09x06 - The Box on her Doorstep

[bunniefuu]

I was the victim
of a crime, but...

I have strong feelings about
thinking of myself as a victim.

And that's something that

I've really determined

I don't want to identify as.

One day, after I had been
married for several months,

I came home,

and at the doorstep
was a box addressed to me.

When I opened this package
and saw was in it,

I was so disgusted.

I just need a second.
Sorry.

Sorry.

It created a dark mystery
in my life

that remained unsolved
for a really long time.

All told, it went on
for about nine years.

He was the puppet master

pulling these terrible strings
behind the scenes.

There's just a revulsion
and horror to that.

He's a monster, and he needs
to be put away.

I've never known
my parents together.

They separated when I was six
weeks old, and shortly

after that, when I was
a toddler, we moved to Arizona.

So I was raised
primarily by my mom.

My mom met Gary Hardy
at church when I was

eight years old.

They were both in a music and
drama ministry at our church,

and that's when they really
began to get to know

each other.

And right around the time
I turned nine was when they had

their first date,

and six days later
they got engaged,

and three months later
they got married.

This is a picture
of our new family

on my mom and Gary's
wedding day.

I remember on this day
I actually felt

overjoyed for them.
I saw how happy my mom was.

This was
a happy day for me.

I see in this picture sort of
the culmination of what I think

my mom had been waiting for
for a long time,

to find someone to share her
life with, to raise her kids

with, to be a partner with,

and I understand
why she was so happy.

Around this time was when I
had a conversation with my mom

and Gary and told them

that I would be calling him
dad from here on out.

I remember Gary when I told
him this having an extremely

positive emotional reaction.

I think he might have even
cried, saying that this was

so important
and special to him.

He was so glad that
I would be calling him dad.

I have wondered a lot if
I factored into Gary's...

Let's call it targeting...
Of my mom and our family.

I see a child who had
a lot of innocence,

and things were
about to change

and change
pretty dramatically.

He fooled all of us
for 13 years.

I think even from early on,
I had

a somewhat of a sense of
mistrust toward Gary.

When my mom and Gary got
married and he moved into

our home, Gary was
a very affectionate person...

Okay, kiddo.
Time for bed.

...both with my mom
and myself.

He was a hugger.
He loved to give hugs.

What?
No hug?

But I did not like
Gary's hugs.

They were too long,
and they were too tight.

Gary's hugs always felt
possessive to me, and that

just gave me a bad feeling,
made me uncomfortable.

But what can you do?
You hug back.

It always felt like
he wanted more

from me
than I wanted to give.

I think I felt obligated
to hug in return,

so I would just hug him back,
because that was

the expectation, and that was
clearly what he wanted.

But in those moments,
I was always

hesitant,
wanting it to end.

I think I was probably
usually the one

to pull away first
from a hug from Gary.

I think it's easy to,
especially maybe as a child,

just ignore those feelings
or brush them off.

You accept what you're
given when

you're a child,
and it seems normal.

This is a picture of Gary.

Yeah, it's a pretty good
snapshot of who Gary was.

Always wore a polo shirt.

He liked to wear a hat
like this.

He had a belly.

He wasn't a glamorous guy, like,
I look at him in this picture,

and I think what a dweeb,
he doesn't look cool at all.

Gary appeared to be like
a goofy, fuddy-duddy dad.

There was one time...
I must have had

a really
terrible nightmare.

And I remember my mom
wasn't there.

I don't know where she was,
but it was just Gary.

And I remember going in
in the middle

of the night
to tell him this.

Hey, you.
What's the matter?

- I had a bad dream.
- A bad dream? Come here.

I was raised
in a Christian household,

and Gary seemed to be every
bit as much of a faithful

Christian as our family
was, and...

this is really difficult.

But he had me sit in bed with
him, and he prayed for me.

Come here.
Come on. Right here.

All right.
Bad dream, huh?

Close your eyes.

And...

even though, you know,
oh, he was praying for me,

this should be a good thing,

it was just
the most uncomfortable,

reviling feeling
that I had from that.

I had the sense that he didn't
really want to comfort me

and help me feel better from
this horrible dream,

but that he was turning it
into an opportunistic thing

for himself.

