroughout the city of
Albuquerque, new Mexico,specifically in spots where he
knew Peggy would see them.
And sure enough, the followingday Peggy walked into her yoga
studio and one of theinstructors said I hate to be
(07:22):
the one to tell you this, butthis was taped to our door when
we walked in this morning.
So for Peggy, this was probablythe first piece of concrete
evidence I guess she had anddecided to go to the police and
she went with her cell phonerecords her cell phone and a
piece of paper and talked to thepolice and she was told you
(07:44):
know, there's nothing we canreally do about it, it's a piece
of paper.
And talked to the police andshe was told you know, there's
nothing we can really do aboutit, it's a piece of paper.
You know, please come back tous when something happens.
And you know he, because therewas no, you know, law
enforcement intervention at thispoint, he was free to continue
to harass her.
He knew our family, he knew thedynamics of our family, he knew
(08:04):
that we were going to be inFlorida for my brother's wedding
and while we were all inFlorida, he flew from
Albuquerque to Ohio and spraypainted PK as a whore on my
mother's garage door.
He went back to Albuquerque andthe man that Peggy was dating at
the time, mark he went andopened up a gas line on Mark's
(08:26):
house and torched the back ofMark's home and, like I said, we
were all in Florida for thiswedding and Mark had calls from
Albuquerque police, albuquerquefire, from his mother, from his
neighbor, and Peggy knewinstantly that this was Patrick
and Peggy knew instantly thatthis was Patrick.
And so Peggy and Mark went backto Albuquerque and Peggy
(08:50):
pleaded with these officerssaying I know you're
investigating arson, but thereason why there's arson is
because I have a stalker.
And she worked harder at tryingto prove that this was Patrick,
looking at footprints in themud and saying you know, these
are hiking boots that I boughthim.
Please go to his house and findthese boots.
(09:11):
And she was shut down,continuously saying you know,
saying, ma'am, this isn't anarson, we're investigating.
And you know, like I said,peggy kept coming back saying
there is an arson because I havea stalker, there is an arson
because I have a stalker.
This prompted Peggy to file toget an attorney to file stalking
charges, to file an order ofprotection.
(09:31):
When she filed an order ofprotection, patrick went in and
filed an order of protectionagainst her.
So while they are waiting forthis court date, peggy and Mark
feel that it's best to get herout of Albuquerque because he is
going to continue to stalk herrelentlessly.
He knows where she lives, heknows where Mark lives.
(09:52):
So they took Peggy and movedher from Albuquerque out to
Turlock, california.
And you know we're waiting forthis trial to happen, which was
pushed into September, which waspushed down into late fall, and
now we have a court date ofJanuary.
So in these few months from thetime the protection order and
the papers were filed in August,he's got an awful lot of time
(10:16):
to continue to, you know, stalkand harass Peggy, but now he
can't find her.
So Patrick is doing an awful lotof work to try and find Peggy.
He gets a hold of her movingcompany and he poses as a police
officer and the woman at themoving company won't give him
(10:36):
Peggy's most current address andhe is reaching out to Peggy's
co-workers trying to find outwhere she's at.
One of the co-workers actuallydenies knowing Peggy and calls
Peggy and tells her about thisphone call and Peggy said that's
my stalker, patrick Kennedy.
He's trying to find me.
(10:56):
Patrick worked very closelywith private investigators and
his story was he needed to findthis woman and he had to pick up
some money from her, and so theprivate investigator had given
Patrick a street where hethought Peggy might be, but he
(11:20):
couldn't give him the exactlocation.
So what Patrick did was flyfrom Albuquerque out to San Jose
and started casingneighborhoods up and down the
coast of California and you knowmy family's back in Ohio
thinking that you know Peggy issafe.
Peggy is thinking that she issafe.
(11:41):
And meanwhile you know all thisactivity is happening.
And it wasn't until Thanksgivingof 2002.
And I happened to be at mymother's house with my girls for
the holidays.
