Under Siege: Stalking Victims Speak Out

June 20, 2006 — -- As her marriage started to fall apart, Donna Hurst just wanted a divorce and a clean break.

Her husband wouldn't stand for it, though, and when Hurst tried to move herself and her young children away from him, he began stalking her, often with violent results.

"He'd find me, gag me, and sometimes rape me as punishment for trying to leave him," said Hurst of Arizona. "I moved from place to place -- just leaving everything behind. He'd always break in. He'd tell me, 'Nobody cares. Nobody's paying attention.'"

He was often right -- police would usually let him go. Finally, after three years, he ended up in jail serving a lengthy sentence, although even in lockup, he sent more than 300 letters to her house, she said.

As savage as it may seem, Hurst's story is just one of millions out there, and as new statistics show, the problem is not going away.

About one out of every 22 people in a nationwide survey of nearly 10,000 U.S. residents reported that they had been stalked, according to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, overseen by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Put another way, it means that about 4.5 percent of the entire U.S. population has experienced stalking -- a finding similar to another large survey taken about 10 years ago.

The problem clearly isn't going away, and in many instances, lax state laws or uninformed police officers exacerbate the problem.

However, victims' advocates say, there has been a slow but steady change in the public mindset about the seriousness of stalking.

Most people now understand how obsessively possessive or disruptive behavior is often a red flag that a person can turn deadly. As many as three-fourths of female murder victims were being stalked by the perpetrator before they were killed, experts say.

That means more people are reporting stalking, and more police are listening.