Chilling Obsession

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Speaker 1 This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 15 The claims and opinions in this podcast are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the knife or exactly right media.

Speaker 16 I feel very sick to my stomach because Clearly, what has happened is someone has been pretending to be me. I'm like, you need to call the police.
This is a crime. Someone has been impersonating me.

Speaker 16 That is not me.

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Knife. I'm Hannah Smith.

Speaker 15 I'm Paisha Eaton, and today we're speaking with Kylie Burst. Kylie is a meteorologist living in Colorado.

Speaker 15 She loves her job in connecting with her local community, but for the last three years, she's been the victim of a stalker.

Speaker 1 Kylie walks us through the events that led to her feeling unsafe in her own home.

Speaker 1 She's recently gone public with her story and hopes to shed light on the systems that fail victims of stalking and how we need to do better.

Speaker 15 Let's get into the interview.

Speaker 1 Kylie, welcome to the knife.

Speaker 16 Thank you for having me.

Speaker 15 Yeah, we're really excited to speak with you today.

Speaker 1 If you can just start by introducing yourself, that'd be great.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I'm a local news meteorologist. I am here on the local Fox affiliate in Denver.
I'm a morning meteorologist. So we're on from 4.30 until about 11 o'clock every morning.

Speaker 16 And I've been doing it for almost 15 years now. Been here in Denver for about eight years.
I originally studied journalism.

Speaker 16 I thought I wanted to be a war correspondent, you know, an investigative reporter. And I did it for about a year.

Speaker 16 And I remember in my first job, my boss goes, I saw on your reel from college, you did ski reports at CU Boulder. He's like, can you do weekend weather for a little bit? We just need some help.

Speaker 16 And I'm like, okay, sure. I'll take, you know, whatever job I can get.
This was just after the recession. So you took the job and you did whatever.
And I really loved it. And I remember I covered.

Speaker 16 really horrible crime cases. I covered an execution at one point.
And I was like, this is not for me. I'm a very empathetic person.

Speaker 16 And what I loved about the weather and meteorology is that you got to be on the forefront of before the disaster happened. So hopefully you could educate people.

Speaker 16 And when you showed up to a scene, you know that you did everything you could to help them know how to get through a tornado safely, how to, you know, drive safe in a snowstorm, don't drive through flooded waters.

Speaker 16 I liked the education part versus just showing up when tragedy had already happened and there was nothing you can do. You felt very helpless.

Speaker 16 I felt like as a journalist versus as a meteorologist, I felt like I was actually doing something that was helping people.

Speaker 15 As a local meteorologist, Kylie is someone that people are going to every morning for reliable information in a place where the weather can be pretty extreme.

Speaker 15 This cultivates a sense of familiarity and also a sense of trust. And sometimes when Kylie's out around town, she gets recognized.
And most of the time, she loves it.

Speaker 16 When someone comes up to you and they say, hi, I watch you every morning. We wake up with you.

Speaker 16 We turn, you know, the TV on every morning and they feel comfortable enough to come up and tell you, that's when I feel like I've done a really good job because you want people to feel like we are your friend.

Speaker 16 We are part of your morning routine. We're someone that you can trust, right? And if they feel comfortable enough to come up and say hi to you, it's the world's biggest compliment.

Speaker 16 You've done something right in your job.

Speaker 16 And I can remember the first time someone recognized me and it's such a, it's a weird feeling, but now it's just like you're, you're grateful every single time. 95% of the time is extremely positive.

Speaker 16 There are cases, and it's happened my entire career where it's immediately uncomfortable and you kind of know, okay, I just need to keep like hands, you know, arms distance away from this person.

Speaker 16 But I'd say that's a very small fraction of the time.

Speaker 1 Take us to the beginning of this interaction with the person that we're going to talk about. What's the first kind of interaction that you remember having?

Speaker 16 I remember it really well, actually, because it wasn't an unusual interaction, but there were some red flags in it.

Speaker 16 I was one of the, they called us celebrity judges for all the local news friends we got together, and we judged a firefighter chili cook off, which is a blast.

Speaker 16 You go, you're interacting with the fire men and women. They're incredible.
And we invite the public.

Speaker 16 For years, I've always put charity events on the news, but on my Instagram and said, come support this amazing cause.

Speaker 16 So sometimes you get people who come up, they say, hey, I saw you talking about this. I wanted to come out.
I wanted to meet you.

Speaker 16 Normally when people come up to you, they come up and they say a quick hello, and then they're able to, you know, mingle in with the crowd, go try the chili.

Speaker 15 Over 3,000 people attend the annual Denver Firefighters Chili Cook Off. It's a massive event.

Speaker 15 People come together to taste the chili, but more importantly, to raise money for local organizations that help firefighters and their families. And in 2022, Kylie was attending as a judge.

Speaker 15 Kylie and the other judges made their way around the event, going from booth to booth, trying the different chilies.

Speaker 15 And that's when she first noticed him.

Speaker 16 I remember he followed our group probably about 30, 40 feet away, just kind of stood in the background.

Speaker 16 You know, we usually had a couple of bigger guys with this group just to kind of know if people were to get a little bit too aggressive, they could kind of step in, but he wasn't aggressive by any means.

Speaker 16 He was just in the background. He came up a few times.
He told me he drove over an hour to come and meet me. I was very flattered and he kind of followed the whole time and just kind of watched.

Speaker 16 And at the end, came and said goodbye. And we said goodbye.
I didn't really think too much of it from there.

Speaker 15 I'm curious in those interactions, like, does someone who recognize you, do you hug? Do you handshake? Is it more of just like a wave? Or what does that interaction look like?

Speaker 16 You know, I mean, it can be so different. I've had people who have absolutely wanted to hug and they'll be like respectful.
Most people don't. I'd say it's usually a handshake.

Speaker 16 Usually it's just they come up and they say hello and you talk for a little bit. It's usually extremely pleasant, at least on my end.
I hope they have a pleasant experience too.

Speaker 16 That's always the goal of it. But sometimes they want to give you a hug.
And most of the time, that's totally fine. And a lot of times they'll ask too.

Speaker 15 Did he want to give you a hug?

Speaker 16 I don't remember in this circumstance. He did in later interactions, would go in for the hug.
But in this one, I don't remember specifically.

Speaker 16 This was at this point, someone that was just a viewer who I didn't know anything about.

Speaker 15 So we aren't going to use his name, but Kylie, could you tell us a little bit about what this man looked like?

Speaker 16 Yeah, he seemed very non-threatening. He was very kind, very jolly.
He was in his mid-60s. He had a mustache.
He was extremely friendly to everyone who interacted with him.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, you go to this charity event, you meet him, you sort of notice him, at least in the moment. It's a little noticeable.

Speaker 1 Oh, he seems to be sort of maybe sticking around a little longer than other people do but he doesn't seem that threatening and then when is the next time that this same person comes on your radar

Speaker 16 i started to notice there were some emails and some instagram messages nothing that was particularly noteful i get a lot of people who respond when you're trying to build you know a personal brand and get to know people you're responding to just about everyone so i'd say there was some light interaction that had happened via email and on instagram and then the next time of note was when i threw threw my own personal fundraiser for I have a hiking website called Approachable Outdoors, and we were raising money for children here in Colorado.

Speaker 16 It was a dream that I'd always had. And I obviously advertised it to the public.
I'd had family that came up to help me put it on.

Speaker 16 And that day I showed up about an hour and a half early to the restaurant to get set up. And there were a couple of people and he was one of them.
who had showed up early to help.

