Victim Trying To Escape 14 Years Of Stalking

By Ashli Sims, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- A woman moves to Oklahoma, hoping to escape from a nightmare that spanned 14 years.  She says she's a victim of stalking.  It's a crime that affects 1.4 million people.

The woman has basically turned her life upside down to get away from her stalker.  She says after 14 years of looking over her shoulder, it was the only way she could be free.

You mention the word grandkids and Diane just gushes.  Her face just lights up, when she talks about their soccer teams and hockey goals.  And, it makes you wonder why she chose to move so far away from them.

"So, I sold all of my belongings.  I left my family.  I left my grandkids.  And, it's hard for me. It's really hard because I miss my family," said Diane.

Diane says she packed up and moved nearly 800 miles from a small town in Minnesota to escape a man who'd harassed her for more than a decade.

"Every night he'd have to call me. He came to my work," said Diane.  "He was sleeping under my porch."

Diane says she changed the locks, changed her phone number twice, called the cops, tried to get restraining orders, but nothing worked.

"He put sugar in the oil, he did this.  He did all kinds of things," said Diane.  "It's been a living hell."         

She said her stalker just wouldn't let go, even targeting her male friends.

"He broke his jaw, smashed in his sinus cavities. and they said if he'd struck him one more time the fragments of the bone in his sinus cavities would have punctured his brain and killed him," said Diane.

Diane traded her 13-acre Minnesota farm for a home that moves to try to escape the nightmare.  Just before she left, she says her stalker struck again, kicking out the truck's grill, slashing her new RV's tires.

So, no matter how much this grandmother misses the faces of her grandchildren, she says she can never go back.

"But to go back there as long as he's around, I'll never be able to be free of him. And, I know this," said Diane.

Diane was reluctant to tell her story.  But, she wanted to take part in Stalking Awareness Month to help others.  And, she wants to encourage anyone in this situation to not wait, call the cops and get help.