322. The Stalker, The Survivor, and The True Crime Documentary

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He said, every Saturday, I work Saturdays, I'm in the deli,

and the guy at the gas station, you don't need to say his threat.

He's telling me, have all the guys there, who do the best work there,

about all the dates he does still on every week.

He's been saying this since August.

He says what you want. He says where you went.

He says what you talk about.

He says how you spend an item with the apartment.

How, you know, just details of things.

And I am freaking out on the inside because none of this is true.

I'm Jamie Beebe.

And I'm Jake Debtula.

On today's episode of Strictly Stalking, we're speaking with Terry,

who was stalked more than 45 years ago,

long before stalking laws or legal protections existed.

For nearly five years, a man followed her, watched her, and terrorized her.

She survived it, and eventually tried to move on.

But two months ago, while watching a documentary about the 1980 kidnapping and murder

of Dorothy Jane Scott, something stopped her cold.

The locations, the timeline, the stalking behavior.

She says they were almost identical to what she experienced.

Dorothy's case remains unsolved.

And Terry can't say for certain it's the same man,

but if her story could help bring answers or even closer,

she believes it's worth telling.

Terry, thank you for joining us today.

Thank you for having me.

Absolutely.

Would you have a very social person when you were growing up?

Extremely social.

Junior High, I'm running for little offices, you know, for student council.

I had a lot of girlfriends.

I was a competitive gymnast starting in the later years of my elementary school

through my second year of college.

So I was always involved in sports.

I was in drama.

I was always involved in something all the time.

Why don't you take us back to that time in your life?

Well, I was finished up a couple of my first years of college.

I ended up going back later.

And my family moved to Arizona.

And I stayed in Southern California.

And I was actually managing a women's gym.

They used to have separate gyms back in those days.

And I worked in a gym in La Palma,

which is sort of North Orange County, if you will.

And I had a nice clientele.

I had an apartment of my own.

I had a boyfriend who's now my husband and my husband for over 40 years.

And so, you know, life was good.

It had lots of friends.

And it was actually a kind of fun time.

Kind of a new thing for me to be out of my own and paying my own way

and hitting no curfews.

You know, when you look at your parents, you have curfews.

I always had good grades.

I never ditched school.

I didn't sneak out of the house.

I didn't drink.

I didn't do any of those kind of partying situations mainly

because I was an athlete as well.

And I was terrified of him.

And so, I'd always been a cautious person.

My dad, he was literally borderline paranoid about safety

and he was very suspective people.

I didn't have that as much, but I was careful.

I was not allowed to stay out really late at night.

I was never a bad kid.

I didn't like that I had boyfriends.

I didn't like that I had, you know, was always gone.

I was not afraid to go out and do things in go places.

I've always been very outgoing and liked to be out in the world.

I look back now and I'm thinking,

I wish every girl did that.

I wish every girl had that period of time before they get into a marriage

or children or whatever to experience that.

It's definitely a building thing inside of you knowing you can be independent.

And tell us about meeting this person for the first time.

How you noticed him, your first impression, what they're like, what you knew about them?

Well, that's interesting that you say that because after, you know, we talked about the podcast.

I actually looked up the statistics and 10 to 15% of people are totally stocked by somebody.

They don't even know.

And that seems to be my situation.

It's pretty rare.

This particular man worked at a gas station on the corner

to where my gym that I worked at was in a strip mall kind of behind it.

And I always got gas there because I had a Unikal 76 gas cart.

So that's why I went and got my gas.

I was going to get gas.

I had never seen this person until the 1979 gas shortage where you were not allowed to pump your own gas.

For about two months, there was a period where there was some kind of oil embargo

where we were not getting enough oil to make gas.

So we had to pick an auto even based on our license plate number.

The last number of your license plate, if it was an odd number, you got gas on like a Monday Wednesday Friday.

If you had an even number, it was Tuesday Thursday Saturday.

So there was a lot of people that were kind of panicked about going places, driving places

because they brought out a gas window with a gas.

And they would not let you pump your own gas because people are overfilling and topping out their gas.

And then it was pouring down the side.

We had to stay in our car and let someone pump our gas for us.

And at this particular gas station, there was a manager owner, I'm not sure what.

And then this particular person was the actual mechanic at the gas station where they did repairs and things.

And they bring him out to pump gas because they were lines on my wall to get gas.

And if I remember correctly, there was maybe one or two times he actually was the one to put gas in my car during this two month period.

It was usually the other guy.

We never had conversation. He would pump my gas.

I'd hand him my gas card, which is how I figured he knows my name, now that I look back.

And then he would hand me my receipt. I would sign it.

He'd say, thank you, I'd say, thank you. And then I would drive to the gym.

I never even went out on the street. I just literally drive through the parking lot.

It was either at that point that he saw me for the first time or maybe he saw me other times pumping my own gas. I'm really not sure.

But I did not know him at all.

I knew Sam was great because he said great on his workshop. That's the only reason I knew Sam was great.

In the beginning, when that happened, I didn't really have a vibe, but I can tell you this.

He wasn't my type.

You know, he wasn't my type at all.

Even though my husband is quote unquote a mechanic, and I was dating him at the time.

