Internet Safety, Predators amongst us...
WINSTON, OR - On the banks of the Umpqua River in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains during weather that will reach a low of 43 degrees tonight, there sleeps in the bed of a yellow 1969 Chevy El Camino a nineteen year old woman who is homeless. She is homeless because she trusted a stranger to "rescue" her. He rescued her, spent her $2,000.00+ in savings and now they both sleep in the back of this car, homeless for three months with a dog and two cats. She wants to leave him, but has no resources, she wants to take care of her dog and cat, she won’t leave without them.
This reporter talked to the young woman’s mother recently. The mother who lives in Philadelphia, PA where the young woman is from, said that this young lady met her "rescuer" on the internet TWO days before he made the several hour trip to "save" her from an abusive boyfriend. That previous relationship lasted for seven months or so. The mother was pleased her child was okay, relentless in her ideals that her child should come home, and helpless to do anything about the situation. She just filed bankruptcy.
The young woman related to the reporter in an email that she had a business going, and had saved $2,000, and that her rescuer has spent it all, therefore she can not leave the man that who was so irresponsible with her money. Yet from her communications, she seems smitten with this 46 year old man who drove for several hours to save her from her gun wielding ex-boyfriend.
Did I mention that this man, this "rescuer" is only 46 years old? That there is a 27 year old gap in their ages, and that neither of them see that anything is wrong with this situation?
Our young lady has NO immune system. She lost her speen several years ago. If she so much as gets a cold she needs antibiotics to fight off infections. If she gets an infection, she can die. If this man, truly cared for her, he’d encourage her to get home where she could seek the medical care she needs.
Yes, Shelly (her real name is changed to protect her identity), at 19 hasn’t got the life experience to know that spending all of her money and keeping her broke is a form of control. That this specific form of abuse is in the official description of Domestic Violence. She’s not old enough to fight his arguments of "I meant well" and "I can’t help it, I’m disabled."
Flip Side: This 46 year old man is a man diagnosed with neurological disorder, maybe it’s Asperger’s Syndrome, or maybe it’s ADHD, the doctors are not quite sure. He has a seven year old daughter that he refused a visitation with because he had to drive five hours and his car was too broken down, and he was broke. This was only weeks before he saved our young friend.
During another visitation, the mother drove the child eight hours south to see him. He promised to take the child out to pizza, and then asked the mother for the money to take the child out. This man is not considered financially competent by his own family and would like for the system to force him to have a payee. He has never found place to live on his own, and never lived completely independently until age 44. Yet, though he works the system and tells it how helpless he is, he is manipulative enough to convince a 19 year old to stay with him to help him find a place to live, "to be kind"
Our young friend is no safer with him, than she was with her ex boyfriend. Four years ago, when this man was only 42 years old he carried a rifle out of him home in a guitar case, under the nose of two police officers, walked to a grocery store and called the police and threatened to kill himself. He was successfully 5150’d in Northern California. He was held for longer than the normal 72 hour hold. He did not respond to treatment immediately. He later told his girlfriend that he did this in order to make sure he had a roof over his head. She had kicked him out of the home when she discovered him snorting his prescription Ritalin.
Young Shelly does not realize that statistics show that if this man was snorting a drug at age 42, and put into a mental ward for his own safety that he’s probably not going to grow out these or any of his other behaviors any time soon. She also doesn’t realize, that she is probably not safe with this man.
This man’s condition, whatever it is, makes it so that he must take his medications. Shelly has related that she makes sure he takes his medications and that she will make sure that his young daughter will always be safe around her, and yet in the same email related how she does not want to be a mother. Yet, this 46 year old man is setting her up to be a mother to himself and to his daughter, otherwise how else would she know that he needs his medications to stay sane and to keep his daughter safe? This too is a form of manipulation and abuse. It is a stealthy form, you admit your problems, ask for help, and relieve yourself of any responsibility of them, making the other person suddenly responsible for your whole being. He is very good at the game of, "Oh woe is me.." intentionally sucking in victims so that they can care for him, even when they don’t want to.
This reporter has talked to this man’s "ex" who says that her then, 18 year old daughter once walked in on him masturbating in the living room and now after hearing he has a 19 year old girlfriend wonders did he set that situation up on purpose? Surely he is self centered, for he should have went to a more private area of the apartment.
His ex relates how his hyper sensitivity to noises caused him to be violent, and that once her then son of approximately 10 years old was thrown into a chair so hard that the chair broke because this man COULD HEAR the music. "If I can hear it, it’s too loud." Another time, this same child was knocked down to the ground, penned under the man’s knee and backhanded for not helping carry groceries from car trunk to apartment fast enough. This time the boy was only about eight years old. Even earlier he took a hammer to the boys game boy, the mother considered it an extreme form of discipline.
Shelly doesn’t realize that this man will only hit those who are smaller and more helpless than he is. The key is, does he consider her smaller and more helpless?
The Ex’s son, has related that he was molested by the man. No one believed him at the time. His biological daughter when five years old said that when she and daddy played dolls, that the monster doll who breathed fire, burned all of daddies clothes off one day while pretending. Shelly could not know this when she stepped into a 1969 Chevy El Camino…
The reporter feels it is her moral obligation to ask a few questions. Once Shelly has found her way home, and this man is once again on his own. He will have met with no consequences for his behavior because Shelly is LEGAL. So, he is free to move on to prey on someone else, and maybe next time the younger one will be 15 or 16, and maybe they will say they are 18. If he is so truly unstable that he doesn’t realize what he is doing is wrong, then what is going to stop him? Not his conscious.
This man is alive and well in Winston, Oregon. He can be reached at General Delivery, Roseburg, OR. His daughter lives only 10 miles south of him. What is the next chapter in this sad, sad story.
A representative of The Scott Willard Crisis Intervention Center, Inc. in Florida, suggested that the media’s attention be brought down to bear on this case so that Shelly can find a kind soul who will help her get home, and to raise awareness that these dangers of the internet is alive and well and happens everywhere. The man’s ex wants to raise the awareness of the courts, so that this man’s daughter is not put into even partial custody of this man.
Article Sources:
The Scott Willard Crisis Intervention Center, Inc.
2655 Ulmerton Rd #182
Clearwater FL 33762
PH: 813-210-5036
TOLL-FREE: 888-24-SWCIC
The author of this story has more sources and should be contacted if you wish to see hard copy proofs, or contact for sources.
Names have been changed to protect innocent bystanders