cover of episode Bonus: Introducing Pretend: The Stalker

Bonus: Introducing Pretend: The Stalker

2023/5/11
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Nobody Should Believe Me

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Javier Leyva
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Claudia Rodriguez:我们一家遭受了长达三年多的网络跟踪骚扰,期间收到了大量人身威胁,严重影响了我们的心理健康。警方对此案的处理方式令人失望,他们甚至怀疑我们自己编造了整个事件。我们尝试过各种方法寻求帮助,但都没有得到有效的回应。 David Rodriguez:我们经历了巨大的精神压力和痛苦,这三年多来我们一直活在恐惧之中。执法部门的无作为让我们感到绝望,我们迫切希望找到真相,让骚扰者受到惩罚。 Javier Leyva:本播客将持续追踪此网络跟踪案件,目标是找出跟踪者,但过程复杂且充满转折。警方调查存在诸多疑点,受害者一家遭受了不公平的指控,而法律在应对此类网络犯罪时显得力不从心。 Dr. Grace Gressman:我对这些虚假的社交媒体攻击感到不安,但我并不相信这些信息来自我的前病人Chelsea Rodriguez。我认为Claudia和David夫妇因为Chelsea不再需要儿科治疗而怀恨在心,所以他们自己发送了这些信息。 John Gressman:我没有参与这些网络骚扰行为,我对此事感到非常困惑和无奈。 Ryan Fremstad:我与这些假账号没有任何关系,我相信Rodriguez一家是幕后主使。

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Claudia and David Rodriguez have been victims of a cyber stalker for over three years, facing harassment and threats. Despite involving the police, the situation has only escalated.

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He's the most terrifying serial killer you've never heard of. Haddon Clark has confessed to several murders, but investigators say he could have over 100 victims. At the center of the mayhem, a cellmate of Haddon's that was able to get key evidence into Haddon's murder spree across America.

Hi, it's Andrea Dunlop, host and creator of Nobody Should Believe Me. We are working really hard to finish up season two right now, and we are going to be airing that starting this June. I'm so excited to share it with you.

In the meantime, I wanted to introduce you to another podcast that I think you will love, Pretend Radio. This show is all about con artists, and I've gotten to know its host, Javier Leyva, well over the past couple months. I don't want to give away too much, so you'll have to listen in to find out why. I guarantee you this story will have you hooked right away. So without further ado, here is the first episode of his new season, The Stalker. And the whole thing is available to binge wherever you listen to podcasts.

This guy put a threat out to our home and he said, I'm in your neighborhood and I'm going to kill your family. I'm going to kill you. I'm tired of being silenced. I want the story out about how what can happen to the average family and how people can get away with it because law enforcement does not want to want to tackle it.

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

Meet Claudia and David Rodriguez. That's not their real names, by the way. I'm withholding their identities because they say they've been the target of a sadistic cyberstalker for more than three years now. And unfortunately, the stalking is still happening, even today. I've changed the locations, the profession of some of the people in this story just to protect everyone involved.

I started working on this story a year and a half ago, and I've been witnessing the stalking in real time. And let me tell you, it's terrifying, even for me, and I'm not even the one being tormented. I think the only way that this will make sense to me is to really start from the beginning. This is a recording of my first conversation with Claudia and David, one of the many dozens of calls we recorded the last year and a half.

I have a lot of questions about the Instagram accounts. A lot of the ones that you listed in that timeline are no longer active, but then I did just find one that is. Oh, did you? And then I found the person that the people that he was following. It's all porn. Really? Wow. So yeah, that was just like a quick search.

This goes without saying that this is the longest I've ever worked on a story. Remember, these harassing calls are still happening today. I have no idea how many episodes this will be or how the series will end. But my plan is to identify the stalker. It's a long shot. Just know that there are some crazy twists and turns in this story. And things are not always what they seem.

Claudia and David are at a loss for what to do. They say no one wants to help them. They've tried involving the police, but get this. The police appeared to be on the side of the stalker. Listen to this recording of a recent call with a detective on the case. This has been a freaking nightmare. Detectives are convinced that Claudia and David are making this whole thing up. This is what I'm telling you.

