Email stalker’s 'monstrous' harassment of woman in the US leads judge to nearly double sentence

He started sending messages to the woman in March 2018 and continued through August 2021. — Image by councilcle from Pixabay

For more than three years, the young woman had no idea who kept messaging her, asking her to share more of the risque selfies she had posted on a Reddit group when she was 17.

In an anonymous email, the stalker asked for a photo of the woman in her wedding dress. Later, the stranger emailed her college academic mentor in Portland with a photo of the woman in underwear, leading the advisor to believe she had sent it.

At another point, the messenger alerted the woman that he knew where she worked.

She had no idea who her tormentor was.

“Everybody was a suspect,” she said in court.

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Portland excoriated Douglas Arthur Merkle II, 49, for what she called his “extraordinary cruelty” and nearly doubled the eight-month sentence sought by the prosecutor as part of a plea agreement.

US District Judge Amy M. Baggio called Merkle’s behaviour “monstrous.”

“It was cruel and misogynistic and it left a person feeling unsafe in this world, and there must be a serious consequence for that behaviour,” Baggio told Merkle.

Baggio was unmoved by Merkle’s entreaty for probation and home detention, declaring that he was a potential danger to the community.

Merkle, of Cover, South Carolina, told Baggio he was embarrassed and will be punished the rest of his life now that he’s a felon.

He said he was concerned about the welfare of his wife and 10-year-old son if he went to prison and said other friends also rely on him. He said he was sorry and never intended any harm.

Baggio sentenced him to a year and three months in prison and told him to report in June.

‘Absolutely not’

Merkle’s messages to the woman started in March 2018 and continued through August 2021.

In his initial one, he said he had noticed her photos on Reddit years earlier and asked her to take photos of herself in her wedding dress for him as a “good bye set,” according to a sentencing memo.

The woman had posted semi-nude photos and lingerie shots of herself on a Reddit forum dedicated to sexualised images of young women, according to Assistant US Attorney Mira Chernick.

But the woman had been inactive on the site for almost four years when she started hearing from Merkle.

He wrote that he had “always hoped for more” photos of her.

The woman responded politely but firmly that she wasn’t going to send more photos.

“Absolutely not,” she responded, according to court records. “When I found my fiance, I found I didn’t need any of that outside validation (expletive) anymore. Also are you crazy? Why in hell would I do a ‘goodbye set’ with my wedding dress?”

Merkle repeatedly demanded more photos and taunted her about past photos that he found online.

“It’s not for you. It’s for your fans,” he wrote back. “And yes, I’m probably a littttttle crazy.‘’

Merkle asked if she wanted him to help her delete the old Reddit photos.

She said she believed she had “burned the images” from her account, but he responded that he found at least eight galleries in the comments.

She thanked him for letting her know and sent him a photo from her wedding, writing back that she hoped he’d “get the hint that I’m not interested in chatting with random dudes on the internet, and that I’m certainly not into sending them pictures of myself.”

Merkle used four different anonymous email addresses to continue to contact the woman.

Then in March 2018, he threatened to email revealing photos of her to faculty at her college, where she was studying for a bachelor’s degree in math.

Using the email address [e-mail], he emailed her a link to the math faculty at her school, and wrote, “Have any of these people been on reddit? I wonder if I send them your links if they can help you remove them.”

And he proceeded to do just that five months later, according to Chernick.

When the woman’s academic mentor on Aug. 31, 2018, got the underwear shot of her from Merkle – accompanied by a sexual proposition that read, “can we? I’ve only got a couple weeks,” – her mentor informed her that it was highly inappropriate.

The woman was mortified and explained how a stranger was using her years-old Reddit posts to harass her.

Over the next two and a half years, Merkle sporadically emailed her, telling her that he was keeping tabs on her. In 2021, after she accepted a job for a prestigious company, he emailed her, “OMG! …Wow!,” using her employer’s name.

Fearing Merkle would send the pictures to her new co-workers, she said she felt forced to disclose the situation to her boss.

A few weeks later, Merkle emailed, calling her “tasty” and shared his sexual fantasies, according to court records.