And he would bring up
that story subsequently

many times about
how wonderful that was

that I came to him
in my hour of distress,

and I let him comfort me.

Oh, sorry.
This is, like, really...

All right, beat it.
Go to bed.

I had a hard time even

articulating to myself
what I felt about Gary.

Even when I did

acknowledge the feelings I had,
I would rationalize them away.

It didn't seem like something
that was worth sharing,

even with my mom.

But I remember thinking
I... no matter what happens,

like, if I ever have a bad
dream again,

I'm not coming to him
for comfort.

Going into ninth grade,
I was really excited.

There were some
opportunities that were

only available
to the ninth graders.

One of them was this pom squad
cheer line kind of dance team

that a lot of my friends
and I had tried out for.

They had said that
they would inform us

by mail if we had gotten
onto the team.

So every day, I was checking
the mail with some

anticipation to see if I had
gotten this good news.

One afternoon, I decided to go
check the mail,

and inside there was
a package addressed to me.

The return address
said AJHS JAG.

AJHS was Anderson Junior
High School.

And the name of this cheer
squad was JAG line.

So I thought,
this is it!

Got my acceptance,
and it was nice and thick,

which is always a good sign
for an acceptance.

So I pulled open the top,

and I pulled out what
I expected to be good news.

And instead it was a stack
of black and white

p*rn*graphy

that looked like it had been
photocopied onto these pages,

page after page.

The horror and revulsion
was immediate.

To this day,
I can remember

what I saw
on the first page of it.

It just shocked me to
the point where I was

shaking and crying.

I do recall first thing just
showing it to my parents

and saying,
"What is this?

What is going on here?"

Gary called the police
and filed a police report.

What kind of sicko
would do something like this?

"Who would do this
to my daughter and why?"

And, "Let's get to
the bottom of this."

I believe they asked me a few
questions, whether I had

any enemies, whether I had any
ideas of who might do this.

Can you think of anyone
at school who would do this?

- No.
- Whoever it is,

you better find him.

I felt thankful
at that point that

Gary was there to make
the police report.

Ultimately, they just took
the contents of the package,

filed a report, and we never
heard anything

about it after that.

I think Gary saw himself
as some sort of

hero in his own bizarre

superhero story,

that he was
getting away with this.

I am not gonna let anything
happen to you. Okay?

It was scary to not know
who would want to do this

to me and why.

Not to have any answers
about this was frustrating,

and it created a dark mystery

in my life that remained
unsolved for a really long time.

This is a journal that I kept
in 2003 and 2004.

This is where I would express
my thoughts,

maybe tell my secrets,

and you'll notice that there's
pages and pages of writing,

and then right here,
right about in the middle,

it stops,

and there are blank pages for
the entire rest of the journal.

Typically, I kept
my journals in my bedroom,

but I would

take them all over the house
to write in them.

And I know that there were times
that I did leave them elsewhere.

I never worried about anyone
reading my journal.

I figured that everybody
in the house

knew that this was
off limits to them.

But one day,
I was looking for

my journal,
and I couldn't find it.

I could have sworn I set it

down in the living room
on an end table.

What's the matter?
What are you looking for?

I can't find my journal.

Gary's reaction about
my missing journals seemed

like everybody else's
in my family.

Just sort of mystified.
"I don't know.

"What do you think happened
to it?

Where do you think you
left it?"

I thought I left it
right here.

Retrace your steps.
Maybe it's in your bedroom.

There was never any indication,
any suspicious activity of his.

I checked, it's not.

So when it
disappeared once,

it didn't seem all
that strange.

But when it happened
multiple times,

there seemed to be
a definite pattern.

I'm sure
it'll turn up somewhere.

My journal would go
missing once every few months,

it seems... it would
just disappear,

and I'd have
to start a new one.

I'm not a very
absent-minded person.

It didn't make sense
for me to only

be losing this one type
of thing consistently,

and the reason for that

I can realize now,
Gary enjoyed reading my private

thoughts that I would never
have confided in him,

and this was a way of

just taking that for himself
without permission.

