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The Prison of the Victim
At one time in my life, I was what you might call a “true crime” aficionado. I enjoyed horror movies, suspense… Whatever I could find to create a short-lived endorphin rush. That is, until I had the misfortune of experiencing my own real-life horror movie.
Things are always different when it happens to someone else. It’s abstract. People tend to feel a sort of collective empathy, but for the most part, it is not in their own backyard. Which is understandable, and why I didn’t really realize how these things worked until they happened to me.
At one time, I was a moderator at a fairly major conspiracy forum that had tens of thousands of unique visitors daily. It was a hell of a job, especially since my day job at the time doing was data analysis document editing which had me working ten hours a day, four days a week, so I could have three day weekends. Even during my workday though, I was usually also taking care of the forum due to the abundance of trolls and sick things that people would post which had to be removed.
In the summer of 2006, one of the forum members started talking to me via private message. Let’s call him Jimmy. I wasn’t particularly impressed with him, as I received many messages via the site. He started getting my attention, though, because he seemed to be very different, especially spiritually. Not your normal type of man. That’s always attracted me, so I started talking to him outside the forum. We ended up chatting frequently. That was my first mistake.
At the time, I was living in West Virginia and he lived in North Carolina. I am originally from Illinois. And unfortunately, right around that time, my grandmother in Chicago had passed away and there were a lot of things in that regard that needed attending to. Well, Jimmy was not happy about this. Despite my having to deal with a death in the family, he thought I should still be spending time with him. That should have been a red flag. Instead, I saw it as something rather romantic.
After dealing with my grandmother’s death, Jimmy suggested that maybe it’s time we met. I tentatively agreed. And, even though I tend to be rather extroverted online, in real life, I’m shy and timid. He had told me on the phone he was in the military and that he was 21 years old. He was younger me, I was turning 30 at the time. He seemed wise beyond his years, though, so agreeing to meet a slightly younger man didn’t really make me feel strange. At the time, I was also receiving letters in the mail from him. In one particular letter, he was angry that he wasn’t getting his mail; in particular, his gun magazines. In another letter he off-handedly mentioned that once he found out who the mailman was, he would become a powerful entity and destroy this person. In other letters, he told me he had been spiritually sent to help me transcend to another dimension. A dimension in which we could experience pure love the way it is supposed to be. Another red flag that I ignored.
The weekend that Jimmy was set to arrive came quickly. He came over, stayed in my apartment, and we got along very well. I began seeing the future possibility of a long-term relationship with him. He left, leaving me saddened and missing him. I went to work that week, thinking I’d see him again soon. Of course, we communicated via email and called once or twice. During the middle of the week, though, I got a call from a woman named Helen. She introduced herself as Jimmy’s mother. I was rather surprised to hear from her; I introduced myself. She started getting very angry and said she knew who I was, as she had been monitoring her son’s internet activity. She asked if I knew how old he was. Twenty-one, I said. She laughed and yelled at me. “No, you idiot, he is seventeen. He dropped out of school and stole his father’s car to get to you!” I nearly dropped the phone in shock. She said she knew that he had been lying to me and that that was the reason she wasn’t going to notify law enforcement. She also said she wouldn’t press charges as long as I ceased all contact with him. I immediately agreed. Unfortunately, that’s when the nightmare really began.
A couple of weeks passed and I still was getting his letters. He was declaring his love for me, saying it didn’t matter what his mother said, that we were soulmates for life and neither of us could escape that. I ignored him. He made posts on the forum that were very degrading, trying to turn everyone’s sentiments against me.
One day, I came back from work, it had a long day, and I didn’t get home until about 9pm. I walked into my apartment, and there was Jimmy, sitting on my couch. I asked how he got in, he said it wasn’t important. He said that he was in love with me and couldn’t let it go. I told him, no, this is what will get me put in jail. I told him to leave right away, or I’d call the police. He laughed and said we had to be together forever. He got out a pistol and said that if I didn’t want to be with him, he would kill himself in front of me and let me relive that punishment for the rest of my life. I said, “No, please don’t. You have your whole life in front of you. You cannot do this. I do care about you, Jimmy”, He put the gun to my head and said that if I went with him, we could be together on the other side, forever, in love. I asked, “What if you are wrong? What if we don’t end up anywhere? What if you go to hell? What if you remain in purgatory?” He got confused and started crying. He ran outside and left. It turned out he had stolen another car. I called Helen, and told her what had happened. She said she’d inform the police about the gun and the threats. But she never informed anyone about her precious baby boy, and therein lies what haunts me every day. I should have called the police.
