Criminal - Eight Years

Episode Date: August 12, 2016

2008 was an exciting time to be a Harry Potter fan. The final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, had been released. Movies were on the way. And author Melissa Anelli was at the center of it all, running a popular fan site called The Leaky Caldron and working on a book of her own, Harry, a History. Just as things couldn’t get better, Melissa Anelli received her first death threat. This threat would be the first in what would later become nearly a decade of harassment from halfway across the world. The culprit? An aggrieved Harry Potter fan named Jessica Parker.  Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please use discretion. I'm going to be very... I don't even know how to say this to someone like you, to admit that I have never read a Harry Potter book. Oh, that's okay. So, will you start by just telling me what your life was like in 2008, before this all started? Sure. In 2008, we were just a year past the publication of the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And that was a huge moment for everyone. And I was running the website. We had a really large team. And it was a really heady time still. Even a year after the last Harry Potter book, it was still kind of crazy. This is Melissa Anelli. Since 2001, she's run a

Harry Potter fan site called the Leaky Cauldron, which provides news on the books and Harry Potter movies, and where hundreds of thousands of fans share theories and predictions about what will happen to the characters, and what they hope will come next. Melissa also has a podcast. It was one of the earliest podcasts out there, called Pottercast. Welcome, welcome to another... The official podcast of The Leaky Cauldron. The Leaky Cauld podcast of the Leaky Cauldron. The Leaky Cauldron.

The Leaky Cauldron. It is Podcast 204. Once again, I'm Melissa. I'm here with John Frackinson. We've got another week of Potter Fantastic. And because the fans, there were so many fans, I mean, from what I understand, this is a gigantic fan site. It must have felt, though, that this was really good, that you could take something that people really enjoyed and liked in this world that had been created, and you could create this place where there could be conversation and information and expand on something. And that it could actually be a job. It was glorious. There was nothing better than watching the fans just enjoying a book and creating fan art and valuable discussions and friendships and creating communities and fan conventions. Like, now it's like a commonplace thing, but back then we were the first people doing it.

It was really exciting. Melissa was able to visit the sets of the Harry Potter movies. She had sit-down interviews with J.K. Rowling. And in 2008, Melissa published a book, Harry, A History, the true story of a boy wizard, his fans, and life inside the Harry Potter phenomenon. J.K. Rowling wrote the foreword, and the book debuted at number 18 on the New York Times bestseller list. I would speak a lot about Harry Potter. I would be interviewed a lot about Harry Potter. I'd interviewed J.K. Rowling a bunch of times. She had been on our podcast. The podcasts themselves made us a little bit of celebrity, you know.

And yeah, I got a lot of attention. And then one day, Melissa's colleagues told her they were having trouble with one of the Leaky Cauldron commenters. This person wanted Melissa to read a piece of fiction they'd written and was growing increasingly angry when no one was paying attention. Finally, Melissa herself intervened. She says she sent a polite email saying, please cooperate with the rules and respect the moderators. That seemed to work out.

Melissa received an apology email almost immediately. This was July 17th, 2008. I went to bed and then the 18th I woke up and I got an email the next day that said, I'm going to hunt you down wherever you live and slit you ear to ear like the stupid fat sow you are. That's literally what the next email was. And it was so alarming. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Melissa sent the email to her colleagues at the Leaky Cauldron, and they banned the user from the site.

They hoped that would be the end of it. Yes, it was a horribly graphic threat, but the truth is, a lot of women who've made their careers online are constantly bombarded by cruel and often sexual messages. Melissa and her colleagues started gathering more information about the user. And they were able to determine that the person harassing her was 25 years old and lived in New Zealand. Her name was Jessica Parker. I really thought it would be a one-off. I was like, well, this person is a little bit off.

She was angry that I threatened to ban her. Okay, she can take her, you know, business elsewhere. And then they realized that the piece of fiction Jessica Parker had wanted read so badly was about Melissa. An odd, violent sexual story. Is it surprising to you that she's a woman? It was at the beginning. I think I got a lot of that, oh my God, it's a woman?