After receiving the first
package with the p*rn*graphy,

I was skittish
about checking the mail.

But as days went by,
and then

weeks and then months
with no further incidents,

I definitely felt
a sense of relief,

and it seemed to confirm that
this was a one-time thing.

About a year had passed since
I received the first package,

and one day after school, again,
I went to check the mail.

This time, there was
an envelope addressed to me

again with no return address

and the stamp
was upside down.

I just had
a sickening feeling,

but I opened it,

and this time,
it was just



explicit sexual acts,

and it had a message scrawled
in what looked like

red lipstick, saying,

I love you, I want you,
I need you!

And it was signed with
the name of a boy

from my school who I had
a crush on who was

a foreign exchange student.
His name was Hans.

But I knew

it could not possibly have
been from him,

because it resembled
the first package so much.

And at the time I received
the first package,

I didn't even know this boy.

He wasn't even in the country,

so someone knew
that I liked this boy

and was messing with me.

Gary was the only other person
at home with me,

and I immediately
took it to him.

And I remember sitting
with him on my bed,

sobbing, and him putting
his arm around me, hugging me,

comforting me.

We were looking at
the envelope

and saying,
"Who could do this?

Why would anyone do this?
What is this about?"

I think the person
that sent this

isn't mad at you.

What do you mean?

Gary said to me, "Well,
you know, when someone puts

"a postage stamp upside down,

you know what
that means, right?"

And I said, "No, I don't know
what that means," and he said,

"It means I love you."

It's kind of like
a secret code.

I just remember chills going
down my spine

at that thought that...

That this is someone's sick
way of telling me

that they love me?

It was that much
more disturbing.

It's okay.

Looking back, it's no surprise
to me that this happened on

a day that I would be alone
in the house with Gary.

My guess is that
was intentional.

He could be the hero.

He'd be the comforter,
saves the day,

but at the same time

witness my pain and anguish
that he had caused.

That makes me very angry,

and it's pretty revolting
to think that

he might have done that with
a very calculated intention.

When I was in high school,
my mom went to a therapy group

on Monday nights,

so that would take her out of
the house for several hours.

My brother had already
left home for college,

so it would just be me and
Gary alone in the house.

I increasingly had a sense
sometimes of Gary looking at me

in, uh, maybe
an inappropriate way.

I've never been
a provocative dresser,

but at those times when I wore
something that was maybe

a little out of character
for me,

maybe a little bit low-cut
or a little bit tighter,

I would notice Gary

just eyeing me,

looking a little bit
too long at me.

And I think as a woman, you
just get a sense when a man is

looking at you in a...
In a different kind of way,

with a different intention.

But I was able to
rationalize it

again and think,
eh, I'm probably making it up.

Okay, I'm out.

Everyone else
in my family didn't

seem to have
these feelings about him.

My mom loved him,
was happy to be with him.

So that makes it easier
to rationalize

and explain it away.

He confessed to my mom
that he had a...

p*rn*graphy addiction.

Obviously, he probably is
the one that sent me

these packages.

I would sometimes do some
clerical work for Gary in

his office,
and he would take me

out to lunch
at fancy restaurants.

When we would go out for
these lunches,

he would do little things
to make it appear

that maybe I was his date
instead of his daughter,

and that might look like
putting his hand on my back

to lead me into the restaurant

or reaching out for my hand
across the table.

It made me feel gross
and uncomfortable,

and it made me feel like he
was trying to use me as a prop

for some sort of ego stroking

gratification of looking like
he could be out to a nice lunch

with a woman less than
half his age.

I just love it
when you come by

the office and we can spend
some quality time together.

But even though
it creeped me out

and I didn't like it,
I would kind of tell myself,

maybe it's more benign
than I want to think it is.

Even though you might think,
oh, well, obviously,

he probably is the one that
sent me these packages... didn't

necessarily connect in my mind
to the packages.

Cheers.

He's never, like,
made a pass at me.

He's never grabbed my butt...
It was all subtle enough

that you could kind of just
sweep it under the rug.

When I was 15, I found out
that Gary was being

let go from his work for
viewing p*rn*graphy

on his work computer.