Speaker 16 And I was trying to say, thank you so much. It's actually a little bit more helpful if you just wait wait downstairs.
We haven't actually opened up tickets yet.

Speaker 16 He kind of, whenever I would go to like open a box, he'd go grab the box and start undoing the box. And so he, he's, you know, he's saying, I'm here to help.
I'm put me to work. I'm here to help.

Speaker 16 So I'm assuming very kind intentions on his part. At that point, I just needed me and my friends and family to get the fundraiser set up as quickly as possible.
He stayed for the whole fundraiser.

Speaker 16 And a lot of people interacted with him. And they said, oh, that really nice older man.
You know, he drove over an hour to come and see you today. That's That's so sweet.

Speaker 16 And I describe it as overzealous at this point, which I'd experienced with a lot of viewers in the past, but it was a little bit annoying to have someone while you're trying to dictate and order kind of jump in and try and mitigate that for you.

Speaker 16 So it was a little frustrating. He stayed and then he helped kind of unpack again.
I said, no, no, no, but he wasn't leaving.

Speaker 1 It's like the house guest who keeps trying to help in the kitchen and you're like, please just literally go sit on the couch until I'm done in here.

Speaker 16 Right. They're unloading the dishwasher and they're putting putting everything away in the wrong spot.

Speaker 15 Where does this go? Where does this go? Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 15 At first, Kylie chalked up this man's enthusiasm to just being excited to meet her. Even him driving an hour to show up at one of her events didn't really faze her because fans did that sometimes.

Speaker 15 It's when he began reaching out to her on Instagram and leaving this steady stream of direct messages and comments that it all became very off-putting.

Speaker 15 This gave Kylie pause, but it didn't quite feel dangerous, at least not yet.

Speaker 16 In the months after the fundraiser, it more so became extremely frequent and started to become a little obsessive.

Speaker 16 And again, I've dealt with this for a long time, but then he started reaching out to my friends and family to the point where people were contacting me and saying, hey, this guy's reaching out.

Speaker 16 And that became odd. It was at that point that he started reaching out to my friends and family that I started to then block his social media accounts.

Speaker 16 And when you block someone on Instagram, it blocks any new account that they might make with that email address, right? If anyone's ever blocked someone, it says that.

Speaker 16 He probably by the end of this had seven or eight different accounts, which means he had to make different emails every single time. And they always had his name in it.
So they were very easy to spot.

Speaker 16 And he would go through and constantly on each new account, be adding my friends who were private, messaging them.

Speaker 16 And I remember what really kind of broke the back back for me was when he reached out to my sister-in-law and he was pretending like he was going interested. And she was an artist.

Speaker 16 She's a beautiful artist. And he's going on and on about what he wants to buy and everything.
And then the interaction gets very odd.

Speaker 16 And she tells my brother and my brother goes, that's the guy that Kylie's been dealing with. And he messaged me and he's like, look, he can't be reaching out to my wife.

Speaker 16 Like, this is completely inappropriate. And at this point, I've changed not only with all the blocking, I've changed my social media habits.
No family members are being tagged anymore.

Speaker 16 Anyone who's not public, I'm not using their handle because he would go and find them and message them.

Speaker 1 When he reached out to your sister-in-law, how long had this been going on?

Speaker 16 Probably about a year, year, year and a half at this point.

Speaker 1 Wow. Who all in your life did you notify that this was going on?

Speaker 16 I notified several other meteorologists. I kind of went through my list and saw who he was following and just gave them a heads up.
We do that a lot.

Speaker 16 If someone's a little extra creepy, we'll send each other a quick message. Hey, heads up, this guy, he's following you.
You may just want to block him. He got a little bit weird in X, Y, and Z ways.

Speaker 16 So I just let a couple other people know, this guy's following you. It's gotten a little bit too much to the point I've had to block.
And he kind of talked to my friends and family a lot.

Speaker 16 And I also want to say at this point, like, there's nothing threatening. There's nothing mean.

Speaker 16 It's just a lot of messages. And then the new accounts and whatnot.
So it's borderline where you're like, this feels wrong and it is wrong.

Speaker 16 But is he technically officially at this point point doing anything wrong?

Speaker 15 Can you give me an example of one of the messages that comes in? I mean, I wouldn't expect you to remember it verbatim, but like

Speaker 15 something close in nature to one of those messages. Like, was it, hope you have a good day? Or like, what kind of messages was he sending early on?

Speaker 16 Yeah, just responding to like, I would travel and every single story I would post. Love this.
Hope you're having fun. Again, nothing that's raising any red flags.

Speaker 16 So it's more just commenting on every single one.

Speaker 16 I'd wake up in the morning and he would have spent hours going back through and liking every single one of my posts from a new Instagram account after I had already blocked him.

Speaker 16 So I would see the hundreds and hundreds of likes in the notifications.

Speaker 16 So it didn't necessarily strike me as concerning in a threatening way at this point, but the obsession is what started to make me feel a little uneasy.

Speaker 16 And then when it really reached a point was my friend was traveling and she was in Thailand and he responded to her story saying, I can't wait to take Kylie here.

Speaker 16 And so she messaged me and she's like, now it's getting weird.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's sort of, I mean, already the knowing that someone's blocked you and then creating another account to then continue messaging them.

Speaker 1 And then this happening multiple times is an indicator of maybe someone's mental state. But that message is so.

Speaker 16 concerning right it's like what reality is this person living in i remember at the time saying if we can just block and ignore, I really hope his obsession stops.

Speaker 16 If I can kind of cut off the source, you know, because sometimes when you're dealing with people who send you nasty emails, and not that this person was being nasty, but when people are targeting you in a way online, and I've dealt with this for years in the local news, if you give them the response, it's what they want.

Speaker 16 And it almost escalates them further. And so that was always my thought was, I don't want to escalate this further.
I don't want to escalate this.

Speaker 15 Kylie pretty reasonably hoped that if she simply ignored this person, then surely they would take a hint. He would leave her alone.

Speaker 15 He would understand that she was not interested, and the whole thing would just fizzle out. But that did not work.
He wouldn't go away.

Speaker 15 Kylie really didn't want to escalate this, but soon she wouldn't have a choice.

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Speaker 16 In summer of 2023, I'm blocking multiple accounts at this point. And I lead hikes for a local wine classic.
And so I was up in the mountains.

Speaker 16 And at this point, I had called the company ahead of time because I'd worked with them for a couple of years. And I said, can you just double check that this man didn't buy tickets?

Speaker 16 We've just had some issues. I was like, nothing to worry about, but we've had some concerns.
And they looked and they were like, nope. And I was like, great, we are good to go.

Speaker 16 I'm like, please flag that name if he does, you know, buy a ticket and whatnot. I would like to know.

Speaker 16 And the way that it works is we lead a hike. We're with a winemaker.
We have a little wine on the trail, and then we come back down for a paired meal. I'm leading a group of about 20 to 30 people.

Speaker 16 So I'm responsible for all of these people. We come down off of the hike, and I had publicly said, come join us on this hike and whatnot.

Speaker 16 And we get down from the hike. We're heading into the restaurant.
And he shows up and he's holding a box. And he kind of stops me as I'm walking, gets in front of me.
And I know exactly who he is.

Speaker 16 And so I say, hi. I go, what are you doing here? He's like, I haven't been able to get you to respond.
You know, I've been trying to see you. I've been trying to see you.
And I was like, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 16 I don't know what you're talking about. I was like, I'm actually here with a group.
And he's got a box in his hand. And he goes, I have your hiking boots.
And I said, you know, I'm so grateful.