He'd already been dating a couple years.

But he certainly didn't look like anybody I would be interested in.

I didn't really think much of him at all, to be honest.

Like I said, I only saw him a couple of times he put gas in my car and said he had me around his seat.

But it wasn't somebody I'd be like, oh, he's cute.

Oh, he's somebody I'd like.

You know, it wasn't that at all. I didn't have any impression of him.

That's how much of a stranger he was to me.

What were the first specific things or behaviors that kind of made you feel uncomfortable?

Well, shortly towards, I think it was towards the end of the period.

It was about a two month period when we had the gas shortage and we had to have our gas pumped.

I had a little boss in V210 and it had a dent in the front.

And this was when he had been around my car a couple of times.

And I was at my business where I worked.

And I got a phone call from him, which I thought was strange.

He must have seen me pulling in there and knew I worked there.

It's kind of vague to me when that started.

It might have started before.

And he called me.

I answered the phone and he said, hey, this is Greg over at the gas station.

I noticed the last time you were in for gas that you had a dent in your car.

And I am a mechanic, but I also do bodywork on cars.

And I needed, you know, one to know if you needed help, you know, getting your car fixed.

And at that point, I see like a legitimate question.

And I just said, oh, no, no, no, my boyfriend is a mechanic.

And he does that same.

And he's going to fix it for me.

But thank you.

And I thought that would be the end of the conversation.

Except for the fact that he kind of hemmed in hot for a minute.

And he said something that I found to be very bizarre.

He said, okay, well, maybe I was hoping and it was very nervous.

Can you come by the gas station because I want to ask you something?

And I thought, that was weird.

You know, one in one was equaling three then.

What does this have to do with anything with my car?

And I've always been good with intuition.

And I just said, no, no, I can't do that.

But I got to go.

I'm at work and I hung up.

And that was my first time I thought, this guy's kind of weird.

How did things escalate from there?

Well, I kind of thought that was the end of it.

I thought it was weird.

You know, I know a lot of guys get nervous asking a girl out or something.

But first of all, I made it clear I had a boyfriend.

And so I shoved him down on that.

And I already told him the car situation was handled.

So that should have been the end of it.

But it wasn't the next day I met work.

And I am a manager there.

So I have employees under me and a couple of them were women who were married.

And this woman walks in the door with, she's delivering two dozen long-stem red roses.

Which there's no way my boyfriend sent me that.

I mean, we just didn't, you know, I just, that was not his style.

You know, for no, it first stopped my birthday or anything.

And he probably wouldn't have had an order of anyway.

So they walk in the door and I think, you know, it's got to be for one of the women that work here.

And then when they said my name, I said, what?

I was shocked.

And I opened the card.

And it said, I can remember seeing that card so vividly.

It said to a very special lady loved bread.

And I am telling you, any other girl might have been flattered.

But not me.

I, my stomach dropped.

I thought, first of all, I know how expensive two dozen long-stem red roses are.

And it's not something you would spend on someone you didn't know.

And then the whole special lady thing, he doesn't know me.

I don't know him.

So how does he know I'm special?

And to me, it was so aggressive of an act, the next day after I shut him down,

that I, he's even the most, you know, confident person I've ever met, you know,

or not met, in my case, or this is just weird.

And in fact, I remember saying to the lady that delivered them, I said,

can you, I don't want this.

I don't want this to take it back because she says I'm not allowed to do that.

He paid for delivery.

Now you can do whatever you want when you're done, you know, when I leave,

you can throw me the trash out of pair, but I have to deliver the website off of it.

So I kept them and I remember putting them in the back of the gym.

I, it gave me the creeps.

That was, that was when the first escalation happened.

I never called him, I never, I've called the place to say, oh, thank you.

I didn't, I never acknowledged them.

In fact, I took them to my apartment and my husband, who was my boyfriend,

and they came by that evening, we had what's dinner.

And I showed him to him and he said, well, where'd you get those?

And I told him the situation.

And I think him being a very trusting and being a guy,

he said, well, did you tell me out of boyfriend?

I said, well, yeah, I told him the day before I told him the whole story.

And he said, well, that's a lot of money to spend on a girl that's not available.

Now, this is only common.

And I said, yeah, but you don't get it. That freaks me out.

And at that point, I heard nothing from this guy for months.

And then it got really weird after that.

How much work do you think he had to do to find out these things about you?

Like where you were and what you're doing?

Yeah, and it's funny to say that, because that's something I've thought a lot about over the years,

is it wasn't like you could do anything very easily.

Obviously, I just assumed the only way he could possibly know my name was he got it off my credit card.

He saw it on my credit card.

To get the number of the business was easy enough.

In those days, you had phone books, like everybody had a telephone book from AT&T or GT or whatever had the phone.

And the only way your phone number was not in there is if you opted out.

It was automatically in there.

If you wanted it enlisted, you had to call and have it removed.

And so I figured, okay, well, that must be how he got the number.

Obviously, it's all over the place, it's a business.

But the fact that he took the time to get my name,

they took the time to see that I drove over there.

That's the only way he could know I worked there.

And then the fact that he called me at that number

and then he had to look up the address.

It's not like you can just Google it.