We got a phone call and it wasPatrick's voice and he said I
know where she's at and in twominutes she'll be dead.
And I'm thinking to myself okay, patrick is either hiding in
(12:07):
the woods in my mother'sbackyard, he's going to open
fire and kill whoever thosebullets reach because he thinks
Peggy's home for the holidays,or he's out in Albuquerque and
knows that Peggy is back in town.
So we, you know, we call thepolice, we file another police
report for a death threat phonecall.
You know, peggy said please geta hold of the district attorney
.
I call him, I leave a message.
(12:29):
Peggy finally gets a hold ofhim and when the district
attorney hears Peggy's voice onthe phone, he starts laughing
and goes oh my God, you're stillalive.
What?
And Peggy said to him is itgoing to take a bullet to my
head for you to understand howserious this is?
In December it's very quiet.
(12:49):
We're waiting for Peggy to comehome for Christmas.
Patrick's family, you know,probably assumes that Peggy is
going to be home for Christmasand they call my mother and they
say you know, we just want tolet you know.
We don't know where Patrick is.
If Peggy's home for Christmas,you might want to call your
local law enforcement and keep awatch on your house.
(13:09):
So that was really fun for thefew days that Peggy was home.
The last time I saw Peggy waswhen she left my house in
December of 2002.
I hugged her.
I told her it was going to befine to get back to California,
(13:30):
get back to working.
That trial was coming up at theend of January and things were
going to be okay.
And on Saturday morning, january18th, peggy walked into her
garage where Patrick had beenhiding.
He had found her addressthrough a conversation with a
(13:51):
local UPS driver who gave himPeggy's exact location.
He beat her relentlessly with agun.
He was able to tape her mouth,tape her hands behind her back.
Somehow, some way, peggy wasable to break free from that and
(14:11):
God bless the neighbor that wasstanding on Peggy's front
doorstep waiting to go forcoffee.
The surprise that she had whenthat door opened and Peggy came
out covered in blood, callingyou know, we've got to go.
My stalker's here.
He found me.
He's going to kill me.
They were able to run toRachel's condo, who was next
(14:32):
door, locked themselves in thebedroom.
Peggy was able to make a 911call.
The officers were on their way.
In the meantime, patrick brokein and found out where they were
hiding.
He had Peggy face down in thecloset with a gun to the back of
her head.
(14:53):
And when the officers arrived,peggy warned the officers don't
come in here, he's going to killme if you open up that door.
And the officer standing outsideof that door, you know, said
Peggy, let's, let's not talkabout that, let's talk about
your family.
And Peggy very, very calmlysaid look, I need you to call my
(15:14):
mother in Ohio and tell herthat I love her.
I need you to get in touch withmy young niece, who's been sick
all winter, and tell her she'llhave a guardian angel watching
over her.
I also need you to get in touchwith my sister who's pregnant
and please tell her to name herbaby after me.
And shortly after Peggy wasable to deliver those messages,
(15:36):
patrick shot her in the back ofthe head and he shot himself.
The officers got in, got Peggyout on the front lawn where she
died moments later.
So while this is transpiring outin California, my family is in
Ohio getting ready to celebratemy niece's sixth birthday.
We have absolutely no idea thatthis is happening.
(15:58):
And on that evening I just putmy girls to bed, my mother and I
were sitting in a room watchingTV and the doorbell rang, and
when I walked to the front doorI saw two police officers
standing on my mother's frontporch and I knew instantly that
Peggy was dead.
It was the first thing that Isaid to them was just tell me,
(16:19):
did Patrick Kennedy find mysister and kill her?
In the weeks that followed, Ifound myself I mean, obviously,
as the oldest sibling tellingthis story over and over again,
as people had asked you knowwhat had happened to Peggy.
And as I told the story againand again, and as I told the
(16:42):
story again and again, for me italmost became like therapy.
It was something that, littleby little, was healing my heart
and thinking about that, I knewthat I wanted to do something.