Speaker 16 This is really nice, but I can't accept these.

Speaker 16 And he's insisting. And I say, you know, like, they're not my size.
Maybe you could return them. And he goes, you told me these were your size.

Speaker 16 And at this point, this is when I start to realize that something else had been happening here. And he pulls out his phone because I said, I didn't tell you my size.
I haven't been talking to you.

Speaker 16 Pulls out his phone and he shows me thousands of messages. He's just scrolling and he goes, I've been talking to you.
We've been in a relationship for the last year.

Speaker 16 And I immediately, I feel very sick to my stomach because clearly what has happened is someone has been pretending to be me. I'm like, you need to call the police.
This is a crime.

Speaker 16 Someone has been impersonating me. That is not me.
I'm so sorry. We are not in a relationship.
And he's crying. Keep in mind, I have a group of people who are walking past me.

Speaker 16 And I say, you know, I'm really sorry. You need to file a police report.
I hope you haven't given them any money. I would never ask for money.
And he's crying.

Speaker 16 But there's also something that's weird because he's pulling out the phone. And my friend looks at it and she goes, that's not an area code she's associated with at all.

Speaker 16 He goes, I know she's not from there.

Speaker 16 And she was like, well, if you knew that wasn't her area code, why would you think that was her?

Speaker 16 She goes, none of these, this is not how Kylie speaks. And he's, and now it's getting just a little bit funky.

Speaker 16 At this point, an employee, actually the head of the festival comes out and he's like, is everything okay? I'm like, I'm so sorry. And so I've been trying to leave for several minutes at this point.

Speaker 16 And he's crying. It's a very, just horrible situation.
Cause at this point, I feel very guilty that someone has potentially scammed someone using my name.

Speaker 16 But then we go inside and I get alerted that he has now tried to come back into the building multiple times.

Speaker 16 And each time one of those employees kind of knew what was happening and stopped him and said, you know, you're making Kylie really uncomfortable. You need to leave.

Speaker 16 He'd be like, he'd leave and then he'd come back. I need to talk to Kylie.
I need to talk to Kylie.

Speaker 16 And then I start getting text messages from him. He says, I'm so sorry if you and your boyfriend break up.
Maybe we can start over.

Speaker 16 By the way, your information is out there.

Speaker 15 Even after having been told by Kylie in person that she did not know him, that she wasn't the person he was speaking with online, and that likely someone was actually just impersonating her.

Speaker 15 She tried completely ignoring him on social media, and he still managed to track down her number and send her a text. It was all really alarming.

Speaker 15 Kylie had made it so clear that she had no desire to be in contact with this man, but then came the emails. And in those emails, this man addressed Kylie as his wife.

Speaker 16 And at this point, in order to then pursue a restraining order of some kind, you need to say, you have to stop, please stop contacting me. And so I go, please do not contact me again.

Speaker 16 And he says, I'm going to talk to you on the other number. And that's when I realized that he does not believe that I am not in a relationship with him.

Speaker 15 As this interaction is happening and he's becoming emotional and upset, who all is around and seeing it? And what is the reaction?

Speaker 16 I had a very good friend with me who is also in the local news and she knew all about the situation with him. She was one of the people that he was reaching out to and whatnot.

Speaker 16 So she was with me, and she was the one who kind of clocked faster than I did. And we got inside and she's like, no, I'm not buying it.
She goes, this is clearly a scam. Anyone could see that.

Speaker 16 So she's clocking it before I did. The director of the festival was there and the photographer who were both men and quite.
physically much bigger than this person who was here.

Speaker 16 And they were witnessing it and they came and they helped extricate me from the situation, get him to leave and then again asked him to leave multiple times after that.

Speaker 16 So I think most of the people in my group were kind of unaware of what was happening, but the people who were running the event and whatnot were amazing in helping kind of diffuse that situation.

Speaker 1 When he pulled this up, you know, you and your friends saw that it wasn't just one-sided him texting a number. There was a back and forth.

Speaker 1 He was texting someone and he said he believed that was you or was pretty convinced, it sounds like, that that was you.

Speaker 1 And even when you said, that's not me, that's not me. I don't know what you're talking about.
He couldn't be convinced, it sounds like, that that wasn't you.

Speaker 16 And that's what was scary. When he said, I'm going to keep talking to you on the other number after he'd gone.

Speaker 16 I don't know how he found my cell phone number that time, but after he's texting me, I'm saying, please don't talk to me again. I won't text you here, but I'm going to talk to you on the other number.

Speaker 16 So it became very apparent that he did not believe. Maybe he thought I was lying in front of other people and whatnot, but there was no convincing him that it wasn't me.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We had an interview with someone recently, a professor in Canada, who his identity has been used multiple times to scam people online, his picture.

Speaker 1 And interesting, one of the things he said is that he's had women, it's mostly women, not all women that. they've used to scam, you know, scam with his photo.

Speaker 1 And then he'll have people reaching out to him looking for answers, right? Like, haven't we been in a relationship for two years?

Speaker 1 And he talked about the process of convincing someone that, no, you have not been talking to me. He was married at the time.
He said, I've never heard of you. This is not me.

Speaker 1 Someone else is using my identity online. And sometimes people got it right away.

Speaker 1 Sometimes people could not be convinced and were combative and just refused to believe him, you know, for a lot of probably different reasons.

Speaker 1 But one of the things that probably was happening, I can guess, is that he goes back and he's texting this other person and they're saying any number of excuses as to why you're acting this way.

Speaker 1 That's such a tricky position for you to be in because it's like, what are you supposed to do? You don't want to keep interacting with this guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 16 To hear that there is some kind of reasoning behind it and that someone else has experienced, okay, you couldn't convince them to, does make me feel a little less alone in that situation and lends a little bit of credibility.

Speaker 16 You're telling this person, it's not me and not understanding why they're not believing it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. And then not knowing what they're capable of.
So you did respond to him, you know, and said, please stop contacting me.

Speaker 1 Is that because you had already looked into what you needed in order to get a restraining order?

Speaker 16 Yeah, since it was escalating, especially with the point of my family, I had talked to a couple of people in law enforcement about what next steps might be.

Speaker 16 And that was the advice that I was given is you have to tell them, like you have to have the proof of do not contact me again. And that's the beginning of the restraining order process.

Speaker 16 So in Colorado, I can't speak for, you know, other states and whatnot, but this was just my experience going through it.

Speaker 16 For a temporary restraining order, you first go to the judge and you say, here is the evidence. Do you see cause for this? And then you have to serve them.
And then there's a hearing.

Speaker 16 So I had to have, in order to serve him, his birthday. This is a stranger to me.
A lot of times it's like domestic violence situations. And I kept telling people, this is a stranger.
This is a viewer.

Speaker 16 I don't know who this person is. I don't have their address.
And they go, well, you can't get a restraining order unless you figure all of that out.

Speaker 16 You're almost becoming your own investigative person using all of my resources to find him. And then eventually there is a court date.
They are allowed to show up as well.

Speaker 16 And the way that the process works is you have a couple of different choices. You can go to a hearing and battle it out, or you can choose to do a temporary restraining order.

Speaker 16 And that is one year, there's no contact within that year, which the judge says is 90-something percent of the time. It goes away.
It's not on their permanent record.

Speaker 16 It's not something they have to disclose for housing or for work or anything like that.

Speaker 15 Eventually, Kylie succeeded in having this man served. And in September of 2023, they both stood in a courtroom in front of a judge.