Every search warrant I've ever done has led back to you guys. It's ridiculous when I get death threats about him wanting to go and blow my husband's head off quite often and it rattles my nerves. I can't take it. I can't take this anymore. This is not right. And then I get accused of having a split personality and maybe you're doing it and you don't realize it. That's ridiculous.

That's ridiculous. I do not have a split personality. I promised Claudia and David that I would do everything in my power to help them solve this case. I'm Javier Leyva, and this is Pretend. Stories about real people pretending to be someone else. ♪♪♪

So where should we begin? Maybe the best place to start is by describing the characters. Claudia and David are a middle-aged couple who live out west. Let's just say Albuquerque, Las Vegas, you know, that neck of the woods. I've grown very close to them over the course of this reporting. We talk in text all the time.

Claudia is a stay-at-home mom and David is a postal worker. They're very religious and they're active in their Jehovah's Witness church. They're the kind of people who don't cuss, although you will hear them repeat the stalker's foul language throughout the series. And it's really filthy stuff, guys. So you've been warned. This podcast is not safe for work and it is not for kids. The bottom line is that they seem like very normal people.

Now, let's talk about the alleged stalker. Claudia and David believe they know who's sending these sadistic messages. The suspect, they say, is someone they know. Well, we know that he was on our property because he took a picture. This was like a year and a half ago. He took a picture of what you would see from our front yard. I know it was the day that he said it was because it rained heavily.

The night before. And there was water in the gutter and it doesn't rain here much. This has been a nightmare. The stalker has identified himself as their daughter's pediatric neurologist husband. Yeah. Let me repeat that. They believe that their daughter's doctor's husband is stalking them. I know it doesn't make any sense. Why would a doctor's husband want to stalk his wife's patients?

Remember, we're not using anybody's real name. So let's call the doctor, Dr. Grace Gressman and her husband, the alleged stalker, John Gressman. How did this start? I mean, how did you become a victim of a stalker? Well, first of all, the the the health care professional, I'll put it that way, that that helped my daughter. She has the last name is unique. It's not common.

And so I was I had a Instagram page because I'm interested in photography. And anyway, we my my daughter really likes to look at look at the Instagram. And anyway, she was looking at my at my page and she noticed that one person that liked it had it was a man profile that had the same last name.

As her doctor. As her medical. As her medical provider. And she said, I wonder if that's the husband. And so I said, I don't know. She goes, why don't you ask him? So I messaged and said, would you happen to be her husband? And he said, I am. He expressed interest in my photography. He expressed interest in maybe me teaching him how to

Let's recap. David is surfing Instagram with his daughter and they notice that the doctor's husband, John Gressman, liked their photography page.

This family has never interacted with the doctor's husband, not in real life, and definitely not online. This person claiming to be John Gressman, the doctor's husband, loved David's photography so much that he asked David if he was willing to take the Gressman's family portrait.

He wanted to surprise his wife, the doctor. It was supposed to be a big secret. David, of course, said yes. But keep in mind, this all started out very friendly. John Gressman, the doctor's husband, was so excited about the family portraits that suddenly members from the Gressman family were messaging David directly. And then soon enough, he brought his brother in too. A profile. A profile, supposedly, of his brother. And then he brought in his mother.

And then the fourth profile was the brother's wife. I always think about if my husband was going to surprise me with family photos, I

I would want to make sure that a female in my wife's life was involved to pick out the right clothing and the right look. So I contacted it and said, I'm kind of his helper. And he even specified an area of the state that we live in for the photos. So we went on a scouting trip to scout out the right area for these photos. And we took a lot of time and energy doing that.

And everything was going well. And he acts kind of odd. Was he there with you? No, this was all done through Instagram. It was all done through messaging from Instagram. So you were scouting this area and just sending him pictures of the surrounding area.

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

I got to the point where I just ignored him because I couldn't catch up with all that. Yeah. And so let me get this straight. So you're a photographer. Is it more of a hobby or is it a profession? It's a hobby right now. And I was very new with photography at that time. So to have...

a potential job already, it brought a level of excitement to our lives. We were excited because I really had a high level of respect for this medical professional and to be able to do something for her as a surprise, I just thought that was going to be the coolest thing ever. My daughter has an extensive medical history. She has developed a distrust for most doctors.

