Stalking Shadows

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Speaker 3 My mom said, Scott, shot Penny.

Speaker 4 And I was like, is she okay?

Speaker 4 And my mom was just like, no, she's not okay.

Speaker 5 Penny was a bright and trusting 15 year old she was neat she's a neat little girl but to scott struthers a family friend penny became an obsession he started stalking her there were threats how many phone calls oh a hundred times a year

Speaker 7 scott was arrested hospitalized he's in their psychiatric board writing how cool will you look when i walk up and blow your brains out then the unthinkable

Speaker 5 Aaron Moriarty has some tough questions. Are the doctors who treated him responsible for Penny's death? Are her parents? And they are the familiar faces on your local news.

Speaker 9 Are they in danger?

Speaker 10 Nobody knows right now how many news anchors get stopped.

Speaker 5 A stalker chased this reporter out of town.

Speaker 11 Letters detailing about sexual fantasies, ultimately ending with me being drowned in a bathtub.

Speaker 5 This reporter never had a chance to run.

Speaker 5 Troy Roberts, on being watched a little too closely.

Speaker 13 What did you want from her?

Speaker 8 I don't know.

Speaker 5 48 Hours Investigates to catch a stalker.

Speaker 14 Good evening, and welcome to 48 Hours Investigates. I'm Leslie Stahl.
Penny Chang knew and trusted Scott Struthers. So did Penny's parents.

Speaker 14 Indeed, Scott Struthers was like a member of the family and just about the last person they would have ever suspected of posing a threat to their daughter.

Speaker 14 That's what makes this case even harder to understand.

Speaker 14 There were warning signs that may have been missed, and there may have been miscommunication too.

Speaker 14 But there is also a question hanging over this case as to whether the experts, the doctors, are at all to blame. To Penny's family, the answer is clear.

Speaker 14 Aaron Moriarty reports on a story of misplaced trust that led to tragedy.

Speaker 3 Outside Cleveland, Ohio,

Speaker 3 mathematician C.L. Chang found what he couldn't in his native China,

Speaker 3 academic freedom, and a culturally rich and diverse neighborhood. where he and his wife, Yoon Hua, could raise their four children.

Speaker 4 He He wanted us to have a stable, happy family. You know, just for us to have a better life.

Speaker 3 Yes, it behave. Joanne Chang, the oldest, loved growing up in Shaker Heights.

Speaker 4 You see children playing outside all the time.

Speaker 4 It's a comforting place to live. So you ready?

Speaker 17 I'm ready if you are.

Speaker 3 Joanne is a medical student. Sean is pursuing a master's degree in computer graphics.

Speaker 18 You want to watch football?

Speaker 3 Warren, the youngest, is a high school junior. And then there was Penny.

Speaker 19 She's the most beautiful child that we had.

Speaker 3 How did you name Penny?

Speaker 6 Penny is Pennsylvania. It's not Pennsylvania.

Speaker 19 Who was born in Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 You must have really liked Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 And did she speak Chinese very well?

Speaker 6 So, so, so-so-so-so-so-so-so.

Speaker 4 She was so, so Americanized.

Speaker 16 I'll go with you.

Speaker 4 She's definitely pretty much a typical American girl. I mean, talking on the phone for hours.
She was neat. She's a neat little girl.

Speaker 3 A child who thrived in her adopted community, where no one would have predicted what happened.

Speaker 7 Shaker Heights is an affluent suburb.

Speaker 7 It's very diverse. There's a lot of old money.

Speaker 7 And I think people don't like to think things like this happen in places like that. And, you know, we've learned they do.

Speaker 3 Mike Tobin, a reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, says the problems began for the Chang family in the summer of 1998.

Speaker 3 Penny had a summer job working alongside Scott Struthers, her brother's best friend since middle school. How would you describe Scott back then?

Speaker 21 Very shy,

Speaker 21 very quiet, you know, really odd, really, you know, unorthodox sense of humor. I just found hilarious.

Speaker 3 Scott had almost grown up at the Chang house

Speaker 3 and went on to become Sean's college roommate.

Speaker 4 He's just so nice and just such a close friend of my brother's.

Speaker 3 Which is why no one was too concerned when Scott and Penny spent a lot of time together. Although Penny was only 15 and Scott was 21.

Speaker 3 Did your parents think anything of it? That they were spending a lot of time together?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 4 Why would they think a 21-year-old boy, friend of my brother, be a threat to my 15-year-old sister?

