Pretend: The Stalker – Part 1

Speaker 1: Everybody. This is an episode swap with our pals over at Pretend Podcast. We're gonna intro the story in a second, but just wanted to give you a heads up. Some folks sound like they've had a hard time finding where you can listen to the rest of the series we're playing the pilot for. It's definitely free. Check out the Pretend podcast in your podcatcher of choice and scroll down until you find the rest of the Stalker mini series and look for episode two. If that's not your cup of tea, no sweat, we'll catch you in the next one. And big thanks to Pretend for sharing Hacked with their lovely listeners and helping us grow the show. It means a lot. At the heart of this story that we're gonna be bringing you, it's actually two competing stories about a cyberstalking.

Speaker 2: In order to explain the story, I almost have to spoil the ending for you.

Speaker 1: There's this middle aged couple living in Phoenix, Arizona.

Speaker 2: Salt of the earth, very religious. You know, the husband's a postal worker. They have five kids together.

Speaker 1: And they reached out to Javier, the journalist you just heard, about this cyberstalking. They reached out to me because they said that they were being stalked by their daughter's doctor's husband. Their daughter's doctor's husband was cyberstalking them.

Speaker 2: The daughter's doctor's husband, who doesn't even know this family, is stalking them.

Speaker 1: And they wanted Javier to look into it, to investigate. So he starts reporting on it, starts talking with them, texting and calling. He starts digging into what's going on here. And pretty quickly, Javier starts to develop these suspicions about the case and the accusations themselves. Like Javier, I'm reluctant to spoil exactly where this goes, but as he's talking to these people I'm starting to get the sense that maybe they aren't being stalked. Maybe they are stalking themselves. The focus of his investigation starts to shift on its axis a little bit.

Speaker 2: He keeps digging. So we recruited, a white hat, you know, Ethico hacker who's very familiar with OSINT to try to figure out, you

Speaker 1: know, if we could narrow down the device, like, who is sending these messages? Because the messages that the family say they were getting was coming from the IP address where the family lives. And suddenly, this story about these two families becomes a story about technology. We were trying to put it to the test from a technological standpoint. Right? Like, is it possible to spoof somebody's IP address, you know, from just sitting outside their house and creating all these accounts? Javier makes the excellent show Pretend. And a few years ago, he gets onto this bizarre cyberstalking story, and slowly over time, he just gets more knotted up in the whole thing.

Speaker 2: That was tricky because, remember, I talked to these people for, like, two years, and at the beginning, I really did believe them. If somebody tells me that they're being stalked, I take their word for it. And I think most people should take a victim's word for it because that's a real big problem. Police are no help in in stalking situations, so we should believe the victims. But after a while, I just had to pretend that I believed them because I just I wasn't buying it. Things weren't adding up. It just didn't make sense. And then once we started getting all the data

Speaker 1: in terms of the IP addresses, you know, that's the usernames and all these all these facts that were indisputable. Javier's show covers different con artists each episode, but this story, which he titled The Stalker, it took on a life of its own and became an like an 18 or 19 part series that covers years of investigation. We've got the first chapter of that story here for you today.

Speaker 2: I was just so deep into the rabbit hole. It it it kinda took a on a life of its own. You know? And I kinda became part of the story somehow. Like, I almost got called in as a witness in court. And I'm like, I was just reporting this story. I I don't like to inject myself into into the story, but somehow I became part of

Speaker 3: it in the middle of it.

Speaker 1: Some of my favorite stories that we talk about on this show are the ones where technology and security are jumping off points for a tale about, like, people and all of the weird things that we do to each other. And this is, this is definitely that. I really appreciate Javier bringing it to us. You should all check out Pretend. We'll link to it in the show notes. For now, this is part one of the Pretend podcast series, The Stalker. Here, on Hacked.

Speaker 4: This guy put a threat out to our home and he said, I'm in your neighborhood and I'm gonna kill your family. I'm gonna kill you.