After the whole excitement of him constantly texting us, saying how excited he was, he kind of got...

Very strange indeed. Then, even more Gressman family members started messaging Claudia and David.

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

advocacy because I struggled to that when our daughter was younger. It was hard. Claudia says she formed an online friendship with a doctor's sister-in-law. So we became really good friends, even though it was through Instagram texting, we became really good like mom friends.

We never ever spoke physically with any of these profiles. It was all through texting. She told me that this medical professional and her spouse had a lot of serious relationship issues. And it was just really weird. Let me interrupt you because you said you almost implied that there was like inappropriate conversations happening.

What was it that she was saying that was inappropriate? Well, she told me that the doctor or the medical professional had an alcohol problem and that she was doing medical procedures on patients while she was intoxicated.

And that she was having flings and this, that, and the other. This is about your daughter's doctor that you really respect. Yes. And I just told her, I go, listen. I said, that's her personal life. And I have a different relationship with her. She's my daughter's favorite doctor. So just imagine, suddenly all these family members are messaging Claudia and David saying,

They're getting bombarded with Instagram direct messages, especially from John Gressman, the doctor's husband. But he got kind of bizarre after a couple of weeks saying things like he was talking about his wife. She never came home. And when she comes home, I'm going to beat her up. Stuff like that. And it would upset me. And I'm like, don't do that. And at one point, he kept me up all night on like it was like the week, the weekend or the week of 4th of July of 2019.

He said, guess where I am? And I said, I don't know. And he said, I'm in the parking lot of the hospital where his wife worked. And he said, I'm going to sit here all night and wait for her to show up. I'm going to kill her.

And he kept me up all night and I'm like hysterical. He said things like, I'm going to stab her in the neck and I'm going to, I'm in McDonald's and I'm going to buy her favorite food and shove it down her throat and tape her mouth so she chokes on it. And I'm going to take her out into the desert and burn her body. What should Claudia and David do? And this man is making death threats towards his own wife. Should Claudia and David tell the doctor about these strange messages?

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

And she ignored him. I found that to be really weird.

Because he also said things like, well, the profile that you mentioned, the sister-in-law, they both told me, never tell her that you're communicating with her family because she will get very upset. Time out. Because that's what I wanted to ask you guys. Yeah. At what point do you say, hey, we're not going to, this photo shoot is, we're calling it off. This is crazy. He's threatening to kill his wife and all that stuff. I mean, at what point? Because this sounds crazy.

When it got to the point where he was making death threats and like that, you know what? If there is a shoot, it's not going to be a happy one.

No. So this is off. And I, I, I'm not doing it. It's crazy. Right. And he would taunt us like, well, you're still going to do it because you said you would. And we're still doing it. And I'm like, we're not doing it. We are not going to do it. It was weird that this guy, the husband, uh,

All these other people in his life, his sister-in-law, his brother, all these people are messaging you. Do they have like actual mature Instagram accounts? Do they have lots of pictures? All of the accounts, they would have the name and then a number.

Like maybe their age. Like so-and-so 40. And then they would have like a certain amount of people that they follow and a certain amount of followers. And they were all the same. Yeah, it was all about the same amount. They were all private accounts. Claudia and David were done playing games. Something about all these people was just not adding up. So they decided to do a little research. We finally had enough. And I said, you know what?

I told my best friend, I said, I'm getting creeped out. I'm going to do a Ben verified on the doctor and find out if any of these people actually exist in her life. Ben verified is a public records database. Anyone can look up basic information about another person for a small fee. It turns out that some of these people they were interacting with don't even exist. So this was mid August and I threatened to call the police.

And they all shut down and stopped talking. So I thought, okay, fine. You know, they're going to leave us alone now. And just like that, the messages stopped. The doctor's husband, the brother, the mother, the sister-in-law, everyone just stopped messaging. About two weeks later, Claudia and David's daughter was scheduled to have a medical procedure with Dr. Gressman. And we were in a private room.