Speaker 3 But the family didn't realize how serious Scott's feelings were. Penny was pretty important to him.

Speaker 7 Yeah, and I think you see that in the journals where

Speaker 8 Penny,

Speaker 7 at least for that summer, was his life.

Speaker 3 Scott Struthers began a journal later that year that described his relationship with Penny.

Speaker 7 In his journal, you see him talking about this girl as this wonderful thing and the object of his affection.

Speaker 7 The times that I had spent with Penny this summer when things were going good and she was nice to me was like a dream come true.

Speaker 7 The weather was beautiful, so was she, and I was at times happier than I had ever been in my life.

Speaker 3 There was only one problem.

Speaker 3 Penny didn't feel the same way.

Speaker 4 It seems like he definitely read too much into it and

Speaker 4 really thought that, you know, she liked him, and I just don't think that was the case.

Speaker 3 When the summer ended and Penny began ignoring Scott,

Speaker 3 the Chang family phone began ringing off the hook.

Speaker 3 How many phone calls?

Speaker 2 Oh, a hundred times a year.

Speaker 24 100

Speaker 24 midnight.

Speaker 19 Midnight.

Speaker 19 We disconnect the phone.

Speaker 3 But things got worse.

Speaker 4 He tried to burn down the garage.

Speaker 4 He

Speaker 4 put glue in my parents' gas tank.

Speaker 4 He threw like miscellaneous objects through the window, like little rocks.

Speaker 6 They used the slim shot.

Speaker 6 These windows were broken. The front one, the biggest front one, it was broken.

Speaker 3 Days later, the police arrested Scott Struthers.

Speaker 3 Shaker Heights police chief Walter Ugrink. Would you describe Scott Struthers as a stalker?

Speaker 2 Yes. Yes.

Speaker 25 He was following her. He was

Speaker 25 keeping an eye on her.

Speaker 4 He seemed like a shy, kind young boy.

Speaker 4 Well, I guess not so much.

Speaker 11 Were you worried that Scott would ever hurt her?

Speaker 4 I was a little, but it wasn't overwhelming.

Speaker 3 Did she seem scared of him at all?

Speaker 13 She didn't.

Speaker 4 She didn't. She was 15.

Speaker 3 Struthers was charged with telephone harassment and misdemeanor arson. But right before sentencing, he voluntarily admitted himself to this hospital for observation.

Speaker 3 Do you think Scott Struthers went to the Cleveland clinic because he really wanted help?

Speaker 7 No, I think it was a legal tactic to show the court, you know, I'm sorry and I'm taking steps to correct my behavior and I'm sick and I'm getting help.

Speaker 3 Whatever his motive, Struthers stayed here for five weeks. He was released on Thanksgiving Day, 1998, after doctors determined he was no longer a threat.

Speaker 3 Even though the journal that Struthers began as part of his therapy here contained some very threatening entries.

Speaker 6 It's scary.

Speaker 7 You know, it's just frightening because he

Speaker 7 lays out what he's going to do. And you see this progression, this evolution in his mind of her as this sweet little girl to this evil object that has to be made to pay.

Speaker 3 The tone of Scott's writing becomes increasingly menacing.

Speaker 7 I think that my actions were a way to force myself to be an important part of her life, even though it was in a negative way.

Speaker 25 I once thought, forget about me, bitch.

Speaker 7 I will make you remember me forever.

Speaker 7 And then the one that just

Speaker 7 I still to this day can't get over.

Speaker 7 How cool and superior will you look when I blow your brains out into the ground?

Speaker 7 He's at the Cleveland Clinic in their psychiatric ward writing, How cool will you look when I walk up and blow your brains out?

Speaker 7 And five months later, in broad daylight, across the street from the police station, it's exactly what he did.

Speaker 3 Three and a half months after being released from the Cleveland clinic

Speaker 3 at 7.30 on a cold March morning, Scott Struthers stalked Penny Chang one more time as she walked to school.

Speaker 3 He approached her from behind and shot her three times in the back of the head.

Speaker 3 Penny was rushed to the emergency room,

Speaker 3 but it was too late.

Speaker 19 They bring me to see to see Penny. I saw Penny sleep on the bed, and if I read the flower,

Speaker 2 blood,

Speaker 6 I know what happens.

Speaker 19 I check her pulse.

Speaker 20 I found nothing.

Speaker 4 My mom said, Scott shot Penny. And I was was like, is she okay?