I didn't know what that was, Ididn't know how to do it, I
(17:03):
didn't know what path it wasgoing to take.
But I thought about how manyPeggy's are out there, how many
women does this happen to?
Why are we not having aconversation about this?
Why could she not find any help?
Why would law enforcement notbelieve her?
So a month after her death, Iwas able to connect with Tracy
(17:26):
Baum, who was the director ofthe Stalking Resource Center,
and I asked her is it possibleto get funding for every law
enforcement agency across theUnited States to have a
dedicated officer to helpvictims dealing with the crime
of stalking?
And a few months after that, inJuly of 2003, so just six
(17:48):
months after Peggy was killed,the Stalking Resource Center,
the National Center for Victimsof Crime, lifetime Television,
mark Wynn, who's my hero he'sretired law enforcement,
specializes in stalking andHeather Wilson, who was in the
House of Representatives fromthe state of New Mexico, all met
(18:10):
in Washington DC to askCongress to recognize January as
National Stalking AwarenessMonth, and that, for me, was
that's what I wanted to do.
I wanted to bring this crime tolight so there wouldn't be any
more victims like my sister andthere wouldn't be families that
(18:33):
would be in such immense painover something that was so
incredibly preventable.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Debbie, first of all, I'm very sorry for the loss and
all of the pain you and yourfamily experienced due to this
situation with Peggy and herstalker, and I thank you for
sharing all of that with usbecause, knowing the story and I
(18:59):
know how painful it is to youknow, perhaps tell the story
again and again, it is to youknow, perhaps tell the story
again and again, but I do thinkit gives a lot of perspective to
the audience to understand theseverity of stalking.
This is not a trivial matter,right?
Because I think very often it'strivialized and it's overlooked
(19:23):
and people don't realize thatsomething that you know, someone
following you or tracking you,could actually lead to the end
of your life.
As you said, you met withCongress, you met with others
(19:51):
and experts to help put aspotlight on the issue of
stalking and you also helped tofound National Stalking
Awareness Month, which isJanuary every year, and we're
approaching, as we said, the20th year of marking National
Stalking Awareness Month.
What did you hope to accomplishby doing that?
Speaker 4 (20:11):
One of the earliest conversations I had was with
Heather Wilson and you know wehad talked about the laws the
laws that are in place and thelaws that do exist but the
education was lackingenforcement about the crime of
(20:38):
stalking to really really listento what these victims are
saying and believe what they aresaying.
But I also wanted to educatethe general public about what
stalking is.
I talk an awful lot on collegecampuses and the word stalking
means so many different thingsto so many different people.
That piece of language.
People use it in conversationas in I'm looking for you, so I
(21:00):
was stalking you in the library.
You know we make light ofthings like that.
So you know it was education asa very, very broad platform,
from your general public all theway up through our criminal
justice system, your lawenforcement, your advocates,
your judges, your prosecutors,to really, really elevate this
(21:24):
conversation.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, and I think you've done just that, Jennifer.
Let's talk a little bit aboutstatistics and give our
listeners a way to grasp theseriousness and progressiveness
of stalking.
Can you provide statistics thatillustrate what victims of
stalking and stalking deathslooks like from a quantitative
perspective?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Absolutely.
I think one of the things thatpeople fail to realize is how
prevalent stalking is.
I mean, the national estimatesare that one in three women and
one in six men will experiencestalking at some point in their
lifetime and about half of thoseare intimate partner related.
And those intimate partnerstalking cases are some of our
most dangerous.
And one of the things that weknow is that oftentimes what
(22:08):
happens is when that stalking ishappening within the context of
domestic violence, it getsinflated with the issues of
power and control and notnecessarily identified as
stalking.
And what we know is if there isintimate partner violence plus
stalking, a victim is in threetimes greater danger of being
killed by that person.
