For the past several months, an Internet stalker has been blending photos of at least five female college students with sexually graphic material and distributing the images to the women and their family and friends.
Police suspect the photos were taken from websites, then superimposed on more than 100 graphic images. Four of the victims are student athletes at the University of Colorado; one is a student at Colorado State University.
The original photos probably came from popular networking websites such as facebook.com and webshots.com or from official Web pages posted by CU’s athletic department, said Fort Collins police spokeswoman Rita Davis.
Davis didn’t speculate on the potential danger facing the victims. But, she said, the personalized and repeated nature of the acts – including the written messages accompanying the packages – is worrisome and amounts to felony harassment by stalking.
“The suspect has plenty of information about the victims,” Davis said.
Fort Collins police have submitted the packets to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for testing and have developed a DNA profile from two of the packets. Authorities discussed the case publicly for the first time Wednesday.
The original photos were not sexual in nature, Davis said. But the stalker combined them with graphic material.
Some recipients of the packets found them on their cars, Davis said. “Some of the packets were mailed to family members or their parents, and another was delivered to a boyfriend,” she said.
Experts say the use of online images to harass victims is a growing phenomenon and even led to President Bush’s signing of a law last year to prevent it.
But Web users with a grudge can usually wriggle through just about any obstacle, said Parry Aftab, executive director of WiredSafety.org, a group that helps victims of cyberstalking.
“There are lot of sick people around, and a lot of them use the Internet,” Aftab said.
Victims have had false information posted about them on websites and have received threatening e-mails and text messages.
In the first successful prosecution under California’s cyberstalking law, a 50-year-old former security guard was sent to prison in 1999 for using the Internet to solicit the rape of a woman who rejected his romantic advances. The man impersonated her in Internet chat rooms and on bulletin boards, where he posted, along with her phone number and address, messages that she fantasized being raped.
“It’s basically bullying people, but it’s done online,” said Jayne A. Hitchcock, director of Working to Halt Online Abuse.
Her group assisted victims in 443 cases of online harassment in 2005, compared with 196 in 2004 and 198 in 2003.
The organization tries to halt Internet harassment before it becomes a problem for police. “Once a cyberstalker knows they can’t get away with it, they stop,” Hitchcock said.
In one case, a group of high school students paid for an Internet domain name and set up a website in which they put the face of an unpopular girl on a cow’s body, Hitchcock said.
Perhaps, she added, the person behind the latest graphic images is motivated by jealousy.
The first mailing was received by a CSU student in September. Then her friend, an athlete at CU, received a packet, Davis said. Three other packets followed at CU, she said, adding that the suspect is well-versed in computers.
CU sports information director Dave Plati said no athletes have requested their images be taken down from the school’s website. “But if somebody asks us, we will grant their request,” he said.
Athletes contacted Wednesday said they had no knowledge of the packets. CU senior Whitney Law said the university has done a good job of balancing what can be produced for fans and what should be kept private.
“I have never gotten any calls or anything weird like that,” Law said. “It’s just sad and unfortunate.”
Staff librarian Regina Avila contributed to this report.