Speaker 4 And my mom was just like, no, she's not okay. Oh my gosh.
Those words were,

Speaker 4 she's not okay.

Speaker 24 Well, how bad off is she?

Speaker 4 She's dead.

Speaker 3 This had been

Speaker 3 a best friend. What was your reaction to that?

Speaker 21 Oh, shock. Of course.
Maggie Dell is this all this world shocking and just unbelievable.

Speaker 3 Six months after the shooting, Scott Struthers pled guilty to murder.

Speaker 3 He's now serving a sentence of 23 years to life.

Speaker 4 I mean, I'm glad that he's not going to see, like,

Speaker 4 the sun come up, really. And I'm going to make sure of that, too.

Speaker 28 I just keep the idea.

Speaker 3 But for the Chang family, Scott isn't the only guilty party.

Speaker 3 Do you blame someone for Penny's death?

Speaker 6 The first of all,

Speaker 26 of course, Scott Strother.

Speaker 6 The second person is the person who took care of Scott Strother.

Speaker 3 For the entire five months prior to Penny's death, Scott Struthers was receiving psychiatric care, first as a patient here at the Cleveland Clinic, and then when he was released from a private therapist.

Speaker 3 The Changs believe these professionals could and should have stopped Struthers from killing their daughter. They're suing them for $20 million.

Speaker 6 I fear they made so much mistake.

Speaker 26 The case is pursued as a wrongful death case.

Speaker 3 Paul Kaufman is the Chang's attorney. What do you see as the biggest failing on the part of Cleveland Clinic?

Speaker 26 I think their biggest failing was in discharging him when they did. I mean, it's our position he still needed to be hospitalized.

Speaker 3 Everyone agrees that when Struthers first arrived at the Cleveland Clinic after stalking Penny and facing charges of harassment, he was a severely troubled young man. Do you remember meeting Scott?

Speaker 24 Yes, I do.

Speaker 3 Forensic psychiatrist Kathleen Quinn.

Speaker 24 So in many ways, he looked quite ordinary, although the concerns were extraordinary about him.

Speaker 3 What do you mean?

Speaker 24 Well, that there was an issue of dangerousness.

Speaker 3 Dr. Quinn says Struthers exhibited a number of behaviors which made him a significant risk for violence, including severe anger, homicidal thoughts, and a desire to obtain a gun.

Speaker 24 That resulted in an immediate hospitalization and there being a commitment paper drawn up.

Speaker 3 What's more, Struthers made no secret of his desire to kill Penny in his journal.

Speaker 3 But Struthers appeared to improve, and after just five weeks of treatment, he was discharged, even though hospital records showed doctors still had some concerns.

Speaker 26 Two days before he was discharged, they didn't believe him and they doubted his credibility. And he was showing no remorse and he was having no emotional reaction.
reaction.

Speaker 26 I don't see how anybody could think that this young man was ready to be discharged.

Speaker 25 I had some concerns about his veracity.

Speaker 3 George Tessar was the attending psychiatrist who authorized Struthers' release.

Speaker 25 They weren't consistent concerns from day to day, and by the end of the evaluation, I was quite convinced that he was telling us the truth as he felt it then.

Speaker 3 In an exclusive interview with 48 Hours, Dr. Tessar Tesser says he released Struthers only after seeing great improvement in his patient.

Speaker 25 He no longer made those statements about wanting to kill her or feeling any compulsion to kill her. He was feeling better.

Speaker 3 According to Tessar, the homicidal thoughts expressed in Scott's journal were all in the past tense.

Speaker 3 At one point in his journal, he writes, Basically, I was thinking how cool and superior will you look, bitch, when I blow your brains out into the ground.

Speaker 3 You can just get rid of those feelings a week or two later?

Speaker 25 Well, I think,

Speaker 20 yeah, that's possible.

Speaker 25 He was not conveying the same kind of impression at the end of this hospitalization.

Speaker 18 This man's assessment at discharge was correct. It was correct because he didn't do anything when he was discharged.

Speaker 3 Attorney Jim Malone is defending the Cleveland Clinic.

Speaker 18 Nothing violent took place for three and a half months.

Speaker 3 He says expecting psychiatrists to predict violence that far into the future is expecting too much.

Speaker 18 The Cleveland Clinic has every medical device to benefit humankind. The one thing they don't have is a crystal ball that works.

Speaker 25 Our clinical experience suggests that we're pretty good at it

Speaker 25 at predicting violence in the short term.