(22:29):
And oftentimes what happens ispeople might have some training
on intimate partner violence,they might have some
understanding about lethalityfactors, but they miss the
stalking element, they don'tname it as stalking, they don't
recognize it as stalking, thesystem might fail to charge it
as stalking, and so we miss theopportunity to intervene in
(22:50):
those particular cases.
And what we know a lot of timesis that the most common use of
the criminal justice system iswhat happened in Peggy's case
that when victims go forward andthere's eventually an intimate
partner homicide.
The most common use of thecriminal justice system prior to
(23:11):
that homicide was reportingintimate partner stalking.
Prior to that homicide wasreporting intimate partner
stalking.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
So I just want to make sure I understood what you
just said.
So not reporting stalking orreporting it and then it not
being taken seriously.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Reporting it and then it not be taken seriously.
So there was an eventualhomicide and the victim had come
in prior to that homicide andreported that there was intimate
partner stalking.
That's the most common use ofthe criminal justice system.
When that happens, and whatoftentimes happens is it gets
overlooked and we know that,like an 85% of attempted
(23:46):
femicides where a male kills afemale victim and 76% of
completed femicides, the victimwas being stalked.
There was an episode ofstalking within the year prior
to the murder.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
So I could see that stalking being overlooked would
be one of the challenges thatassists the numbers you know, or
the statistics related tostalking, being so high.
Are there other things thatallow stalking to continue at
the rate that it does, you know,I think?
Speaker 3 (24:20):
that Debbie alluded to a lot of the things that we
see as challenges and barriers,in that oftentimes the stalking
behaviors in and of themselvesmight not be criminal.
So it's not criminal to send atext message.
It's not criminal to drive downa public street.
But, what's happening within thecontext of a stalking situation
.
If you put those pieces of thepuzzle together, then it's part
(24:43):
of that course of the conductthat is criminal.
But in a system that's veryincident-based, where one person
might be responding to oneincident, another person
responding to another incident,and those incidents in and of
themselves aren't criminal andthey might not involve physical
violence.
What happened in Peggy'ssituation unfortunately isn't
(25:04):
unusual.
That people look at thoseparticular things that happened
and say, oh, it was just a flyer, it was just a text message.
Somebody just happened to showup at the grocery store at the
same time you did, and theydon't necessarily identify the
potential dangerousness in thosesituations.
And so victims of stalkingoftentimes feel, like Peggy did,
that nobody's doing anything,no one will listen to me, and
(25:27):
that it's going to takesomething big.
You know, victims often say isit going to take something?
Is it going to take me beingharmed, is it going to take me
being killed before anyone willlisten to me?
And so that response can leadto victims feeling like no one's
going to listen to them and sothey might not continue to
engage with the system and, asDebbie said, even society, that
(25:47):
common use of the word stalking.
It means that it's become sonormalized in our society that
people are reluctant to believevictims.
They don't necessarily identifywhat's happening and victims
don't necessarily understandwhat is happening is stalking.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Now to all of those points, and this question might
be for both of you have thingsimproved?
Has the response to when awoman says she's being stalked
by especially by, an intimatepartner, former intimate partner
has the response to thatimproved in the 20 years that
you all have been bringing thisto?
(26:27):
You know, really the center ofthe conversation.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
I would, just because I do.
I do spend time on collegecampuses.
I sometimes I feel like ithonestly depends on where you're
at, what jurisdiction you arein, what law enforcement officer
you engage with, what, what isthe programming on your campus
like?
I've met with students thatwill say, oh my gosh, your story
(26:53):
saved my life because I knewwhat to do, I know who to talk
to, I knew who to report to.
But I've also talked to peoplethat said you know, I went.
I went to talk to lawenforcement.
They didn't do anything becauseI didn't have any proof or I
didn't, I wasn't harmed, or soFor me, from what I hear, it
really depends on where you'reat.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I would echo that particular thought.
You know, my soapbox withstalking is always that victims
shouldn't have to luck into agood response.
They shouldn't have to hopethat the person that responded
to them happens to be the personwho's had training on this
particular issue.