You know? But none of this can be, like, you can't be like, oh, well, she was so attracted to you or whatever. That's not, it's not that, you know? And I think people are surprised by that the most. Like stalkers, it's usually like, I can't have her. And this is not quite, I don't know, I don't know what this is. There's just no logic to it. A 2014 Pew Research study found that 40% of Americans have been harassed online. And that harassment is disproportionately aimed at women. But it's less common for a woman to stalk another woman. The Centers for Disease Control report that 88% of female stalking victims

are stalked by men, while only 7% are stalked by another woman. She would send vicious, very, very graphic death threats and also rape threats. With her threatening to rape you? Yes. Yes. Very. She seemed to have a plan. Those were the most difficult ones because they were so, so graphic.

And it just became commonplace every other day. Every time I would ban a Twitter account, another one would come up. Every time I would make a blog post someplace, a comment would come up. I would ban IPs. She would get around them. It was, God, hundreds of email addresses and accounts to get at me. Did you go to the police? We did. We went to the police and the police were like, she's in New Zealand. And that doesn't make

it less scary because the world is small these days. And if somebody is that unhinged, you don't know what they're going to do. It did make me feel better that she wasn't in New York. But I said, the cops basically said to me, you can go get a restraining order, but it's a piece of paper that only works if she's actually in New York. It's hard enough to prosecute cyberstalking in this country. The requirements vary from state to state and are phrased in vague and subjective ways, with an attempt to make a distinction between fear as in emotional distress versus fear of serious bodily

harm. I don't know how one evaluates fear, so it's already incredibly confusing, but it becomes nearly impossible to prosecute when you're dealing with someone overseas. Melissa felt like she couldn't get anyone to help her. The threats kept coming. Threats to leave her lying in a pool of blood. Bomb threats. Her face was photoshopped onto a pornographic image and posted publicly to Twitter, with Melissa's friends tagged to make sure they saw it. Then there were the tattoos. Jessica Parker posted photographs of several tattoos she'd gotten inspired by Melissa's life. There's a cartoon illustration of our fellow podcasters, and she got that tattooed on her back,

and she copied a tattoo that I got. She got a tattoo of a woman in a geisha outfit that supposedly represents me on a trip to Japan, which is something that I mentioned once on a podcast. She got another tattoo that's supposed to have been partly inspired by my cat. Like, it's really something else. But honestly, the thing, like, that was all, it was also common.

And so coming in thick and fast at that point in like the heady area of all this, that was like when most of that was happening. And the thing that really shook me was when she called my mother, because she called my mother and she, when my mother answered the phone, she said, I got it, I got it, I got it. And she started laughing in a high pitched voice. And my mother with no expectation that this was happening, realized it was her and just stayed very silent on the line until she hung up. And I don't know why she didn't hang up herself, but she just, my mother just realized what was going on. And that's crazy because my mother's phone has been unlisted since we moved to Staten Island in 1981. Jessica Parker posted a YouTube video describing the day she'd made the

call to Melissa's mom. At the end of the video, she says, I don't even like doing this, but sometimes you make it necessary. She also got all our addresses off, you know, real estate searches. So the fact that I bought an apartment meant she had my home address, which is, you know, great. So, you know, she started sending postcards to—she would send a copy, four copies. My sister's house, my father's office, my mother's home, and me. And they would all be handwritten. They wouldn't be copied, but it would be the same text. And we'd all get them.

So I would get a text from my mother in the morning with a picture, and I knew that there was a postcard waiting for me. And this would happen three times a week. She sent a Kewpie doll to my sister for my nephew, for my just-then-born nephew, that said, enjoy your parents while you can. I mean, I love my nephews more than anything. And the idea that she even deigned to speak to them, never mind send them something, never mind send them something threatening, I really did not do well that day,

and thank God for my family. After a year of this abuse with no help from local police, the family finally went to the FBI. My sister's a lawyer and she was, you know, a number one on the case. She had a case file. She was really,

really great. And we were asking everybody who we should call. We were calling the border agency. We were calling, you know, God, we didn't know where to go. And then somebody said to us, you should call the FBI. I don't even remember who said that to us, but we called the FBI. My sister left a message and we got a call back from an agent named Carrie, who was a giant Harry Potter fan. And she had taken it a little bit on herself to head the stalking area. She felt strongly about it, that the online world was the Wild West and that it needed regulation.