Speaker 25 24, 48, 72 hours after an evaluation. Beyond that,

Speaker 25 nobody's very good at predicting violence.

Speaker 3 If the Cleveland clinic couldn't predict that Scott Struthers would become a killer, what about the private therapist who picked up his case and saw him regularly, right up until he bought a gun to kill Penny?

Speaker 12 Raina Krell called Rainy Krell instead.

Speaker 3 Scott Struthers met with Raina Krell regularly for three and a half months.

Speaker 3 On March 12, 1999, Struthers bought a gun, took it to this shooting range, and practiced firing it.

Speaker 3 Although he had seen Krowell two days earlier, she saw no sign of his escalating anger.

Speaker 3 How did Raina Krell not see that?

Speaker 26 I think you'd have to ask her.

Speaker 3 Krow refused to talk with 48 hours, but she told the court.

Speaker 28 Did he ever make any threats of any kind?

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 28 Did he ever have any evidence of recent homicidal ideation?

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 28 Did he ever show any evidence of present dangerousness?

Speaker 11 No. He had talked about comments of feeling regret, feeling

Speaker 11 more personally responsible.

Speaker 11 He demonstrated an interest in work.

Speaker 19 From your perspective, is this positive?

Speaker 7 Negative? What?

Speaker 11 I viewed it as positive.

Speaker 26 I think she looked at him as sort of the jilted boyfriend, depression. type of situation and never really

Speaker 26 got below the surface.

Speaker 3 Isn't it possible possible that he was such a good actor he really fooled all the doctors?

Speaker 19 Sure, it's possible.

Speaker 26 But the problem with that is that

Speaker 26 these doctors are the experts.

Speaker 3 With millions of dollars and their reputations at stake, Scott Struthers doctors are fighting back by pointing the blame at Penny's own family.

Speaker 19 She's the most beautiful child we have.

Speaker 3 That's next.

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Speaker 18 Just plain old-fashioned evil. And there is scarcely anything that can be done by mental health or anybody else to prevent evil from having its way.

Speaker 26 Penny Chang was gunned down by this former patient, Scott Spruther.

Speaker 3 Cleveland Clinic Attorney Jim Malone says doctors did all they could for both Struthers and the Changs, including taking the extraordinary step of calling the Chang family to tell them of Struthers' release.

Speaker 3 But was that phone call sending a mixed message? You're discharging him because you think he's safe. Why then do you feel an obligation to inform the Changs?

Speaker 3 That sounds like you weren't quite sure whether he was safe. Cleveland Clinic Psychiatrist George Tessar.

Speaker 25 We thought in

Speaker 25 view of the comments that he had made and the kind of interaction he'd had with the Changs

Speaker 25 prior to the hospitalization, that it was only courteous, fair to let them know that he was being discharged.

Speaker 3 So there was a little concern.

Speaker 25 There was concern that they should be informed that he was no longer in the hospital.

Speaker 3 But the Changs say that phone call led them to believe they no longer had to worry about Struthers.

Speaker 4 My dad told me they called him to say, Scott is no longer a threat to your family. And

Speaker 4 with that little comment, I mean, actually, my dad was very relieved.

Speaker 27 We trust the Cleveland Clinic very much. They say, no problem, they have no intention.

Speaker 6 We say, okay,

Speaker 6 he's possibly still a good boy.

Speaker 3 But the hospital left out an important fact. Their assessment of Struthers was only meant for the short term.
Did anybody tell the Changs that?

Speaker 3 Did anybody say, okay, today we think he might not be a risk, but a month down the road, it's anybody's bet, and you better be careful?

Speaker 25 No, we didn't tell the Changs that. Common sense would tell you that you don't know exactly what's going to happen three months down the line.

Speaker 3 Do you think in retrospect that warning was enough for the Changs?

Speaker 8 I don't know.

Speaker 25 It's certainly an important point to consider.

Speaker 3 Whether or not the warning was adequate is an issue at trial because of what happened nearly three months later.

Speaker 3 The Changs claim that phone call is the reason why they didn't become alarmed when out of the blue, Scott Struthers make contact again.

Speaker 7 Everything that happened to Scott after the summer is all Penny's fault. She ruined his life for her own petty amusement.

Speaker 3 This time, it was in the form of emails.

Speaker 25 Everything he did was.

Speaker 3 Cleveland plane dealer reporter Mike Tobin.

Speaker 7 The number one rule of stalking is never use your own phone.