My mom and Gary would
fight behind closed doors

most of the time,

so we would hear sort of
muffled arguments.

He confessed to my mom
that he had

a p*rn*graphy addiction.

It definitely
came as a surprise.

It felt awkward and strange to
know that Gary,

my dad, was into
this type of thing.

Looking back, I think finding
out that Gary had a problem

with p*rn*graphy should have
been a really strong indicator

that he was the one who had
sent me these packages.

But at that point in my life,

I had been told p*rn*graphy
is everywhere.

Every man you know looks at it,
and it's all over the place.

Right?
So because of that,

I had a sense that it wasn't
all that uncommon for someone

to get caught up in this.

Don't worry,
we'll work it out.

My mom let me know that
she and Gary were going to work

through this by going

to therapy together,
and because his reaction to me

receiving these packages
was so comforting,

it just didn't add up.

Even if he likes
to look at it, too,

it doesn't mean he would
harm mein this way.

I graduated from high school,
and I was still 17 when I moved

out of the house, and I went
across the country to a college

outside Chicago.

When I went away to college,

I really enjoyed a period of
no incidents of harassment.

That was beautiful.

It was really nice for

at least the first two years.

That was all the more
convincing that whoever

had done this to me was someone
I knew in high school.

The summer before
my senior year of college,

I got engaged to the man who's
now my husband of 16 years.

When I got engaged,
things begin to happen again.

And it started with my email.

- Oh, my God.
- What happened?

I would get signed up
for all sorts

of subscriptions that I didn't
sign myself up for,

and often times,
they were sexual in nature.

So lingerie catalogs,
for example.

It happened again.

I didn't send these.

And then it turned into
a much bigger

violation when friends of mine
began to receive emails,

not really from me,
but from my account.

At least one friend
received some of

the very romantic
and very personal emails

I sent my then fiance,
so clearly, someone had

access to my email
and was doing a lot

of untoward things with it.

Let me try something.

I think I can figure out
where these emails are

coming from.

So my fiance at the time, who
was studying computer science,

knew a lot about how to
trace emails.

What?

It turned out that
the emails were coming from

Chandler, Arizona,
which is where

I was raised
and where my parents lived.

Finding out that these emails
were coming

from my hometown
was a big revelation.

We need to call your mom.

We told my mom
and Gary where this

was coming from,
and he spun that like crazy.

He had an explanation,
you know, about it

had to be somebody from
high school.

He turned it into,

"Well, see how this is evidence?
All along,

"I've been telling you,
some weirdo

at your high school
who was doing this to you."

His reaction to it
was convincing.

It seemed like no matter
how many times I'd changed

my password, inevitably,

some strange or inappropriate
new thing would happen.

But sometimes when I would
come home from college,

I would log into my email
on Gary's computer,

thinking nothing of this.

What I didn't realize was that
he had a program

on his computer
that was tracking

and saving my keystrokes
in order for him to get

my password.

And that's how he continued
to hack my email.

I heard his footsteps,
it felt

a little bit like
I was being watched.

This picture is
from my wedding day.

This is me and Gary.

He looks very strange.

He doesn't look happy.

When I got engaged, he seemed
really frazzled by that.

He felt a sense
of possession of me.

During
our father-daughter dance,

I was very uncomfortable with
the way he was holding me,

and I kept trying
to pull away,

and I think he was
picking up on it

and just refused to release
his grip a little bit.

I just feel really grossed out
thinking about all...

All of those circumstances
surrounding that day.

Leading up to my wedding day,

I had gotten my wedding dress
back from alterations,

and it was ready to go
for the big day.

So I went into my bedroom
to put the dress on.

It was nighttime,
and Gary had said he was

going to be taking out
the trash right then.

He'd be right back to
come see me in the dress.

My bedroom was on the side of
the house next

to the side yard where
we would keep the trash cans.

I was getting undressed,
and I heard his footsteps

on the side of the house
where my window faced,

and I heard the sound of

the pail being dragged
across the gravel.

And then I heard
these sounds stop.

It just gave me this sort of
chilling sense.

I felt a little bit
like I was being watched,

especially because there was
a section of my blinds

that was actually missing.