He had to actually probably to walk over there and take a look at the address.

It seemed like a lot for a girl that he doesn't even know who's basically shutting down.

So it was a lot that made me think about that.

And tell us about when things, like you said, got a lot more weird.

So I'm going to say that was probably around August of 79,

that that happened towards the end of the gas shortage.

I never acknowledged the flowers.

And I never heard anything from it personally.

And so the week after Thanksgiving, 1979,

so that's probably four months later, our three, four months.

In the strip moment where I worked,

where I was, next door to us, was a deli that we all loved to eat at.

It was a lovely Middle Eastern family that owned it.

They get talk about, they didn't own sandwiches.

So that was kind of the place we ate.

And then on the other side of him was this high-end hair salon.

And I went there for a little while,

and I became very good friends with Javier, who owned the salon,

and also did my hair.

But that came up point at which I couldn't afford Javier anymore.

He was raising his prices.

And I was a single girl living on my own, sporting myself.

So I hadn't seen him in a couple of months.

And so now, these months have passed.

And he comes over to the gym where I worked, walks in.

And he says, hey, it would kind of be a casual.

I hadn't seen you in a while.

You know, what's happening with you?

And I decided to just work in blah, blah, blah.

And then he said, are you still dating Jason?

And I said, yeah, yeah.

I thought it was just like birthday around Halloween.

He bought me a microwave, which just me.

In that era, I think I had the first microwave ever made.

It was the size of a donut box.

You could barely get a cup of coffee,

but I was styling because I had a microwave.

And so I made a big deal out of the telemethod microwave.

And he goes, oh, okay.

And he goes, why did it go?

And it was so strange.

He was kind of left abruptly.

And then literally, 97 years later came back in,

sat in a chair next to me, goes, okay, I'm just telling you something.

Something's real weird.

He said, every Saturday, I work Saturdays.

I'm in the deli.

And the guy at the gas station, do you know him?

His name is Greg.

And that made me, I thought, what is he talking about?

I haven't heard his name.

I haven't had any contact.

He hasn't bugged me.

He said, he comes in every Saturday.

When I'm there, we all have lunch on same time.

I don't only know him, but he's telling me,

and all the guys there, including the guys that work there,

about all the dates you guys go on every week.

He's been saying this since August.

He says what you wore.

He says where you went.

He says what you talked about.

He says how you spend the night in his apartment.

How, you know, just details of things.

And I am freaking out on the inside because none of this is true.

And after you told me that you're so adjacent,

now I know something is really wrong with this guy.

And I said, I don't even know him.

I told him about the phone call.

I told him about the roses.

I told him how I haven't heard anything from him.

I had no idea this was still something living inside of his brain.

And I said, that's just not true.

None of that ever happened.

And he said, well, it gets worse.

All right.

So he said, I said to him,

I think she's got a boyfriend for the longest time.

Are we talking about the same Terry?

The one that works at the gym.

He's like, yeah, that's her.

That's the one.

And he said, I think she had a boyfriend.

And he goes, and he got very serious.

He's got very cold.

And he said, oh no.

I took care of him.

And she's with me now.

In fact, we're getting married on New Year's Eve.

And then he turns to the guy at the Delhi that owns the Delhi.

And he says, and I want you to do some meat and cheese trays

for our reception.

And I'm going to give you deposit.

And then we want to get this flow.

Because we're getting married in a few weeks.

And now I'm really freaked out.

Because my first thing is, is starting to kidnap me.

Because once you put it out there publicly in front of people

that you see all the time, what are you going to do?

And that, to me, was extremely brazen to spend all those weeks

and months talking about dates we had and what I wore and what we ate

and where we went and how we're in love and all this stuff

to get caught in that lie.

And then to say something so permanent that we're having a wedding,

I was so happy.

It must have been more than just shocking to you.

What were your immediate next steps?

Did you reach out to anyone?

Did you tell anyone in your life? Did you go to the authorities?

Obviously, I told my boyfriend.

I mentioned it to my father.

My parents moved to about 50 miles west of Phoenix,

this is why they were living.

And they would come over to visit, you know, periodically.

I'm going to see them.

And my dad being my dad being a romantic detective.

I told him this was freaking me out.

And he was planning a visit anyway.

And he said, well, I guess I'm going to have stuff

by that gas station and have a little talk with this man.

And he did.

He came out about a week or two later.

Now we're kind of getting their Christmas.

And he stopped over there.

I don't think I was at the gym at that time.

I think it was on a weekend, so I was home.

And he stopped over there.

And he told me I had to talk with him.

And I vaguely remember him saying that he denied everything.

And he said, well, stay away from my daughter.

That's not how things ended up working out.

But he did say that to him.

But he didn't seem to really intimidate him that much at that point.

He just denied everything.

And I didn't call the police right away

because I didn't know you could do that.

And honestly, at that time, you couldn't.

It didn't work.

I didn't know when somebody says I'm dating this girl

and we're going to get married, where's the crime?

I didn't even know.

And it turned out I was right.

Because even though I felt threatened,

that's not a threat.

At least it wasn't then.

Did you take any extra precautions?

I mean, this fictional wedding date was coming up.

Well, I can tell you I had stopped going to the gas station

there a long time ago.