She was just giving us an update about the surgery. The door was shut. And then I said, I need to tell you something that's really uncomfortable. And I said, we've been harassed by someone claiming to be your family members and they've threatened to kill you. They've told us some not so nice things about you. And it really bothers me. And I'm worried for your safety. And I know that you're a victim and that we're victims too. And I wouldn't feel right about not telling you.

And she got flushed. And she said, this happened to me one other time. And maybe you'll be my guardian angel and figure it out. Figure out who it is. Who it is? And figure it out. That's what she said. Does she not admit that that was her husband? No.

She claimed that they didn't have social media, which isn't true. She just said that someone had harassed her before on social media and she didn't give us a lot of details, but she said, maybe you'll be my guardian angel and help figure it out.

So then she went and got the security guard from this facility. And he asked me why I didn't call the police. And I said, well, Claudia told him that the sister in law who was messaging her mentioned that she had already called the police. And so I figured that the police had already been called. And then the doctor came by and whispered something to the security guard. The security guard told us that he had called the police and that they were on their way.

Well, we sat there for two and a half hours and they never showed up. So my daughter was discharged and we went home. A day and a half later, I get a message on Instagram.

From the supposed real husband, John Gressman. And he said, and I'm really, really sorry that this happened to you. And my wife told me what happened. And we're both very, very sorry. It happened one other time. And I want to talk to you. And I said, no, I don't trust you. I don't trust anybody on social media. And I'm only going to deal with her. He knew information that we didn't.

that we exchanged in confidence with the doc. Yes. For instance, like what? Well, he knew that we, we had, she had us talk to the security guy and he also used the term that she used.

She, she, she told us, she says, would you like, would you talk to my go-to person? When she went to get her go-to person, she went to get was the chief is captain of security of the hospital. He used that term. He said, go-to person. I'm the, I'm her go-to person. He got super aggressive because I kept saying, no, we're not going to meet, you know, we're not going to talk to you. And I said, I'm only going to deal with her.

Go-to person. Remember that. That's a very specific term. The same term Dr. Gretzmann used for her security captain. And at that time, when he said, I'm her go-to person, we actually were thinking that it was the security captain that is the one that's doing all this because he said, I'm her go-to person. Right. I got it.

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

Whoever's making these threatening messages is very close to Dr. Gressman. I mean, who else would know all the details they know? On September 2019, police contacted Brian Frumstad, the captain of the security team at the hospital. The security captain informed the officers that he was aware that someone had been creating fake Instagram accounts under Dr. Gressman's name since March. Funny enough, Claudia and David say they didn't start getting messages until late June.

The security captain mentioned that early on, before the Rodriguez family was involved, there was a woman claiming to be a former patient of Dr. Gressman, accusing the doctor of botching her child's surgery. The security captain said he checked and there are no records of this person ever getting surgery at the hospital. Remember, I'm getting this information directly from the police report. In the message exchange, Dr. Gressman was threatening to kill herself.

The mystery patient also made threats to blow up the hospital. Fremsted, the security captain, said that when he questioned Dr. Gressman about these messages, she told him that neither she nor her husband have an Instagram account.

According to the security captain, he was able to contact Instagram and get the accounts taken down. And that seemed to work for a while. After he reported the accounts, the messages seemed to stop. That is, until Claudia and David alerted Dr. Gressman of the new Instagram handles using the doctor's name. When the security captain contacted the Rodriguez family asking for the screenshots of the messages, he told the police that the couples refused.

They made excuses saying that the messages were too large or there were too many of them. We know one thing for sure, someone is sending these messages. If it's not coming from Dr. Griezmann and her husband, then who else is doing it? Claudia and David started wondering, what if the perpetrator is someone close to this case? What if these messages were coming from the hospital security captain?

On September 30th, 2019, Claudia filed a police report alleging that Ryan Framstead, the hospital security guard, was the person responsible for sending these posts.

Yeah, we thought it was his security guard. Because we felt like we were... We actually... You know how you get that feeling like you're being watched, like there's eyes on you? That's how we felt when we went there. And then to get that message, we thought, wow, he saw us. He's watching us.

This is going to be a wild ride. I've spent the last year and a half talking with Claudia and David on the phone, following closely as the cyberstalker torments their family. It's been a rollercoaster of emotions. I record all of our calls, every single one, but honestly, I never intended for any of this to actually air. I felt that my involvement in this situation can only make matters worse. If there's truly a stalker after them, then airing this will only aggravate the situation.