Speaker 21 He didn't care if he got caught.

Speaker 3 He's talking to himself. He's talking to himself.

Speaker 3 The same angry, rambling emails written in the third person were sent to Penny, her brother, and her father. But the Changs didn't find them threatening.

Speaker 6 I saw nothing dangerous in February email.

Speaker 3 Nothing dangerous, just anger. Just complain.
Complaining. Complain.

Speaker 18 Well, I don't think they believe there was anything to worry about. But my word, what do you have to hear to be worried?

Speaker 26 In response to the February...

Speaker 3 In fact, the Changs reached out to Struthers after receiving them.

Speaker 23 Oh, basically, you know, I said, look, okay, you've scolded her enough. Just leave her alone and continue her life.
You think about Penny, there's lots of girls on the Fed O'Hallow State campus.

Speaker 3 When you emailed him, what did you say back?

Speaker 6 Like a teacher.

Speaker 9 I say, go back to college immediately.

Speaker 6 You are ruining yourself.

Speaker 3 Isn't it possible the Changs were still relying on the word of the hospital? Three months earlier, he's no longer a threat, and that's why they didn't react to the emails.

Speaker 25 I suppose it's a conceivable explanation, but a rather naive response to threat.

Speaker 3 One month later, just days before the murder, Struthers emailed the Changs again.

Speaker 6 Next time it's a March email, about 60 pages.

Speaker 3 60 pages?

Speaker 6 6060 pages. Like a book.

Speaker 3 This time, the Changs didn't read them, thinking they were simply more of Scott's harmless complaints.

Speaker 6 And I saw nothing dangerous in the first few pages.

Speaker 3 Had he read further, he would have been horrified. Buried within the 60 pages, Struthers spells out his plan to kill Penny.

Speaker 7 I would like to take a hammer and repeatedly smash her face in with it until her face is a soupy bloody pulp. Scott's moral duty has been satisfied by just sending these messages.

Speaker 7 You can never say that you didn't know. You were given the opportunity.
Remember that.

Speaker 3 That's really creepy.

Speaker 3 He was warning them of what he was going to do and they didn't realize it.

Speaker 11 I thought he was doing better.

Speaker 3 Neither did Raina Krell, the therapist who had been treating Struthers at the same time he was writing out his murderous intentions.

Speaker 28 Did you, when you were treating Scott Struthers, have any information at all relating to these emails?

Speaker 11 No, No, I did not.

Speaker 2 Did you ever hear of him when you were treating him?

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 28 Did you do your very best treating Scott Struthers?

Speaker 11 I did the best I could with the information I had.

Speaker 6 You're a professional person.

Speaker 3 You're not expecting her to be a mind reader.

Speaker 6 Nobody's a mind reader, but you still should know he has the intention.

Speaker 3 But Cleveland clinic attorney Jim Malone says, since only the Changs knew about the emails, only the Changs could have prevented their daughter's death by notifying the the police.

Speaker 26 In the bottom of your heart, Dr.

Speaker 18 Chang, don't you know that you should have called for help, that a call to the police would have stopped all of this?

Speaker 24 If I

Speaker 6 read

Speaker 27 this email totally,

Speaker 29 definitely I called police.

Speaker 3 Was part of your strategy to deflect blame away from the hospital and onto the Chang?

Speaker 18 No, I don't believe they're responsible for the death of their daughter. But what I say is this.

Speaker 18 If that phone call had been placed, the Shaker Heights Police Department would have had this man off the streets very rapidly.

Speaker 21 We could probably take some of the blame, right? But here they're trying to saying that it's not their fault at all.

Speaker 6 What kind of bullcrap's that?

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 3 Now it's up to the jury to decide.

Speaker 18 If the doctor, the psychiatrist, looks at a patient and makes a decision about a treatment plan or a discharge plan, and he does that in so-called good faith, then he's immune by law from the consequences of that decision.

Speaker 31 I will read the verdict in this case.

Speaker 3 After just two hours, the jury agrees.

Speaker 31 As to the defendant Cleveland Clinic, in favor of the defendant Cleveland Clinic. As to the defendant Raina Krow, in favor of the defendant Rena Crow.

Speaker 3 The Changs will get nothing from the clinic or the doctors.

Speaker 25 Where do you think the weak spot in your case was?

Speaker 17 I think it's extremely difficult to win a case against doctors and or therapists.

Speaker 25 We've got a lot of burdens to overcome.

Speaker 17 All of the burdens are on us.