After the whole thing with the roses,

I didn't ever go to the gas station again.

But what was interesting was somewhere around that time,

remember, it's 45, 46 years ago,

somewhere around Christmas or New Year's,

once he got caught in the lie,

because he had said that.

And then after Javier, the hairdresser of my friend,

the hairdresser, found out that it was a lie,

he told the guys of the deli that it was a lie.

Now, I had walked in to the deli a couple days before

they knew that this wasn't true.

And I remember I walked in to get a sandwich,

and they asked me if I was there to finalize my trays

for my wedding.

And I said, no, this is not true.

I told them the whole story about how it was all in its head.

And they were kind of offended.

It might have also been a bit of a cultural thing,

that you don't lie to somebody,

or not something important,

and it's their business,

and they think that they're going to make money.

And so Javier had told me,

close to the Christmas,

that he went into the deli,

and they basically told him not to come back,

because then he was making up stories about me,

and that he's not going to spend any money on these trays.

They gave him a little small deposit,

my understanding was,

and then it was so strange that after that,

nobody saw him again.

And I did not hear from him,

or I think was him.

I started getting phone calls shortly after that

that were very threatening.

And then he was no longer working at the gas station after that.

So I'm thinking, man,

he must have really gotten caught in something,

because I don't know why,

but he's not working there.

And I really thought at that point,

I was free, but I was wrong.

I was not free.

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So he just disappears.

You start getting threatening phone calls.

Tell us about those phone calls

and why you thought it might be him.

I didn't really have a good memory of his voice.

The only time I ever heard his voice

was the day he called me.

So I couldn't really pinpoint his voice.

But because of everything else that had happened,

where he's having this whole fantasy

and his head about me

and he's putting himself out there to people

where he could be held accountable,

obviously he had things in his head that weren't true.

Shortly after he was no longer around,

I started getting, I walked in the door

and I had a landline, obviously we didn't have cell phones in.

We did not have caller ID.

We did not have voicemail.

We did not have any way to know who was calling.

Not even a phone number coming across the phone

telling you the phone number.

It could be six o'clock.

It could be nine o'clock.

Whenever I was getting home from work

within 10 minutes, the phone was ringing

maybe five minutes even.

So obviously he's going to pay phone.

He's going somewhere.

I knew it was being watched

because most days I worked morning, say,

now I got to work at eight or nine o'clock

and I got up at six.

I had a group of women that worked at night.

We were open till nine.

I usually got up work.

But sometimes if somebody called in six,

I'd have to stay on the manager.

And so there were nights I'd be there till nine.

It was like he always knew

when I was walking in the door.

And I'd get, first there would be nobody there,

kind of breathing.

You could hear and then it'd be like,

yes, you're home now.

You know, I'm watching where you're at.

And I couldn't think it could possibly be anybody else

because this is, you know,

I did not know about it in this step to that point.

And so it was definitely a threat of behavior.

That's how I knew it was him.

These phone calls continued for quite a while.

And that they get, it was funny.

They would become more frequent sometimes.

And then they'd back off and I wouldn't get them for a while.

And then I still lived in my apartment.

And you know, I never dawned on me honestly

to change my phone number.

I didn't even think about changing my number.

Everybody had the number that I had.

I wouldn't get them necessarily every day.

I'd get them several times a week

and then I wouldn't get any for a little while.

And then I'd get some more.

It seemed like during the period of time

that, you know, and I know we're going to talk about

the Dorothy Scott case in a bit.

Now when I look back, I see that he might have also been becoming.

If this is indeed the same person,

I have a feeling it is I could be wrong.

That the more those things are escalating,

mine was kind of calming down for a little while.

Now that I understand the case.

So I only had phone calls after that point.

I did have an incident where I was driving to work one day.

And somebody was following me.

Absolutely following right behind me.

I had no idea what kind of car I had.

And at one point I was doing 65 miles an hour

up South Street in in Cerritos trying to get away

and they were following me equally as much.

I do want to go back and say that I did speak with the police

at one point when the phone calls started.

And I knew about the other threats that I, you know,

with the wedding and all that.

That was the year that I had just won the Mistletoe Pala page

and so I was seeing a lot of the officers at different events

and a lot of events and they were always there.

So I couldn't sort of knew them.

And I did call them and have talked to them about it.

And basically they said, look, he hasn't done anything to you.

He hasn't threatened to murder you.

He hasn't threatened bodily harm.

And basically threatened to marry you.

That's what they said.

But they understood my fear.

But they also said there's nothing we can do legally.

But we would be willing if you're nervous

like if you're leaving work and you're scared.

We can come if we don't have a call

and see that you get in your car.

And that was all they could do.

So it is a very scary feeling.

You should not have on your own.

Was this something new to you that you really

weren't getting any support?

You know, I think as, being as, you know,

my first and only big stockings situation,

I didn't really know what to think, to be honest.

I really kind of felt like this is what they have to offer.

And I just have to go with it.

You know, I realized it.

There were no threats of my life.

Nobody said, oh, I'm going to get you.

I'm going to kill you.

I'm going to kidnap you or anything like that.

And even if they did, I can't prove it's him.