I've told Claudia and David multiple times that I don't want to turn this into a podcast series. And each time they insist that their story needs to be told. I'm all for you moving on with the story, though. And it's an important story that needs to be told. And I don't really care how it

They say the police has let them down time and time again, and they are out of options. I've explained that even if I decided to do this story, I won't reveal their real names, but honestly, I think they would have been fine having their names out there. That doesn't make sense to me, but I wouldn't want my name out there. Also, I'm doing this to protect the doctor and her husband. After all, they are private citizens who have never been charged with a crime.

For all we know, they may have nothing to do with this. In fact, let me make this clear. There is absolutely no evidence that they're part of this. Nothing. So why air these episodes? Well, I finally decided to move forward with this project after two years of saying no.

But I'm in it now. I can't look away. And honestly, it's important for you, the listener, to realize how little defense you have when facing an online stalker. There are very few laws with actual teeth to prevent and prosecute these types of cases. That alone is worth telling the story.

So if you or someone you know is involved in a cyber stalker situation, I want to help you get the resources you need. First things first, call the police if you ever feel like you're in danger. Tell your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers so that they can look out for suspicious activities. But also be aware that most stalkers tend to be close to you. Find an advocate who can help you file a protective order and help you connect with the right resources.

And this last part is critical. Document every incident and create a timeline. Try to end all contact with the stalker. Never respond. Don't answer their calls. Any interaction encourages the behavior. And if you have little ones, prepare them for what to do if there's an emergency. Always have a plan. For more information for victims of cyberstalking, go to stalkingawareness.org. Previously on Pretend...

Claudia and David say that they are the victims of a cyber stalker. And the person sending these messages claims to be the daughter's doctor's husband, John Gressman. Yes, the doctor's husband, who they've never met. As bizarre as this sounds, this harassment has been going on for over three years now. And we still don't know the stalker's identity. I got a message about an hour after we left the hospital. And he said, I saw you on campus today.

with your retarded daughter. But now Claudia and David believe whoever's doing this is someone close to Dr. Gresman. We thought it was his security guard. Because we felt like we were, we actually, you know how you get that feeling like you're being watched, like there's eyes on you? To get that message, we thought, wow, he saw us. He's watching us.

I'm Javier Leyva, and this is Pretend. Stories about real people pretending to be someone else. ♪♪♪

We're thinking that it was the security captain that that is the one that's doing all this because he said, I'm right. Police returned to the hospital to talk to the security captain, Ryan Fremstad. Fremstad told police that he has nothing to do with these fake accounts.

He believes that the Rodriguez family were the ones who created it. Meanwhile, Claudia and David continue getting harassing messages from the person claiming to be the doctor's husband. The text messages read, quote, unquote. Another message said, unquote.

Claudia typed back. I said, no, I'm only going to talk to her. Her being his wife, Dr. Gressman. He says, you want to talk to her? Here's her cell phone number. So he sends me a number. I went on Ben verified. Sure enough, it was one of their numbers. I decided to call it because I have a well, I had a good relationship with with this.

medical professional. And I left a message. It was, Hi, I think I know who this is. Please call me back. She never called me back. So then the next day, I had their email. So I emailed it. Same message. I'm pretty sure I know who this is. Could you please call me? And then the next day, which was Monday, on a Monday, I texted her.

I texted her the same message. I mean, it wasn't anything inappropriate. I think I know who it is. Would you please get a hold of me? Police contacted Dr. Gresman, who is vacationing outside the country. Dr. Gresman told police that she was disturbed by the fact that her patient's mother, Claudia, found her personal phone number and address on the Internet. She just wants whoever's doing this to stop. And she told the police that I was harassing her.

and that I was like stalking her because I called her, I emailed her and I texted her. The police told me that it wasn't normal for me to look up my child's doctor on been verified and that it creeped her out that I knew where her address was and it bothers her that that anybody would know where she lives and she doesn't want me bothering her anymore. Suddenly, Claudia and David went from being the victims of a stalker

to being accused of being stalkers themselves. She's the one that said she wanted us to be her guardian angel. And then she's telling them that I'm harassing her. So I left her alone. I thought, okay, fine. But eventually, Claudia was bound to see the doctor again during her daughter's next medical visit. My daughter had an appointment to see her for a post-op appointment and her office called and

and said that this doctor was no longer available to do my daughter's post-op appointment and she pushed her off to a different provider. I'm thinking, this is ridiculous. All I did was warn her that her life could possibly be in danger and someone's impersonating her family and now my daughter's being punished. We had gone to the hospital a couple times and asked them for help.