Speaker 15 This man had been spamming Kylie's email, her phone, her social media accounts, completely refusing to accept that he and Kylie were not in a relationship, that she did not know him, that she did not want to hear from him at all.

Speaker 15 And his behavior in this courtroom was, to say the least, pretty bizarre.

Speaker 16 He starts laughing to the judge. And he's like, I don't know why I'm here.
I have no reason to talk to this woman. This is all a big misunderstanding.

Speaker 16 So I'm actually relieved at this point. The judge is like, well, then there shouldn't be any problems.
And we agree to that temporary restraining order. And she makes it very clear.

Speaker 16 We had extra stipulations in the restraining order about absolutely no social media contact.

Speaker 16 And she told him, if you even follow her, if you like any pictures, all of that is a violation of that restraining order. And there was also no coming to events.

Speaker 16 She says, if you show up at an event and she's there, you must leave. That's on you.
And he's, yes, ma'am, absolutely. And again, it's just, he's laughing.

Speaker 16 He's like, there's no reason for me to ever speak to this woman again. until two months later when he broke it more than 50 times.

Speaker 15 And so at this point, do you feel like he's fully registering that you are not the person he's been talking to? That whoever he's talking to is not you?

Speaker 16 At the time, yeah. I thought he, I thought he had it.

Speaker 16 He's standing up in court. Yeah.
These are very real consequences for what's happening.

Speaker 16 And again, if we had just stuck to that temporary restraining order and he never contacted me again, he would have absolutely nothing to do with me when it comes to the criminal justice system.

Speaker 16 He would be done. He'd be living his life.
I'd be living my life.

Speaker 16 And so it wasn't until he broke it that I realized this man may not be well because he's not understanding the consequences of his actions at this point. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I just can't help but wonder if he's still talking with that other person. And if that other person is saying, oh, I have to do this for my public persona, but you should reach out to me.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Or maybe, maybe he's not talking with that other person.
Maybe this is all sort of in his head. Like I have no idea, but alarming either way.

Speaker 1 What kind of stuff was he saying to you when he broke the temporary restraining order?

Speaker 16 It was a new Instagram account because again, he's blocked. So it's a brand new one.
He's going back through. He's liking photos and he's commenting nice things on all of the photos.

Speaker 16 He's responding to every story and whatnot. And the judge had told me, and this feels very uncomfortable.

Speaker 16 She said, Even for a social media post, you have to call 911 and report it as a criminal report.

Speaker 16 And so I remember, like, I had all the screenshots and everything. And it was about two days.
And finally, I blocked him again. I was like, I'm stopping you.
I'm saving you from yourself. Just stop.

Speaker 16 And the police came to my door and they're like, I don't know if this counts. And I'm showing him the restrainer.
I'm like, the judge said I had to do this. Like, this is part of the orders here.

Speaker 16 And that's when I went back in to get the permanent restraining order. He made all the comments in December of 2023.
And then it was January 2024.

Speaker 16 We went back in for that permanent restraining order hearing.

Speaker 15 Kylie attended the January 2024 hearing virtually. For two years now, this man had been sending her unwanted messages, referring to Kylie as his wife, and just simply refusing to leave her alone.

Speaker 15 But when he showed up in court, Kylie said it was like watching this completely different person, that it almost felt like whiplash. He'd been aggressively reaching out to her online.

Speaker 15 He'd broken their temporary restraining order and here he was. this seemingly calm, affable person.

Speaker 15 Kylie wondered how the judge might see him.

Speaker 16 He was still, you know, very jovial and kind of joking with the judge, but there was definitely more of a,

Speaker 16 well, I didn't say anything mean. There's nothing threatening.
He's like, I didn't do anything wrong.

Speaker 16 And she just kept trying to tell him, it doesn't matter. You have a restraining order, like you're not supposed to speak.
We talked about this, is, you know, actually, it was a different judge.

Speaker 16 It was listed in there. So it was, it was stated in the restraining order that you cannot with social media and whatnot.
So it became very different.

Speaker 16 And then at one point, he's kind of giving a spiel. I'm not speaking at all.
I'm just muted on Zoom and whatnot. And then he goes, you know, Judge, I think she has a drinking problem.
And I was like,

Speaker 16 what?

Speaker 16 And so then he's like, I'm like, are you trying to blame me for this? Like, it was just bizarre.

Speaker 16 And I was like, and once that final court interaction was when all sympathy and empathy that I had for this human was out the window, because I feel like I gave him a lot of chances.

Speaker 16 And I felt very badly that there was someone who was potentially scamming him.

Speaker 16 But then after I saw how manipulative he was in court and first the laughing in the first time and then turning it back on me as if being stalked is somehow my fault for drinking.

Speaker 16 And I don't even know like where that would, how that even plays any sort of relevance.

Speaker 16 That was when the permanent restraining order was given. And I did not hear from him for a year and a half.

Speaker 15 A year and a half. I mean, mean, that's a long time.
How many months or weeks into that year and a half did you feel like, okay,

Speaker 15 it's over or did you?

Speaker 16 After three, four months, I thought, okay.

Speaker 16 But what I was worried about, and I've mentioned this a couple of times, was

Speaker 16 I was worried about further escalation. The fact that I took him to court, is he mad at me? Is there retaliation that he wants?

Speaker 16 So it definitely took several months for me to feel settled and not constantly just kind of keeping an eye out for a new name and a new profile and whatnot.

Speaker 16 And then six months later and for the next year, I felt really good and really safe and I hadn't thought about it.

Speaker 15 The more time that passed without Kylie being contacted by this man, the more it felt like maybe she'd gotten what she'd wanted all along, which was just to be left alone, that this might finally be over.

Speaker 15 But on the evening of September 11th, 2025, just a couple of months before we ended up speaking with Kylie, the relief and sense sense of safety that she'd finally started to get back, it all went away again.

Speaker 16 And I pull into my garage. I back into it.
And as I'm backing in, I had noticed a truck about to kind of pull by all the garages.

Speaker 16 And I didn't know, I don't know all of my neighbors on the alleyway, so I didn't think too much about it.

Speaker 16 I'm parking my car and I look up and a truck has pulled right in front of me and their windows down.

Speaker 16 And it takes about a half second before I realize who it is. And I just feel immediately sick.
My stomach dropped.

Speaker 16 I remember thinking, oh my God, if he has a weapon, you need to get down as quickly as possible. So I slowly reach up, hoping he can't like see my hands moving.
And he's trying to talk to me.

Speaker 16 And I just close my garage. And I go inside by going through the back when it comes to my garage.
And I'm in the house and I'm calling my neighbor. I'm trying to ask if they have cameras in the back.

Speaker 16 And that was when the doorbell started ringing.

Speaker 16 And my dog runs over to the door. I look through the peephole and he's standing there.
And I just go, oh my God, oh my God.

Speaker 16 And my neighbor's like, hang up, call 911, call 911 right now.

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Speaker 15 In the neighborhood where Kylie lived at the time, the garages were all in the back of the homes. So you entered every garage through an alleyway.

Speaker 15 And the front doors are, of course, in the front of the house.

Speaker 15 When Kylie went inside, she was for a moment hopeful that he had just driven away, but he'd actually just driven a couple of streets down and circled back to the front of her house.

Speaker 15 And now he was standing at her door. We don't know how he found out where Kylie lived.
Maybe he followed her home from work or was able to look up her address somehow. Either way, it was terrifying.

Speaker 16 I hang up, I call 911. I literally just grab my dog, grab my keys, run back out the back door.
So he had gone all the way around to the front and he was standing on my front door.

