[/caption]Editor - Some stalking victims end up dead, while others are harassed and frightened for many years, like Tracy Lundeen, whose perpetrator has stalked her from pre-adolescence over 17 years, as the family struggles to deal with a “nightmare that doesn’t end.”
Tracy’s mother, Holly, underlines how difficult the stalking has been for Tracy’s entire family, by describing the perpetrator, Shawn Moul. as someone who “doesn’t have any boundaries.”
The problem, according to the news account of Tracy's nightmare, began when Tracy was in middle school when she befriended Shawn who seemed to be struggling with some of his school work. But Shawn was not content with a simple acquaintance over schoolwork and began writing Tracy letters and tracking her whereabouts. Even though he was in jail for eight years for stalking Tracy, Shawn continued to write her letters while in prison and upon release in 2010.
Holly worries about her daughter’s future. She said, “Tracy has spent more than half of her life shaped by a boy, now a man, she was just trying to be nice to. It’s not going to end until somebody is gone. I’m just hoping it’s not by violence on my kids or grandkids.”
Tracy’s mother isn’t alone in being fearful of her daughter’s safety. Many parents worry about their children when they are being terrorized. For that reason, each of the several states have laws specific to the problem of stalking.
In Oregon, for example, the victim can file a stalking protective order against another person if that person has “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly engaged in repeated unwanted contact (two or more contacts within the previous two years) with the petitioner or a person of the petitioner’s immediate family or household thereby alarming or coercing the petitioner.” The law goes on to explain the other conditions such as “the repeated and unwanted contact that causes the petitioner reasonable apprehension regarding the personal safety of the petitioner or member of the petitioner’s immediate family or household.”
Anyone who violates a stalking order, once it is granted by the court, is guilty of a crime, according to Oregon law.
What makes the crime of stalking worse is the range of technology now available to the perpetrator. The National Center for Victims of Violence has testified about the growing problem of stalking, especially observing how Americans are being stalked at an annual rate of 3.4 million with one in four victims reporting the offender used some form of technology. The numbers are likely an underestimate, according to the Stalking Resource Center of the National Center, meaning there are other Tracys who face many years of living in fear or who find out in some tragic way they have been victimized after it is too late.