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.
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.
The subject matter of this podcast will address difficult topics multiple forms of violence and identity based discrimination and harassment. We acknowledge that this content may be difficult and have listed specific content warnings in each episode description to help create a positive, safe experience for all listeners.
Speaker 2:In this country, 31 million crimes 31 million crimes are reported every year. That is one every second. Out of that, every 24 minutes there is a murder. Every five minutes there is a rape. Every two to five minutes there is a sexual assault. Every nine seconds in this country, a woman is assaulted by someone who told her that he loved her, by someone who told her it was her fault, by someone who tries to tell the rest of us it's none of our business and I am proud to stand here today with each of you to call that perpetrator a liar.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women. I'm Maria McMullen. Many people tend to minimize the grave dangers of stalking, due in large part to lack of knowledge or the pervasiveness of myths and misconceptions surrounding the subject. There was a time when stalking was viewed from narrow perspectives, such as a perpetrator hiding behind a bush or tailing someone in their car, and was never considered a form of domestic abuse. But times have changed and studies reveal that stalking can be just as abusive as other forms of abuse and as such, is considered a serious crime. And while stalking is experienced by both men and women, statistics show that women are disproportionately stalked by men, especially when it occurs in the context of an intimate partner relationship. Moreover, with the innovativeness of technology, both stalking and the stalker have become much more sophisticated, and stalking has now taken on many treacherous and terrorizing forms. Unfortunately, the danger can be so great that, for some women, the crime has led the stalker to murdering their victim. This episode will talk about such a case that prompted the loving sister of a woman stalked and murdered by her ex-boyfriend to initiate major change on a massive scale by bringing about national awareness to the overlooked issue of stalking.
Speaker 1:In January of 2003, Debbie Riddle's youngest sister, Peggy, was murdered by a man who stalked her for almost a year. Shortly after Peggy's death, Debbie began working with the National Center for Victims of Crime and the Stalking Resource Center. In July 2003, Debbie was asked to speak at a congressional briefing requesting US Congress to recognize January, the month Peggy was murdered, as Stalking Awareness Month. After educating herself on stalking, the laws and police protocol, Debbie became heavily involved in educating others and raising awareness as a national speaker for the Stalking Resource Center. While working with them and Lifetime Television, Debbie helped create the Roll Call video, an 18-minute stalking awareness training video produced primarily for use with law enforcement training. Today, the video is utilized across the United States to train all divisions of our criminal justice system, as well as forensic nurses, victims' advocates and college women's centers and their staff. Today, Debbie continues to speak at training sessions, webinars, college campus trainings, high school and youth groups throughout the United States.
Speaker 1:Jennifer Lantheis brings over 26 years of experience as an educator and advocate on the issues of stalking, domestic violence and sexual assault to her current position as the director of the Stalking Prevention Awareness and Resource Center, otherwise known as SPARK. As director, she oversees the development and implementation of multifaceted resources, programs and publications on stalking, collaborates with national partners and provides robust trainings to criminal justice and victim service professionals. Jennifer has led the SPARK initiative since its founding at Equitas in 2017. Debbie and Jennifer welcome to the podcast. Good morning.
Speaker 3:Good morning. So great to be here.
Speaker 1: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:Sure. So Peggy is my youngest sister and she had moved out to Albuquerque, new Mexico, from Ohio, where our family is based, and she actually met her stalker on a college campus and they were in a relationship from the fall of 98 till about, I would say, january of 2002. It was a relationship that was filled with psychological and emotional abuse. There was an awful lot of red flags during that relationship. Peggy had a very hard time leaving that relationship solely for the reason that she was very afraid of what was going to happen to her should she leave. So the day she left, which was in January of 2002, she became a stalking victim and he relentlessly pursued her for a full year under the watchful eye of our criminal justice system and he started, I guess, which I would call very basic stalking techniques. You know he was calling her around the clock, he was texting her cell phone.