That response should be acrossthe board, a response that
listens to and believes victims,but unfortunately that doesn't
(27:36):
happen, and so, while I thinkwe've come a long ways in the
training and understanding, Ithink we have quite a ways to go
, unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, and I want to talk a little bit about the
training that's available, butfirst I want to ask you just
give us a refresher.
What are the warning signs ofstalking, so people understand
what to look for.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
So I think one of the challenges is, a lot of times
people look at stalking as whatthey believe to be like
stereotypical following someonearound behavior.
And the framework that weactually encourage people to
think about is that surveillancebehavior, which is, you know,
following around and monitoring,but also things like life
invasion, where the offender isinterfering with the either
(28:23):
private or virtual space of thevictim's life, so showing up
places, interfering with theiremployment.
There's also things likeinterference through sabotage or
attack, so sabotaging avictim's workplace you know, for
Peggy it was sabotaging, youknow every aspect of her life,
she couldn't go to the yogastudio without worrying about
(28:45):
things like that and then theaspect of intimidation, so that
surveillance, life invasion,interference and intimidation
oftentimes gets overlooked whenthose individual incidents are
happening.
So really looking at thoseparticular behaviors as warning
signs that this is a stalkingsituation can be effective, not
(29:08):
only for responders but forvictims and understanding that
what is happening to them isstalking.
So often we hear things likewell, this person, you know,
isn't respecting my boundaries,or they're creeping me out, or
you know, I know this soundsreally off the wall, but this
person happened to show up, likeeverywhere I go.
Oftentimes that isn'tunderstood as stalking, but very
(29:31):
much is stalking behavior.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Yeah, and what I've heard from a lot of other
experts is a couple of thingslike your gut, yes.
So typically there's anintuitive response to when
something is not right, whensomeone is doing something that
is not right or dangerous ormakes you feel uncomfortable,
and that should be sign for youas an individual, and we should
(29:57):
really listen to that intuitionwhen it's telling us or when it
sends our radar up thatsomething is going on here.
And then the other thing I hearvery frequently is
documentation, and in this case,like a lot of cases of domestic
violence and crimes againstwomen, the onus is on the victim
to document, document, document, because we have to prove the
(30:20):
case to the powers that be thatthis is a dangerous situation,
that my life might be in dangerby this stalker.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I would absolutely agree with you that that
struggle of you know I often saystalking is one of the few
crimes that we rely on victimsto essentially prove the case
for themselves, they have tobring that evidence forward,
that documentation forward.
And so, while I think that wehave made some progress in
helping understand what thatmight look like and empowering
(30:50):
victims to be able to keep thatinformation, but also really
understanding that it's on us toput those pieces of the puzzle
together, it's our job to listento the individuals who are
coming forward and figure outwhat kind of evidence we can
gather in these particular cases.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I'll just I'm going to reiterate on the trust your
gut, because every time I speakI will tell the students trust
your gut, because if your gut istelling you that something
isn't right, it's it's not right.
And we do talk about thestalking log a lot.
I mean, yeah, it's unfortunatethat we do have to dump this
responsibility on these victims,but you know it, it helps track
(31:30):
things, it empowers them alittle bit, because oftentimes I
will hear I don't have anyproof.
So if you keep this stockinglog and you can journal it there
, you are starting to build yourproof.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, and a lot of times when it's digital stalking
, it's easy, you know, to kindof build the case because
there's a footprint ofinformation and sometimes IP
addresses and such that giveconcrete facts about behaviors,
(32:07):
about who was doing what and howmany times you were contacted
and so on.
So there are ways to documentit that aren't that challenging.
But you're right, I mean, itjust becomes our responsibility
to prove the case.
Now let's talk about trainingand what we can learn about
stalking in order to improveresponses and our overall
understanding.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
Well, it's interesting when I, when I speak
and I tell you know Peggy'sstory, um, I will say it's a
twofold uh emotion I get.