And she was the first person to say to me, this shouldn't be happening to you and we can help. And that was a full year in. The FBI launched a stalking investigation with the assistance of the New Zealand police. But they warned Melissa that cases like this can take years and years to resolve, if a resolution is even possible. It's strange to think that at the same time, hundreds of thousands of Harry Potter fans were flocking to Melissa's site, celebrating this supportive online community, a way to find your people. And no one had any idea what Melissa was dealing with. You were continuing, of course you were continuing your work on your site and the podcast. Was it hard to try to be the same presence for these fans that

you were when you were kind of constantly looking over your shoulder and pretty sure that this person who was stalking you was listening to and kind of hanging on every word? Very much. It was really difficult that every time I did anything publicly, there she is, there she is. And I always, I started to know without having to be told, without her having to make a threat, I started to know exactly when it was her typing. It's like a preternatural, I always know when it's her. At this point, Melissa was losing hope that law enforcement here or in New Zealand would ever be able to do much. But then, the day before Christmas Eve in 2011, she got some good news. I was at my mom's house. It was the day before Christmas Eve.

And I got an email from Carrie Robbins from the FBI that said, Merry Christmas. And it was a forward of that she was arrested for criminal harassment, finally. And it was, my mother and I celebrated, you know, we were like, we said, oh my, oh my god, this, this has happened, this, maybe this is, maybe this will come to an end now, maybe she'll get the help. You know, I was warned really early on, don't start, don't start feeling sympathy for your stalker, don't start, other people can give her sympathy, don't do it sympathy for your stalker. Don't start. Other people can give her sympathy. Don't do it. But I can't help but feel somebody is failing this girl,

that she's not getting the help she needs, you know? So part of it was like, well, maybe, God, maybe she'll get help, and this can all stop, and we can all go on to better days. What's behind the warning not to feel sympathy? A psychologist friend told me that because you have to stop yourself from empathizing with them so that they can manipulate you and that you have to, even if it's not fair, you have to close yourself down to feeling sympathy even though you want to be a good human and leave that job to other people just to protect

yourself. She was given a mental health assessment. The New Zealand police assured Melissa that Jessica Parker would be under the care of a mental health team and receive ongoing counseling and treatment. But the criminal charges against her ended up getting dropped as part of a New Zealand legal practice known as diversion. Basically, if Jessica Parker agreed to certain conditions, like counseling and not contacting Melissa, her charges would be withdrawn. But Jessica Parker did not stop contacting Melissa. Melissa kept meticulous records of each contact

and emailed every piece of documentation to both the FBI and to the New Zealand police. She shared much of this documentation with us, years of it. And what's clear is that Jessica Parker was not getting the mental health care she needed. So it like makes these stopgaps of time, you know, where it's quiet. But is it quiet? Or will I open my Tumblr box tomorrow and get another message? Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home.

His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions, what should you use it for, what tools are right for you, and what privacy issues should you ultimately watch

out for. And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Jessica Parker was arrested for a second time in 2012. And that same year, the FBI secured an international warrant, Jessica Parker was arrested for a second time in 2012. And that same year, the FBI secured an international warrant, which meant she would be arrested if she ever tried to come to the U.S.

This time, the New Zealand prosecutors asked Melissa to write a victim's impact statement describing the toll this had taken on her. And it was like, so many times in her emails and her whatever, she had said, I wish you would just tell me how you feel about all this and I'll go away. Just tell me how I've made your life hell. Just tell me what I've done to you, you know? And I was like, no, no, there's no way. So when they wanted a victim impact statement, I was like, well, she's, I'm giving her what she wants.

And the police from New Zealand, who I now speak with regularly, said to me it would really help if you filled one of those out because she got off really leniently last time because the judge hadn't heard from you and they couldn't tell. So I wrote a big victim's impact statement for the second time around and it seemed to work. The judge said she wasn't allowed to contact me and all these things. Or anyone associated with me, she wasn't allowed to use the Internet.