Speaker 16 And again, I don't know if he has a weapon. I don't know what his intentions are.
Why is he at my garage, in my alley, and then around the front door? And so I call 911 and I'm running.

Speaker 16 And I actually hadn't had a panic attack since the last time I had had to deal with him. And I'm having a panic attack as I'm driving.
And 911 is saying, okay, where are you going? I go, I don't know.

Speaker 16 I don't know where I'm going.

Speaker 16 I go, I have a restraining order against him and a permanent one he's outside my front door i don't know what to do so they say you need to find a park or something and i'm just in tears going i don't know he could be following me i don't know i don't want to stop my car and finally they convince me to pull over to a park and the officer comes and she's you know we're talking and she sent another officer to my house so at this point maybe 10 15 minutes have gone by And she goes, I'm sending an officer over.

Speaker 16 He's probably gone, but we'll check out the area and then we can all go back to your house together. And I go, okay.

Speaker 16 He had been sitting out in front of the house in his truck. He had not left.
So he had just been sitting there. And at this point,

Speaker 16 my permanent restraining order never got put into the system. And so the police officer is telling me your temporary restraining order expired.
We can't arrest this man.

Speaker 16 I don't know if you guys have had a panic attack, but for me. My hands are shaking.
You know, you're trying to, you're trying to type and figure it out.

Speaker 16 And I'm going, no, no, no, you have to believe me. I have a permanent.
Please don't let him leave. And I I said, did he say why he's there?

Speaker 16 He told the police that he was trying to talk to someone at the station. And this was the address that came up for the station.
So it's bizarre on every single level.

Speaker 16 The court does get back to me right away, give them a lot of credit. And then I was able to find my own copy because you do have to have a copy of that permanent restraining order.
And so I found it.

Speaker 16 They were able to arrest him. And they told me at the time that it was for felony stalking.
And he was heading to jail that night.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 15 Just to make sure I'm tracking this correctly. So he shows up to your house and you manage to leave.
You go to a park.

Speaker 15 An officer comes to where you are and says an officer to your home, but he is still at your home while you're at this park. And he tells that officer he was looking for the police station.

Speaker 16 Sorry, TV station.

Speaker 15 TV station.

Speaker 1 TV station. Okay.
I see. Okay.

Speaker 16 Sorry, that could be confusing.

Speaker 1 But he was clear that he was looking for you.

Speaker 16 Oh, I mean, I don't think you can interpret it any other way.

Speaker 16 My house is 700 square feet. There's not a television station studio inside of it.

Speaker 15 But he didn't admit that to them. He was like, I'm looking for the station.

Speaker 16 Yeah. And I did not see him.
I had a friend with me and he was, he's like, he's laughing. Again, I've seen this man.
He's very, very jovial.

Speaker 16 And, you know, he can kind of talk his way through a lot of things. So he was taken to jail that night.

Speaker 1 According to an article in the Denver Post, you know, he was arrested and charged with violating a protection order and notably did not get a stalking charge. Can you kind of walk us through that?

Speaker 1 And what was the explanation given to you as to why he was charged with violating a protection order?

Speaker 16 So when I initially spoke to the detective and he explained we are asking for felony stalking charges. and that he was still in jail.

Speaker 16 And they had set bond very high on that charge for it was 20,000 cash. And the detective told me, he's like, I'm thrilled with this.
This is good news. He's likely not getting out of jail.

Speaker 16 With him in jail, I felt very safe. I'm like, he is in jail.
I know exactly where he is. I'm not looking over my shoulder.

Speaker 16 And then I get a call the next week from the detective, and he said he heard back from the DA's office in Denver, and they were not pursuing felony stocking.

Speaker 16 They did not believe that it met the requirements. And he said the reason was that there was that year and a half gap in the stocking.
So from January 2024 to September of 2025 was a year and a half.

Speaker 16 And that timeline was too big of a gap to be considered repeated because the big, you know, line here is that stalking has to be repeated for it to be at this point.

Speaker 15 In the state of Colorado, for something to be considered stalking, a person has to knowingly make a threat. And crucially for Kylie's case, those threats have to happen repeatedly.

Speaker 15 And it was that word, repeatedly, that Kylie couldn't stop thinking about. This This man had shown up again and again at events where he knew that she would be.
He'd sent her inappropriate messages.

Speaker 15 He'd even violated a temporary restraining order. But then he went quiet for more than a year, raising the troubling question, did that long silence break this legal definition of repeatedly?

Speaker 15 Kylie told us that she spoke with multiple attorneys trying to get a straight answer to the same question. How much time can pass between contacts for it to still count as repeated harassment.

Speaker 16 I have the conversation with the DA and it doesn't provide much clarity because I kept saying, hey, there's no timeline listed in the statute.

Speaker 16 And he's telling me there's something called common law practice and whatnot. And, you know, basically it's within the judge's discretion, but we don't think we can get the conviction.

Speaker 16 We want to get him on something. So we're going for the misdemeanor versus the felony.
And I'm pushing back on him. I go, okay, well, just so I know.

Speaker 16 How long does this man have to wait to come at me again, to contact me again, to the the point where you're going to go, oh, it's not stalking anymore. Is it a year and a half?

Speaker 16 He's like, I don't have an exact timeline, but a year and a half is too long. I go, is it here? And then he starts saying, I can't say, I can't say.
And I'm pushing back.

Speaker 16 And finally, he goes, it's a judgment call. And that was when I realized that this wasn't a me situation.

Speaker 16 If this was happening to me, they were probably doing this with other cases, which just broke my heart for all those other women and, of course, men who had dealt with this.

Speaker 16 But I wasn't able to win that argument. And a few days later, he was let out of of jail and I went and moved into hotels.

Speaker 15 That's mind-blowing because to me, it's like, this guy has had a year and a half of not contacting you and still clearly not gotten over whatever he's grappling with. He's still thinking about you.

Speaker 15 Like a year and a half, there are people who are in real relationships that are over it in a year and a half.

Speaker 15 I mean, Yeah, that's awful to think about it being a judgment call just because he had given you a little bit of a break.

Speaker 16 Yeah. And again, I don't know, like I'm on TV every day.
I have no idea how he's interacting and consuming any content that I'm putting out into the world. I don't know.

Speaker 16 I keep an eye out for new Instagram accounts and whatnot, but it's a public account. People can go and they can look at it.
So I think it's almost scary in a way that I didn't hear from him.

Speaker 16 And then it escalated to the point of following me home.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because for a year and a half, you didn't hear from him. And so then how do you know going forward to be comfortable or not?

Speaker 1 Because there's clearly he's can go a long period of time not contacting you. And then we don't know what it is that makes him feel like he should go do this thing, right? Like come find your house.

Speaker 1 And changing that from a potential felony charge to a misdemeanor has real consequences. As you mentioned, the bail, you know, his bail got lessened to like $1,500.

Speaker 1 And so he was able to get out. And then I think also potential sentencing is dramatically lower.

Speaker 16 Based on my brief Googling and speaking with lawyers, yeah, it's very likely he wouldn't face jail time for a misdemeanor. He still might, but it would be more like 100 days or something like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 16 But I'm not positive on the specifics.

Speaker 1 Where did that leave you? Like, how did you feel learning this? And then also learning that he was released and is out in the world.

Speaker 16 I felt very helpless. I felt like.
I did everything I was supposed to do. I did the restraining order path.
I documented everything. I have put so much time in my life into

Speaker 16 doing what the court system is telling me to do correctly. And then I felt like it was failing me and that there was just nothing I could do about it because I had tried to fight.