Claudia and David say they reached out to the hospital administrator. They said the hospital administrator didn't even take them seriously. They spoke to the head of security. Same thing. The guy in charge didn't even bother taking notes. One time, security guards circled us and escorted us off the property. And so eventually we got a certified letter from this place that basically said,

There was a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality and do not come back. Do not use any of our providers. The next day, after being told that they were no longer patients of Dr. Gressman, the stalker redirected his rage towards Claudia and David. Claudia began receiving follow requests from Instagram profiles with the handle, quote,

Grace Gressman's go-to guy. Every single one of these handles contained the doctor's name with some sort of vulgarity, except for that last handle that included the phrase "go-to guy," the same phrase Dr. Gressman used to describe the hospital security captain. Since being kicked out of Dr. Gressman's practice, Claudia took her daughter to go see a new gastroenterologist.

After her appointment, Claudia received a text mocking the fact that Dr. Gresman dropped them from her practice. No one other than the Rodriguez family knew about the appointment with the new doctor. Then, the next message was a picture of the Rodriguez's house. It said that they were being watched. This guy put a threat out to our home and he said, I'm in your neighborhood and I'm going to kill your family. I'm going to kill you. When did it go from...

This is weird. Instagram to stalking. He's like, well, you just told me that that was a big jump. He stopped using Instagram probably mid-September and he switched over to burner phone numbers. He started using different phone numbers and texting us. When we come back, there's a new threat. And this time the police plan to catch the perpetrator in the act.

On September 29th, 30th of 2019, he put a threat out that he was in the neighborhood. He was going to do damage to our property, our kids, our vehicles. We called the police. They thought it was funny. You know, not, they didn't take it seriously. They just said, you know what, if he keeps bothering you, just call us back. We'll come back. When we thought, you know, we felt a danger, we would call the police.

David says that one night he received five phone calls in a span of one hour. And you might be asking yourself, why don't they just block this guy's number? Well, the problem is that all five calls came from different numbers. So when the police came out, they would say the same thing. If something happens, if you feel threatened, call us. And then he sent a text saying, I see the cops at

Some of the messages said, quote, He's referring to the cops at the Rodriguez's house. The stalker said, quote,

I emailed the police that message and six of them came back and they did surveillance on our home all night long. From midnight to 6 a.m. Right. And he's texting me this whole time.

And would you text back? Well, here's the thing. Normally I wouldn't, but the policeman that was standing in my kitchen, he said, start communicating and see what kind of information you can get out of him. So I did. And I said, I want to know why you're bothering us. And he said, okay, fine. I'll tell you the truth. My wife doesn't like you. She thinks that you're doing harmful things to your kid. You made your daughter cry in clinic.

It made her mad. She was going to call protective services on you and then changed her mind. So we decided to go this route and make your life a living hell. And I'm really sorry. This whole time, Claudia and David believe that it's the security captain from the hospital sending these messages. They're hoping that the police stakeout leads to new evidence.

Maybe they could catch the stalker in a lie. Well, I said, there's numerous profiles. How could it just be you? And he said, it's not just me. It's her too. She being Dr. Grace Gresman and John Gresman, the alleged stalker. She's doing it and I'm really sorry. And we won't do, I won't do it again. Just nonsense like that. Was this happening, this exchange happening with the cop there? Yes. He was seeing the message. So the cop was seeing the message? Yes.

Let me interrupt for a second and explain something. I left out a very important detail. This whole time, you may have assumed that Claudia and David's daughter, Chelsea, is a child because, well, she was seeing Dr. Gresman, a pediatric gastroenterologist. But Chelsea is not a minor. In fact, she was 23 years old when all this was happening. Now, our daughter, who has the mentality of about a 12-year-old,

He's really into like... YouTube. Watching videos. Like I was saying before about my pictures and she's always on her tablet. That's what she does. Yeah. So she was scared. She was scared because the cops told us to get away from the windows.

