BYU Students Not Exempt from Stalkers

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    By Daniel Jackson

    The whole, messy situation began on the other side of the Atlantic. A female BYU travel-abroad student in Spain met a young German man who took a fancy to her. They had a casual relationship, and the student eventually returned to the United States.

    So did the man.

    Markus Butzer attended a religious camp in Colorado on a special visa, but when the visa expired he did not return to Germany. Instead, police said, Butzer had a “revelation” that he was to marry the BYU student he”d met in Spain, and he came to Provo to look for her. He was warned by police not to come on campus but ignored the warning.

    “He told an officer that he”d been sent by God to marry her,” said BYU Police Capt. Michael Harroun.

    Butzer was arrested after violating an official letter banning him from campus. He was charged with stalking – a class A misdemeanor in Utah – and was tried, convicted and sentenced to two years in jail, with all but 45 days suspended. A handwritten note in court documents says Butzer faces deportation to Germany, his home country.

    BYU Police have responded to 23 stalking complaints since January 2005, Harroun said. While situations vary, Harroun said a stalker is often someone who once had a friendly or romantic relationship with the person being stalked and who refuses to accept the relationship is over.

    “Usually, it”s a couple that have maybe been on a few dates; the girl breaks it off, and the guy”s not satisfied with the breakup,” Harroun said. “There are excessive phone calls, some threatening in nature.”

    Sometimes, a stalker may have met his victim only once before the harassing behavior starts.

    “A guy becomes fixated on a girl, and because she”s polite to him, he mistakes it for interest,” Harroun said. “He mistakes friendship for something more.”

    BYU police reports show the lengths to which stalkers will go. One man followed a female student everywhere she went, to the extent he could tell her everything she”d done in a day. He once called her cell phone 200 to 300 times in a single day and said he would change his phone number so the student couldn”t screen his calls.

    Another Deseret Towers resident first met her stalker in an online chat room when she was 14. They talked often over the phone for four years, never meeting face to face. The man obtained her personal information from BYU”s online directory. He sent her an engagement ring in the mail; she sent it back. He told her he would kill her if she didn”t love him; he later told police he was just kidding. The student”s resident assistant told the stalker to stop calling, but he continued to call. When police contacted the man, he told them he didn”t care what they said and that would keep calling.

    Not all stalkers are male. In one stalking case reported to police, a woman stalked a male student who was engaged to someone else. The woman approached the student”s ecclesiastical leader and made allegations about the student; another time, she approached him and his fianc?e while they ate in a restaurant and made a scene that made the couple feel uncomfortable.

    The vast majority of stalking cases reported to BYU police are cases of men stalking women, said officer Jennifer Jensen, who handles many of the stalking cases. In reality, she said, women stalk only slightly less than men do, but men tend not to report being stalked to police.

    “Men stalk more than women, but not by a huge majority,” Jensen said. “[Male victims] don”t contact the police because they don”t want to look weak, or tell their friends they have a civil stalking injunction against a woman. They”re worried their friends will say, ”Are you scared of a girl?””

    Jensen said that female stalkers often start off more violent, but the violence tapers off over time, while male stalkers often start out fairly benign but become more violent as time passes. She added that the stalker”s previous relationship with the victim can affect how dangerous he or she is.

    “Usually, the longer the relationship lasted and the more intimate it was, the more dangerous the stalking behavior is and the longer it continues,” Jensen said.

    Jensen said she sometimes asks a class full of students if they”ve ever been stalked and usually gets a high number of raised hands. She estimates about 25 to 50 percent of BYU students have been stalked at one time or another. Many of those students never report being stalked. Lisa Ruefenacht, a print journalism major from California, was stalked by another student living down the hall when she lived in Helaman Halls.

    “It was this other girl living in the dorms,” Ruefenacht said. “We hung out a little when I first got there, but I moved on, met other people. … I was frankly just over her as a friend.”

    The other student, however, didn”t see it that way.

    “She”d leave her door open so she”d know when I left,” Ruefenacht said. “I started using the stairwell at the other end of the hall so I wouldn”t have to pass her door. Her roommate said she”d watch from the window to see who I was leaving with … as much as you can tell from what car someone was driving.”

    One night, she said, the girl called her 14 times in about two hours.

    A stalking victim must first tell the stalker she wants no further contact from him, Jensen said. It helps if this is done with a signed letter (the victim should keep a copy) or verbally in the presence of a witness. After that, the victim should keep a log of any attempted contact from the stalker. Police may send a letter instructing the stalker to leave the victim alone; if that doesn”t work, police will serve the offender with a civil stalking injunction. If the stalker violates the injunction, he can be arrested and charged.

    Jensen advises students who find themselves being stalked to report it “before it ruins their lives.”

    “The earlier a person reports it, the lower the incidence of violence,” she said. “The longer a person lets the behavior go on, the more property damage there will be and threats against [the victim”s] physical safety.”

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