I was afraid.

I'm a 21-year-old girl at this point,

living in an apartment in a nice area by myself.

I'm actually living in a secure apartment.

But if someone opens the door with their key,

you can walk in right behind them.

You know, it's not that secure.

I don't know what else to do, but keep going.

You know, I've got to go to work.

I've got to pay my rent.

I've got to do what I can do.

And I was very cautious my whole life watching around me,

watching my surroundings.

I still am.

But I did feel like I felt like there's nothing we can do.

And it was a helpless, powerless feeling.

I will say that.

And because nothing ever, he never approached me physically.

He never showed up at anything I was at.

He never, you know, I feel like I'm being watched from afar.

And I never know when I'm being watched.

But I felt almost, to be honest,

like I didn't even maybe have a right to complain too much,

because he wasn't physically coming up to me

and saying things to my face.

And now I look back and I'm wrong about that.

I was wrong about that.

But I think it was the era too.

Women are much more vocal about things now than we were then.

Well, what do you expect, you know,

you're this girl that does pageants and you're out there.

And you know, you're going to, you're bringing this in.

I didn't feel like I did it to myself.

But I also felt like, well, you know, that's what guys do.

Yet at the same time, I was terrified because people don't plan weddings with you.

You know, it's something definitely not every day.

At this time, were you starting to question then some of the things that he was doing?

Did you start to question yourself and your own behavior at this time?

It was such a monster in the closet because I didn't know him

and I didn't know where he lived and I didn't know where he went when he left.

I felt like I don't even know.

It literally felt like a monster in the closet or like a,

like being in a corn maze or being in a mirrored room

where you're trying to find a way out at Halloween.

You know, I didn't know.

So I did a lot of things with friends.

I still went out.

I didn't live with my boyfriend.

I, you know, was at my apartment a lot, but I didn't live with him.

I tried to stay independent, but it was always in the back of my mind every time I drove up

when I would pull up at night into my complex.

I looked around very carefully and I would make very quick moves to get to my apartment.

I felt safe in my apartment for some reason.

I don't know why, but that might have been naivety on my part really

after figuring out what happens to other people.

How did the stocking ultimately stop?

Did it take for off? Did it end abruptly? Was there any closure?

You know, it, it, like I said, it kind of waxed and waned.

I would get more calls, certain periods, and then it would drop off for a while.

And then all of a sudden I get a call out of nowhere.

And then eventually, when my husband and I were ready to finally move it together,

get married, it was a few years later.

We moved from, I moved from Lakewood.

He lived in Fullerton's time. And he was working in Fontana.

And so he had bought a home out there.

And so I moved there in May of 84.

And we moved in together, Mary's following here.

But the crazy thing was, I started getting phone calls there.

And I honestly have no idea how this person got that phone number.

Other than I'm thinking, okay, they still have the telephone book.

But I don't know how he got my number.

And he would call late at night, late at night.

And it's funny because at the time, before my husband and I got married,

he continued working at the grocery store that he worked at part-time down in Long Beach.

Because if he worked 16 hours with that union, you could keep your medical.

And until we got married, because I moved on from the gym and I was working for a union store.

Until we got married, he had to provide his own medical.

And he was gone two nights a week, or two night afternoon in the late evening.

Two nights a week to do his 16 hours to keep his medical.

And those were the nights I would get the calls.

And so I go, oh my, how did he find me?

But how he got my home number, I believe, when I lived in Lakewood,

was he, one of my employees did say that somebody called saying they were my brother

and needed my phone number.

So I don't know.

Maybe he, I don't know, but somehow it was the same guy, 100% same guy calling me.

One night my husband, who was home,

I was the latest three in the morning, the phone rang.

And it was him.

And my husband picked it up and said something very awful to him.

And he never called back.

That was the last time I ever heard from him.

I never heard from him again.

But I was around the time they found the body of the door to stop right before.

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Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing.

Another checkered flag for the books.

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So let's fast forward to a few months ago.

Tell me how you first heard about Dorothy Scott

and what it was like and how you put everything together.

Okay.

So I was watching, I don't watch very often,

but I just happen to have an investigation idea on it.

I was watching a different show about something else.

And then this show comes on.

I was kind of putts in around the house.

And then I heard him say it was in the stand area of Southern California,

which is very close to La Palma.

Maybe just a few minutes away.

And it started out that she was working at a store.

She was a single mom of a four-year-old,

a little bit older than me.

Looks a lot like me in many ways at the time.

And in January, February of 1980,

which is right after Greg,

I don't know if those are all in Greg,

was no longer at the gas station.

All of a sudden, she's being stalked by somebody through the telephone,

same kind of phone calls, same sort of,

I'm watching you.

I know what you're doing, kind of thing.

To the point where for a few months now,

she was scared and she started taking jujitsu lessons to protect herself.

And she mentioned it to her parents who live in Anaheim,

that this was happening.

They watched her son when she worked.

And they start telling the story about the phone calls.

And then in May of 1980, while she was at work,

like, well, let me back up a little,

when she worked at this kind of novelty store,

this guy that worked across the street,

ironically, at an auto repair and auto body shop,

which is exactly what this guy did.

His sister or a friend worked at the same store as her.