Speaker 4:You know she began dating someone shortly after their relationship broke up and he found out who he was and he began stalking him. He followed Peggy to work, to her yoga studio, to her hair salon, did an awful lot of surveillance. Peggy wasn't giving him anything, she wasn't encouraging any conversation with him, she was completely ignoring him. So he offered up a wedding proposal one morning when she was walking into work and he jumped out from behind some bushes and he had a wedding ring and some roses and said I love you, would you marry me? And Peggy walked by him, completely ignored him, and this seemed to absolutely fuel the fire. He became very upset, very angry, and he took a photo of Peggy and he put it on an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper and he wrote her name on it, he put her cell phone number on it and just all sorts of obscenities. You know, I'm a slut, I'm a whore. I'd love to sleep with you, please call me. And he posted those flyers all throughout the city of Albuquerque, new Mexico, specifically in spots where he knew Peggy would see them. And sure enough, the following day Peggy walked into her yoga studio and one of the instructors said I hate to be the one to tell you this, but this was taped to our door. We walked in this morning.
Speaker 4:So for Peggy this was probably the first piece of concrete evidence I guess she had and decided to go to the police and she went with her cell phone records, her cell phone and a piece of paper and talked to the police and she was told you know, there's nothing we can really do about it. It's a piece of paper. Please come back to us when something happens. And you know he, because there was no, you know, law enforcement intervention at this point, he was free to continue to harass her. He knew our family, he knew the dynamics of our family, he knew that we were going to be in Florida for my brother's wedding and while we were all in Florida, he flew from Albuquerque to Ohio and spray painted PK as a whore on my mother's garage door.
Speaker 4:He went back to Albuquerque and the man that Peggy was dating at the time, mark he went and opened up a gas line on Mark's house and torched the back of Mark's home. And, like I said, we were all in Florida for this wedding and Mark had calls from Albuquerque police, albuquerque fire, from his mother, from his neighbor, and Peggy knew instantly that this was Patrick. And so Peggy and Mark went back to Albuquerque and Peggy pleaded with these officers, saying I know you're investigating arson, but the reason why there's arson is because I have a stalker. And she worked harder at trying to prove that this was Patrick, looking at footprints in the mud and saying these are hiking boots that I bought him. Please go to his house and find these boots. And she was shut down continuously saying ma'am, this isn't an arson, we're investigating. And, like I said, peggy kept coming back saying there is an arson because I have a stalker. This prompted Peggy to file to get an attorney to file stalking charges, to file an order of protection. When she filed an order of protection, patrick went in and filed an order of protection against her.
Speaker 4:So while they are waiting for this court date, peggy and Mark feel that it's best to get her out of Albuquerque because he is going to continue to stalk her relentlessly. He knows where she lives, he knows where Mark lives. So they took Peggy and moved her from Albuquerque out to Turlock, california, and we're waiting for this trial to happen, which was pushed into September, which was pushed down into late fall, and now we have a court date of January. So in these few months from the time of protection order and the papers were filed in August, he's got an awful lot of time to continue to stalk and harass Peggy, but now he can't find her. So Patrick is doing an awful lot of work to try and find Peggy. He gets ahold of her moving company and he poses as a police officer and the woman at the moving company won't give him Peggy's most current address and he is reaching out to Peggy's co-workers trying to find out where she's at. One of the co-workers actually denies knowing Peggy and calls Peggy and tells her about this phone call and Peggy said that's my stalker, patrick Kennedy. He's trying to find me.
Speaker 4:Patrick worked very closely with private investigators and his story was he needed to find this woman and he had to pick up some money from her, and so the private investigator had given Patrick a street where he thought Peggy might be, but he couldn't give him the exact location. So what Patrick did was fly out from Albuquerque out to San Jose and started casing neighborhoods up and down the coast of California and my family's back in Ohio, thinking that Peggy is safe. He is thinking that she is safe, and meanwhile all this activity is happening. And it wasn't until Thanksgiving of 2002, and I happened to be at my mother's house with my girls for the holidays we got a phone call and it was Patrick's voice and he said I know where she's at and in two minutes she'll be dead. And I'm thinking to myself okay, patrick is either hiding in the woods in my mother's backyard or he's going to open fire and kill whoever those bullets reach, because he thinks Peggy's home for the holidays, or he's out in Albuquerque and knows that Peggy is back in town.
