How I feel has nothing to do with it. I immediately sent this message to the NZ police and directly to the FBI and directly to the victims’ assistance counsel who has been keeping me up to date on everything, informing them that you, my stalker, have now broken the terms of your arrest.
The terms, as a refresher, were:
- No using the Internet
- No using post
- No contacting Melissa Anelli or any of her family and friends
- No contacting anyone in North America.
No one but my stalker would have had any information about the severity or lack thereof of her sentence. And after 6.5 years I can spot a sentence she has written from a mile away without reading glasses. I am publishing this so that it is well known that she has broken the terms of her bail. Because the last time I wasn’t silent about one of her messages, it led to her arrest. I don’t want this break of her bail conditions – while awaiting sentencing no less! – to go unnoted.
The Melissa of a year ago would not have published this. But I am so done. I have done everything everyone has asked. I have written the letters to the judges going over the whole thing in excruciating and personally painful detail. I have saved evidence with the organization of a librarian. I have answered every question and waited through every deferment and delay, and I am done just doing what is usually done in these instances. This is endless, and it is harmful, and it must stop, and “getting off lightly” would be a complete travesty. As is the fact that no one is monitoring her well enough to see how she is breaking the terms of her bail, and that no one is convinced she should be incarcerated in some fashion.
You know what I’m not done with, and can’t just decide to be done with? Being a victim. That is up to the people who work for the legal system of New Zealand. My being a victim. Up to them. How I deal with being a victim? Up to me. Whether I am continually victimized? Them.
And maybe making this public will make me less sympathetic to some judge down there and that will lessen her sentence for some completely non-sensical reason, I don’t know. But I am so beyond done with it being everyone else’s call.
This is life with a serious stalker. Everyone who is worried about harassment on the Internet needs to see and know and understand this. This goes beyond getting hordes of hateful or threatening YouTube comments: this is about when someone gets in. We are talking about 6.5 years of constant threats and abuse that go offline and into the physical realm, stalking and harassment that touch everyone I know, that has not yet been deterred by TWO ARRESTS and the threat of jail. If you aren’t sure what this post is about, read this for a reminder.
Excuse me. I must now go and undo all of the small victories from the past few months, starting with the allowing of asks.
It was nice there, for a while, feeling normal.
I share this, because this story has been such a horror. 6.5 years. Hundreds—is it thousands? it must be well into the thousands now—of graphic rape and death threats coming from one clearly identified (self-identified, even) person. An FBI investigation. Two arrests. And still, even during sentencing, the stalker tries to taunt Melissa.
This is the reality of online stalking.
Here’s my wish: that this case is a precedent for justice and action taken. If the New Zealand courts fail now, then they really fail. Please share this—because it’s real. I’ve seen this, what’s it’s done to Melissa. I’ve gotten notes from the stalker myself. Press, victim services, whatever you can reach, please reach. Please reblog. This one has to end. They all have to end.
Online abuse of women has to be recognised and stopped.
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