If you haven't seen it in the news, Annie Le was a yale PhD student in the Department of Pharmacology who was murdered in her research building. About 2 weeks ago, video surveillance captured her entering her lab around 10:00 am on a Tuesday morning, but she never left the building. Cadaver dogs found her body last Sunday between a wall space in the basement of the same building. Tragically, Sunday was also the day she was to be married to her college boyfriend. An arrest has been made in the case, as DNA evidence places Raymond Clark III, a lab tech/custodian at the crime scene. No motive has been announced... but there's been a lot of speculation. Possibly they had an affair, possibly he stalked her, possibly it was work related issues, etc. Most recent news has centered around the possibility that Raymond Clark III murdered her over animal rights issues. Who knows?
Besides the fact that this is a huge tragedy, I am also bothered by the idea of someone possibly stalking or attacking her at work. Maybe this hits a little too close to home. Because you never know. When is weird a little too weird? How do you draw the line between "this guy is a little off" and "this guy could go postal any day"? I guess I always error on the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt... but looking back I can see a few times, one in particular, that giving the benfit of the doubt could have gone very wrong.
A few years ago while working in the same med school that I now attend, I had some unpleasant encounters with a maintenance man who worked in the building. I'm not sure of his exact age, but I'm sure he's past 40, and I was 28 at the time. My relationship with him never progressed past "Hi David. How are you? I was wondering if you know when I'll get the heat turned on in my office?" or maybe in the elevator "Hi David, headed home? Well, have a nice weekend with your family." I swear, nothing more. Somehow he turned it into more. The first instance happened in November when I was sitting working at my desk with the door open. He passed by casually and said "Hey, I bought a bunch of these boxes of chocolate almonds from my nephew for his basketball team... so I'm giving them away. Want one?" I innocently and stupidly said yes, took the candy and thanked him. That was the end of the conversation, and he left.
Several days later, he stopped by with another box of candy and said that he brought it for me. I thought that was a little odd (but not really), so I just said "Oh, thanks for thinking of me... but I just ate." I didn't want to get all bent out of shape over someone bringing me candy... maybe he's just being a nice guy, right? The next day I unlocked my office and I noticed that the candy was on my desk. I guessed he snuck it in when I wasn't looking the previous day. I planned to give it back to him as soon as I saw him, but I didn't see him for a week or so... and I subsequently forgot about it.
When I finally did see him, he stopped by my office to say hi. He kind of stood in the door but didn't say a whole lot. He said he'd been sick. At this I felt my compassionate gene kick in, and I asked if he was ok... as I hadn't seen him around in a few weeks. He then started muttering about how he has problems with his eyes... and how when he opens them all he can see is ME! His word were "all I can see is you, baby". Ok, so they guy has a crush on me. Do I ream him openly, accuse him of sexual harassment, and tell him to go crawl back under the rock he came from. I didn't. I always try to give people a graceful way to get out of situations. At least the first time. So I said "Very funny, David! I thought you were serious there for a second. I was worried you were sick! Ok, well, my boyfriend is waiting for me downstairs so I have to go." My theory is that any decent man who likes you will immediately stop his advances if you drop the boyfriend or husband word... so that's what I did.
It didn't work. The week before Christmas vacation I came to my office one morning and I found candy, a stuffed animal, and a card in my office. He had been in my office, which was locked. He had a key to my office! Well, of course he does, he's the maintenance guy. I did not know what to do. I was totally creeped out. I threw the items away. Again, I didn't want to make a huge deal out of the situation... because I knew I would have to work with the guy and possibly go to med school here... so I didn't want to make waves, and I certainly didn't want to be the girl that called sexual harassment. I tracked him down and told him that he couldn't come into my office unless it was for work related reasons, because I keep pharmaceutical drug in my office and I could get in trouble if there was any unauthorized access. It sounded lame, but I would have done anything NOT to have to take this to higher authorities. He kinda blew off my request with a "oh, sure no problem" attitude... which threw me off... thinking again that I was blowing this out of proportion.
In between these specific situations there were lots of little things as well that started adding up... and made me hyper-aware of him... and everything he did. I started ignoring him completely and giving him the stink eye just to make sure I wasn't encouraging him in any way.
The last incident was bad. I lived about three miles from campus, and I head out to work around 7:40 am. I pulled out of my driveway, headed down the block, and stopped at the first stop light. I looked over my passenger window and saw him. In a school van, next to me at the stop-light. I must have given him the look of death and shook my head, because he looked away nervously. I was not playing around now. Was this a coincidence? Not possible. Or was it? Don't know. Won't know I suppose. I couldn't find him or his supervisor that day, otherwise I surely would have caused some commotion. I calmed down over subsequent days, and after that he just stopped bothering me. Completely. I never even saw him on my floor. I never really told anyone except for a couple women I worked with... and they were sufficiently freaked out as well.
Now 2 years later, I actually still see him occasionally, passing in the hall... to which I will acknowledge him with a nod but I don't smile. It was (and still is) so wierd. Even now, as I type this... I read it once and think "holy shit girl, you had a stalker and did nothing about it". Then I'll read it again and think "Eh, big deal, he liked you and he got over it."
No comments:
Post a Comment