Stalker Stories: Part II

My second stalker story is much darker, and harder for me to tell. I haven't told anyone the whole story and how it affected me. Until now.

*Trigger warning. Stalking, guns, threats of violence*

I’m basically an open book. I will tell you anything about me, whether solicited or not, and what I don’t say will be written all over my face. It’s more a product of my inability to stop talking than it is me wanting to share every detail of my life. Call it a need to be the center of attention or unmedicated social anxiety, but I find myself at times unable to shut up. Believe me, I want to stop talking. I just can’t.

So it’s weird when I find myself trying to tell a story that no one knows. There are basically only two of them: the one I’m about to tell you now, and the story of my college boyfriend who was a sociopath and a horrendous piece of shit. The truly awful things that have happened to me, I have kept to myself. I’m not sure why this is other than when you really go through something, it’s hard to process. It’s too surreal or scary or whatever to step back and objectively talk about the thing that is occurring. If I say it out loud, it’s real. And maybe if I ignore it, it didn’t really happen. It’s also about the reaction. What if people don’t believe me? What if they think I’m being dramatic?

It’s like the boy who cried wolf. When you’re a dramatic human (hi, it’s me), and when everything that has ever come out of your mouth has been a slight (or not so slight) exaggeration of the facts, you start to not believe your own bullshit. When the facts don’t need to be exaggerated to be compelling, what the fuck am I supposed to do with them? Just, tell it? Like, how it happened? Is that what normal people do when they tell stories? How drab.

But this story does not need my drama. It does not need glitter or sparkles or exaggerations to be told. In fact, that would be doing it a disservice. And maybe that’s why I don’t talk about it. It’s not funny, and I mostly like to tell funny stories, like the time I was ambush baptized in a hot tub against my will (that one is coming, I promise). Now I’m just procrastinating. So okay, here goes (why are my hands shaking?!):

I had been an attorney for a hot sec when one of the partners went on sabbatical. Before he left, he assigned a few of his clients to me. I was to take care of the client while he was galivanting around Europe for six months. Since I was less than a year into my practice, these were clients he was pretty sure wouldn’t call or if they did, would have easy things for me to tackle or, at the very least, I could be trusted to point the client to another attorney who could help. Enter client Mike Segaline (pronounced Seg-a-lini).

He called and needed some help with deeding property into his LLC. Mike was in his 50s but looked older. His skin told stories of a drinking problem and probably smoking. He was overweight and disheveled. When I met with him, I did what I do for every client: I shook his hand and asked him to take a seat. I maintained eye contact and acted like his shifting eyes, roaming the room and then darting away randomly, wasn’t weird. Overall, I was trying to be nice and charming. It’s how this business works.

He gave off signs of mental illness immediately. It looked and smelled like he hadn’t showered in a while, his overalls were old and too tight, and his speech and mannerisms were just off. I felt sorry for him. I imagine that he was probably an outcast and had been most of his life. Probably bullied. And I hate that shit. Back then, before the world beat me down, when I came across someone like Mike, I was more compassionate, more friendly. I wanted him to know that even if he didn’t fit in with society, he could be himself in this office. Little did I know…

Mike came in a few more times and I drafted the deed for him. In the top lefthand corner was the return address: Ms. Lindsey Wehmeyer, the law firm and our PO Box. After filing, the original would be returned to me at the office, which was why my name was listed. This is when shit starts to go sideways on me.

When Mike came in to sign the deed, the front desk buzzed me. He wanted to see me. This was unusual as he was just supposed to sign and leave. But I was a lowly associate in need of billable hours so my happy ass came on down to the first floor conference room. Mike was his usual shifty-eyed self, and I saw that he’d drawn on the deed. He’d circled the “Ms.” by my name.

“Are you married?” he asked.

I remember being creeped out but I answered honestly. No, I’m not married. He smiled at this. I’ll never forget it. I don’t remember if we talked more or if I had to print out a new deed for him to sign, but I do remember his hand. When I shook his hand that day, it was almost wet. I hope I washed my hands after that because this was 2012, way before COVID had us all using hand sanitizer on the reg.

I used to have a file in my desk with the letters he wrote and notes he left for me at the office, along with the Court pleadings and other documents that came later. When I started my own firm and moved out of that office, I threw it all away. So these details are from memory (though if you’re interested, both the District Court and the Superior Court case files are in Chelan County. I’ve requested the file but it hasn’t arrived. Maybe I’ll update ya’ll with tidbits when I get it). I won’t qualify every sentence with “what I think happened” and “if memory serves” but just know that most of the below sentences deserve a qualifier.

