Tougher Law Gives Hope Stalking Case May Be Closed

One of the depressing aspects of writing a column is seeing the same subjects coming around again and again. There are some that you wish you could write about once and then they’d just go away. Very high on that list would be stalking.

I wrote my first column on it a little more than three years ago and in re-reading it, I’m struck by how futile I sounded when trying to think of a way to combat it. All crime is unsavory, but stalking seems particularly loathsome because it submits the victim to an around-the-clock threat of terror. No matter where you live, your address is Cape Fear.

Stalking hasn’t gone away, but the futility has eased a bit, thanks to an amendment to a state law that beefed up penalties and offered possible remedies.

If anyone doubts the urgency, they would only have needed to watch the sentencing Friday of Jon David Van Demark, who was given the maximum of four years for his stalking of former girlfriend Kendra Brown. Van Demark delivered a long, rambling statement in court that still had court officers talking hours later but that also gave observers a hint of what Ms. Brown has been going through.

Not that the court record wasn’t already replete. Here’s a sampling of Van Demark’s correspondence with Ms. Brown:

”. . . And to the remark in the paper about women not wanting the attention of their ex-boyfriends, well, it’s their own fault. Too many women come into a relationship and get what they can and split. Money-hungry bitches, and now I wonder to if you used me. Why did you accept my gifts? When I get out, I’m going to want some answers and if you have moved, I’ll find you.”

Given that that was written while Van Demark was already in custody, you get some idea of the holy terror that Brown’s life must have been.

Van Demark was convicted in June on two counts of stalking. On Friday, Judge William Froeberg gave him the maximum--and tacked on a 10-year restraining order--but even so, Van Demark will only serve about another year-and-a-half behind bars, based on time in custody already and state sentencing laws.

That time will fly for Kendra Brown, and it’s critical that Van Demark get treatment while in prison, which Froeberg recommended. A judge’s discretion to recommend state hospital treatment was one of the things added to previous stalking laws.

The improvements to the stalking laws give Deputy Dist. Atty. Jane Shade, who prosecuted Van Demark, at least some hope that this case may be closed.

“It’s not only that he’s going away that’s good, but the fact that there’s a process where he can be evaluated and hopefully be given treatment, so he’s both punished and off the street but getting some focused treatment on this,” she said. Shade said Van Demark’s behavior, right up to his sentencing on Friday, suggests he is “irrational and volatile.”

Besides sending letters and making phone calls, which authorities said numbered in the hundreds, Van Demark also vandalized Brown’s car--slashing its tires and throwing paint on it. He also threatened her, her relatives and friends say.

Court records show he has written more than 40 letters to her since his conviction in June.

What makes stalking a potentially vexing area of law is that physical harm usually has not occurred, although the prospect of it is ever-present. For example, when investigators asked Van Demark, who told them he had never hit Brown, if he thought his actions could ever escalate to violence, he replied only that he wasn’t sure but that he would “never intend to hurt her.”

Shade said she thinks sentencing laws against stalkers should be toughened again. “I think the law should take into account the damage done to the victims in what amounts to in some cases, psychological torture. In some cases, we have victims say, ‘I wish he’d hit me or shoot at me and get it over with.’ Messing with someone’s mind is very serious. That can be really scary.”

Another of Van Demark’s letters from jail began as follows: “Brown: Hey, what are you gonna do when I show up on your door? Could be next month, it could be a few years, whenever I get out. I know you think my love is just obsession and means nothing to you.”

The public can feel a little better because of the stalking law. But a huge burden now shifts to the state to provide treatment for Van Demark, if needed. This is not a case where we should be reading a couple years down the road that he somehow slipped through the cracks.

As Shade pointed out: “It’s not like it’s some stranger that randomly burglarized your house today and maybe he’ll still be a burglar when he gets out, but there’s no personal grudge against you. What was particularly creepy also was the way he (Van Demark) responded in court (on Friday). It was pretty scary.”

A footnote: Somewhere in the sheaves of paperwork that document Kendra Brown’s ordeal is a request from her to authorities.

She asked that they inform her whenever Van Demark is scheduled to be released.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.