Speaker 5: I'm tired of being silenced. I want the story out about how what can happen to the average family and how how people can get get away with it. Because law enforcement does not wanna wanna tackle it.

Speaker 4: And also what what it can do to your mental health. I mean, it's affected me in in a detrimental way, and, I really don't want anyone else to have to go through what I personally have gone through and what I've been accused of.

Speaker 3: Meet Claudia and David Rodriguez. That's not their real names, by the way. I'm withholding their identities because they say they've been the target of a sadistic cyberstalker for more than three years now. And unfortunately, the stalking is still happening even today. I've changed the locations, the profession of some of the people in the story just to protect everyone involved. I started working on this story a year and a half ago, and I've been witnessing the stalking in real time. And let me tell you, it's terrifying even for me and I'm not even the one being tormented. I think the only way that this will make sense to me is to really start from the beginning. About the Instagram This is a recording of my first conversation with Claudia and David. One of the many dozens of calls we recorded the last year and a half. I I have a lot of questions about the Instagram accounts. A lot of the ones that you listed in that timeline are no longer active, but then I did just find one that is. And Oh, did you? Oh, and then I found the person that the people that he was following, it's all porn.

Speaker 4: Really? Wow.

Speaker 3: Yeah. So yeah. I'm interested in that. That was just like a quick search. This goes without saying that this is the longest I've ever worked on a story. Remember, these harassing calls are still happening today. I have no idea how many episodes this will be or how the series will end, but my plan is to identify the stalker. It's a long shot. Just know that there are some crazy twists and turns in this story and things are not always what they seem. Claudia and David are at a loss for what to do. They say no one wants to help them. They've tried involving the police but get this. The police appeared to be on the side of the stalker. Listen to this recording of a recent call with a detective on the case.

Speaker 6: This has been a freaking nightmare.

Speaker 3: Detectives are convinced that Claudia and David are making this whole thing up. This is what I'm telling you. Every search warrant I've ever done has led back to you guys.

Speaker 6: It's it's ridiculous. When I I get death threats about him wanting to go and blow my husband's head off quite often, and it rattles my nerves. I can't take it. I can't take this anymore. This is not right. And then I get accused of having a split personality and maybe you're doing it and you don't realize it. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. I do not have a split personality.

Speaker 3: I promised Claudia and David that I would do everything in my power to help them solve this case. I'm Javier Leyva, and this is pretend, stories about real people pretending to be someone else.

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Speaker 3: So where should we begin? Maybe the best place to start is by describing the characters. Claudia and David are a middle aged couple who live out west. Let's just say Albuquerque, Las Vegas, you know, that neck of the woods. I've grown very close to them over the course of this reporting. We talk in texts all the time. Claudia is a stay at home mom, and David is a postal worker. They're very religious and they're active in their Jehovah's Witness church. They're the kind of people who don't cuss. Although, you will hear them repeat the stalker's foul language throughout the series. And it's really filthy stuff, guys. So you've been warned. This podcast is not safe for work and it is not for kids. The bottom line is that they seem like very normal people. Now let's talk about the alleged stalker. Claudia and David believe they know who's sending these sadistic messages. The suspect, they say, is someone they know.

Speaker 4: Well, we know that he was on our property because he took a picture. This was, like, a year and a half ago. He took a picture of what you would see from our front yard. And I

Speaker 5: know I know it was the day that he said it was because it had rained the the night before. And there was a water in the gutter, and it doesn't rain here much.

Speaker 4: Is this has been a nightmare.

Speaker 3: The stalker has identified himself as their daughter's pediatric neurologist's husband. Yep. Let me repeat that. They believe that their daughter's doctor's husband is stalking them. I know. It doesn't make any sense. Why would a doctor's husband want to stalk his wife's patient? Remember, we're not using anybody's real name. So let's call the doctor doctor Grace Gressman and her husband, the alleged stalker, John Gressman. How did this start? I mean, how did you become a victim of a stalker?

