Halo stalker arrested after making 2,600 mile trip

by Ross Miller on Jan 2nd 2008 4:20PM

A 20-year old male was arrested in Spokane, Washington this past weekend for stalking a 15-year old girl he met online playing Halo (the report does not specify which iteration). The accused was from Saratoga Springs, New York, which means by our estimations he drove around 2,600 miles in order to drive past the girl's house and send her a text message.

According to Seattle news outlet KOMO-TV, the parents of the girl caught his license plate number as he passed and called the police. He has been charged with a felony count of stalking. Let this be yet another warning to all online gamers out there: don't give out your personal information, including where you live and your phone number.

[Thanks, Foolio]

Source

Tags: halo, halo-2, halo-3, new-york, saratoga-springs, spokane, stalk, stalking, washington, Xbox, Xbox-360, xbox-live

Reader Comments (78)

Ha, that picture really makes this story worthwhile.

Meh, I would've taken a Scorpion...lol

Uh oh.. Fernando got caught.

SO I HEARD YOU LIEK MUDKIPZ?

@vol
lmao ur bad.

I've already commented on this at X3F, but I just had to say congrats on that image.

To whomever came up with that I say you are truly a god.

Classic.

And why the hell would the stupid chick say where she lived.

I heard that he went to peoplefinder.com and got her address. I think all you need is first and last name and city.

He deserves what the courts throw at him. Freak.

Um. No. Go rent Hard Candy. There are two sides to a story, and I bet she lied about her age. And he's not exactly screwed on too tight. Quick to judge, aren't we?

But isn't this why Masterchief rescues the dame Cortana?

:p

The general behavior of many guys (kids) on live when they see a girl on the server speaks loudly of the issues out there. Yeah, there may be 2 sides, but the guy drove across country after playing Halo with a girl - and that makes him a freak to me.

@ Speddy "Um. No. Go rent Hard Candy. There are two sides to a story, and I bet she lied about her age. And he's not exactly screwed on too tight. Quick to judge, aren't we?"

Among the thousands of text messages he apparently sent the girl, the last one was "Tell the cops that I'm gonna rape you and your sister." Are YOU honestly so quick to judge the girl (regardless of whether she lied about her age or not) as to ignore the possibility that this guy is simply a psychotic loon?

BTW- I guess this sounds normal to you Speddy:

"Police say Stetar and the girl had been talking since 2006, and that several times he had sent packages and flowers to her home, items that her parents returned. The victim had also received several hundred text messages on her cell phone in 2007, forcing the victim's mother to change her daughter's number. However, Stetar was able to get the new number from someone and started sending the victim messages again.

Around 9:30 p.m. Friday night the suspect sent a text message to the victim saying he was driving by her house at that moment. In the message he even described his vehicle, a Gray Oldsmobile. The girl's parents were outside the home and in fact saw the car driving past.

At 9:36 p.m. the victim received another text message from the suspect saying, "Tell the cops that I'm gonna rape you and your sister."

Damn - I should have waited for his side of this one.

Girls on the internet? Lol.

thats a myth in it's self.

Judging from your pic, Dopple, maybe he should have used the Skyrunner.

Loser

I smell Jack Thompson.

Eww

That is really, really fucking far!

40 hours of driving is a lot of game feul...

People go to extremes when Xbox Live is down...

What else are you supposed to do when you get a RRoD?

ROAD TRIP!

Quite a silly story, but how'd he get her address? >_>

he had her cellphone number. whose to say she didnt give it to him. but at the same time, have you ever typed your home phone number into Google? if your in the phone book, it'll give your name, address, and directions to your house. i dont know if it works for cellphones or not but its the internet, where there's a will there's a way.

people like this are the scum of the earth though. glad they caught him before he did anything though. if he was crazy enough to drive 2,600 miles across the country then he probably would have raped those girls and maybe more. what a loser.

@B1gC72:

It's not (or it shouldn't be) the same with cell phone numbers. I just googled mine and came up with absolutely nothing.