It's midnight and the cops are observing Claudia as she sits around the kitchen table responding to the text messages from the stalker. Meanwhile, while all this is going on, police are observing Chelsea, their daughter, sitting on the sofa with her tablet.

The police report states that shortly after Chelsea finished typing, Claudia, her mom, would receive a message. And when Claudia would read the text out loud, the officers observed Chelsea silently laughing. The officer wrote in his report, quote, based on my observations, it appears that Chelsea was sending the text messages to her mother, unquote. She was on her tablet laughing. She was watching silly videos.

videos and she likes the dancing with the stars and she was watching funny hilarious bloopers and stuff the police claimed that every time i got a message my kid would laugh so they thought there was a correlation between me getting a message and her laughing so i tried to explain this to the cops i said she doesn't have the mentality to do what has been done here

They even did a test with her tablet. Yeah, they took her device away. They took her device, checked it out. Or send the number. Yeah, to see if it pops up. And it didn't. And it didn't. Nothing. Police could not locate any of the messages on Chelsea's tablet. Then the police asked Claudia to send a message to the stalker. If Chelsea is the stalker, then Claudia's message would appear on her tablet. But the message never came through.

But get this, the whole time the cops were observing Chelsea, the stalker never replied. So if Chelsea isn't sending the messages, then maybe someone else in the house is. But despite their lack of evidence, the police concluded that the messages were coming from inside the house. Because who else would know the medical details regarding this case? "You all are wrong." "And they said, 'Well, we'll bet money that someone in your house.' And I said, 'It's not anyone in my house.'"

After this takeout, the police paid a visit to Dr. Gressman and her husband, John. Let's hear what the Gressmans think of all this. That's after the break. The day after the six-hour surveillance of our house, the day after these police visited their house, the perpetrator's house, and the police report said,

has the doctor's words on there, you know, what she told the police and they mirrored what he was saying to my wife during the six hours. That she thought I had a mental problem and was doing harmful things. Yes, and that our family's weird. The detective went to their house. The police went to her house. And it's all documented in a police report that we refused access to for months. I have the report.

The police spoke with Dr. Gressman and Dr. Gressman said that she was concerned about the fake social media attacks. She also doesn't believe that the messages were coming from her former patient, Chelsea Rodriguez, you know, Claudia and David's daughter. Dr. Gressman told police that Chelsea has the mentality of a four-year-old and couldn't put a full sentence together.

Dr. Gressman believes that Claudia and David are the ones sending these messages because they're upset that Chelsea no longer requires pediatric care and would be better served at an adult facility. I'm guessing that the doctor believes that this is just retaliation for getting kicked out of her practice. The officer also noted that Dr. Gressman found it disturbing that Claudia looked her up on Been Verified.

and now has her personal phone number and her husband's email. She told the police that whoever's doing this needs to stop because it's not normal behavior.

And after the cops visited Dr. Gresman and had a stakeout at Claudia and David's house, the stalking just stopped. October rolled around and nothing. November, December came and went and no new messages from the stalker. It's now January 2021 and things are still quiet. Claudia and David believe that the worst is finally behind them. The police must have spooked the stalker away. So we didn't know what was going on with the investigation for three months. So we just tried to...

you know, lay low, let them do their job, stay out of their way. So January 9th of last year, I get a bang, bang, bang on our front door. So I'm already paranoid as it is. I don't, I was scared.

especially after what we've been through. So I didn't answer it. I just waited for the gentleman to walk away. And I pulled the business card out of our screen door and it was the detective. So I called at work and I said, the detective showed up and maybe he has an answer for us. So I called him from my route, my mail route. And I told him, I said, yeah, my wife said that you were by the house. And he said...

Next time on Pretend. The police get a warrant and are able to identify where the messages are coming from. They said it's not Dr. Gressman or her husband, John. The messages originated inside the Rodriguez's house.

As you may know, we have a little bit

We'll be right back.

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