Jimmy continued to try and contact me. He was banned from the previously mentioned forum. I was laid off of work, and received a comfortable severance package which allowed me to do some traveling. Ending up in Mexico City, Mexico, I settled down there, met a man, and lived my life. In 2005, while perusing the American news, to my shock, I read about a situation involving a man named Jimmy that had murdered an elderly woman in a park, while she was sitting on a bench, feeding birds. Jimmy went up to this woman and demanded her car keys. When she refused to comply, he shot her in the head, killing her. He then ran off and tried to take a bus full of passengers hostage. The police managed to defuse the situation, and he was arrested. As it turned out, he wanted to take the bus south, to Mexico. He wanted to get to me. It was all his sick obsession, taken entirely too far.
At the time of this horrific incident, he was actually on probation for a different crime. He had beat his landlord practically to death. Jimmy’s father was important and influential in the community, though, so Jimmy was released without bail and eventually only received probation for that crime. After the murder of the elderly woman, the judge involved in the landlord case resigned. There were so many red flags, all over the place. They were ignored by me, his family, the justice system…the list goes on and on.
Jimmy is in prison for life now. But, that has not stopped anything. Back in the states, his father found my address and gave it to Jimmy. He started writing to me again. I had to contact the prison, asking them to stop allowing him to write to me. They honored my request.
To anyone reading this, never ignore those red flags. They are there for a reason. Please don’t end up like me, a mental health basket case that is incapable of true trust and love. It had a profound effect on me, emotionally, physically, and mentally.
Jimmy isn’t the only one in prison. I’m in a prison of my own making. Since the incident, I live with severe PTSD and depression. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about the elderly woman that died due to his delusions about me, sometimes becoming tearful. I have continued her tradition of feeding birds, it’s the absolute least I can do.
Footnote: I have changed the names of the individuals and locations involved to protect the innocent.
Also published at R9 Media and substack
Things are always different when it happens to someone else. It’s abstract. People tend to feel a sort of collective empathy, but for the most part, it is not in their own backyard. Which is understandable, and why I didn’t really realize how these things worked until they happened to me.
At one time, I was a moderator at a fairly major conspiracy forum that had tens of thousands of unique visitors daily. It was a hell of a job, especially since my day job at the time doing was data analysis document editing which had me working ten hours a day, four days a week, so I could have three day weekends. Even during my workday though, I was usually also taking care of the forum due to the abundance of trolls and sick things that people would post which had to be removed.
In the summer of 2006, one of the forum members started talking to me via private message. Let’s call him Jimmy. I wasn’t particularly impressed with him, as I received many messages via the site. He started getting my attention, though, because he seemed to be very different, especially spiritually. Not your normal type of man. That’s always attracted me, so I started talking to him outside the forum. We ended up chatting frequently. That was my first mistake.
At the time, I was living in West Virginia and he lived in North Carolina. I am originally from Illinois. And unfortunately, right around that time, my grandmother in Chicago had passed away and there were a lot of things in that regard that needed attending to. Well, Jimmy was not happy about this. Despite my having to deal with a death in the family, he thought I should still be spending time with him. That should have been a red flag. Instead, I saw it as something rather romantic.
After dealing with my grandmother’s death, Jimmy suggested that maybe it’s time we met. I tentatively agreed. And, even though I tend to be rather extroverted online, in real life, I’m shy and timid. He had told me on the phone he was in the military and that he was 21 years old. He was younger me, I was turning 30 at the time. He seemed wise beyond his years, though, so agreeing to meet a slightly younger man didn’t really make me feel strange. At the time, I was also receiving letters in the mail from him. In one particular letter, he was angry that he wasn’t getting his mail; in particular, his gun magazines. In another letter he off-handedly mentioned that once he found out who the mailman was, he would become a powerful entity and destroy this person. In other letters, he told me he had been spiritually sent to help me transcend to another dimension. A dimension in which we could experience pure love the way it is supposed to be. Another red flag that I ignored.