Speaker 4:So we call the police. We file another police report for a death threat. Phone call. Peggy said please get ahold of the district attorney. I call him, I leave a message. Peggy finally gets ahold of him and when the district attorney hears Peggy's voice on the phone, he starts laughing and goes oh my God, you're still alive. And Peggy said to him is it going to take a bullet to my head for you to understand how serious this is? In December it's very quiet. We're waiting for Peggy to come home for Christmas. Patrick's family probably assumes that Peggy's going to be home for Christmas and they call my mother and they say we just want to let you know. We don't know where Patrick is, but Peggy's home for Christmas. You might want to call your local law enforcement and keep a watch on your house. So that was really fun for the few days that Peggy was home. The last time I saw Peggy was when she left my house in December of 2002, I hugged her. I told her it was going to be fine to get back to California, get back to working. That trial was coming up at the end of January and things were going to be okay.
Speaker 4:And on Saturday morning, january 18th, peggy walked into her garage where Patrick had been hiding. He had found her address through a conversation with a local UPS driver who gave him Peggy's exact location. He beat her relentlessly with a gun. He was able to tape her mouth, tape her hands behind her back. Somehow, someway, peggy was able to break free from that and God bless the neighbor that was standing on Peggy's front doorstep waiting to go for coffee. The surprise that she had when that door opened and Peggy came out covered in blood, calling we've got to go. My stalker's here. He found me. He's going to kill me. They were able to run to Rachel's condo, who was next door, locked themselves in the bedroom. Peggy was able to make a 911 call. The officers were on their way.
Speaker 4:In the meantime, patrick broke in and found out where they were hiding. He had Peggy face down in the closet with a gun to the back of her head. And when the officers arrived, peggy warned the officers do not don't come in here, he's going to kill me if you open up that door. And the officer standing outside of that door said Peggy, let's not talk about that, let's talk about your family. And Peggy very, very calmly said look, I need you to call my mother in Ohio and tell her that I love her. I need you to get in touch with my young niece, who's been sick all winter, and tell her she'll have a guardian angel watching over her. I also need you to get in touch with my sister who's pregnant and please tell her to name her baby after me. And shortly after Peggy was able to deliver those messages, patrick shot her in the back of the head and he shot himself. The officers got in, got Peggy out on the front lawn where she died moments later.
Speaker 4:So while this is transpiring out in California, my family is in Ohio getting ready to celebrate my niece's sixth birthday. We have absolutely no idea that this is happening. And on that evening I just put my girls to bed. My mother and I were sitting in a room watching TV and the doorbell rang, and when I walked to the front door I saw two police officers standing on my mother's front porch and I knew instantly that Peggy was dead. It was the first thing that I said to them was just tell me, did Patrick Kennedy find my sister and kill her?
Speaker 4:In the weeks that followed, I found myself I mean obviously, as the oldest sibling telling this story over and over again, as people had asked you know what had happened to Peggy. And as I told the story again and again, for me it almost became like therapy. It was something that, little by little, was healing my heart. And thinking about that, I knew that I wanted to do something. I didn't know what that was, I didn't know how to do it, I didn't know what path it was going to take.