Over the years, Merkle posted the woman’s full name, Reddit username, links to her LinkedIn page, wedding registry and Twitter account on a website with the old photos of her.

The FBI sent subpoenas to Google seeking subscriber information for the various anonymous emails used by the stalker, and obtained an IP address tied to Kings Mountain, North Carolina, and a related Yahoo email account that was tied to Merkle, according to a search warrant affidavit.

Merkle was arrested by the FBI on May 17, 2023, in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, according to court records. At the time, he was working there as an information technology “site lead,” at Albemarle Corp, a chemical manufacturing company, and lived about 15 miles away, the affidavit said. The FBI seized his iPhone, iPad and a USB storage device.

‘Life-altering sabotage’

The woman, who lived in Portland when the email harassment began and is now 30 years old, told the judge she recalled how “cold with fear” she felt when she received the first anonymous email.

As they continued, she worried that the stalker would disrupt her marriage, her education, her job and friendships.

She said she lived with deep-seated suspicion, even wondering if the FBI agent investigating her case may have been sending her the unsigned emails.

She called the continued persecution a “life-altering sabotage.”

Defense lawyer Justin Rusk said Merkle stopped the emails 18 months before he was indicted and argued that Merkle hadn’t threatened the woman with physical harm or violence.

Merkle sent the emails during “manic” periods and is now on medication for bipolar disorder, anxiety and depression, Rusk said.

Merkle stood before the judge and said in a wavering voice: “None of this is who I am. I have nothing but shame and remorse.”

Looking back at the woman sitting in the courtroom’s public gallery, he said: “I’m raw and exposed, and I now know what the victim has felt. I’m sorry. I wish no harm to anyone.‘’

The judge went through the timeline of Merkle’s emails and noted that the woman had repeatedly asked him to stop contacting her.

“But Mr Merkle would not take no for an answer,” Baggio said. Instead, he responded like a spoiled child with a “profound, distorted sense of entitlement,” she said.

Before Merkle messaged the woman’s academic mentor, he had let her know that he had tracked down where she went to college by sending her a link to the university’s math faculty page, Baggio noted.

“This is incredibly twisted, harmful behaviour,” the judge said. “This is sick.”

Merkle’s decision to repost photos of the woman and identify her on a website was “utterly abhorrent, abusive behavior. It’s disgusting,” Baggio said.

After Merkle harassed the woman in Oregon, Baggio said he was arrested and convicted in South Carolina for providing alcohol to a teenage girl he met through Snapchat and asking her to send him photos of herself in 2022.

She noted how Merkle told a court presentence writer that his repeated emails to the victim “were not meant to be threatening. They were intended to let the victim know he was thinking of her.”

“It’s just hard for me to wrap my mind around you uttering those words based on this record,” Baggio said.

The judge said she felt sorry for Merkle’s wife of 14 years, because while she was traveling in her job as a nurse, he was on Reddit, terrorising a young woman he didn’t know with “filthy, sexually-explicit messages.”

Merkle reached for a tissue and wiped his brow just before Baggio issued his sentence.

She said he didn’t deserve a reduced term for an abusive childhood, mental health struggles or family circumstances, though she did recognise his decision to plead guilty and his nearly two years on release without violations.

“You talked about how, if I were to send you to prison, how that will deprive your friends and family of the great person that you are. I don’t know if you can possibly understand how offputting that is to me, Mr Merkle,” she said.

In addition to the prison time, Baggio ordered him to pay US$5,193 (RM22,888) in restitution.

Merkle’s victim told Baggio that she still can’t receive a phone call, text or email from an unknown source without feeling a wave of dread.

“I will never know what it’s like to live without suspicion and lurking danger,” she said. “This will be with me forever.” – oregonlive.com/Tribune News Service

Those suffering from problems can reach out to the Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service at 03-2935 9935 or 014-322 3392; Talian Kasih at 15999 or 019-261 5999 on WhatsApp; Jakim’s (Department of Islamic Development Malaysia) family, social and community care centre at 0111-959 8214 on WhatsApp; and Befrienders Kuala Lumpur at 03-7627 2929 or go to befrienders.org.my/centre-in-malaysia for a full list of numbers nationwide and operating hours, or email [e-mail].