Speaker 5: Well, first of all, the the, the health care professional, I'll put it that way, that that helped my daughter. She has a, the the last name is unique. It's not common. And so I was I had a, Instagram page because I'm interested in photography. And anyway, my daughter really likes to look at the Instagram. And anyway, she was looking at my page, and she noticed that one a person that liked it had it was a man profile that had the same last name as her doctor.

Speaker 4: As her medical

Speaker 5: As her medical provider. And she said, I wonder if that's the husband. And so I said, I I don't know. She goes, well, why don't you ask him? You know? So I I messaged and said, would you happen to be her husband? And he said, I am. He, expressed interest in my photography. He expressed interest in maybe me teaching him how to use his camera. He he goes, I I would like a family portrait. We don't have any pictures of me and my wife. He wants a family portrait.

Speaker 3: Let's recap. David is surfing Instagram with his daughter and they noticed that the doctor's husband, John Gresman, liked their photography page. This family has never interacted with the doctor's husband, not in real life, and definitely not online. This person claiming to be John Gresman, the doctor's husband, loved David's photography so much that he asked David if he was willing to take the Gresman's family portrait. He wanted to surprise his wife, the doctor. It was supposed to be a big secret. David, of course, said yes. But keep in mind, this all started out very friendly. John Gresman, the doctor's husband, was so excited about the family portraits that suddenly, members from the Gresman family were messaging David directly.

Speaker 5: And then soon enough, he brought his brother in too. A profile. A profile supposedly of his brother.

Speaker 3: And then

Speaker 4: he brought in his mother. And then the fourth profile was the brother's wife. I always think about if if my husband was gonna surprise me with family photos, I I would wanna make sure that a female in my wife's life was involved to pick out the right clothing and the right look. So I contacted it and said, I'm kind of his helper. And he even specified an area of the state that we live in for the photos. So we went on a scouting trip to scout out the right area for these photos, and we took a lot of time and energy doing that. And, everything was going well, and and he acts as kind of odd.

Speaker 3: Was he there with you?

Speaker 4: No. This was all done through Instagram.

Speaker 5: It was all done through messaging from Instagram.

Speaker 3: So you were scouting this area and just sending him pictures of the surrounding area.

Speaker 4: Yeah. He he he had a specific area in mind. So anyway, he just started acting a little bit bizarre. He told me that he has, like, ADHD and he can't control himself, and he just kept saying, I'm so excited. I'm so excited. We both thought that was really weird.

Speaker 5: Yeah. He he would text me, and I would I got to the point where I just ignored him because I I couldn't catch up with all that.

Speaker 3: Yeah. And so let me get this straight. So you're a photographer. Is it more of a hobby, or is it a profession?

Speaker 5: It's a it's it's a hobby right now. And I was very new with photography at that time. So to have a potential job already, it it brought a level of excitement to our lives.

Speaker 4: We were excited because I really had a high level of respect for this medical professional, and to be able to do something for her as a surprise, like, I just thought that was gonna be the coolest thing ever. And

Speaker 5: And my my daughter has had had has a extensive medical history, so she has developed a distrust for most doctors.

Speaker 4: After the whole excitement of him constantly texting us saying how excited he was, he kinda got kind of friendly with me, and he started asking me things like his wife's relationship with his brother that they spent time together and it bothered him, and he asked me if if that would bother me if if my husband did that. I don't know why you're asking me this, you know. He he was just giving us a lot of personal information about their relationship and it was just very, very strange.

Speaker 3: Very strange indeed. Then even more Gresman family members started messaging Claudia and David. David.

Speaker 4: And then the sister-in-law started communicating with me because, ironically, the brother and sister-in-law had a handicapped child that had a lot of the same disabilities that our own daughter has. You know, I'm all about advocacy. So if a if a mother needs help with finding a doctor, finding a therapist, anything, I'm I'm all about advocacy because I struggled through that when our daughter was younger. It was hard.

Speaker 3: Claudia says she formed an online friendship with a doctor's sister-in-law.