A few days later, he left a card for me at the front desk. It was routed to me through the interoffice mail system. Someone had opened it even. It was either a “thinking of you” or “thank you” type card. His spelling was really bad and I had a hard time reading the handwriting but he said something like he knew I liked him from the way I shook his hand, looked him in the eyes when I spoke to him and because I’d used “Ms” to describe myself in the deed. He had read the signs and was into it. He accepted my obvious invitation to date him and be his girlfriend.

I took the card to our managing partner, Stan (now a federal judge appointed by then-President Obama (miss you, boo)). Stan took one look at this thing and went into full on litigation mode. He treated me like a mix between a client and a daughter. The front desk was notified not to route Mike’s calls to me and to tell him he was no longer a client. A letter was then drafted to Mike giving him back all of his files and telling him not to have any further contact with me or any other attorney within the firm. He was fired! And thank god, I thought. Stan fixed it. I can sleep tight! End of story! Wasn’t that fun?!

LOL. I wish. Mike sent another note. I’m not sure how this this one reached me. Maybe it was through the office and the person who opened the mail that day just hadn’t got the “Mike is being a creeper” memo, or what happened. But this one was, as you guessed it, worse. In this note Mike told me not to worry, he knew that Stan was just trying to keep us apart but it wouldn’t work. He knew I loved him and he loved me and he would figure out a way for us to be together and keep pesky Stan from getting in the way. Oh good, I thought. More of this.

Back to Stan I went. This time, I wasn’t making jokes anymore (I had been making jokes as a coping mechanism. per my typical bullshit). Stan had had enough too. He buzzed in resident badass litigator, Brian (now the Douglas County Superior Court Judge). Stan directed Brian to file a restraining order as soon as possible. Pretty sure this is when I started crying. If Stan and Brian were going to file a restraining order, it was serious. So I was crying.

Brian took me back to his office and got the details from me. I shook and cried and he told me to take the rest of the day and go home. As a lowly associate needing billable hours, I politely declined and went back to my office so I could bill someone while I finished crying (joke, I think). Brian, bless his heart, did all of this for free.

Brian is a big guy. He’s probably 6’5 and I’m bad at guessing how much men weigh but he fills a doorway. The quintessential “tough looking guy who is really a teddy bear”, I felt safe with Brian. And like I was in really good hands. I relaxed a bit. I mean, this wasn’t anything a few IPAs couldn’t bring me to forget, right? (“Beer. Now there’s a temporary solution.” - Homer Simpson).

Wrong fucking again. Brian filed the restraining order and temporary orders were granted. I was now the proud owner of a piece of paper telling me I was safe! But in order to determine if I really deserved this piece of paper, I had to show up to Court. Our trusty process server, Don, served Mike, and I went back to drinking beer to forget that I was probably in legit real danger.

This time, the danger came to my home. Or rather, Coby’s home that I’d tricked him into letting me move into (another fun future story). Not long after the restraining order, I came home to a letter addressed to me in that same shaky, unstable handwriting I was used to seeing. Inside was another unhinged letter about how he knew we loved each other and an invitation to get away for a while, together, to a blueberry farm in Oregon. The farm’s brochure was included, ostensibly so that I could check the place out before going. With Mike. To a blueberry farm.

Ah ha! You’ve violated the restraining order! We’ve got you now you fucker! was my first thought. Followed quickly by, Shit. He knows where I live. The next day I looked Mike up in our system and plugged his mailing address into google maps. My stomach dropped. I felt true dread in that moment. Mike lived less than a mile and a half from my house (again, Coby’s house). Not only did he know where I lived, but he could walk there.

As some point during this ordeal my partner Kirk told me a story about how Mike had been arrested on Kirk’s family’s dryland wheat farm for poaching. He’d shot a buck on their land, skinned it and took most of the deer off the property. He was caught coming back for the rest of the deer. Mike was (a) trespassing and (b) didn’t have a hunting license. Kirk told me this story and then leaned over his desk toward me. “Lindsey, I tell you this because you need to know that Mike is an avid hunter and owns a lot of guns.” chill chill chill. cool cool cool. More crying over my legal briefs. More beer drinking dissociation.

