"My stalker bought me a PS4... that I gladly accepted." - Will Rasmussen

What starts as a distraction in a summer math class quickly turns into a fourteen-year story full of bizarre coincidences, quiet tracking, and high-value holiday gifts.

In this episode of This One Time in Kankakee, host Jake LaMore welcomes guest Will Rasmussen (host of Breakroom Sessions) to recount an unbelievable, completely true experience spanning multiple jobs, industrial freezers, emergency elevator stops, and an unexpected PlayStation 4 payout.

Will breaks down every step of the saga:

• The Summer Recess: Daily driveway honking after summer classes.
• The Workplace Coincidences: Reconnecting at two separate jobs years apart.
• The High-Stakes Advances: Bizarre moments in office suites, elevators, tinted-window cars, and commercial freezers.
• The PS4 Payoff: Opening a car trunk to find three brand-new PlayStation 4s—and what he actually did with the gift.
• Uncovering the Truth: How database access and police plate checks revealed how she always knew where he was.
• The Redirection: How Will finally resolved the situation for good.

Tune in for a fascinating, funny, and factual look into one of Kankakee County's most memorable personal stories!

Want more from the WVLI Podcast Network? Listen to the WVLI News Update with Rob West every weekday morning! Get the days local news from the greater Kankakee County, IL area in 10 minutes or less. 

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The Voices You Trust, Beyond The Dial.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Support for this one time in Kankakee comes from the Kankakee Area YMCA. The Kankakee Area YMCA is more than just a gym. It's a movement of thousands of people making positive changes in their lives and their community. The YMCA is Kankakee's premier provider of family health and wellness. Become a Y member today at their location on Kennedy Drive in Kankakee or at K3YMCA.org. For youth development, for healthy living, for social responsibility, the Kankakee Area YMCA. Support for this one time in Kankakee comes from Ravenspring Media, where method, media, and mindfulness create impact. From video production, photography, animation, and team building, Ravenspring Media creates compelling content that captures your brand's unique story in a strategic way. With over 20 years of visual storytelling experience, Ravenspring Media brings together creative expertise and a fresh perspective to every project they undertake. Begin your story today at Ravenspringmedia.com.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

This one time in Kinkiki, my stalker bought me a PS4 that I gladly accepted.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

From the W VLI Podcast Network, this is this one time in Kankiki. I'm your host, Jake Lamore. On this show, we bring you the real unfiltered stories from the people who live right here in our community. Today we're talking with local creator and podcaster Will Rasmussen. You might know him from his online platforms or his published work. Before we dive into the story that spans more than a decade of his life, let's introduce Will in his own words.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yes, you can catch me on my podcast, Break Room Sessions on YouTube, All Street and Platforms. I was born in Kankiki, lived here all my life. I also have a poem book that I wrote. You can find that on Amazon under Will Rasmussen. And I have a wild story for you guys to hear.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

His winning flavor combination was called the Paramount, a mix of caramel, butterfinger, and cheesecake. But long before he was hosting podcasts and winning soft surf contests, Will was a student trying to get through a summer term. The story begins around 1999 or 2000. Will was attending Kankakee Community College, taking a 90-minute-long summer math class. The course ran for about four weeks. On the first day of class, Will walked into the room, recognized a guy he had graduated high school with, and decided to sit next to him. That's when he noticed a female student sitting on the completely opposite side of the lecture hall.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

I was attending KCC for a math class. It was a summer class. I walk into the room, I see a guy that I graduated with, know him very well. I said, you know, I'll go sit by him, you know. So I went and sat by him. Class starts. I just happened to glance over to the other side of the room. And this female's just like laser focused on me and my buddy. What's she looking at? She's waving and smiling, and I'm like, hi, you know, I'm like, hi, how you doing? You know, from across the room. I gotta focus on my math.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Because it was a 90-minute class, the professor gave the students a 15-minute break halfway through. When Will returned to the room after the recess, the students from across the room had relocated.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

When we came back from break, the young lady that was on the other side of the room ended up sitting right next to me. And I'm like, okay, you know, and then she's like, uh, hey, how you doing? What's your name? You know, I was looking at you from over there. I was like, Oh, you were looking at me. She's like, Yeah, I was looking at you from over there over across the room. I said, Told her my name, you know, we start chatting a little bit, then class ends. I say bye to my buddy, say bye to her, drive home. Unbeknownst to me, this young lady had followed me home. I pull in my driveway and she drives by, honking her horn, real real loudly, waving, and I'm like, what the heck is wrong with this chick?