Speaker 4:But I thought about how many Peggy's are out there? How many women does this happen to? Why are we not having a conversation about this? Why could she not find any help? Why would law enforcement not believe her? So a month after her death, I was able to connect with Tracy Baum, who was the director of the Stocking Resource Center, and I asked her is it possible to get funding for every law enforcement agency across the United States to have a dedicated officer to help victims dealing with the crime of stalking? And a few months after that in July of 2003, so just six months after Peggy was killed the Stocking Resource Center, the National Center for Victims of Crime, lifetime Television, mark Nguyen, who's my hero he's retired law enforcement specializes in stalking and Heather Wilson, who was in the House of Representatives from the state of New Mexico, all met in Washington DC to ask Congress to recognize January as National Stocking Awareness Month, and that, for me, was that's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:I wanted to bring this crime to light so there wouldn't be any more victims like my sister and there wouldn't be families that would be in such immense pain over something that was so incredibly preventable, debbie first of all, I'm very sorry for the loss and all of the pain you and your family experienced due to this situation with Peggy and her stalker, and I thank you for sharing all of that with us because, knowing the story and I know how painful it is to you know, perhaps, tell the story again and again, but I do think it gives a lot of perspective to the audience to understand the severity of stalking.
Speaker 1:This is not a trivial matter, right? Because I think very often it's trivialized and it's overlooked and people don't realize that something that you know someone following you or tracking you could actually lead to the end of your life. And so, as an outcome of this terrible tragedy, as you said, you met with Congress, you met with others and experts to help put a spotlight on the issue of stalking, and you also helped to found National Stalking Awareness Month, which is January every year, and we're approaching, as we said, the 20th year of marking National Stalking Awareness Month. What did you hope to accomplish by doing that?
Speaker 4:One of the earliest conversations I had was with Heather Wilson and you know we had talked about the laws the laws that are in place and the laws that do exist but the education was lacking. So for me, I wanted to educate law enforcement about the crime of stalking, to really really listen to what these victims are saying and believe what they are saying. But I also wanted to educate the general public about what stalking is. I talk an awful lot on college campuses and the word stalking means so many different things to so many different people. That piece of language people use it in conversation as in I'm looking for you. So I was stalking you in the library. You know we make light of things like that. So you know it was education as a very, very broad platform, from your general public all the way up through our criminal justice system, your law enforcement, your advocates, your judges, your prosecutors, to really really elevate this conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you've done just that, Jennifer. Let's talk a little bit about statistics and give our listeners a way to grasp the seriousness and progressiveness of stalking. Can you provide statistics that illustrate what victims of stalking and stalking deaths looks like from a quantitative perspective?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I think one of the things that people feel to realize is how prevalent stalking is. I mean, the national estimates are that one in three women and one in six men will experience stalking at some point in their lifetime and about half of those are intimate partner related. And those intimate partner stalking cases are some of our most dangerous. And one of the things that we know is that oftentimes what happens is when that stalking is happening within the context of domestic violence, it gets inflated with the issues of power and control and not necessarily identified as stalking. And what we know is if there is intimate partner violence plus stalking, a victim is in three times greater danger of being killed by that person.
Speaker 3:And oftentimes what happens is people might have some training on intimate partner violence, they might have some understanding about lethality factors, but they miss the stalking element. They don't name it as stalking, they don't recognize it as stalking, the system might fail to charge it as stalking, and so we miss the opportunity to intervene in those particular cases. And what we know a lot of times is that the most common use of the criminal justice system is what happened in Peggy's case that when victims go forward and there's eventually an intimate partner homicide, the most common use of the criminal justice system prior to that homicide was reporting intimate partner stalking.
Speaker 1:So I just want to make sure I understood what you just said. So not reporting stalking or reporting it and then it not being taken seriously.
Speaker 3:Reporting it and then it not be taken seriously. So there was an eventual homicide and the victim had come in prior to that homicide and reported that there was intimate partner stalking. That's the most common use of the criminal justice system. When that happens, and what oftentimes happens is it gets overbooked and we know that, like an 85% of attempted hemicides where a male kills a female victim and 76% of completed hemicides, the victim was being stalked. There was an episode of stalking within the year prior to the murder.
Speaker 1:So I could see that stalking being overlooked would be one of the challenges that assists the numbers or the statistics related to stalking being so high. Are there other things that allow stalking to continue at the rate that it does?
Speaker 3:I think 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 themselves might not be criminal. So it's not criminal to send a text message. It's not criminal to drive down a public street.