Speaker 3 What should we take from this case?

Speaker 18 We've learned that there are profound limitations to what psychiatry can do and what its onus of responsibility should be.

Speaker 25 We made our decisions based on what we thought were reasonable observations and interpretations of what we were seeing. And it could well be that the Changs were as well.

Speaker 3 But Dr. Chang still believes the psychiatrist could have done more.
And since we first brought you this story, he's filed an appeal for a new trial.

Speaker 23 Penny was killed.

Speaker 19 Nobody can change the situation. But I like to show as many of psychiatrists do your professional job carefully.

Speaker 6 Don't repeat such things. We don't like this happened again.

Speaker 3 What advice would you have for a family that's in your situation?

Speaker 4 It's better to be extremely worried

Speaker 4 than

Speaker 4 to have this happen. I'm sorry.
So what, your worry were.

Speaker 26 So what?

Speaker 3 Ooh, big deal.

Speaker 24 You have a sister you have your daughter

Speaker 14 stalking happens to be an occupational hazard of this business television reporting that nobody likes to talk about but the stalking of on-air personalities is a growing concern it's even become a topic of conversation at various professional gatherings among local television anchors and reporters.

Speaker 14 They are especially at risk since they're often encouraged to connect with the audience on a personal level. The trouble is it's hard to know who's watching.

Speaker 14 Troy Roberts has a story of some local television reporters who made the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Speaker 9 Energetic meteorologist George Kessler was the top-rated weatherman in Duluth, Minnesota.

Speaker 27 Dave, look, here's a satellite picture in motion. You say, George, why is it so windy?

Speaker 20 In all of our audience research, we saw George Kessler as our most popular personality.

Speaker 9 KBJR TV news director David Gench.

Speaker 20 People felt like George Kessler was their friend.

Speaker 6 Now the Channel 6 6 o'clock news.

Speaker 22 Live television, you can't beat it for a rush.

Speaker 22 And if you're deep down inside, secretly an adrenaline junkie, it's

Speaker 22 what you want to do. I know, is that frozen now?

Speaker 9 Kessler felt right at home in Duluth with his wife, Sheila, and their small children.

Speaker 26 This was a perfect fit for you, right?

Speaker 26 You liked the city.

Speaker 22 I love the city. Duluth is a great town.
You could drop a money clip in the middle of the street and somebody chase after you to give it back.

Speaker 22 And so you have this wonderful sense of it is, it's almost childlike, the security that you have here.

Speaker 24 Snow showers will hold up if you think they're just going to die in there today.

Speaker 9 But for George Kessler, the childlike security would turn into agony and fear in the very town he embraced at the same TV station he loved.

Speaker 9 It all began to unravel one day in March of 2000 when Kessler arrived for work.

Speaker 22 It was Monday and I was coming through the newsroom pretty quickly. Saw that my message light was on so you're putting your stuff down.

Speaker 22 You sat your voicemail to play back and all of a sudden it just erupted. This, you know, stream of vitriol came out of the phone.

Speaker 32 I'm a man, Mr. Kessler.
I'm not some f ⁇ ing f ⁇ ass homosexual. Do you understand me?

Speaker 9 The caller was a man Kessler had never met. 42-year-old Sean Wayne Thorson, a psychiatric patient with a reputation for violence.

Speaker 13 Did Sean Thorson threaten you with bodily harm?

Speaker 22 Oh, yes. In no uncertain terms.

Speaker 26 The next time you call me, preferably gay, Mr.

Speaker 32 Weatherman, I'm going to beat the f ⁇ ing sh ⁇ out of you. That's no joke.

Speaker 20 He was seeing George's weather, and he felt that George was saying things to him, obscene things, threatening things. He felt George was threatening him through the TV.

Speaker 32 Yeah, this is Sean again, and I'm not going to accept your apology, you f ⁇ .

Speaker 32 You happen to be one of those people who can dish it out but can't take it, huh? Yourself? Well, you're going to find out the hard way, my friend.

Speaker 32 I can definitely do something about it, and God bestowed upon myself the power to do so.

Speaker 9 Thorsen ignored warnings from police, even a restraining order, to stop making the phone calls. For that, he spent four months in a mental institution.

Speaker 9 But after he was released, Thorson went straight back to the phone.

Speaker 9 Over the next year, Thorson was committed and released for mental illness two more times. Incredibly, there was nothing more Kessler or the police could do.