This was about the time I found out that Mike had a long history of mental illness. He’d been in and out of facilities basically his whole adult life. His family had admitted him and he’d gone in himself. And still, with all of this on his public record, he was allowed to own guns. GUNS. Not a gun, but guns.

My kitchen sink overlooked our backyard. There were a lot of trees, and each subsequent backyard was framed in with a wooden fence in desperate need of a stain. At some point I became too afraid to wash dishes at the sink because I kept picturing Mike, with his hunting rifle, hiding in one of those backyards, the scope trained onto my face. I googled things like, “how to avoid a stalker” and got advice to vary my route home, use different cars if possible, park under street lights, and the like. Our IT guy, Josh, started walking me to and from my car at work everyday. Josh loves guns and is another Brian-sized human. We’d make jokes about it. “Long time no see,” and “oh look, it’s you again!” but honestly, I did feel safer. At least I wouldn’t get snatched from the parking lot.

Josh, and just about everyone else I knew, encouraged me to get a gun. I’ve shot guns but truthfully, they scare me. When I announced my decision not to arm myself, my colleague Colleen brought in her bear mace and gave it to me. I almost cried. Such a kind gesture. She got that I didn’t want a gun and had a solution. It sat in my bedside cupboard until we moved in 2017.

I showed up to my hearing on the restraining order completely unprepared for what was to come. But not quite as unprepared as my Dad, who came to support me wearing shorts and had to be given jailhouse pants to put over them. No shorts allowed in District Court, apparently (honestly, who knows these types of things?!). But it wasn’t just a hearing. It was a trial. There was a jury. I was represented by a sweet junior DA whose name I’ve forgotten but who shook my hand with both of his hands. One of those handshakes where the other hand comes over the top. He looked at me with warmth and pity. Like I was a victim. It all made me super uncomfortable.

With the jury seated and Mike in the courtroom at the defense table, I took the witness stand. I spoke about the fear, the communications both before and after the restraining order. It was terrifying. My hands were shaking. I had sweat through my suit. And I did all of this while trying desperately not to make eye contact with Mike, who was right in front of me. Then, he interrupted me (rude). He claimed that I didn’t have a boyfriend and that Stan had made him up in an effort to keep us apart and that I really loved him and wanted to go with him to the blueberry farm in Oregon.

The Judge (a nice lady who was in my Lion’s club) made Coby stand up. He looked right at me and gave me a little smile, as if to try and tell me that it would all be okay.

Coby and I in 2012

“Turn around, Mr. Segaline,” she ordered. “Young man, who are you to Ms. Wehmeyer?”

“I’m her boyfriend,” Coby answered.

Then she turned to me. “Ms. Wehmeyer, is this your boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to go to a blueberry farm with Mr. Segaline and are you in love with him?” she asked.

“No.”

“We’re going to take a break. Jury is dismissed.” The courtroom filed out for a quick fifteen minute break. Or so we thought.

During the break, one of the jurors recognized my Mom from aerobics class. She told the bailiff that she couldn’t continue on the jury because she knew my Mom. Before I tell you what happened next, let me assure you: knowing someone’s mom is NOT an excuse to get out of jury duty. And honestly, if you couldn’t serve on a jury because you’d once taken aerobic classes with my mother, then about 78% of all humans living in a 50 mile radius were out of the jury pool. The fuck.

But the Judge let her go and with such a small case, there weren’t alternates and so the trial had to be postponed. I was despondent. Bawling. All of my pent-up anxiety, fear, anger. It all came rushing out of me. I stayed in that courtroom being comforted by the DA, Coby, my parents, and Brian for a long time. I had almost staggered back to my car when an older woman, probably in her late 50’s, came up to me and started explaining to me how she knew my Mom and that she felt so sorry for me and that she was sure Mike was a creep but that she just couldn’t be impartial because about ten years ago, she regularly attended an aerobics class at the WRAC with Kelly Wehmeyer. [insert inappropriate joke about how my Mom’s workout obsession once again ruins my life].

I could not believe the audacity. I still think about it. It’s probably not healthy, but I hope her decision to blow up the trial haunts her. It could have all been over that day! But it’s not her fault and she couldn’t have known what would happen next, or how the terror escalated so acutely.

A new trial meant a new service of process on Mike with the trial date. His attorney wasn’t accepting service on his behalf, so cops had to be discharged to track him down and serve him with a new notice. Days past, they couldn’t find him. A week. A new notice had to be generated and the court date moved because it was taking so long to find him.