Speaker 3:But, when it's happening within the context of a stalking situation. If you put those pieces of the puzzle together, then it's part of that course of the conduct that is criminal. But in a system that's very incident-based, where one person might responding to one incident, another person responding to another incident, and those incidents in and of themselves aren't criminal and they might not involve physical violence. What happened in Peggy's situation unfortunately isn't unusual. That people look at those particular things that happened and say, oh, it was just a flyer, it was just a text message.
Speaker 3:Somebody just happened to show up at the grocery store at the same time you did, and they don't necessarily identify the potential dangerousness in those situations, and so victims of stalking oftentimes feel, like Peggy did, that nobody's doing anything, no one will listen to me, and that it's going to take something. Big Victims often say is it going to take something? Is it going to take me being harmed, is it going to take me being killed before anyone will listen to me? And so that response can lead to victims feeling like no one's going to listen to them and so they might not continue to engage with this system. And, as Debbie said, even society, that common use of the word stalking. It means that it's become so normalized in our society that people are reluctant to believe victims. They don't necessarily identify what's happening and victims don't necessarily understand what is happening is stalking.
Speaker 1:Now to all of those points, and this question might be for both of you have things improved? Has the response to when a woman says she's being stalked by especially by an intimate partner, former intimate partner has the response to that improved in the 20 years that you all have been bringing this to really the center of the conversation?
Speaker 4:I would, just because I do spend time on college campuses. Sometimes I feel like it honestly depends on where you're at, what jurisdiction you are in, what law enforcement officer you engage with, what is the programming on your campus like? I've met with students that will say, oh my gosh, your story saved my life because I knew what to do, I know who to talk to, I knew who to report to. But I've also talked to people that said I went to talk to law enforcement, they didn't do anything because I didn't have any proof or I wasn't harmed. For me, from what I hear, it really depends on where you're at.
Speaker 3:I would echo that particular thought. My soapbox is, with stalking, as always, that victims shouldn't have to look into a good response. They shouldn't have to hope that the person that responded to them happens to be the person who's had training on this particular issue. That response should be across the board, a response that listens to and believes victims, but unfortunately that doesn't happen. While I think we've come a long ways in the training and understanding. I think we have quite a ways to go, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about the training that's available, but first I want to ask you just give us a refresher. What are the warning signs of stalking, so people understand what to look for.
Speaker 3:So I think one of the challenges is, a lot of times people look at stalking as what they believe to be like stereotypical following someone around behavior.
Speaker 3:And the framework that we actually encourage people to think about is that surveillance behavior, which is following around and monitoring, but also things like life invasion, where the offender is interfering with either private or virtual space of the victim's life, so showing up places, interfering with their employment. There's also things like interference through sabotage or attack, so sabotaging a victim's workplace for Peggy it was sabotaging every aspect of her life. She couldn't go to the yoga studio without worrying about things like that and then the aspect of intimidation, so that surveillance, life invasion, interference and intimidation oftentimes gets overlooked when those individual incidents are happening. So really looking at those particular behaviors as a warning signs that this is a stalking situation can be effective not only for responders but for victims and understanding that what is happening to them is stalking. So often we hear things like well, this person isn't respecting my boundaries or they're creeping me out, or I know this sounds really off the wall, but this person happened to show up everywhere I go. Oftentimes that isn't understood as stalking, but very much is stalking behavior.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what I've heard from a lot of other experts is a couple of things like your gut, yes, so typically there's an intuitive response to when something is not right, when someone is doing something that is not right or dangerous or makes you feel uncomfortable and that should be assigned for you as an individual, and we should really listen to that intuition when it's telling us or when it sends our radar up that something is going on here. And then the other thing I hear very frequently is documentation, and in this case, like a lot of cases of domestic violence and crimes against women, the onus is on the victim to document, document, document, because we have to prove the case to the powers that be that this is a dangerous situation, that my life might be in danger by this stalker.