So I get the um you knowthey're so sympathetic and um
very responsive to that.
Uh, one of the one of the keythings that I will always
(32:48):
remember this was a long, longtime ago, when I first started
telling Peggy's story in publicwas a woman came up and thanked
me immensely for doing thisbecause she said you know, we
look at data, we look at reports, we look at PowerPoints.
You can put all of that infront of us, but nothing hits
home like a victim story.
So I mean that for me, thatcirculates in my head all the
(33:13):
time when I have to stand up andtalk about this.
But on the other side, I see aton of shock on people's faces
because they just can't believehow the behavior continued to
escalate and was permitted toescalate and it was never, ever,
(33:36):
it was never stopped.
So those are the two bigresponses that I typically will
get.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And you had said something earlier about.
You know responses to stalkingtoday may be dependent on your
jurisdiction.
Looking back now, do you thinkthe jurisdiction that your
sister was living under at thetime that most of this stalking
occurred, did that response fromthat jurisdiction contribute to
(34:07):
you know kind of the outcomesof this case?
In other words, perhaps if shehad lived in a different
jurisdiction and I'm beinghypothetical, you know maybe
things wouldn't have gotten thisfar.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
And I found that out very early on, because one of
the first things I did was geton the internet and look at
other law enforcement agencies.
And what was I mean?
I literally sent emails tosergeants and chiefs that I mean
I had no idea who they were,but I had told them what had
happened to my sister and askedthem what was going on in their
(34:41):
community.
And I specifically remember anofficer in Connecticut telling
me that's not how they dealtwith stalking victims, that this
was sort of their protocol.
And then when I began speakingand met different law
enforcement officers across theUS, I had learned you know, they
had shared stalking cases withme how they had handled them.
(35:02):
You know, and I had alsolearned from you know, talking
to people, that that's not.
We don't deal with that kind ofstuff around here.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
So talking to people that that's not.
We don't, we don't deal withthat kind of stuff around here.
So, in other words, there werebetter responses available in
the country, just not in thatparticular jurisdiction.
Is that correct?
Correct?
Yeah, and I, and I ask thatonly because it doesn't.
It doesn't make or breakanything.
Right, it doesn't changeanything about this case, but
the reality is is that Peggy wasfailed by the jurisdictions
(35:33):
that she was living under, Imean, as well as a lot of other
things, but that particularlocation really failed to do
anything in response to theinformation she brought to them,
anything at all.
And then the DA laughing at her, correct?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Yeah, they did.
I mean there was nothing.
There was nothing they ever didfrom her.
And I know when we broughtPeggy's stuff home she had a bin
, a very large bin of papers andthe legwork that she had to do,
all the proving that she had todo, the documenting that she
had to do.
I mean she went so far as shehad to pay for a handwriting
(36:13):
analysis because Patrick hadforged her name on a document, a
financial document, and Peggywas like I never saw that
document, I did not sign thatdocument and they didn't believe
her.
So out of her pocket, out ofher time, she had to go and pay
for that handwriting analysis toprove it was not her.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Were you able to confront the jurisdictions that
she lived under when all of thiswas happening?
So I'm thinking like New Mexicoand then California After she
was murdered, and get some aftershe was murdered and get some
resolutions from them.
I mean about how they did not,how they did not respond to her,
(36:56):
how they did not handle hercase.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
No, no, we, we, we've never heard from them, I've
never talked with them.
You know, shortly after Peggywas killed and they posed this,
as there was some guy and hefound this girl and he killed
this girl, and I was like youare wrong, you are absolutely
wrong.
So we reached out to I rememberit was the Modesto Bee, it was
another newspaper in Turlock,and then it was a newspaper in
(37:20):
Albuquerque.
We had reached out to reportersand started saying, hey, this
is this is what happened.
This girl was relentlesslystalked for a year.
She had an order of protectionout there, and so then these
reporters started, you know,putting these articles together
and releasing these articles.
