Stalking is the hunting of humans. It is an extremely deviant behavior. It is not normal and you cannot find a reason or provocation that justifies hunting human beings. Bullied, not bullied. Does not matter. Hunting and slaughtering humans is not justified or explained with any rational explanation. I would guess brain differences have to exist, but, when an individual knows right from wrong (i.e., turning off the cellphone, hiding covertly, going in the house in black at night), that individual made a conscious choice to slaughter innocent lives. Whether they were happy or popular or whatever, they were young adults at school trying to create a future, butchered in the prime of their lives. Ironically, even their grieving families would not, after learning of the slaughter of their son and daughters would not be legally justified in taking the same revenge. They will be reduced to a legal process that will never feel like justice.
I share this because my family was stalked by two individuals for two years that we thought were going to kill us. The provocation? They willingly relinquished rights to a special needs child who became our daughter. She was terrified of them. She vomited every time she saw them. She was three years old when we met her and five when she was adopted. This is how we started our trauma journey and my field in abuse now. These two individuals did NOT want her back. Our daughter reported abuse in their home on several occasions to counselors. We were absolutely stuck. My husband and I had three other young children at the time. These two grown adults, moved from over 1000 miles away. They went to my children's school to scare them. One applied for a job as a janitor to stalk my children. They went to my husband's work. They drove by our home repeatedly, terrifying our children. The sheriff's officer had a deputy assigned to drive by our country home (17 minutes for 911) to make sure we were alive. I cannot begin to express the horror. My oldest child, still young, dropped out of elementary school with repeated panic attacks. If he left home, they would go to his school (shared by all four kids). He did not trust the school could protect him like his mom would. He went into a very severe panic and anxiety overload. There were pictures of the stalkers at the elementary school and anywhere else we were. The university I taught for posted an armed security guard by my college class so I could continue to teach. One day, I was at church, without my husband, I got out of my car with four small children. As I went to go in, with children in tow, the man, well over 6 foot tall came to me. I froze. What could I do? If I ran, my children could not keep up. I would never leave them. I could not fight him. I had no time to call 911. Fortunately, I ran into the church, interrupting the meeting, and church members called 911 and different families took each of my children to separate places to hide them. When the officers came, the two individuals presented a poem on death and a child screaming from a coffin.
We had twelve restraining orders - one against each individual for six members of our family. They were jailed and continued. We had no way out. We could not "give back" our daughter to such abuse and terror and would not consider it. We could not protect our three young children. Every time we slept, we knew we were vulnerable. Our children were vulnerable. I read Gavin de Becker's Gift of Fear and contacted their agency for help. I was forced to learn methods to protect my children and family and became proficient. As an attorney, testifying at the trial was still one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. They were the hunters. We were their prey. At that trial, I summoned all my courage, after two years of intense stalking, looked them in the eye and said, "Normal people do not hunt other people, especially children." When I was done testifying, I collapsed sobbing into the arms of the victim advocate.
This is a hard story for me to share. Years later, the male turned up at an event I was speaking at on trauma and abuse to sit and stare at me as I was running a conference on abuse. He had free frequent flier miles and could be anywhere he knew I would be. Did they know what they were doing? Yes. Had they been bullied? I don't care. Were they mentally ill? Maybe, but they were fully aware of every action they took and nothing, besides a conviction and jail time would stop them. Even that, did not stop him from showing up years later. My daughter has never been in a year book. I do not share information on her on facebook. We keep her hidden because we do not know what they want with her. She is now the same age as the victims. Maybe that is why this resonates so strongly for me. Normal humans do not hunt humans. As terrified as we were, we knew we were being stalked. These young adults in Idaho did not get that blessing. They were sleeping. They had done nothing that could ever justify the horror they endured and, for what? There is no reason. When we can clearly tell that this was a premeditated attack on innocent human life, there is no sadness for the hunter and there is no justification that even merits consideration. They deserved to live. And, even if the killer didn't think so, they deserved a fair fight. This was not fair in any sense of the word. To hunt the sleeping in their own home at the darkest hour of night is cowardly, deviant and there will never be a reason that merits justification or explanation, especially when it is clear the killer was aware that the actions were wrong. It was a choice. It was a thrill. It was a crime against all of society. There is a price to be paid when humans deviate to the thrill of hunting other humans. Thanks for letting me share my story. To this day, it is still difficult to tell.