The weekend that Jimmy was set to arrive came quickly. He came over, stayed in my apartment, and we got along very well. I began seeing the future possibility of a long-term relationship with him. He left, leaving me saddened and missing him. I went to work that week, thinking I’d see him again soon. Of course, we communicated via email and called once or twice. During the middle of the week, though, I got a call from a woman named Helen. She introduced herself as Jimmy’s mother. I was rather surprised to hear from her; I introduced myself. She started getting very angry and said she knew who I was, as she had been monitoring her son’s internet activity. She asked if I knew how old he was. Twenty-one, I said. She laughed and yelled at me. “No, you idiot, he is seventeen. He dropped out of school and stole his father’s car to get to you!” I nearly dropped the phone in shock. She said she knew that he had been lying to me and that that was the reason she wasn’t going to notify law enforcement. She also said she wouldn’t press charges as long as I ceased all contact with him. I immediately agreed. Unfortunately, that’s when the nightmare really began.
A couple of weeks passed and I still was getting his letters. He was declaring his love for me, saying it didn’t matter what his mother said, that we were soulmates for life and neither of us could escape that. I ignored him. He made posts on the forum that were very degrading, trying to turn everyone’s sentiments against me.
One day, I came back from work, it had a long day, and I didn’t get home until about 9pm. I walked into my apartment, and there was Jimmy, sitting on my couch. I asked how he got in, he said it wasn’t important. He said that he was in love with me and couldn’t let it go. I told him, no, this is what will get me put in jail. I told him to leave right away, or I’d call the police. He laughed and said we had to be together forever. He got out a pistol and said that if I didn’t want to be with him, he would kill himself in front of me and let me relive that punishment for the rest of my life. I said, “No, please don’t. You have your whole life in front of you. You cannot do this. I do care about you, Jimmy”, He put the gun to my head and said that if I went with him, we could be together on the other side, forever, in love. I asked, “What if you are wrong? What if we don’t end up anywhere? What if you go to hell? What if you remain in purgatory?” He got confused and started crying. He ran outside and left. It turned out he had stolen another car. I called Helen, and told her what had happened. She said she’d inform the police about the gun and the threats. But she never informed anyone about her precious baby boy, and therein lies what haunts me every day. I should have called the police.
Jimmy continued to try and contact me. He was banned from the previously mentioned forum. I was laid off of work, and received a comfortable severance package which allowed me to do some traveling. Ending up in Mexico City, Mexico, I settled down there, met a man, and lived my life. In 2005, while perusing the American news, to my shock, I read about a situation involving a man named Jimmy that had murdered an elderly woman in a park, while she was sitting on a bench, feeding birds. Jimmy went up to this woman and demanded her car keys. When she refused to comply, he shot her in the head, killing her. He then ran off and tried to take a bus full of passengers hostage. The police managed to defuse the situation, and he was arrested. As it turned out, he wanted to take the bus south, to Mexico. He wanted to get to me. It was all his sick obsession, taken entirely too far.
At the time of this horrific incident, he was actually on probation for a different crime. He had beat his landlord practically to death. Jimmy’s father was important and influential in the community, though, so Jimmy was released without bail and eventually only received probation for that crime. After the murder of the elderly woman, the judge involved in the landlord case resigned. There were so many red flags, all over the place. They were ignored by me, his family, the justice system…the list goes on and on.
Jimmy is in prison for life now. But, that has not stopped anything. Back in the states, his father found my address and gave it to Jimmy. He started writing to me again. I had to contact the prison, asking them to stop allowing him to write to me. They honored my request.
To anyone reading this, never ignore those red flags. They are there for a reason. Please don’t end up like me, a mental health basket case that is incapable of true trust and love. It had a profound effect on me, emotionally, physically, and mentally.
Jimmy isn’t the only one in prison. I’m in a prison of my own making. Since the incident, I live with severe PTSD and depression. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about the elderly woman that died due to his delusions about me, sometimes becoming tearful. I have continued her tradition of feeding birds, it’s the absolute least I can do.
Footnote: I have changed the names of the individuals and locations involved to protect the innocent.
Also published at R9 Media and substack
