When the Cyberstalker Isn’t Just Yours: Watching Collective Trauma Unfold Across Michigan

I have had the unsettling but unique experience of watching one man’s profound mental illness ripple through an entire community. It is truly an event like no other, because there’s a specific kind of hell that comes with being stalked online by a diagnosed sociopath; one who behaves like this and then can’t wrap his head around why he’s not allowed to see his child.

It’s not cinematic. It’s not thrilling. It’s a continuous, grinding erosion of safety; an invisible war that follows you into every inbox, every comment section, every silence. Waiting for the shoe to drop. Waiting for random strangers to invade your home. Even being hours away didn’t stop him.

And this hell wasn’t just mine.

What I went through wasn’t an isolated incident. The man who targeted me didn’t stop when I spoke up; instead he often doubles down and shifts targets, even going after my children. He has managed to turn his sick obsessions into a career of cruelty, rotating through new victims like seasonal décor. And for five years, his attorney watched on, looking for ways to craft it into Federal litigation that would make a name for them both. Then, they’ll brag about how they traumatized your children.

I’m still watching it play out in real time, surveying the damage. And the truth is, it is a collective trauma impacting multiple people; some who have no idea how deep the roots really go.

The Collective Wound

When I finally realized how many others he’d gone after, I stopped calling it “harassment” because that word felt too small. This was intentional psychological warfare and the damage wasn’t confined to any one individual. It was shared. Recycled. Mutated. His “craft” continuously evolved after each victim, learning the limits of the law and then intentionally stepping over them.

Many people suffered in ways that mirrored my own. The same manipulation. The same public smears. The same exhaustion that seeps into your bones. I see echoes of it everywhere.

I watched the recent Port Huron City Council meeting and I saw the remnants, the echoes of our shared stalker’s abuse, this time from City Manager James Freed. A man who like the rest of us, was harassed by the same stalker and his followers, too; a core group that operates like an online cult. Freed was also unwillingly dragged into this person’s circus; he had his privacy ripped away, his daughter’s pictures shoved into a Federal filing so a fugitive could profit. He too was used as a tool to sue a city for alleged “harms” that never even happened.

What many people didn’t realize, was the actual good and reasonable intent behind Freed’s proposal to tighten the reins on public comment at the City Council meetings.

The reasoning was never spoken aloud.
No one wanted to summon the “Boogeyman.”
But everyone in that room damn well knew why this was being proposed.
You’d have to be an idiot to not know.

Those of us who’ve been through this kind of digital siege could read it like a confession. You don’t try to better organize the rules of public discourse unless you’ve been burned by someone who weaponized it and don’t want anyone else to suffer through that same kind of abuse. When you’re trying to put safeguards in place so other people who just want to do their jobs aren’t battered and abused, too.

Because, like a horror movie, you never really know if the monster is going to get back up. The best option you have, is to use every tool at your disposal to protect yourself and others.

And damn if I didn’t hear echoes of my stalker in nearly all of the public speakers. I’ve been working on a database to help people protect themselves from the abuse doled out by a very mentally ill, but very charismatic man; one that will help them preemptively block known harassers and avoid businesses where a trap could be set. Tonight, as names rolled off people’s tongues, I searched the database. And nearly every single speaker during the public comment portion of that meeting was one of his “followers.” As I sat there watching, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had coached them; fed them talking points. It certainly wouldn’t have been unheard of.

Watching it go down at first made me sad. Then, it just made me very angry.

The Things Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud

Here’s the uncomfortable truth I want to tell every single person who voted against that proposal:

You could be next. It doesn’t take much. you could disagree with him over something trivial and end up in the crosshairs. Like me, you may have been minding your own business, and been dragged in and harassed for no reason. Don’t believe me? Tell him he’s wrong about something. See how that works out for you, because I and many others guarantee he will lose his mind on you.

If you’ve never been put through hell by a malignant narcissist with internet access and no conscience, you’ll never fully understand.

You might kind of get it.
You might think, “Well, people just need to ignore trolls.”
But when the “troll” is a fully grown adult man whose life revolves solely around destroying others online, “ignore it” doesn’t cut it.

You do not get to ignore him because he will intentionally barage you, disrupt every layer of your life if you dare try. He’ll call your employer and they won’t get it and will likely try to get rid of you or hide you away. He’ll try to alienate your friends and family. He’ll make up lies. He’ll encourage people who have never met you to hate you and your children and wish ill upon you. There is no staying silent. I believe James Freed is smart enough to know that.

It’s a real shame Mayor Anita Ashford isn’t.

Some people don’t want to understand because it’s easier not to. Because they’ve got political axes to grind. Because they’ve got loved ones tied to the ‘Good Time’ lawsuit and a narrative of “sticking it to James Freed” to protect.

So they perform selective empathy; pretending this is about politics, when it’s about pathology. Pretending it’s about “free speech,” when it’s really about trying to protect people from a malignant narcisist; from his desire for power, his uncontrolled obsession, and the public cost of his unchecked cruelty. A cost being paid by taxpayers over multiple lawsuits; a total well into the millions. Unless it’s happened to you, you will never fully understand the full scope and breadth of a sociopath who is able to make an entire community, even people who have never met him, stalk and harass you.

But Mayor Ashford also needs to be reminded how to do her job at every City Council meeting, so there’s that.

The Pattern Never Ends — It Evolves

What makes this so insidious and frustrating is that it just keeps morphing.

First, it’s one target. Then five. Then ten. Different faces, same tactics. He keeps willfully inserting himself into new stories, new communities, new conflicts; manufacturing chaos like it’s his calling. Forcing himself on others like a mental rapist and then claiming the other person “wanted it.”

It’s not coincidence. It’s compulsion.

And the system still isn’t built to handle it. Police shrug. Platforms look the other way. Courts crawl at a snail’s pace while victims collapse under the weight of reputational ruin, legal costs, and psychological fatigue.

Meanwhile, people who’ve never lived through it treat it like gossip. Like politics. Like sport.

But for those of us who have? It’s not entertainment. It’s trauma that keeps finding new hosts. And until it happens to you, you won’t care. But I know you’ll come running to us for help when the shitstorm inevitable rolls your way.

What We Owe Each Other Now

Hope is on the horizon. But if you’ve ever seen a horror movie, it’s not time for a victory lap yet. That won’t happen until his ass is rotting in prison.

Those of us who’ve been targeted know the signs. The patterns. The tells.

We know when someone’s trying to paint a whistleblower as “unstable.” We know when a public official modestly attempts a tweak to public comment policy because they’re terrified of one very sick man’s fixation. We know when a smear campaign is about to start because we’ve already survived the dress rehearsal.

That’s the strange, painful gift of collective trauma: once you’ve seen the monster, you can’t unsee it. You just start spotting the damage everywhere.

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s how we finally stop it.

To the Ones Still Going Through It

If you’ve never been stalked by someone like this, count yourself lucky.

If you have, I see you.

Because surviving a cyberstalker isn’t just about blocking accounts; it’s about reclaiming your reality. It’s about rebuilding your life after someone tried to make you the villain in their delusion. And it’s about refusing to be silent while the same sickness spills into new victims, new cities, and new courtrooms. More importantly, it’s about staying a few steps a head to keep them off your trail.

This isn’t quite over.
But it’s out in the open now.
And that’s when monsters finally start to lose their power.

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