U Be Dead

U be dead is the title of a made for TV movie for ITV1 in Britain that chronicles the real life stalking case of Debbie Pemberton and Jan Falkowski by Maria Marchese. You can find a first hand account of the incident here. I’m going to post some quotes and details about the intensity, relentlessness and terrifying nature of the stalking below. Debbie and Jan suffered through this torture for 5 years and went to extreme lengths to escape their stalker.

• As I scanned the words of my latest text, my hands trembled. “You will burn in your wedding dress,” it read. I was terrified. If I’d known then that would be the first of thousands, I don’t think I could have gone on.
• I was receiving up to 10 threats a day. One said: “A bullet waiting for U. Gunman paid”, and another simply said: “U B Dead.” I became increasingly suspicious and paranoid, questioning the motives of everyone I met, from the stranger sitting next to me on the train to the person who pushed past me in the street.
• We returned to the boat after a night out in the pub. Jan stepped in ahead of me, then shouted: “Get back!” The gas taps had been turned on. If we’d been out for much longer, the boat would have exploded the moment we turned on a light.
• I didn’t even feel safe in my own home. Police traced calls and texts to phone boxes nearby, even to the station where I caught the train every morning – some had phones with keyboards where you could send texts to mobiles – this person knew our daily routines, where we lived and how I got to work for my job as a financial analyst.
• A woman constantly bombarded my work department with calls, abusing my colleagues if they didn’t put her through. She even called the chief executive, saying I’d leaked sensitive information to the press.
  
• I jumped if my phone beeped, terrified what was coming next. I could only doze for a couple of hours a night. My skin broke out in eczema and I lost a stone in weight.
• We decided to move to a ‘safe house.’ We told no one our new address – not even our friends or family. I’d switch my phone off at night, trying to escape. But every morning, a flurry of hate messages would flood my inbox.
• Our wedding was being destroyed by our stalker. I had to use a password when I spoke to the wedding venue, because our stalker had tried to cancel the booking four times. When that failed, she’d sent a text saying that she’d poison our guests.
• I even considered killing myself, ending it all just so I’d be free.

Go to the Men’s Anti-Violence Council post to find out how Debbie fought back.