During this entire thing I was basically in hiding. I wasn’t going to the gym, I wasn’t going to the grocery store. Hell, I wasn’t even doing the dishes. I was driving to and from work (using different routes every day), working, and then going back to my house where I kept the blinds closed and the bear mace on my person.

One night after work, I collected our dog Stella from daycare and went to my grandma’s house. I was there talking to her, probably about this, when my cell rang. It was my Dad. He sounded panicked. He said the cops had called him, they’d served Mike but it didn’t go well and the cops were trying to find me to make sure I was okay. I told him where I was and while I was on the phone with Dad, another call came in. This one was blocked so I figured it was the aforementioned police.

Stella Jean Wehmeyer-Weidenbach. I loved her a weird amount.

The officer explained to me that Mike was combative, made comments about me, and about killing everyone involved. The cop said it wasn’t protocol, or even typical, to call a victim after service of process, but that he was so frightened for me (he used that word: frightened), that he wanted to know that I was somewhere safe and that I needed to be very careful. What I did next will be something that I will never forget. I hung up and I jumped over Myrna’s couch and I screamed. This reaction surprised me. The screaming. I cried and I screamed and I hugged Stella and I hugged Myrna and I somehow made it home where I’m sure I didn’t sleep. Sorta goes without saying that I wasn’t really sleeping during this time.

Flashforward to trial #2. The district court is in this beautiful brick and marble building. It has this truly gorgeous staircase with an oak banister and old photos of judges and the valley lining the walls. I came up to the third floor nervous, tired and ready to get this whole thing behind me. The minute I rounded the corner, an armed officer yelled my name at me. He looked crazed. I said, yes… and then he slammed me into the woman’s bathroom and told me to lock the door.

I did as I was told and then backed all the way up into the furthest corner I could reach. I think I asked what was happening. No one answered. I could hear yelling, doors opening and closing, a lot things like “don’t go in there,” and “stay where you are.”

I also stayed just exactly where I was: in a ball in the corner of the third floor women’s bathroom, with my arms wrapped around my knees, loudly crying all over my nicest black suit.

When I was finally told to unlock the bathroom door, a police officer explained that Mike had come into the courtroom and threatened to kill the Judge, the DA, me, my family, my boyfriend, and any other person involved with the case. He was so belligerent that he had to be wrestled to the ground. They hadn’t let me out of the bathroom until Mike was safely across the street in jail. As the cop was telling me this, I spotted Coby and my parents. They had been inside the courtroom when it happened. I felt so bad for them, having to go through this. I know it wasn’t my fault, but it felt like I was to blame. Now their lives were in danger, too. Ugh.

Mike spent the next 30 days in jail. It was the freest 30 days of my life. I even went for runs on the trail, footloose and fancy not-being-stalked. When he got out, the restraining order was just signed. No need for a trial. No need to beg a jury to believe me. I guess the Judge decided that she’d seen enough to rule that Mike truly was a danger to me.

But a restraining order is just a piece of paper. It doesn’t mean anything to someone like Mike. It didn’t do much to quell my anxiety. Sure, life somewhat returned to normal, but I was still varying my routes, looking over my shoulder, locking my car doors the moment I got inside, and closing my garage door behind me before getting out of my locked car (I still do this). I devised escape plans and rescue plans and memorized phone numbers and stayed hyper vigilant about my surroundings. For example, if anyone tries to kidnap me, I’m going to rip off a finger nail so my DNA and blood leaves a trail. Yep, that would hurt but I really do think it’s a solid plan.

A few years later, my aunt got a hold of me. A daughter of a friend of hers was being stalked by a guy named Mike Segaline. I got the girl’s phone number and gave her all of the advice I could. I hung up from that call and cried and closed the blinds. He was still doing it. Not to me, but to another young girl. Another girl traumatized and terrorized and victimized.

Mike died a few years ago. Someone brought me the death notice, cut out of the Wenatchee World as if I’d want to scrapbook it. I did end up keeping it for a long time. Coby and I celebrated that night. It wasn’t until I was holding that death notice that I felt truly free.

See! Wasn’t that one so much worse than the first one?!

I promise, no more scary stalker stories. Only happy, funny, lighthearted stories from now on. In the meantime, stay difficult and remember to question authority.

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