Speaker 16 I had talked to other DAs. I had talked, like I had lawyers fighting for me and I wasn't getting anywhere.

Speaker 15 Learning that this man had been released while continuing to speak with lawyers and fight for her own personal safety, it's all been exhausting.

Speaker 15 As long as he's out in the world, there's nothing to assure Kylie that he won't come after her again.

Speaker 15 And each time he contacts her, it seems to be an escalation, which makes it really hard to move on.

Speaker 16 It changed my perspective on everything. Once your safety is threatened, your whole world just shifts in perspective.
I found other housing.

Speaker 16 I was like, I can't be looking over my shoulder, sleeping here. And so I had a lot of relief in that, which was nice.
At work, I felt safe. We have a lot of security systems in place and whatnot.

Speaker 16 So that was good. But it's interesting because now it's been about two months.
And every day that I wake up, I look back and I go, whoa, you were in a really dark place and you didn't realize it.

Speaker 16 I can't describe it as anything other than like, forgive me, I know a meteorologist. I felt like I was walking around through fog.
trying to navigate my life where nothing seemed quite clear.

Speaker 16 People would ask me something and I was like slow to respond. I felt like I just couldn't find myself again.
And at the time, you were like, okay, like, yeah, something weird just happened.

Speaker 16 You're kind of just living through it. Two months later, looking back on the mental state that I was in is astonishing how horrified and terrified I was on a regular basis.

Speaker 1 This is directly after when he came to your house that you're talking about that period of time?

Speaker 16 This is when they let him out of jail. I felt safe when he was in jail.
When he's in jail, I know where he is. That's an easy thing to feel safe with.
It was when they let him out of jail.

Speaker 16 And I'm the one who just put him in jail. It's his fault.
But again, I'm just, I'm terrified. I'm looking over my shoulder for his truck everywhere I go.
And I can't describe it other than

Speaker 16 you feel physically sick and you feel extremely exhausted. I remember just being so tired and, you know, unable to like get out of bed on like a Saturday after.

Speaker 16 I was like, oh my my gosh, like my body won't move. Like, what's happening to me? This is very odd.
And I was like, I work early mornings. You know, I'm kind of writing everything off at this point.

Speaker 16 But again, two months later, looking back on it, I have a lot of, lot of empathy for myself and like what I was going through when I didn't even realize how bad it was.

Speaker 15 Of course, now looking back on her experience, Kylie understands that even though this man never explicitly threatened her with violence or threatened her life, his behavior, his messages, it was all still a threat to her safety.

Speaker 15 And this is the gray area that stalking victims sometimes find themselves in. How many messages is too many messages? Should I wait to report this to law enforcement until things escalate?

Speaker 15 And to what point?

Speaker 16 It's so incredibly violating in a way that is hard to put into words because I think that, and I've talked to people, who have dealt with emotional abuse in relationships.

Speaker 16 And I can kind of, in my mind, it's similar when you're explaining it. Cause if you're in an emotionally abusive relationship, you go, well, no one hit me.
No one's hit me.

Speaker 16 So, and they're telling me that I'm wrong.

Speaker 16 And there's that trying to wrap your mind around something is wrong

Speaker 16 when you're looking at, oh, I love you, my wife, and, you know, have a great trip and whatnot. And it's obsessive, but it's not overtly threatening.

Speaker 16 I think that's why I waited so long to pursue that initial restraining order because you're telling yourself, well, they're not threatening me. They're not doing anything mean.

Speaker 16 They're not showing up with a gun or, you know, saying that they're going to hurt me. They just, they seem to love me and they're obsessed.

Speaker 16 I just can't describe it in any other way than it's a complete mind buck trying to wrap your head around this person who's obsessed with you. You feel so violated.

Speaker 16 Your sense of safety is completely gone. And no one's made an overt threat to you.
But you know there's a danger and you know there's a threat. You know it in your gut and in everything in your body.

Speaker 15 Kylie decided to go public with her story. She spoke with the Denver Post, who published an article about her experience.

Speaker 15 She wanted to raise awareness about how horrible it is to be the victim of a stalker and how helpless you can feel, even when you pursue all the legal options available to try to protect yourself.

Speaker 15 Kylie did this in part because she knows she's not alone. And since going public, she's received hundreds and hundreds of emails from people who say they are experiencing the same thing.

Speaker 15 This is both comforting and deeply unsettling.

Speaker 16 And I will say, I felt like I had a secondary wave of emotional trauma after the article came out because I'm hearing from women. And I had been hopeful, like, maybe this will stop at some point.

Speaker 16 But when you're hearing from women and they're saying, it's been years, it's been five years, it's been 10 years. And I just went, oh my gosh, this might never end until he dies.

Speaker 16 And this might be my life looking over my shoulder for a long time, all because I do the weather on the local news and this person thought we had something that wasn't there.

Speaker 16 I don't know. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around that.

Speaker 16 And if I ever feel safe again.

Speaker 15 Yeah. And like, you are a local news meteorologist, but still, you're really a part of the community that you're speaking to every morning.

Speaker 15 And so, like, it's just making me think about even the way that we live in LA.

Speaker 15 Like, a celebrity walks down the street and there could be a camera camera in their face and that's allowed and like it's expected almost.

Speaker 15 Well, if you're a public figure and people are gonna come out of the woodwork, but it's like, where is the line? And obviously, not everyone who is a victim of stalking is in the public eye at all.

Speaker 15 But if I had been in your shoes, I probably would have rationalized it as like,

Speaker 15 well, I'm on TV and they feel like they know me and try to just push it away.

Speaker 15 And also, just, I think that the way the justice justice system reacts when we try to pursue something like a restraining order, it sounds like you, the first time, got a judge that understood that this guy needed some pretty strict rules in place and understood that you had no association with him.

Speaker 15 This was in his head. And that's not always the case.
And then you think about like, well, if then the justice system kind of minimizes it, what do you do?

Speaker 15 Mentally, even or emotionally, you're like, am I making this up?

Speaker 16 Yeah. I was actually warned by a DA in a different county in Colorado.
And they said, you know, he goes, it's important that you're coming forward with this story.

Speaker 16 He goes, the unfortunate flip side is that a lot of people are going to see this and feel discouraged and not report.

Speaker 1 And that broke my heart.

Speaker 16 And he said, you know, that's, that doesn't mean don't do it. It's just you're experiencing what a lot of people have experienced.
And that, that, I think, is why I wanted to share my story.

Speaker 16 You know, I, granted, I do not think I'm a celebrity on any level. I am on the local news.
Most of my life is extremely normal, very, very boring. I tell people the weather and I love what I do.

Speaker 16 But I knew that I had just enough of a platform to hopefully have people in the Justice Department. And I didn't.

Speaker 16 I didn't really have a lot of hope that it would change my case, but maybe going forward, they would take another woman's case or another person's case seriously in this situation.

Speaker 16 And I am still working with the DA's office. They have told me that they are investigating and that they are not ruling out additional charges.
So I am still hopeful.

Speaker 16 I am hopeful that if I can give them all the info that they need, which I know is there, that this would hopefully be an easy case for them and whatnot.

Speaker 15 How has this changed the way that you interact with people who innocently approach you at the store? or wherever in town and just want to meet you?

Speaker 16 It hasn't changed that, to be honest, I'm in a safe public space and people are kind.

Speaker 16 It hasn't changed that. I'm still very grateful.
And in fact, a lot of people have come up and said, I am so sorry that has happened to you. We love watching you every morning.
We're so grateful.

Speaker 16 We hope that this doesn't make you want to leave your job and whatnot. So I would say that it hasn't in that way.