And they did interview anofficer out in Albuquerque and
(37:43):
his line, his quote, was ifsomeone wants you bad enough,
they're going to find a way toget you.
If someone wants you bad enough, they're going to find a way to
get you.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
And that said to me I'm not doing my job.
Wow, that is really abysmal.
I mean, it's just like he doesnot deserve to be in whatever
position.
He was in Correct.
So those are some of thebarriers right to having
stalking cases investigated, togetting responses to allegations
(38:15):
of stalking.
Are there other barriers forsurvivors?
And then, what improvementswould you like to see?
We oftentimes hear fromstalking survivors is that
they're screened out meaningthey it's a stalking situation.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Or people will say we're funded for domestic
(38:52):
violence and sexual assault, butnot stalking.
And with a criminal justicesystem, what oftentimes happens
is the people who have extratraining and understanding on
these particular gender-basedviolence issues might not
receive the case because it'snever forwarded to them.
So if a stalking victim hasslashed tires, it's treated as a
property crime.
(39:12):
Nobody puts the pieces togetherthat this might be a stalking
situation.
So we see those as huge barriersthat oftentimes, while it's
great that the response tostalking might sit in the
response to domestic violenceand sexual assault, because
perhaps we've made furtherstrides with those it can
sometimes cause further harmbecause people don't identify
(39:33):
the stalking as part of thedomestic violence or as part of
the sexual violence.
So we see that as a huge issue.
And I think the other thingwould just be lack of training.
We train all over the US.
We've trained 50,000 peoplesince Spark started in 2018 and
in over 600 trainings and everysingle time we're in a training
(39:55):
we'll ask is this your firsttraining on stocking?
And you'll have professionalswho have been doing this work
for 20 plus years and it's theirfirst training on stocking, or
maybe their second.
Speaker 4 (40:06):
So the fact that oftentimes they don't have that
training and understanding to beable to identify the stalking
behavior or understand what todo or how to refer victims, it
creates a huge barrier for thesevictims who are reaching out
and basically told well, there'snothing we can do right now now
(40:33):
and you know, one of the one ofthe things that I ran into and
it's happened a couple times onewas just a close friend who
experienced a pretty brutal caseof stalking, where she had
actually sell her house, moveand then move out of state is
that she was offering up to thatjurisdiction to.
You know, bring spark in and,you know, do some training.
And I mean after they didn'ttake care of her and their
(40:56):
response was we don't needtraining.
So those types of responses forme are very concerning.
When people are saying we don't, we've got this, we don't need
training, but you have problemsin your community and you don't
have resources for victims,that's a murder waiting to
happen.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, for sure.
Now you've both mentioned SPARKand, just for our listeners,
spark is the Stalking PreventionAwareness and Resource Center,
jennifer, a place where youcurrently work.
Let's talk about thosetrainings real quick and tell us
what someone can expect if theyattend a SPARC training.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
So we're funded by the Department of Justice Office
on Violence Against Women to betheir training and technical
assistance provider on the issue, meaning that anybody who gets
one of those grants from theOffice on Violence Against Women
, or the important part, is apotential grantee.
So pretty much everyone is apotential grantee with their
agency in the criminal justicesystem.
They can reach out to us andrequest a free training.
(41:56):
So we provide a training forfree.
We cover all our travelexpenses and we come out and
typically request to do a fullday training where we're talking
about those behaviors thatconstitute stalking, where we're
talking about the intersectionwith domestic violence, on how
to identify risk in stalkingcases and then how to
investigate these cases to looktowards accountability as well
(42:20):
as victim safety.
So those particular trainingsare offered to jurisdictions
across the country and we'vedone lots of them but still have
lots of work to do.
So we sit in an office calledEquitas, which is known for
their prosecution work as well.
So we have the pleasure ofworking with both the criminal
(42:41):
justice system but also focusingon college campuses etc.
So that particular aspect, Ithink, is one of the things that
we can really offer in theseparticular situations.