She wasn't allowed to use the mail. Like, it was a really good ruling, but she started again. So now it's happening again, and it's horrifying how normal this is now, you know? A couple of years ago, she made the decision to speak publicly about the experience and identify her stalker by name. And in the very beginning,

I was told by, you know, everybody, the FBI, the police, everybody, you're not supposed to give them the validation that they're looking for because that is never how it stops. And I was in a special situation because, you know, two years goes by, three years goes by. Now we're at five years.

And the FBI is, while they were wonderful to me, is still kind of spinning the wheels getting something to actually happen with this criminal harassment thing. And, you know, stalking victims are by default silenced. It's a crime that you can't participate in, in the, you know, the solving of. You can't, you're not allowed, you're not allowed to participate, you're not allowed to stand up and say I'm a victim, you're not allowed. And there are very good reasons for that, but it's still incredibly frustrating. And I remember myself getting so angry and so angry, frankly, that everybody around like me didn't kind of really get it and i just i just did i wrote a post my friend maureen johnson who's a popular author

wrote a post and suddenly it was everywhere suddenly i mean my god the emails that started coming in um and suddenly i heard from the New Zealand police directly. In July of 2013, an affidavit was filed in a New York court, again charging Jessica Parker with criminal harassment. It's an ongoing investigation. And Melissa says she may have to testify in a New Zealand court. We reached out to the New Zealand police for an update, but they declined to comment. And in the meantime, Melissa is just trying to deal with it.

It's been eight years. It's so weird. I'm so used to this. It's like, oh, another one from a stalker. And I don't want to indicate that that means I'm not being affected. Like, that's dangerous, right, if you get so used to it. Actually, somebody from the FBI did say to me at one point, you know, well, can't you just get, you know, like, this is just going to happen. And I refuse, I refuse to accept that the only way not to get death threats and rape threats is to just become desensitized to it.

How has this changed how you operate online? Oh, so much. Like my whole like personal social experience is so different from everybody who's never had to worry about this. You know, I think most people now are a little bit more cautious with social media, but they're happy to say things about their personal life in a carefree way. Like I'm going on a trip next week. Can't wait to go there. I turn off all my, you'll never see, if you ever see, from New York, New York on one of my tweets. That's because I made a mistake and didn't turn off the location data. I never, ever have the location data on.

Yeah, it really makes you look over your shoulder. It's so sad, though, because this is the online is kind of how you built your career and your name, your success. Yeah, it's ironic, isn't it? I got into a community where it was all about being passionate and being able to share in a safe space. And somebody perverted that passion into an extreme and then perverted the safe space, too, and struggling to continue it, keep all that stuff going in in the midst of that has been you know difficult a lot of people ask me did you ever just consider closing leaky closing leaky cauldron just you know calling it a dozen no absolutely not she will not win that way you know um why do you think she became fixated on you i I wish I knew. I get this question so often. Why you?

You're, you know, known on the Internet a little. Why you? And every time I try to come up with an answer, I just have to remind myself that there's no logic. It's not logical. I drew the bad apple, you know. Every known person on the Internet gets their share of lots of this. But this particular thing, even the FBI eventually told me, this particular thing is rare. Usually one or two years they give up.

Eight years is unheard of. So, you know, if I could put anything on it, I would say who was doing things she wanted to do or liked, and whatever admiration or like or whatever it was that she had for me sublimated into a desire to contact me, because she could contact me because I was available. And when I refused that contact, the fixation, I guess, held. She says she's still getting messages she believes are from Jessica Parker all the time. One came in the day before we spoke. Criminal is produced by Lauren Spohr and me.

Audio mix by Rob Byers. Special thanks to Alice Wilder and Russ Henry. Julianne Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collective of the best podcasts around. Thank you. radio heroes of ours, Fugitive Waves. Go listen. We're going on a tour this fall with all new stories told live. We'll be in

New York, Minneapolis, Boston, San Francisco, lots of other places. You can find out more on our website, thisiscriminal.com. We'd love to see you. Radiotopia from PRX is supported by the Knight Foundation and MailChimp

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