Speaker 22 The way the laws are, you can't necessarily have security in a situation like this until something really bad happens.

Speaker 13 Do you think given the opportunity,

Speaker 13 Sean Thorsen would have killed you?

Speaker 22 If he was in the grips of a delusion and I happened to be available to him, yes.

Speaker 22 Without a doubt.

Speaker 10 The question really is, how many stalkers does a celebrity have? Not if they have any.

Speaker 9 Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz has spent years investigating and testifying against serial killers killers and stalkers, including Jeffrey Dahmer and John Hinckley.

Speaker 9 Dietz says stalking of television news personalities is an occupational hazard that few in the TV industry are willing to discuss.

Speaker 10 The illusion of intimacy is inherent in the medium. It's inevitable that some viewers are going to be attracted to this.

Speaker 27 Take a look, satellite picture in motion.

Speaker 9 And while George Kessler's ordeal wasn't unique, stalkers more frequently target women.

Speaker 10 The ideal victim is

Speaker 10 a sweet, kind, gentle, pretty, accepting, approachable virgin. That allows many men in the audience to have the view she's meant for me.

Speaker 11 Good afternoon, and welcome to News 7 at Noon. I'm Melanie Moon.

Speaker 9 Anchor Woman Melanie Moon was a rising star at WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia, when in 1996, She started getting dark, suggestive letters from not one, but several viewers.

Speaker 11 Letters detailing about sexual fantasies and ultimately ending with me being drowned in a bathtub.

Speaker 13 What do these letters do to you psychologically, emotionally?

Speaker 11 Give me nightmares. For months, I would take a shower with the bathroom door locked.
It would be at the grocery store. If someone looked at me strangely, for a second, I would think maybe that's them.

Speaker 9 By the fall of 1997, the FBI was searching for Melanie Moon's stalkers. Then she began hearing from 47-year-old David Lee Duff.

Speaker 11 The first couple letters I got, he would call me the goddess of dawn, and you and I are alone together each morning in my room. They got to things like, I like what you're wearing today.

Speaker 11 I know you're wearing it for me.

Speaker 11 I saw you smiling at me today. Thank you.
And then he sent me an engagement ring.

Speaker 9 Even after all she'd been through, Melanie Moon didn't think David Lee Duff was out to harm her. After all, he had only sent what she believed were fairly innocent tokens of his affection.

Speaker 9 But on November 5th, 1997, Duff crossed the line and came to visit Melanie at work.

Speaker 9 The confrontation was caught on videotape. Duff was told to leave and he did so without incident.
Roanoke police then warned him to stop contacting Moon, but the harassment didn't stop.

Speaker 11 He continued to write letters saying things like, they can't keep us apart. I'll wear jailhouse orange if I have to.

Speaker 8 It almost came to that.

Speaker 9 In March of 1998, Melanie Moon saw her stalker for the first time at the Roanoke City Courthouse.

Speaker 11 This takes away even more of your

Speaker 11 feeling, feeling secure and safe.

Speaker 9 David Lee Duff was convicted of stalking, but all he got was a six-month suspended sentence.

Speaker 9 Melanie Moon got out of Roanoke, taking a new job in another city where she's better prepared for unwelcome attention.

Speaker 11 Tear gas on the keychain.

Speaker 9 Carrying tear gas on her keychain and a stun gun in her purse.

Speaker 11 Haven't had to use it yet.

Speaker 9 Park Deet says he understands why she has that.

Speaker 10 Nobody knows right now how many news anchors get stalked. The likelihood is that for good-looking females on the news nightly, it's 100%.

Speaker 9 It's a warning, Diet says, that not enough television personalities take seriously.

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Speaker 12 your emergency? Well, I'm just wondering if you guys could send out somebody to check out my neighbor upstairs. I heard a lot of thumping on the floor really loud.

Speaker 9 January 22nd, 1998.

Speaker 9 At 8:30 a.m., Michael Goodman calls 911 in Temple, Texas.

Speaker 2 Okay, and um, it's gonna be apartment 226.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 12 Her name's uh Catherine Fitness. Okay, does she live alone up there? Um, yes, she does.

Speaker 9 Minutes later, police arrive at the Wildwood apartments and make a horrifying discovery.

Speaker 9 Popular local TV reporter Catherine Dettman's nude body on the floor of her bedroom.

Speaker 15 Details are sketchy at this point, but here's what we know.

Speaker 9 The 36-year-old Dettman had been on the verge of an important career move. She was taking a new job at a much larger TV station in Dallas.