He came over one time and she was introduced to him by that person.

And they said, hello, and there was really no conversation.

And then she never saw him again.

And this has been verified by other people that worked there.

And that's kind of when the phone calls started for her.

She did not suspect him at the time.

She did not know him.

But the phone calls became intense.

And then in May of that year, in 1980,

one of the people she worked with got very ill.

And they figured out it was probably a spider bite.

It was like a black widow bite.

And he was starting to be going like anabolic problem.

So she and another coworker put him in the car,

and I don't know, eight o'clock at night,

drove him to a hospital nearby.

She drops them off in front of the ER,

and those in parts of car and comes back.

And then walkies in there for the next three hours.

She's sitting with her friend.

Never leaves her friend for one minute that she came there with.

Then they finally go to release him.

And she says, let me run and get the car,

because it's quite a while.

She says, I'll meet you in front of the ER.

She doesn't show up.

She doesn't show up and doesn't show up.

So they start walking.

And her car with the headlights,

with the beams on, goes flying past them

in a very high rate of speed,

and leaves the parking lot and they're stranded.

And they're big and well,

maybe something happened with her son.

We don't know why she did this.

There's no cell phone.

She can't call anybody.

And never saw her again.

Never saw her again.

And then after that, her parents started getting a phone call.

Saying, your daughter was cheating on me

with another man, so I had to kill her.

And they always got the mother on the phone

and it was always on a Wednesday afternoon.

I will say this, knowing this,

because my husband worked in that industry a long time.

Most people that do that kind of work work on Saturday.

So they have an extra day after in the week.

And it's always the same day.

And so that made me kind of think,

but the phone calls in later on,

when they did finally talk to somebody new,

he had said that girl across the street

we're going to get married.

She's going to marry me.

The same thing that was said about me.

Whoever it was left red roses on her car

in her parking lot at work.

I got red roses.

He disappears from where I'm at.

All of a sudden this is happening literally a few minutes away.

I do believe that whoever this was

was watching her when she left work

and just followed her where she went.

And then the opportunity while she was by herself came up.

They did not find her body for four years.

And it was around the time they found her body

that the phone calls stopped at her parents' house

and my phone calls stopped.

Also, one night her dad was home.

Her mom wasn't there by herself.

And he answered the phone and said what he had to say to him

and he never called back after he talked to the dad.

It's like when he talks to a man.

So there's so many similarities that peak by interest.

And as I'm watching this and it's unfolding in front of me,

I'm now sitting in the chair.

I'm no longer cleaning my house.

And I'm like, oh my God, I wish I would have known about this story back then.

Because maybe I could have helped.

Maybe I could have said, hey, the same kind of thing happened to me.

They did eventually suspect the guy across the street who has a different name.

And they interviewed people he knew.

And he did have a tendency to be obsessive

according to people that knew him.

But they never had enough on him.

DNA wasn't a thing then anyway.

But they never had enough on him to arrest him.

And this person died in 2014.

What was that feeling like for you when you're just watching this kind of

putting the timeline and the geography and the details together?

Well, it definitely raised the hair on the back of my neck

because I'm not a paranoid person.

I'm a good critical thinker.

I studied behavioral studies.

That's what I did.

And I've never been one to jump to conclusions.

But I will say I have used my intuition more times in my life.

And I listen to it.

I've always listened to it.

I'm not going to question it.

If one plus one sounds like it's coming out three,

we could be here for three hours.

And I could give you examples of times that I have used that.

And top my daughters the same thing.

I read a book many, many years ago.

I think I mentioned to you before called The Gift of Fear.

And he's also has a PhD in science.

And he's a big proponent of intuition.

He feels it's really scientific.

He feels that it's our mind is telling us something.

And it tells the body together reaction.

It's like a giant funnel where it takes time for the reality of what's going on to get to.

So there's always like this warning going on in your body.

This is the time to act and think about it later.

And it's something we need to listen to.

And I think especially for women because we certainly are more at risk.

And I actually made my daughters when they were teenagers,

because I wanted to make sure they understood that if something doesn't feel right,

don't worry about offending someone.

If someone's making you feel uncomfortable,

we've been taught to be nice to everybody.

But I will say that when I was listening to what was going on in this story,

as soon as the timeline became apparent,

because I'm thinking it only sounds like the same story.

But then when I heard when the story started and ended and all the other things,

I'm thinking I just in my gut really believe that there's a tie.

And I could be wrong.

I'm not going to say that just so I can hold on to it.

If I can be proven wrong, that's fine too.

But I've always believed that we're better off to speak up and be wrong than to not speak up.

Because most crimes are solved by that one little clue

that nobody thought was coming.

So at the end of the show, they said it was an unsolved crime.

That she has a son who was four years old the time is now close to 50.

And all he wants is to find out what happened to his mother

and her parents both died without ever knowing.

And so he's still very active, I guess, in trying to get some kind of resolution.

So it gave a number to the OC sheriffs, and I called the number,

and it took them a couple of weeks to get back to me, but they didn't.

And I spoke with a woman detective.

I gave them the story I gave you.

And you know, they play things very close to the best.

And they get very all-business.

And I said the same thing.