Speaker 4: So we became really good friends. Even though it was through Instagram texting, we became really good like mom friends.

Speaker 5: We we never ever spoke physically No. With any of these profiles. It was all through texting.

Speaker 4: She told me that, this medical professional and her spouse had a lot of serious relationship issues and, it was just really weird.

Speaker 3: Let me interrupt you because you said you almost implied that there was, like, inappropriate conversations happening. What was it that she was saying that was inappropriate?

Speaker 4: Well, she told me that the doctor or the medical professional had an alcohol problem and that she was doing medical procedures on patients while she was intoxicated and that she was having flings and this, that, and the other. And and

Speaker 3: This is about your daughter's doctor that

Speaker 4: Yes.

Speaker 3: I really respect.

Speaker 4: Yes. And and I just told her. I go, listen. I said, that's her personal life, and I have a different relationship with her. She's my daughter's favorite doctor.

Speaker 3: So just imagine, suddenly all these family members are messaging Claudia and David. They're getting bombarded with Instagram direct messages, especially from John Gresman, the doctor's husband.

Speaker 4: But he got kinda bizarre after a couple of weeks saying things like he was talking about his wife. She never came home, and when she comes home, I'm gonna beat her up. Stuff like that. And it would upset me, and I'm like, don't do that. And at one point, he kept me up all night on the like, it was like the week the weekend or the week of July 4 of 2019. He said, guess where I am? And I said, I don't know. And he said, I'm in the parking lot of the hospital where his wife worked. Mhmm. And he said, I'm gonna sit here all night and wait for her to show up. I'm gonna kill her. And he kept me up all night, and I'm, like, hysterical. He said things like, I'm gonna stab her in the neck, and I'm gonna, I'm in McDonald's, and I'm gonna buy her favorite food and shove it down her throat and tape her mouth as she chokes on it. And I'm gonna take her out into the the desert and burn her body.

Speaker 3: What should Claudia and David do? And this man is making death threats towards his own wife. Should Claudia and David tell the doctor about these strange messages?

Speaker 5: At one of my my daughter's appointments shortly shortly after we contacted this individual asking if that's her husband, I told her during this appointment, I said, so your husband, your husband liked one of my pictures on Instagram. She had a look on her face like she saw a ghost. It wasn't happy. It was just like she was Like nervous. Yeah. She had, like, a nervous look on her face.

Speaker 4: And She ignored him.

Speaker 5: I found that to be really weird.

Speaker 4: Because he he also said things like, well, the profile that you mentioned, the sister-in-law, they both told me, never tell her that you're communicating with her family because she will get very upset.

Speaker 3: Upset. Time out because that's what I wanted to ask you guys. Yeah. At what point do you say, hey, we're not gonna this photo shoot is we're calling it off. This is crazy. He's threatening to kill his wife and all that stuff. I mean

Speaker 4: That's

Speaker 3: At what point? Because this sounds When it when

Speaker 5: it got to the point where he was making death threats and like that, you know what? If there is a shoot, it's not gonna be a happy one. No. So this is off. And I I I'm not doing it. It's crazy.

Speaker 4: Right. And he would taunt us like, well, you're still gonna do it because you said you would, and we're still doing it. And I'm like, we're not doing it. We are not going to do it. I think it was weird

Speaker 3: though that this guy, the husband, all these other people in his life, his sister-in-law, his brother, all these people are messaging you. Do they have actual mature Instagram accounts? Do they have mature Instagram accounts? Do they have lots

Speaker 5: of pictures and and All of the accounts. They would have very they would have the name and then a number, like, maybe their age.

Speaker 4: Like, so and so 40.

Speaker 5: And then they would have, like, a certain amount of of of people that they follow and a certain amount of followers.

Speaker 4: And they were all the same.

Speaker 5: Yeah. It was all about the same amount.

Speaker 4: They were all private accounts.

Speaker 3: Claudia and David were done playing games. Something about all these people was just not adding up. So they decided to do a little research.