Speaker 9 This would be her last day of small-town life in Temple, Texas.

Speaker 21 It was common for her to, in the morning, get up, let the cat out, and leave the door slightly ajar

Speaker 21 so the cat could come in and out while she went about making coffee, getting ready to go to work.

Speaker 9 Assistant DA Murph Bledsoe.

Speaker 21 The evidence appeared that she had come out of the shower. She may have heard a noise and come out in a robe or a towel, and there was a confrontation.

Speaker 21 She went through a homicide.

Speaker 30 It was an extremely violent attack.

Speaker 9 Temple Police Sergeant Keith Reed.

Speaker 30 She had 15 to 16 stab wounds.

Speaker 30 Suspecting Cassidy. Let's talk about suspects.

Speaker 9 The suspect was 21-year-old neighbor Anthony Gary Silvestri. Police found him hiding in Catherine Dettman's bedroom.

Speaker 30 His clothes were covered in blood, and he had blood on his fingers and his hands.

Speaker 9 Friends of Catherine Dettman say Sylvestri had been stalking her.

Speaker 9 One co-worker told us Catherine had complained to him that Sylvestri was following her at the apartment complex and showing up in her car when she came and left home.

Speaker 15 She told me about this young guy asking her out at her apartment complex when she had gone to check her mail.

Speaker 9 Yolanda Johnson was a receptionist at the station where Catherine worked and a close friend. She remembers Catherine mentioning Sylvestri by name.

Speaker 15 He had told her that he had seen her on TV and thought she was a very beautiful lady.

Speaker 26 She confided in you.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 9 Paula Brown considered Catherine Deppman her best friend. She says Deppman was a trusting person and just didn't recognize Sylvestri's interests as potentially dangerous.

Speaker 3 She would have said something. I mean, she would call when her stomach hurt.
If someone were after her,

Speaker 3 we would have known that.

Speaker 9 Deppman's naivete doesn't surprise Park Dietz, who says many on-air personalities aren't even aware they're being stalked.

Speaker 10 Most station managers don't even give the news anchors all their mail or all their email.

Speaker 10 Very few stations have adequate screening of who gets on the premises or do the things for their talent that can help protect them.

Speaker 9 Anthony Garry Silvestri pled guilty to the murder of Catherine Dettman and is serving a 40 years to life prison sentence.

Speaker 21 I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and I got mad and I lost my temper.

Speaker 9 Police searched Silvestri's apartment and found this pair of binoculars, which they believe he used to spy on Detman. And a friend of Silvestri's told authorities that Silvestri had been watching her.

Speaker 21 Silvestri had taken him to the part of the apartment where he could look out across the courtyard and see a window of Catherine's apartment.

Speaker 13 What did he say?

Speaker 21 As he's looking through the binoculars, she's really fine. She looks like a model.

Speaker 13 What did you want from her?

Speaker 8 I don't know.

Speaker 3 She really believed that if she was kind and accepting,

Speaker 3 that people would treat her well.

Speaker 3 I think that was her desire, and I think that was her belief.

Speaker 13 And her mistake. And her mistake.

Speaker 29 It's a bad night out there, folks. There's no way around it.
Temperatures.

Speaker 9 In Duluth, Minnesota, Minnesota, weatherman George Kessler heard about what happened to Catherine Dettman.

Speaker 32 Yeah, this is Sean again. I'm really not afraid of you, people.

Speaker 9 And after enduring nearly a year of Sean Thorson's menacing phone calls, he made a drastic decision. Kessler quit his job and no longer works in television.

Speaker 22 And I said, you know, this is not something that's going away.

Speaker 9 In his own twisted way,

Speaker 13 he wanted you to walk away from your job.

Speaker 13 And he accomplished that.

Speaker 8 Yes, he won.

Speaker 22 We have to understand that he wasn't doing it out of malice.

Speaker 6 Doesn't matter. He won.

Speaker 22 Yes, he did.

Speaker 14 In the last decade or so, all 50 states have passed anti-stalking laws. At least a dozen states make stalking an automatic felony.
And by no means is it mainly celebrities who are victims.

Speaker 14 If you feel you're being followed or threatened, report it to the police, tell a friend, and keep a record of it. That could all be crucial to staying safe.

Speaker 14 No one wants to go through life looking over their shoulder, but experts say a little healthy suspicion could be the first step to stop a stalker.

Speaker 14 That's 48 Hours Investigates.

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