I've wondered, why exactly
were those blinds missing?

There was a lot of just
telling myself,

it's your imagination.

Maybe it was our cat... our cat
would go behind the blinds,

get playful, and poke out
a little section.

I'll never know for sure
if it was Gary outside,

but I felt watched,

and I just made sure to turn
my back to the window

as I got changed.

This is my bedroom,

and I can see this piece of
the blinds that's turned down.

When this wedding dress
incident happened,

there were more of these
blinds that were turned down.

But you know what strikes me
when I look

at the blinds and where
that piece is missing,

turned down, that's not where
the cat would have been.

Cat was not 4 feet tall.

Even if she jumped up
on the windowsill,

she couldn't have poked
her head that far through

the blinds, so I think
that's pretty interesting.

Looking at this, I suspect
that it would have been Gary

who did that in order to be able
to look into the room at me.

One of the scariest parts
about these years of harassment

was that no matter where I went,
it followed me.

Even after I got married
and moved into my own apartment

with my husband,

at least a couple of times,
my journal would go missing

from our home again.

And, at this point,

it wasn't just my journal
that was missing.

Occasionally, pieces of
my underwear would go missing,

as well.

And I thought,
maybe I'm absent-minded or it

got eaten in the dryer... just
a classic thing that happens.

So I tried to explain it away
with that sort of rationale.

But when it happens
enough times,

you begin to get suspicious that
someone's taking these things.

- I feel like a crazy person.
- It happened again?

- What's missing?
- At one point,

the lingerie that I had picked
out and worn for our wedding

night went missing
from my dresser drawer,

and I knew it couldn't have
gotten lost in the wash.

So I knew someone was
coming into my apartment

and had to have taken it.

Maybe we should get the locks
changed just to be safe.

And all we could think was
maybe we were leaving our door

unlocked sometimes
without realizing it,

not remembering...
What we didn't realize

was at one point, Gary took
our apartment key and made

a copy, so he was able

to access our apartment
at any time.

All of these things
really did put us

on edge,
me and my husband.

And so a time went by,
we did feel very shaken up

and very paranoid.

One day after I had been
married for several months,

I came home, and at
the doorstep was a box

addressed to me.

But I didn't recognize
the name or the return address.

Seemed a little strange.

I wasn't expecting anything,

but on the other hand,
I guess foolishly maybe

I didn't learn my lesson,
and I just...

You still get excited
to get a package in the mail,

so I wasn't thinking
much of it.

I opened the package,

and inside
was a sex toy,

and on this object was
a printed label

with my husband's name on it,

taped to this thing.

This was much more extreme
and invasive than

the other packages that
I had received in the past.

This one had me spiraling

and just terrified.

I was so disgusted

and so disgusted that
someone was thinking

of me with this thing
in mind.

Sorry.

I'm sorry, I didn't expect
to get emotional.

Okay.

I went to enter my apartment,

and the door was unlocked,
and I was

not sure if I had left
the door unlocked.

I was in just such a...
A state of upset

and disarray, so I called
my husband first to say,

"Can you please come home
and be with me?

I do not want to be alone."

I think we've been
broken into.

Call me back as soon
as you get this.

And unfortunately, he was
tied up in a meeting



And so the next person
I called was Gary.

It's Sarah.

His office was right around
the corner from our apartment

at that time,
and he came rushing over.

He was kind of all business,

like, I'm gonna be here
to, you know, be

your protector,
and we're gonna call the police.

We're gonna find out
who did this to you.

He played the hero.

He looked behind
all the doors.

I remember even a sense of
almost like anger on his part.

"Who would do this to you?

"I can't believe this is
still happening to you.

"Can you believe that they found
you again after all these years,

after all these moves."

I can't believe somebody would
follow you all this time.

I am gonna take care of it.
Okay?

He investigated
the whole space.

And then he called the police
and filed the report

about this incident himself.

I think Gary was very skilled
at the game

that he was playing.

He was very good at it.

He knew how to exhibit
all the right behaviors on

the surface so that I could
never suspect

that this was him,
but then, if I ever did,

he could have all this
evidence to point to.

"I'm not like that.
I'm like this.

