How Technology Has Outpaced Missouri’s Stalking Laws

(TNS) — Technological advances have brought new ways for stalkers to track and intimidate their victims.

But Missouri law against stalking hasn't kept up, said Rep.  Lane Roberts . The Joplin Republican is seeking to update the law to change the definition of stalking as it relates to adult abuse.

"Having to look someone who is a victim of stalking in the eye and tell them you can't do anything to help them," while they are being terrorized, is a terrible feeling, Roberts said during a House Crime Prevention Committee hearing Monday.

Current law didn't anticipate the ways abusers can use cellphones, tracking devices and social media to surveil and harass, he said.

"Too frequently I was one of the people trying to explain to you why we couldn't do anything," he told the two stalking victims who testified. Roberts has served as a chief of police and director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety.

Both victims spoke about their experiences being abused and stalked.

Janice Thompson  described the persistence of her ex-husband.

"If he could not come to your home to intimidate you then he would find other ways to send the message that he was watching and you were always in danger," she said.

Those ways included mailing her gifts, sending his roommate to her workplace multiple times, and, recently, signing her up for spam texts that use his name.

Even seemingly minor actions take on a different meaning "when you're dealing with an abuser like him," Thompson said. "You know there is a message being sent: 'I am watching you, and short of living your life completely off the grid, you're not going to get away from me.'"

Thompson's ex-husband was eventually imprisoned for ambushing his ex-fiancée, severely beating her and shooting her boyfriend five times.

Lisa Saylor  told the committee that her abuser, on probation for stalking and sexually assaulting her while she was in the hospital, was finally sent to prison after the eighth time he violated probation.

While in prison, he continued to send her mail, got his family to contact her, and even discovered her new address, prompting her to move, Saylor said.

Saylor said her abuser is now released and still isn't leaving her alone. He takes screenshots of photos from her Facebook page and sends them to her family members, asking questions.

"Because there's no rule that covers that right now, even making a police report, nothing can be done," she said.

In current law, stalking is an unwanted course of conduct that reasonably causes alarm to another person or someone living in their household. The law only mentions following, communicating and unwanted contact as examples of stalking, though it says stalking is not limited to those actions.

Roberts' bill expands the definition of "course of conduct" to include two or more acts of following, monitoring, observing, surveilling, threatening or communicating to or about the person "by any action, method or device." Actions that are direct, indirect or through a third party are included.

Committee members were supportive of the bill but had some questions about how it would apply.

Rep.  Richard West , R- Wentzville, said that as a former police officer he knows "there's very few resources when you have someone who is continually followed and abused."

But he asked if hiring a private investigator in a divorce or custody case would count as harassment through a third party.

Roberts said he thought it typically would not, unless the investigator was hired for the purpose of harassment. That would have to be determined on an "evidentiary" basis, he said.

Other legislators, playing "devil's advocate," have pointed out that people might gain the ability to track others through legal means, such as a shared phone account, Roberts said.

"I would submit to you this," he said. "Unless you have personally been the victim of stalking, you can't imagine what it means to live under that threat all the time. It frankly doesn't matter by what means you obtain the technology to do it. It is still stalking. It is still wrong. And this legislation has the ability to do something about it."

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