Speaker 16 It has just made me much more hyper aware.

Speaker 16 of if something's in my gut telling me, okay, this person's a little bit off, I need to get out of that situation immediately, or I need to let someone know or get help help and whatnot.

Speaker 16 And then my threshold for just tolerance within my Instagram DMs or, you know, whatever it is, we're not even letting things get beyond like, that's a little bit creepy. You're done.
That's weird.

Speaker 16 You're done. You're not even having access to me where I let it get to the point, at least I hope.

Speaker 15 I really appreciate you making time for us. I know you've been very busy since your story blew up and I am just really grateful that you made the time.

Speaker 16 Yeah, no, and I definitely took a step back from media in the few days after because it was very overwhelming. And

Speaker 16 I just knew that this was going to be a safe conversation. And so I just appreciate you guys.
And

Speaker 16 yeah, I'm hoping for some

Speaker 16 normalcy again soon. I'm really looking forward to that.
So, you know, and I hope that other women out there, if this has happened to you, that you don't feel as alone.

Speaker 16 It's awful and it's extremely isolating in a very lonely way. So just know that you're not alone.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 We hope that things become normal for you too and that you don't have to deal with this in the future. And thank you so much for coming on our podcast and trusting us to tell your story.

Speaker 1 It means a lot.

Speaker 16 Yeah. Well, thank you for advocating for other women and other people within the criminal justice system that they're fighting for what they hopefully deserve and can get some justice.

Speaker 1 This is our last episode of 2025, and that's kind of hard to believe.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I can't wrap my head around it. I'm so glad that we we were able to speak with Kylie because I think her story and her reasons for telling it really speak to the mission of the show.

Speaker 1 I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 15 The fact that Kylie is using her platform to speak about this and has already made national news, I think really speaks to the power of storytelling.

Speaker 15 And, you know, you and I have talked about this so many times, but especially.

Speaker 15 in developing this show is true crime can mean such a range of things and we wanted to have this like mission driven platform for these stories.

Speaker 15 And yeah, Kylie's mission was to, in part, to help people take this seriously.

Speaker 1 Yeah, which is awesome. I mean, the fact that she has this platform as a public person just helps get the word out about her experience.
And there's so many people that this is happening to.

Speaker 1 who don't have a public platform to be able to speak about it. So I love that Kylie's doing that.

Speaker 1 You know, I was looking at the website stopstalkingus.com, which is a nonprofit organization, and they have some statistics on their website.

Speaker 1 One of them, which is pretty shocking, says about one in six women and one in 17 men have experienced stalking in their lifetimes.

Speaker 15 That is a surprising number when you think about it. Like, I think also,

Speaker 15 At least in maybe public perception and the media, it's like, well, what is stalking? You You know, and I think part of the problem here is there seem to be a lot of varied opinions.

Speaker 15 But in my opinion, after listening to Kylie's story and other people who have been victims of stalking, stalking is taking away someone's sense of safety.

Speaker 15 And whether that's unwanted messages or showing up at their home. Maybe there is still an escalation that has to be quantified legally, but you're taking away someone's sense of personal safety.

Speaker 15 And that's huge.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, what is stalking? It's such a good question.
There's like how it's defined by the law. And then like what it feels like if you are experiencing being stalked, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's one of those things that I feel like is sort of hard to define. And Kylie talked about this a little bit in the interview.
And there's a Denver Post article that she mentioned. And in that.

Speaker 1 article, they talk about this definition of stalking being in Colorado specifically, when a person knowingly and repeatedly follows, approaches, contacts, or communicates with another person in a way that causes that person serious emotional distress.

Speaker 1 So that's a pretty good definition.

Speaker 1 But she also talked about how like the words like repeatedly is kind of vague. And then how do you define that? Right.

Speaker 1 And it's this complicated thing that we see a lot of trying to put someone's experience into a law that hopefully will protect victims, but it still doesn't even come close to describing what that actually is like for a victim.

Speaker 1 Like that feeling you're talking about of someone encroaching on your personal space and freedom, honestly, is what it feels like. It would feel so invasive to me.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 15 And obviously men can also be victims of stalking, but from my perspective as a woman, and I think probably a lot of people have shared this experience, you know, growing up in the media, there's sort of this common trope of like a guy that's really persistent.

Speaker 15 He's chasing you, and that ends up being the guy. And it's like, Kylie's situation differs from that.
This was never someone she had any relationship with at all.

Speaker 15 But I think that sometimes that can sort of twist people's way of thinking about it. And you have to wonder, like, to what degree is that infiltrating how seriously this is taken or not taken?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's such a problematic

Speaker 1 trope or outlook on what's appropriate behavior, right? This idea that, oh, this guy likes you. He's mean to you, even.

Speaker 1 It's like, no, we got to evolve past that. Right.

Speaker 15 Like, he must be flirting with me. I feel uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. If you feel uncomfortable, I know.
It's not a good sign.

Speaker 15 When I first moved to L.A., actually, I went on maybe like two dates with this person who. He was nice.
It wasn't a match. I told him that and all was well.
And then he asked me out again.

Speaker 15 And I, I don't remember what I said, but I remember that I said no.

Speaker 15 And then he started emailing me. And there was some time that passed in between.
Maybe it was like a couple of weeks. And

Speaker 15 I would kind of respond and say, oh, you know, no, thank you. And then he would email again and they were kind of joking, like, I know you're dying to hear from me.

Speaker 15 And honestly, I think that in his case, like overall was well-intentioned. but at a certain point, I still remember having to tell him, like, I don't want to hear from you.

Speaker 15 Like, now I feel kind of weird and I feel bad even saying this and I shouldn't, but like, I don't want to hear from you. And to his credit, I never heard from him again.

Speaker 1 Well, that's good. Yeah.

Speaker 15 But like, I remember he was, you know, someone who was like highly educated and he was great in person. It was very kind, but still didn't seem to get that.

Speaker 15 If someone says they don't want to go out with you, maybe stop asking yeah

Speaker 1 yeah that should be a pretty clear thing yeah

Speaker 1 you know one thing that came to mind that we didn't talk about in the episode but that later i thought of that there's a tiny little sliver of crossover with this story and sweet bobby yep

Speaker 1 I kept thinking about Sweet Bobby, which I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with and have watched the great Netflix documentary, Sweet Bobby.

Speaker 1 It was about this woman, Kirit, who's a British radio presenter. So similar, also had like this, you know, public persona.

Speaker 1 And she believed for like nine years or something that she was in an online distance like relationship with this guy named Bobby, who was a real person that she kind of knew, or like they had similar friends online or something.

Speaker 1 You know, spoiler alert wasn't Bobby, but she was chatting with this person she thought was Bobby, messaging all this stuff, and even saw Bobby in person a couple of times. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 15 That one moment when she sees him at the club.

Speaker 1 And he sort of like doesn't recognize her, but then she's like, well, that was weird.

Speaker 1 But then when she's typing and texting with who she thinks is Bobby later, of course, he has all the right excuses to make her think that this is normal, that he wouldn't recognize her or acknowledge her in public.

Speaker 1 Right. Right.
And we have no idea if that's actually what is going on with the guy that has been stalking Kylie. Like it could be a situation where he just made all of this up in his head.

Speaker 1 Like, we have no idea. But the fact that there was a text message back and forth that he showed her, that he's texting somebody, you know, he could have fabricated that as well.
Like, we don't know.

Speaker 1 But it does seem like someone has been impersonating her.

Speaker 1 And I'm not trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. He's had many chances to like snap out of it and he's been to court.