Typical Xbox Live psycho, the difference this one knew how to drive. :p

Picking up girls in Halo.... wha? I guess we should be grateful he got caught before the romance ended on the corpse humping phase.

Friend codes would have prevented this... /kidding

So would not being a retard with your personal info on a network like Live.

she better be hot for all that trouble.

No she had recon armor.

Feh, stuff like this just gives Nintendo more excuses to continue their shit

Although 2600 miles seems like a bit much, just stalk the local high school, you can be a creep without pissing away a hundred or so in gas money

he probably was crazy and thought he was in love.
I've seen people do crazier things when they thought such.

There was that whole astronaut driving across country to kill the other woman thing. Maybe we should get rid of space travel!

Your kidding me. The guy actually drove THAT FAR? Jesus Christ, I didn't think such measures would be taken all for the sake of stalking a girl and threatening her with rape(Read the article on Kotaku which mentioned it).

At least he's been arrested.

Is it just a coincidence the last Atari system that was any good was the 2600, just like the number of miles driven?

Well, ya, it is.

More proof that Jack Thompson is right. Xbox players are criminals.

If this is sarcasm, I applaud you. If not, I'll cut you.

God I hate it when you're playing Halo (or any other voice-enabled online game) and some chick gets on the mic, and all the guys start acting different.

I think I would welcome "different." Most of the guys I've played with do nothing but drop f-bombs and racial slurs. I just can't mute them all fast enough!

Agreed... Hell, if I could, I'd mask my voice as a female just for a reprieve from being questioned as to my sexual orientation.

Is she even old enough to play Halo? ;)

Jack Thompson, ARREST HER!!!!

Hmm...not surprised to see a bunch of people jump on the girl, calling her stupid for giving away her personal info.

While I've never used Xbox Live, I'm assuming this young man got her email address somehow, or maybe her Myspace information. If she used the same gamertag as her Myspace, I can't imagine that it would too difficult for an earnest stalker to find her email, connect that to her school, connect that to where she lives, etc.

This is scary. I'm glad I'm not a parent nowadays. Although we had the Internet in my house when I was 13 (and at my age of 26, that was pretty early all things considered), I had more sense than to give away my phone number or address. But luckily, that info was harder to find. Blame Google and reverse white pages before you go off demonizing the victim.

I don't think it's very likely that you could connect a 15-year-old's email to their school in the U.S. They're almost certain to be using webmail like Hotmail (I guess it's Live Mail now), especially since they were on Xbox Live, so your single webmail address acts as an ID for Live, MSN Messenger, etc.

I've never seen a school other than colleges that gives students email accounts.

I've blown off dating girls because they've lived 20+ miles away LOL.

Geez the gas money this guy spent he could have gotten some top shelf escort to hang with him and play Halo at his house for the night. He wouldn't even have to pick her up they do out calls.

Given the fact that there's too much personal info out on the internet and easy access to it, young girls will forever be dumb, ESPECIALLY when it comes to older guys. In this case, it does go both ways. I know at least 2 females (around 17-18 at the time) who have traveled to meet guys (and eventually slept with them; one situation didn't turn out so well). And for this 20-year-old, dude, come to Long Island, man. There's plenty of easy chicks here; just go to Hofstra.

Damn looks like fenix knight got caught...

Guess you just opened your account to troll on me.

Quoting Lloyd Christmas (Dumb & Dumber)

"MAN...*chuckles*...you are one pathetic loser."

Because of people like this character right here is that Nintendo got those darn Friend codes, and the Wii doesn't have voiced chat yet, and you know what if there was a .01% of Nintendo doing erasing the friend codes, that percentage disappear to the nothing now.

Matter of fact, friend codes ain't that bad once you get used to them, (even though I don't remember any digits of my number) but if it gives me a sign of re leave when my sister plays Hanna Montana online, that she is going to have a lesser change of her meeting a predator. I'm up for it, Bring E'm on Nintendo.

at least he didnt meet her in a rousing game of trauma center :-x

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Halo stalker arrested after making 2,600 mile trip

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