SPEAKER_01 5:39

This was not a one-time occurrence. Will explains that for the entire four-week duration of that summer course, this exact sequence happened every single day after class. He would pull into his driveway, and she would drive past his house, honking her horn and waving. Once the four-week class concluded, he simply stopped seeing her. About a year passed. Will was at his workplace when the company hired a new employee. As it turned out, Will was assigned to train her. It was the exact same girl from the summer math class. Up until this point, Will didn't even know her name. She had obtained his at KCC, but he'd never received hers. Now they were in the same department, doing the same exact job. It didn't take long for her behavior to escalate into direct workplace advances. The first notable incident occurred because of Will's habit of borrowing office supplies.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

My boss at the time used to leave his office open, and I would go in there and take pins because he had real nice pins. Well, one day I go in there and take a pin and she follows me in there. She tried to seduce me in the boss's office. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, what is going on here? Well, come on, I'm doing it. I'm like, no, no, no, we're at work, you know. I'm no. It's like, and don't you got to? She had a boyfriend at the time. And that's all I'm like, what is it? No. She's like, okay, okay. So then, you know, we go about our business.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

The behavior continued on another floor of the building. While the two of them were riding the elevator up to the third floor, she suddenly hit the emergency stop button.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Another day, she uh we're on the elevator going up to third floor, and uh she put she pushes emergency stop, and she wants to seduce me in the elevator. I'm like, no, no, no, no, don't you know emergency stop rings these bells and people come, you know, trying to see if there's any danger going on? No, no, no, no. So I push the button, we ride up. She's like, okay, okay. Weird, strange girl, you know, nice, very nice, very bubbly, very nice, but weird, strange.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

On another day after work, she asked Will for a ride home. At this time, Will lived roughly a mile away from her, so he figured since he was heading in that direction anyway, it wasn't a big deal to help her out. They got into his car, which featured an extremely dark window tent.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Get in the car. At the time, my car's windows were tinted like the like the president's. You couldn't see in, you could barely see out. So we're driving, you know. I look over, and well, you know, a shirt's off. Let's just say a shirt's off. And uh, I'm like, what is good? What are you doing? She tries to do some me in my car. I'm like, this ain't happening. I'm like, you got a boyfriend, I'm not trying to rock no boats, you know, put that back on. Let me take you home. So I took her home.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Now you might think a situation this intense would drive someone to flee the company. But for Will, leaving wasn't exactly about running away. It was simply a career move. When a better job opportunity came along, he took it and he handed in his resignation. This routine career upgrade brought him a two-year break from the situation. Will had been working at his new job for about two years. One day he was walking down the hallway when he happened to look into a room where a group of new hires was undergoing orientation. So I'm at my new job, let's say, for two years.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

I'm walking down the hallway. I glance into this room that had some new hires in it, right? Sitting in the room is the girl. It's the girl that worked with me before. That stalked me. That worked, that was in class with me, that stalked me. She's in the room, and I'm like, I I like past the door, had to back up. Cause I'm like, this can't, this, this, this, this can't be, this can't be real. And looking again, and she sees me. She jumps up. She's supposed she's in orientation. She comes out to the hallway, gives me big old hugs. Hey, how you doing? And I'm like, hey, hi, you know, what are you doing here? What? Just got hired. I'm like, oh boy, here we go. She ends up working in the same department as me.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

This marked the start of their third stretch working together, and Will once again found himself tasked with training her. The pattern of behavior quickly returned. One day, while they were working inside the facility's walk-in freezer, she made another physical advance. Will immediately pointed out that the freezer was freezing cold and equipped with visible security cameras. He also asked about her boyfriend, to which she claimed she had dumped him. Will firmly told her no, explaining he had moved on and was now engaged. As the winter holidays approached that year, the dynamic shifted from physical advances to unexpected gift giving. Will had been talking with his co-workers in the break room about how much he wanted a Sony PlayStation 4 console. Eventually, Will just went out and purchased one for himself. A few weeks later, as they were leaving work, she asked him to come out to her car.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