Speaker 15 He's been told the truth by her.

Speaker 1 He's been told the truth.

Speaker 15 But it does make me think about how strong when people are so when they're scammed like that and they're convinced that they're in love and they're talking to someone like how strong of a grip that can get on you well yeah i mean even in our conversation with alex koros who his photos had been used to scam so many people and he said in some cases even when he would have to tell people, hey, I'm not how you are being told I am.

Speaker 15 Someone's using my photos. None of this communication was with me, the person that you're looking at.
And he said they would then start to sort of fall in love with him.

Speaker 1 Yes, I had forgotten about that.

Speaker 15 Because they were sort of used to interacting with him, looking at him. Like they're sitting across from the person now or on the phone with the person now that they know from the pictures.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And there's something happening psychologically.
Yeah. Where even though they know the truth, it's like their brain still wants them to fall in love with this person.

Speaker 15 Right. And kind of thinks that there's a chance that will happen.
But it's like, no.

Speaker 15 And in this case, I mean,

Speaker 15 this person had been, yeah, corresponding with someone who's impersonating Kylie. But then during this moment on the hike, he gets his phone messages out.

Speaker 15 He's told like very clearly, nope, that's not me. I'm not interested.
I think you've been scammed. And at that point, you have to draw a line for yourself, even if your heart is broken over this.

Speaker 1 Well, that's where I think about sweet Bobby and the grip that scammers can have on someone, because I can just imagine the scammer saying, oh, well, I just couldn't acknowledge it in public, but believe me, of course, I know I've been communicating with you and I love you and could spend this whole thing.

Speaker 1 But you would think that going to court, like having the law involved, having a restraining order filed against you would be enough to wake you up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But maybe there's some deeper hold that this person has on him. I don't know.

Speaker 15 Yeah. And like, certainly not to excuse it.

Speaker 1 No, it makes it even scarier because it's like, if this guy truly is convinced that she's secretly still in a relationship with him, how in the world is Kylie,

Speaker 1 like that, to me, it would feel like you have no power. Like it would be so scary that, I mean, the truth is we never have.
that much power to influence what people believe.

Speaker 1 You know, they can believe wild, untrue things, but it's scary to think that he's, he was was so convinced of this thing that's not true.

Speaker 1 And then you have no idea what he's believing and what he's going to do. That's terrifying.
Yeah.

Speaker 15 I mean, showing up at someone's home who has no relationship with you and who had a restraining order against you is baffling.

Speaker 15 And I don't know what's going on in his head, but like regardless, if he has no respect for boundaries, even after the legal system is involved, yeah, very scary.

Speaker 15 And I'm so glad Kylie's talking about it.

Speaker 1 100%. I agree.
One of the things she talked about is this difference between what she thought he was going to be charged with and what he ended up being charged with.

Speaker 1 She was hoping that he would get charged with a felony stalking charge. Instead, he was just charged with a violation of a protective order.
And I was reading about the difference of those.

Speaker 1 In Colorado, a class one misdemeanor, there's class one and class two, but class one violation of a protective order, you can get up to 364 days in jail.

Speaker 1 So less than a year, just a day less than a year would be the maximum sentence. Whereas if he got a felony stalking charge, he could get up to five years in prison.

Speaker 1 So those are really big differences.

Speaker 15 Yeah. And Kylie said in our conversation with her, while he was in prison briefly during his first arrest, she felt safe.
Like that was the time that she felt safe.

Speaker 15 And so, you know, you're thinking about someone's loss of freedom, okay?

Speaker 15 This person who's been convicted of stalking, but you also have to think of it in terms of like Kylie being able to live her life and feel safe in her body at her home.

Speaker 15 And if he's in prison less than a year, that's the amount of time she gets to feel safe.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 One of the reasons that was given to her that she communicated to us was given to her for not bringing a felony stalking charge was this idea that we had we just talked about earlier the definition of stalking in the colorado law right repeatedly and there was some worry that because he hadn't contacted her for a year and a half they would have a hard time proving in court that he had repeatedly harassed and stalked her even though he'd done it repeatedly over the course of years.

Speaker 1 So that was sort of like,

Speaker 1 what are we talking about here?

Speaker 15 And to me, it's so counterintuitive because it's like, if a year and a half can go by and that person still has you at the forefront of their minds,

Speaker 1 that is what I think is so scary about it all. So scary.

Speaker 1 And there was a mention in this same article that a staff attorney at Project Safeguard, which is a nonprofit that helps victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking, talks about that it's actually not uncommon for victims of stalking to experience long breaks or long lulls in the stalking behavior.

Speaker 1 And so this one and a half year period is not that shocking to her. She sees that a lot.

Speaker 1 She also says that lull that can be common has an effect of making the victim begin to feel like they will never be safe because no matter how much time passes, they worry that this person could come back around, which is horrible.

Speaker 15 Yeah, and it's just so unfair.

Speaker 15 And one of the articles I was reading about Kylie's case and her issue with this is I think the prosecutor used the word judgment call when they were speaking about, well, what is he going to be charged with?

Speaker 15 It's a judgment call. And I think that just perfectly encapsulates the issue with the way that we prosecute stalking.
It's just a judgment call, but it's to me, I think,

Speaker 15 pretty measurable. There are ways to see if someone is being stalked.
Are they contacting you when you've asked them not to? Do you feel unsafe?

Speaker 15 Are they ignoring their protection orders or the date that they're lifted, showing back up at your home? I mean, these are like pretty cut and dry

Speaker 15 signs to me.

Speaker 1 Totally. The fact that it's this judgment call feels so subjective, really.

Speaker 15 So subjective. Like, let's hope you get a prosecutor that cares.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And believes you and understands.
the violent nature of being stalked and doesn't just say, well, what's the big deal? You know?

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And in that same article from the Denver Post, not the one you're talking about, but it made me think of this, what you just said, the reporter looked at a statewide review and showed that Denver prosecutors bring felony stalking charges less frequently than prosecutors in other counties that have like similar population.

Speaker 1 So, you know, we don't know all the factors that go into that. But to me, it really speaks to that judgment call aspect of, you know, bringing charges against people.

Speaker 15 Yeah, it's like, well, I guess they're being judged a a little differently there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, totally. Stop Stalking Us is a 501c3.
It was founded by a filmmaker, performer, and stalking victim, Lily Baldwin, after she went public with her stalking story.

Speaker 1 Lily has been stalked by a man she doesn't know for the past 15 years, a harrowing experience that she recounted in her Peabody-nominated Audible podcast series, Stories of the Stalked.

Speaker 1 Stop Stalking Us offers victims assistance and allows them a place to tell their stories. If you would like to donate to Stop Stalking Us, you can go to their website at www.stopstalkingus.com.

Speaker 15 We also just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who listened to The Knife this year. Hannah and I have just put so much into the show.

Speaker 15 And every time we hear from you guys, it really means so much to us. So thank you for your support.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much. And we will be back in your ears in 2026.
Happy New Year.

Speaker 15 Happy New Year.

Speaker 15 If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it. Our email is theknife at exactlyrightmedia.com, or you can follow us on Instagram at theKnife Podcast or Blue Sky at TheKnife Podcast.

Speaker 1 This has been an Exactly Right Production, hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith, and me, Taysha Eaton.

Speaker 15 Our producers are Tom Breifogel and Alexa Samorosi.

Speaker 1 This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.

Speaker 15 Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

Speaker 1 Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.

Speaker 15 Artwork by Vanessa Wilack.

Speaker 1 Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

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