I said to you, this may, I may be off base.

I may be totally wrong.

But I feel compelled to tell you, this is what happened to me,

and I don't know if I can help you.

And the biggest thing we're running into is the time that it was happening so long ago.

The only thing I could come up with was that gas station.

Maybe there's some kind of payroll records.

Because I can tell you in 1980, when you got a job, you didn't go online and apply for the job.

And people didn't do background checks.

And you couldn't Google someone's name to see if they've been in person for something.

You can do that now.

You filled out a paper and you said who you were and what you did.

And you may be calling for a reference.

And you may be calling a reference of character reference.

And you're actually speaking with their sister.

Because they told their sister, hey, this person's going to call.

Say on this great guy.

You know, that's how you got a job.

So the differentiation in the name, this name was my Butler.

The guy who was bothering me, sobbing me, was named Greg.

That's the only thing that throws me a little.

But it would be easy enough that you wanted to use a different name.

You could do it and nobody would ever know.

We spoke and then she said she get back to me.

I did call her back and I asked her if she knew about my Butler.

She said she couldn't talk about that to me.

This is part of it.

I said, well, I know about it.

Because I watched the documentary and I read up on it.

If you could get a picture of him and put him in a lineup,

I know I could pick him out if it's him.

And I said that might just solve your problem right there.

I might say none of these guys are him.

Because we don't even know if it's my Butler.

But there's too many similarities with him.

But I said that would fix the problem.

I never heard from her again.

I think that it's just too hard.

She did say it's very hard to go back when there was no computerized things

then to do the research.

And it was almost like it wasn't worth her time.

Have you taken any other steps to push that connection

to reach out to law enforcement or anybody else

or overcome any of those obstacles to investigate this further?

Well, I did call back a couple of times.

And then I didn't hear back.

But one thing I would love to do and I have no way.

I looked, I researched it.

I would love to find where the sun is.

I did try.

Because I feel like he really wants to know.

And I want to tell him my story.

Because I know he works with detectives.

But they wouldn't tell me who works with him.

Because they can't.

I asked them,

if I leave my number,

will you give it to him?

And then there was another person who has,

it's called Crime 1983.

I don't know if you've heard of it.

It's a website.

And they investigate crime from the 80s.

And they had it on their site about for unsolved.

And I found it.

And I ended up doing a WhatsApp to the guy,

telling him,

I would like to talk to you about this.

Because I know you have links to people who are involved

in solving this crime, this unsolved crime.

I just want to tell my story.

And if my story doesn't mean anything,

that's okay too.

But at least I told it.

And the guy ended up getting the flu or something.

And then I said,

look,

even if you can't do it,

if you don't have time,

if you could give my information to the son.

I'm not going to ask you for his number.

That's inappropriate.

But if you will give it to him,

and I never heard from them either.

And I think so much time is gone by.

It's easy to say,

well, that was end.

But that's somebody's mom.

That's somebody's daughter.

That's somebody.

This kid,

just wants to know what happened to his mother.

He's a kid.

He's 50 now.

You know, he's still that little boy.

And I know he's,

it's mid-made clear that he is still actively pursuing this.

And I don't know how to link up with him.

He has no social media.

I know his name is Sean.

And I believe he went by her last name, Scott,

even though he had a dad,

but they were never married.

The dad lives out of state.

I don't know what happened to him.

But I know he's still actively pursuing it.

So I'm feeling like I've got to find someone.

Let me just tell him my story.

Maybe we could do this together.

Or maybe I'm just completely off base and it's not him.

You look at this and you look at how close you came to this.

You didn't know there was a connection to this case.

Until recently, basically.

So we're talking decades ago.

But,

and did you even hear about this case at the time?

No, I did not.

And that's why I feel,

you know, obviously I shouldn't feel bad about it.

But when I, when I did hear about it,

I thought, oh, man,

I wish I would have known then.

You know, we didn't have cable news.

We didn't have stuff all the time.

You know, I'll give that internet,

because I do a lot of reading on my phone about news.

And, you know, I was working in the evenings a lot of times.

I wasn't going home and watching the 6 o'clock news.

I don't think people are attached to it then,

especially girls by age.

We're not necessarily attached to it.

I mean, obviously if someone like the Hellside Strangler

or the Night Stopper,

you're hearing about it everywhere.

But this was a lone case.

And it was unsolved.

They had nobody.

They're not really talking much about it.

Once she disappeared and then time went by,

they aren't talking about it on the news anymore anyway.

So until they found their body,

then they announced they found the body

and then they never came forward with anything else.

So it unfortunately split past me.

I wish it wouldn't have.

But at least I thought, well, now that I know,

I feel like I owe somebody,

at least an explanation.

The only thing I'm thinking is,

if I had the same connection,

if the guy that was, you know, stalking me is the same guy,

we know he's dead.

So that would be closure for not only me,

but also if there is a connection

and they could figure something out,

this will give us on the closure.

Knowing if you think about it,

you know, a lot of people do die after,

you know, this many years and we do know he is gone.

And I also know he had a sister

who was not cooperative with authorities

and I could get her name for you.

I can't think of it right now.

She didn't really believe her brother

would do something like that.