It's just the need.
We can barely keep up with therequests and the need and so
really helping people figure outhow do they bring training in
(43:03):
their own jurisdiction, whatinformation can they offer, what
can they do internally tochange the way that stockings
responded to within their ownagency Everyone a lot of times
when we do training, wants topoint the finger at other
agencies and say, well, if lawenforcement would do this or
prosecutors would do this.
And then when you ask them butwhat about your own agency?
(43:23):
How much training have you had?
How much training do you dointernally?
Then there's a lot of well,yeah, we could probably think
about.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Well, what comes to mind when you say that is
coordinated community response?
Yes, yep, and is there now acoordinated community response
for stalking?
Speaker 3 (43:44):
We encourage it Absolutely.
So what we oftentimes find,though, is places that tell us
they do have a coordinatedresponse to stalking, have a
coordinated response to intimatepartner stalking, which is only
50% of stalking.
So they're not working on thenon-intimate partner stalking
situations.
So, automatically, they're notworking on 50% of the cases.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
And what is some of those non-intimate partner
stalking cases look like.
Are they, you know, juststrangers obsessed with someone
or something else?
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Typically they're acquaintances, so somebody that
you know through work, throughschool.
So on a lot of college campusesit's somebody that you know
might be in my class, that Irecognize but I don't
necessarily know their name.
So those acquaintance cases areabout.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
You know 40 to 45% of those cases and the majority of
stalking cases, are theyhappening with a particular age
group or within a particularsetting, like college campuses?
Speaker 3 (44:43):
So we know that the 18 to 24-year-old age group
experiences the highest rate ofstalking.
College campuses are actually aprotective factor.
A lot of people want to say, oh, it's happening because it's on
a college campus.
Well, what we know is it's theage group.
It's the 18 to 24-year-old agegroup who are engaging in dating
or figuring out relationshipsand that if they're residing on
a college campus or they'reenrolled in college, they
(45:06):
actually have a protectivefactor because there's more
resources.
They might be more familiar ofwhere to go for help, versus an
average 18 to 24 year oldwouldn't necessarily know those
things.
So, absolutely, we see thehighest percentage happening
within the 18 to 24 year old agegroup, but I would say that we
see more individuals reachingout to the criminal justice
(45:28):
system and advocacy agency inthe like 18 to 40 year old age
group, just because of thoseparticular dynamics.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
I'd like to give our listeners some resources before
we go.
What are the websites that youwould recommend they visit to
learn more about this issue?
Speaker 4 (45:47):
So for me and reaching out to the public and I
really like to share you knowPeggy's story, so if anybody
wants to know any anything moreabout me or about Peggy's story,
you can visit my site atstalkingmuststoporg.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Certainly, you can go to Spark's website, which is
stalkingawarenessorg, and wehave all the information for
Stalking Awareness Month, so weprovide a ton of resources that
folks can use for social mediaposts and doing activities, etc.
One of the things that wehaven't mentioned yet is in
January, because it's the 20thanniversary.
(46:25):
On January 18, in honor ofPeggy, we're encouraging folks
to participate in the firstNational Day of Action against
stalking, and one of the thingsthat Debbie mentions a lot about
Peggy is that as Patrick beganto stalk Peggy, they saw Peggy's
sparkling personality disappear, and so, in honor of Peggy, we
(46:48):
are encouraging people to bringback the sparkle, and so, on
January 18th, we're encouragingfolks to take pictures, post
social media wearing somethingsparkly and trying to recognize
that we want to bring back thesparkle for Peggy and everyone
that is in a situation likePeggy's.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
That is so beautiful and I can't wait to wear
sparkles in honor of Peggy onJanuary 18th.
Thank you both for talking withme today.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The 2025 Conference on CrimesAgainst Women will take place in
Dallas, Texas, May 19th throughthe 22nd at the Sheraton Dallas
.
Learn more and register atconferencecaworg and follow us
on social media at National CCAW.
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