Speaker 3:I would absolutely agree with you that that struggle of you know I often say stalking is one of the few crimes that we rely on victims to essentially prove the case for themselves, they have to bring that evidence forward, that documentation forward, and so well, I think that we have made some progress in helping understand what that might look like and empowering victims to be able to keep that information, but also really understanding that it's on us to put those pieces of the puzzle together. It's our job to listen to the individuals who are coming forward and figure out what kind of evidence we can gather in these particular cases.
Speaker 4:I'm going to reiterate on the trust your gut, because every time I speak I will tell the students trust your gut, because if your gut is telling you that something isn't right, it's not right. And we do talk about the stalking log a lot. I mean, yeah, it's unfortunate that we do have to dump this responsibility on these victims, but you know, it helps track things, it empowers them a little bit because oftentimes I will hear I don't have any proof. So if you keep this stalking log and you can journal it there, you are starting to build your proof.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a lot of times when it's digital stalking, it's easy to kind of build the case because there's a footprint of information and sometimes IP addresses and such that give concrete facts about behaviors, about who was doing what and how many times you were contacted and so on. So there are ways to document it that aren't that challenging. But you're right, I mean, it just becomes our responsibility to prove the case. Now let's talk about training and what we can learn about stalking in order to improve responses and our overall understanding.
Speaker 4:Well, it's interesting when I speak and I tell Peggy's story, I will say it's a two-fold emotion I get. So I get the, you know they're so sympathetic and very responsive to that. One of the key things that I will always remember this was a long, long time ago when I first started telling Peggy's story in public was a woman came up and thanked me immensely for doing this because she said you know, we look at data, we look at reports, we look at PowerPoints. You can put all of that in front of us, but nothing hits home like a victim's story. So I mean that for me, that circulates in my head all the time when I have to stand up and talk about this. But on the other side, I see a ton of shock on people's faces because they just can't believe how the behavior continued to escalate and was permitted to escalate and it was never, ever, it was never stopped. So those are the two big responses that I typically will get.
Speaker 1:And you had said something earlier about. You know responses to stalking today may be dependent on your jurisdiction. Looking back now, do you think the jurisdiction that your sister was living under at the time that most of this stalking occurred, did that response from that jurisdiction contribute to you know kind of the outcomes of this case? In other words, perhaps if she had lived in a different jurisdiction and I'm being hypothetical, you know maybe things wouldn't have gotten this far.
Speaker 4:And I found that out very early on, because one of the first things I did was get on the internet and look at other law enforcement agencies. And what was I mean? I literally sent emails to sergeants and, you know, chiefs. I mean I had no idea who they were, but I had told them what had happened to my sister and asked them what was going on in their community. And I specifically remember an officer in Connecticut telling me that's not how they dealt with stalking victims, that this was sort of their protocol. And then when I began speaking and met different law enforcement officers across the US, I had learned you know, they had shared stalking cases with me how they had handled them. You know, and I had also learned from, you know, talking to people, that that's not. We don't. We don't deal with that kind of stuff around here.
Speaker 1:So, in other words, there were better responses available in the country, just not in that particular jurisdiction. Is that correct, correct? Yeah, and I asked that only because it doesn't. It doesn't make or break anything, right, it doesn't change anything about this case, but the reality is is that Peggy was failed by the jurisdictions that she was living under.
Speaker 1:I mean in, as well as a lot of other things, but that particular location really failed to do anything in response to the information she brought to them anything at all. And then the DA laughing at her.
Speaker 4:Correct. Yeah, they did. I mean there was nothing, there was nothing they ever did from her. And I know when we brought Peggy's stuff home she had a bin, a very large bin of papers and the legwork that she had to do, all the proving that she had to do, the documenting that she had to do. I mean she went so far as she had to pay for a handwriting analysis because Patrick had forged her name on a document, a financial document, and Peggy was like I never, I never saw that document, I did not sign that document and they didn't believe her. So out of her pocket, out of her time, she had to go and pay for that handwriting analysis to prove it was not her.