So when they would try to talk to her son,

no, no, no, no, it never happened.

And maybe that's in her heart what she believed.

But I believe she was the connection.

I believe she worked at the same store.

And I think there was some level of protecting her brother,

you know, because it's her brother.

She hasn't think he's done that.

So she never would, you know, be forthcoming or,

but whoever they interviewed,

it was a friend said that he clearly said,

I met this girl across the street at this business

and he's gonna marry her.

And according to Dorothy,

what she told her parents,

I don't even know who this person is,

just like I didn't know who this person was.

So they're just who runs around saying,

I'm gonna marry someone that I don't even know,

in the same neighborhood with the same timeline,

two different types of different women that look alike.

Just do many things.

How has this experience,

this full circle experience,

shaped your life over all these years?

Obviously,

I'm a never say, never person.

I really am.

I mean, anything can happen.

And like I said,

I don't give it a paranoia,

but I keep my eyes open.

I keep my eyes open around me.

I just have this conversation with my friend about how,

there are times that, you know,

I follow my intuition,

you know, I'll pull into a gas station

and there's a guy hanging around.

It's kind of weird.

There's no one around.

When I leave a parking lot,

at a mall,

my eyes are open all the time

about where things are.

When I put my groceries in the back of my car,

put my purse in the car first,

and then I keep my eyes open around me.

I've even had things happen in parking lots.

So, you know, I'm very aware.

I don't think everybody's out to get me.

I think that most people are good people.

But when somebody does something

to make my ears perk up,

I don't ignore it.

And I think it's easy for women to get complacent

and think, oh, I'm sure it's fine.

Oh, I'm sure it's fine.

I don't do that.

And also, being the mother of two daughters,

I mean, one is turning 40 this year,

one is 38.

But when they were younger,

I spent a lot of time stressing.

Safety is scary as hell to have teenage daughters.

When I have them to let them go and do things,

I think they have to do it.

You do worry bar.

You do worry about,

do you know what could happen?

You do know what is out there.

You worry.

So I think the gift of it was that I was able to teach my daughters

to go out in their life,

because I have two daughters of travel internationally for work,

but just be safe.

And if something doesn't feel right,

it probably isn't.

So that's how it's changed me where I,

it's kind of a gift in that sense.

But at the same time,

you know, you can get a little jaded

about looking at someone and thinking,

what are you thinking?

What are you, you know?

So I have to really temper that.

What kind of advice do you have for someone

who's really recognizing something for the first time,

even though it happened decades ago?

Well, I think that's just the natural thing women do.

Is that we tend to downplay things anyway.

Society kind of teaches us that.

I think the generations now are very different.

You know, you're a little bit more outspoken.

You can see things.

It wasn't talked about.

I didn't even,

I didn't even think I used the term stalking

when it was happening to me.

I don't think it was even a term.

This guy's following me.

He's bothering me.

He's doing this.

He's saying these things.

I didn't have a word for it.

But I think that my advice is to, again,

listen to your gut.

Listen to what it is.

And try not to always give the benefit of the doubt.

It's okay to stand up for yourself.

It's easier now,

but I will say it's not still has a long way to go.

I know you can get a restraining order now.

If someone's threatening you,

some people can be arrested for terrorist threats.

But basically, until somebody's hurt,

they still don't do anything to this day.

I've seen it too much.

But it's okay to not be bothered by people.

Just even smaller incidents.

I was telling my friend the other day about,

you know, I was in a store.

And a guy came up and started talking.

He asked me to go for a drink.

And I said,

I think I'm married by now.

And then three hours later,

he's still coming down the aisle.

And I wasn't nice about it.

You know, I probably would have been more timid about it

when I was younger.

Now, it's like, hey, you know what?

I was married on aisle one.

I'm still married on aisle four.

Leave me alone.

You know, I was,

and the fact that I have to say I'm married,

like, oh, I already have a man.

That's why I can't,

I should have to say no just until I'm saying no.

That's a bothersome thing for me.

I will say, you know,

I'd have to talk with my daughters.

That you don't have to say no and qualify it

because you have a man.

You should be able to say no to anything.

We're still not there yet.

And so it's easy to feel like you're being mean

or you're being too aggressive.

Don't worry about that if you feel threatened in any way

or pushed beyond your limit.

That's what my advice would be.

And if you need to seek out help,

I know one time I was in a bank

and I felt like I was being followed out

after I did a business deposit.

And I literally, you know,

was not afraid to go over the bank manager

and say, I need you to walk me out the store

because those guys are making me nervous.

And they did.

You need to not say, oh, I know they're busy.

I can't.

You just have to take care of yourself

and listen to your own mind.

Terry, thank you tremendously for joining us today

and your pursuit in trying to get justice

for other people in this world.

We really appreciate it.

Well, thank you for having me

and I'm hoping that we get some answers.

Thank you so much, Terry.

If anyone out there's a need of help

or is the victim of stocking, please reach out.

You can find a list of resources

on our Instagram at StrictlyStockingPod.

If you'd like to share your story with us

in Strictly Stocking, you can reach us

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I'm Jake Deptula.

And I'm Jamie BB.

Thank you for joining us

on today's episode of Strictly Stocking.

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