Look how I treat you."
It's such a mind game.

It makes me angry.
It disgusts me.

I think keeping us in suspense,
keeping us guessing,

I think somehow
to Gary that felt exciting,

that he was getting
away with this.

I got a phone call,
and a detective

introduced himself and said,

"We think we've found
your harasser."

And then he asked me if I knew
someone named Gary Hardy.

Not long
after the police report

was filed about this most
recent package,

I got a phone call.

Hello?

And a detective
introduced himself.

And then he asked me if I knew
someone named Gary Hardy.

I knew what was coming next,

and in that moment, I think
I had two feelings.

One was horror,
and one was relief,

and when I explained
that was my stepdad,

the detectives said, "We think
we've found your harasser."

Oh, my God.

The detective informed
me that Gary's secretary

had filed
a separate police report

of her own, because Gary's
secretary opened his mail as

part of her job.

And one day, prior to me
receiving this package,

she opened a package that
contained a sex toy,

and she closed it up, pretended
never to have seen it.

And lo and behold,
a few days later,

this thing arrives
on my doorstep.

The day that I called Gary
to come help me,

he went back to the office
afterward and told his

secretary exactly what it was
that I had received.

And at that moment,
she realized this was

the same object she had seen
in his office.

She put the pieces together

that this was Gary
doing this to me.

And so she filed her own
police report.

Once we knew that this most
recent package had come

from Gary,

we knew that all
the other packages

and letters and email hacks
had to have been him.

Thinking about all the times
Gary had

come to the rescue,
supposedly, and tried

to be the hero in
each situation,

it just made me sick,
and it made me angry

that he had played me
in that way.

But ultimately,
even though it was

a horrible revelation
to find out the truth,

there's a lot of freedom in
that and a lot of relief.

There was also grief.

There was the sense that
everything we knew

about our life as a family
was a lie,

and that everything was going
to change from here.

He did willingly go
to the police station

and was arrested there.

This is an email that Gary
sent to me

on July 19, 2005.

"To Sarah, I'm ashamed
of what I did to you.

"I realize saying I'm sorry
doesn't come close

"to healing
the pain and anguish

"I have caused you
the past 10 years.

"My actions were despicable,
deceitful, and tormented

"you in ways I cannot
even imagine.

"I'm so ashamed at how
I could possibly as*ault

"and deceive someone whom
I did love and cherish.

"You were a precious gift
entrusted to me

"by your mom and by God,
and I abused that gift,

and I'm very, very sorry."

I didn't believe this at all.

You've done these behaviors
for 10 years.

Now you're sorry? Why?
Because you got caught.

And they still are just kind
of silly,

meaningless words to me.

Maybe also because
words like this

imply a genuine relationship.

And I don't want a genuine
relationship with him.

A line that bothers me
from this email is

"you were a precious gift
entrusted to me by your mom

and by God."

I don't think of myself as
a gift to be given or to be had,

really, unless I so choose.

Gary received a plea bargain
that would have given him

something like one or two years
total in prison,

and he chose not to take it,

and I'm very happy about that.

Ultimately, I think Gary's,
like, great dream here

would have been
to have some type of

sexual relationship with me.

That's what I think
was really the goal.

But if not that, I think he
wanted to be sort of like this.

Prince Charming in my life,

this savior, hero, God,
who I just looked up to

and thought was so amazing

and who was just
this great daddy,

and even saying those words
makes me wanna vomit.

It's appalling.
It's... it's disgusting.

It's infuriating.

And I just really rejoiced to
know that he would be put away.

Justice was being served,

and I did not have to think
about him for 20 years.

I don't wish him ill,

but I don't want to see him
free in society.

I think he's in the place
he needs to be,

and I wish that he could stay
there for the rest of his life.

I try not to worry about what
may happen when Gary is

released from prison,

but I can't say that
I don't have any concerns.

I hope that he has no vendetta
against me, my family.

But at the same time, when I
find out he's getting released,

I'm going to be protecting
myself in every way possible.

Not to say he couldn't

turn his life around,
become the actual

upstanding citizen
he pretended to be,

but I wouldn't trust it
if I saw it.