Speaker 1:Were you able to confront the jurisdictions that she lived under when all of this was happening? So I'm thinking like New Mexico and then California after she was murdered and get some resolutions from them. I mean about how they did not, how they did not respond to her, how they did not handle her case.
Speaker 4:No, no, we've never heard from them, I've never talked with them. You know, shortly after Peggy was killed and they posed this, as there was some guy and he found this girl and he killed this girl, and I was like you are wrong, you are absolutely wrong. So we reached out to I remember it was the Modesto B, it was another newspaper, interlock, and then it was a newspaper in Albuquerque. We had reached out to reporters and started saying, hey, this is, this is what happened. This girl was relentlessly stocked for a year. She had an order of protection out there, and so then these reporters started, you know, putting these articles together and releasing these articles. And they did interview an officer out in Albuquerque and his line, his quote, was if someone wants you bad enough, they're going to find a way to get you. And that said to me, I'm not doing my job.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is really abysmal. I mean, it's just like the does not deserve to be in the, whatever position he was in Correct. So those are some of the barriers right To having stalking cases investigated, to getting responses to allegations of stalking. Are there other barriers for survivors? And then, what improvements would you like to see in the response to stalking cases?
Speaker 3:I think, one of the things that we oftentimes hear from stalking survivors is that they're screened out, meaning they might call a domestic violence and sexual assault agency and say something like you know, my neighbor is bothering me and I need a safe place to stay. And they're told well, this is an a domestic violence situation. We can't help you without understanding that it's a stalking situation. Or people will say we're funded for domestic violence and sexual assault but not stalking and it's a criminal justice system. What oftentimes happens is the people who have extra training and understanding on these particular gender based violence issues might not receive the case because it's never worded to them. So if a stalking victim has slashed tires, it's treated as a property crime. Nobody puts the pieces of together that this might be a stalking situation.
Speaker 3:So we see those as huge barriers. That oftentimes, while it's great that the response to stalking might sit in the response to domestic violence and sexual assault, because perhaps we've made further strides with those, it can sometimes cause further harm because people don't identify the stalking as part of the domestic violence or as part of the sexual violence. So we see that as a huge issue and I think the other thing would just be lack of training. We go, we train all over the US. We've trained 50,000 people since Spark started in 2018. And in over 600 trainings and every single time we're in a training, we'll ask is this your first training on stalking? And you'll have professionals who have been doing this work for 20 plus years and it's their first training on stalking, or maybe their second. So the fact that oftentimes they don't have that training and understanding to be able to identify the stalking behavior or understand what to do or how to refer victims to it, creates a huge barrier for these victims who are reaching out and basically told well, there's nothing we can do right now.
Speaker 4:And you know, one of the things that I ran into and it's happened a couple times one was just a close friend who experienced a pretty brutal case of stalking, where she had actually sell her house, move in and move out of state, is that she was offering up to that jurisdiction to. You know, bring Spark in and, you know, do some training. And I mean after they didn't take care of her and their response was we don't need training. So those types of responses for me are very concerning. When people are saying we've got this, we don't need training, but you have problems in your community and you don't have resources for victims, that's a murder waiting to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. Now, you both mentioned Spark and just for our listeners, spark is the stalking prevention awareness and resource center, jennifer, a place where you currently work. Let's talk about those trainings real quick and tell us what someone can expect if they attend a Spark training.
Speaker 3:So we are funded by the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women to be their training and technical assistance provider on the issue, meaning that anybody who gets one of those grants from the Office on Violence Against Women or the important part is a potential grantee. So pretty much everyone has a potential grantee with their agency in the criminal justice system. They can reach out to us and request a free training. So we provide a training for free, we cover all our travel expenses and we come out and typically request to do a full day training where we're talking about those behaviors that constitute stalking, where we're talking about the intersection with domestic violence, on how to identify risk in stalking cases and then how to investigate these cases, to look towards accountability as well as victim safety.