Speaker 4: We finally had enough. And I said, you know what? I told my best friend. I said, I'm getting creeped out. I'm gonna do a BeenVerified on the doctor and find out if any of these people actually exist in her life.

Speaker 3: BeenVerified is a public records database. Anyone can look up basic information about another person for a small fee. It turns out that some of these people they were interacting with don't even exist.

Speaker 4: So this was mid August, and I threatened to call the police, and they all shut down and stopped talking. So I thought, okay. Fine. You know, they're gonna leave us alone now.

Speaker 3: And just like that, the messages stopped. The doctor's husband, the brother, the mother, the sister-in-law, everyone just stopped messaging. About two weeks later, Claudia Davis' daughter was scheduled to have a medical procedure with doctor Gresman.

Speaker 4: And we were in a private room. She was just giving us an update about the surgery. The door was shut. And then I said, I I need I need to tell you something that's really uncomfortable. And I said, we've been harassed by someone claiming to be your family members, and they've threatened to kill you. They've told us some not so nice things about you. And it really bothers me, and I'm worried for your safety. And I know that you're a victim and that we're victims too, and I wouldn't feel right about not telling you. And she got flushed, and she said, this happened to me one other time, and maybe you'll be my guardian angel and figure it out. Figure out who it is.

Speaker 5: Who it is?

Speaker 4: And figure it out. That's what she said.

Speaker 3: Did she does she not admit that that was her husband?

Speaker 4: Mm-mm. She she claimed that they didn't have social media, which isn't true. She just said that someone had harassed her before on social media, and and she didn't give us a lot of details, but she said maybe you'll be my guardian angel and and help figure it out. So then she went and got the security guard from this facility, and he asked me why I didn't call the police. And I said, well

Speaker 3: Claudia told him that the sister-in-law who was messaging her mentioned that she had already called the police.

Speaker 4: And so I figured that the police had already been called. And then, the the doctor came by and whispered something to the security guard. The security guard told us that that he had called the police and that they were on their way. Well, we sat there for two and a half hours, and they never showed up. So my daughter was discharged, and we went home. A day and a half later, I get a message on Instagram from the supposed real husband.

Speaker 3: John Gresman.

Speaker 4: And he said, and I'm really, really sorry that this happened to you. And my wife told me what happened, and we're both very, very sorry it happened one other time, and I wanna talk to you. And I said, no. I don't trust you. I don't trust anybody on social media, and I'm only going to deal with her.

Speaker 5: He he knew information that we that we exchanged in confidence with the doc.

Speaker 3: Yes. For instance, like what?

Speaker 5: Well, he knew that we we had she had us talk to the security guy, and he also used the term that she used. She she she told us she says, would you like would you talk to my go to person?

Speaker 4: When she went to get the surgery?

Speaker 5: Go to person she went to get was the chief as captain of security of the hospital. He used that term. He said go to person. I'm the I'm her go to person.

Speaker 4: He got super aggressive because I kept saying, no. We're not gonna meet you. No. We're not gonna talk to you. And I said, I'm only going to deal with her.

Speaker 3: Go to person. Remember that. That's a very specific term. The same term doctor Gresman used for her security captain.

Speaker 5: And at that time, we when he said, I'm her go to person, we actually were thinking that it was the security captain that that is the one that's doing all of this because he said I'm her go to person.

Speaker 4: Right. I got a message about an hour after we left the hospital, and he said, I saw you on campus today with your retarded daughter.