We're walking out from work. And this girl goes, Hey, come to me to my car for a minute. I gotta show you something. And I'm like, what could this be? Go to her car, she opens up her trunk. She's got three P brand new PS4 sitting there in the trunk. She was like, grab one. I'm like, what? She's like, grab one. Merry Christmas. She said, I heard you talking, saying that you wanted one, so I wouldn't, I went and I got I got you one. I was like, no, there's no strings attached to this PS4. There's that I don't have to do something strange for some change or nothing for this thing. And she's like, uh, no, no, no, just grab one. Okay. So I reached in, I grabbed one, and I took it, and I already had one, so I sold it, got some money in my pocket, and went about my day.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Looking back at the timeline, Will recalled another unannounced encounter that actually occurred during the first job they shared. She unexpectedly showed up at his house one day, explicitly asking him to help her wrap a baby shower gift.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

She showed up at my house one day, and she wanted me to help her wrap a baby shower gift. And I'm like, what? Yeah, I was in the neighborhood, and I w you're in the neighborhood? What do you mean you're in my neighborhood? What are you doing in my neighborhood? So I helped her wrap this baby shower gift. Once again, she tried to seduce me, and I you know, push her off of me and get her away. This was before I met my wife, soon-to-be wife. This happened the the time the first time we worked together. The baby shower story happened the first time we worked together.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

As time went on and Will's real life engagement progressed, she found out about the upcoming wedding. Will had invited a few of his co-workers to the ceremony, but she was not on the guest list. When she discovered this, she made an explicit threat to disrupt the event.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

She found out that I was getting married, I was gonna get married, and I had invited a couple co-workers, not her, not her, but I had invited a couple other co-workers to the wedding, and she said she was gonna show up and crash the wedding. Because I wasn't marrying, she wasn't gonna let me marry my wife. She wanted me to marry her. I said, You are off your rocker, because this is not gonna happen. I've been telling you that from day one.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Realizing that direct rejections were not stopping the behavior, Will decided to try a completely different approach to resolve the problem permanently. He chose to redirect her attention to someone else.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

I actually, to get her away from me, hooked her up with another guy that we worked with. And she ended up moving in with him and buying him things and showering him with gifts and all that good stuff. So that's how I got away from her. But you know, we see each other at work still, we're we're cordial, you know, we say hi to each other. I mean, it's not not weird now, but it was weird back then.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

For a long time, the central mystery of this multi-year saga was how she managed to secure employment at the exact same companies and locate his houses. Will eventually learned that she was using specific connections to track his professional and residential status across the Kankakee area.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

First of all, where I work, when I got hired, you had to go through the unemployment office to get hired on. She had a lot of uh police officers friends who would she she would just give them my license plate and they'd run it for her and tell her my address. That's how she figured out. Did she tell you that? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's minus the fur minus the first time that she followed me home from college. Because she figured that out just by following me home. But when I moved from that residence to other residences, she just, oh, here's this guy's plate number. Can you run it for me so I can see where he lives? And they would give it to her, and then she would just like genie in a lamp pop up, you know, or drive by real slow.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

When looking back at this today, a common question is why Will didn't report this behavior to human resources or company management. Will explains that his reasoning at the time was based on workplace self-preservation and a desire not to cause someone to lose their livelihood.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

I was afraid to get terminated, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Why would you get terminated?

SPEAKER_00 18:10

I don't know why I would get terminated. She would have got terminated because she was still on probation. So I want I'm not that type of person to be the type of person to get somebody else fired, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Because like, how uncomfortable were you in those?

SPEAKER_00 18:26

I I wasn't. See, I I I just never I don't think I ever took her seriously. Because once she tried, once she made what was make the passes at me, I'd be like, no, this ain't no, this ain't happening. She would back away. So I never felt like, oh man, I'm in danger or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

According to Will, these periodic encounters started all the way back in 1999 and continued on and off until about 2012 or 2013. Today the situation has completely settled.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Yeah, we see each other and we say hi, and you know how how you been, and we can I can laugh about it now.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

This one time in Kankakee is a production of the W VLI Podcast Network. I'm Jake Clamore. Special thanks to Will Rasmussen for sitting down with us and sharing his account with us. If you have an unbelievable story to share, shoot me an email at Jake at Milner MediaPartners.com and finish the sentence for me. This one time in Kankakee. Support for this one time in Kankakee comes from Lamore Realty, located in downtown Mantino. Amazing real estate brokerage proudly serving Kankakee County and the surrounding areas. Visit LamoreRealty.com and follow them on Facebook and Instagram at Lamore Realty.