Speaker 3:So those particular trainings are offered to jurisdictions across the country and we've done lots of them but still have lots of work to do.
Speaker 3:So we sit in an office called Equitas, which is known for their prosecution work as well, so we have the pleasure of working with both the criminal justice system but also focusing on college campuses et cetera. So that particular aspect, I think, is one of the things that we can really offer in these particular situations. It's just the need. We can barely keep up with the requests and the need and so really helping people figure out how do they bring training in their own jurisdiction, what information can they offer? What can they do internally to change the way that stalking's responded to within their own agency? And a lot of times when we do training we want to figure out other agencies and say, well, law enforcement would do this or prosecutors would do this. And then when you ask them, but what about your own agencies? How much training have you had? How much training do you do internally? Then there's a lot of well, yeah, we could probably think about.
Speaker 1:Well, what comes to mind when you say that is coordinated community response? Yes, yep. So is there now a coordinated community response for stalking?
Speaker 3:We encourage it absolutely. So what we oftentimes find, though, is places that tell us they do have a coordinated response to stalking, have a coordinated response to intimate partner stalking, which is only 50 percent of stalking. So they're not working on the non-intimate partner stalking situations, so, automatically, they're not working on 50 percent of the cases.
Speaker 1:And what is some of those non-intimate partner stalking cases look like. Are they just strangers, obsessed with someone or something else?
Speaker 3:Typically there are acquaintances, so somebody that you know through work, through school. So on a lot of college campuses it's somebody that might be in my class that I recognize but I don't necessarily know their name. So those acquaintance cases are about 40 to 45 percent of those cases.
Speaker 1:And the majority of stalking cases, are they happening with a particular age group or within a particular setting, like college campuses?
Speaker 3:So we know that the 18 to 24-year-old age group experiences the highest rate of stalking. College campuses are actually a protective 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 the age group.
Speaker 3:It's the 18 to 24-year-old age group who are engaging in dating or figuring out relationships and that if they're residing on a college campus or they're enrolled in college, they actually have a protective factor because there's more resources. They might be more familiar of where to go for help, versus an average 18 to 24-year-old wouldn't necessarily know those things. So, absolutely, we see the highest percentage happening within the 18 to 24-year-old age group, but I would say that we see more individuals reaching out to the criminal justice system and advocacy agency in the 18 to 40-year-old age group, just because of those particular dynamics.
Speaker 1:I'd like to give our listeners some resources before we go. What are the websites that you would recommend they visit to learn more about this issue?
Speaker 4:So for me in reaching out to the public and I really like to share Peggy's story. So if anybody wants to know anything more about me or about Peggy's story, you can visit my site at stalkingmuststoporg.
Speaker 3:Only. You can go to Spark's website, which is stalkingawarenessorg, and we have all the information for Stalking Awareness Month, so we provide a ton of resources that folks can use for social media posts and doing activities, etc.
Speaker 3:One of the things that we haven't mentioned yet is in January, because it's the 20th anniversary. On January 18th, in honor of Peggy, we're encouraging folks to participate in the first national day of action against stalking, and one of the things that Debbie mentions a lot about Peggy is that as Patrick began to stalk Peggy, they saw Peggy's sparkling personality disappear, and so, in honor of Peggy, we are encouraging people to bring back the sparkle, and so, on January 18th, we're encouraging folks to take pictures post-social media wearing something sparkly and trying to recognize that we want to bring back the sparkle for Peggy and everyone that is in a situation like Peggy's.
Speaker 1:That is so beautiful and I can't wait to wear sparkles in honor of Peggy on January 18th. Thank you both for talking with me today. Thank you, thanks so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe. Registration for the 2024 Conference on Crimes Against Women is now available. The 2024 Conference will be held in Dallas, texas, at the Sheraton Dallas, may 20th through the 23rd. Visit our website at conferencecaworg to learn more and register today, and follow us on social media at nationalccaw for updates about the conference, featured events, presenters and more.