Speaker 3: Whoever's making these threatening messages is very close to doctor Gresman. I mean, who else would know all the details they know? On September 2019, police contacted Ryan Frumstead, the captain of the security team at the hospital. The security captain informed the officers that he was aware that someone had been creating fake Instagram accounts under doctor Gresman's name since March. Funny enough, Claudia and David say they didn't start getting messages until late June. The security captain mentioned that early on before the Rodriguez family was involved, there was a woman claiming to be a former patient of doctor Gresman accusing the doctor of botching her child's surgery. The security captain said he checked and there are no records of this person ever getting surgery at the hospital. Remember, I'm getting this information directly from the police report. In the message exchange, doctor Gresman was threatening to kill herself. The mystery patient also made threats to blow up the hospital. Fremstead, the security captain, said that when he questioned doctor Gresman about these messages, she told him that neither she nor her husband have an Instagram account. According to the security captain, he was able to contact Instagram and get the accounts taken down and that seemed to work for a while. After he reported the accounts, the messages seemed to stop. That is until Claudia and David alerted doctor Gresman of the new Instagram handles using the doctor's name. When the security captain contacted the Rodriguez family asking for the screenshots of the messages, he told the police that the couples refused. They made excuses saying that the messages were too large or there were too many of them. We know one thing for sure, someone is sending these messages. If it's not coming from doctor Gresman and her husband, then who else is doing it? Claudia and David started wondering what if the perpetrator is someone close to this case? What if these messages were coming from the hospital security captain? On 09/30/2019, Claudia filed a police report alleging that Ryan Fram said the hospital security guard was the person responsible for sending these posts.

Speaker 4: Yeah. We thought it was his security guard.

Speaker 5: Because we felt like we were we actually you know how you get that feeling like you're being watched, like there's eyes on you? That's that's how we felt when we went when when we when we went there. And then to get that message, we thought, wow. He he saw us. He's watching

Speaker 4: us. Watching us.

Speaker 3: Next time on Pretend, Claudia and David continue getting harassing messages from the person claiming to be the doctor's husband. But is it possible that we've been looking at the wrong suspect this whole time? Could it be that the hospital security captain is the stalker? Also, police step up their investigation. After a six hour stakeout, police narrow down the location where the messages originated. Seriously, you won't see it coming. That was part one of the stalker. The entire series is available right now for you to binge on Apple Podcasts for subscribers of the new pretend plus channel. If you're an Apple Podcasts listener, just hit the subscribe button. You can even try it for free for three days. And the entire series is also available right now on Patreon to my Patreon supporters. I'll have the link to that in the show notes. This is gonna be a wild ride. I've spent the last year and a half talking with Claudia and David on the phone following closely as the cyberstalker torments their family. It's been a roller coaster of emotions. I record all of our calls, every single one, but honestly, I never intended for any of this to actually air. I felt that my involvement in this situation can only make matters worse. If there's truly a stalker after them, then airing this will only aggravate the situation. I've told Claudia and David multiple times that I don't want to turn this into a podcast series, and each time they insist that their story needs to be told.

Speaker 5: I'm all for for you moving on with the story though, and it's an important story that needs to be told. And I don't I don't really care how it would benefit us.

Speaker 3: They say the police has let them down time and time again, and they are out of options. I've explained that even if I decided to do this story, I won't reveal their real names. But honestly, I think they would have been fine having their names out there. That doesn't make sense to me but I wouldn't want my name out there. Also, I'm doing this to protect the doctor and her husband. After all, they are private citizens who have never been charged with a crime. For all we know, they may have nothing to do with this. In fact, let me make this clear. There is absolutely no evidence that they are part of this. Nothing. So why air these episodes? Well, I finally decided to move forward with this project after two years of saying no. But I'm in it now. I can't look away. And, honestly, it's important for you, the listener, to realize how little defense you have when facing an online stalker. There are very few laws with actual teeth to prevent and prosecute these types of cases. That alone is worth telling the story. So if you or someone you know is involved in a cyber stalker situation, I wanna help you get the resources you need. First things first, call the police if you ever feel like you're in danger. Tell your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers so that they can look out for suspicious activities. But also be aware that most stalkers tend to be close to you. Find an advocate who can help you file a protective order and help you connect with the right resources. And this last part is critical. Document every incident and create a timeline. Try to end all contact with the stalker. Never respond. Don't answer their calls. Any interaction encourages the behavior. And if you have little ones prepare them for what to do if there's an emergency. Always have a plan for more information for victims of cyberstalking, go to stockingawareness.org.