I Am a Stalker (2022) s01e03 Episode Script

1
[man] I do feel that, uh
pretty much anybody could be a stalker
given the right circumstances.
When I look back at what occurred,
that's not who I am.
I felt like I was, like. in a dream state.
Kind of like a sleepwalker.
I wanted to be part of something.
I lost it and I lost control.
It caused me to act out my anger
and my fantasies.
[woman] Wherever I would go, he was just,
like, constantly following me.
He says that he was gonna attack
somebody I really loved.
Anyone that did this kind of harm
is really a psychopath.
[man 1] I'd rather be considered
a murderer than a stalker,
you know what I mean?
[woman screams]
[woman 1] I wanted the intensity
of, like of her feeling watched.
[man 2] Anybody could be a stalker.
[man 3] It's all boogeyman talk.
[man 4] I'm not still that crazy. Like
[chuckles]
[woman] I haven't come across
a case quite like this before.
It was a very scary stalking case.
If you take the little incidences
that make stalking,
they don't seem dangerous
or even criminal.
But put together and compounded,
it creates fear in somebody,
and unfortunately,
a lot of times,
it can culminate
into something that's very violent.
Um My name is Ruben Antonio Jaramillo.
Oh, okay. Uh, I guess I was accused
of, uh, stalking my ex
I guess, ex-girlfriend at the time,
or girlfriend at the time.
It was, like, so chaotic
at that moment in time.
I had a lot of confusion in my life,
a lot of cloud.
That was my downfall,
uh to this whole scenario.
[birdsong]
My upbringing, it was very sporadic,
I guess.
We moved around from
around the country, from state to state.
My dad would briefly show up
once in a while
whenever he actually found my mom,
and, uh
I never planted any roots anyplace.
We were always More like a vagabond.
Never had any friends or anybody to
you know, things like that.
Each town and city that I, uh
I moved to, I was always bullied,
so that played a big part, because that
Being, uh being bullied like that
made me, uh more secluded to myself.
My fantasy was to have a wife,
and children, and house,
and provide for them.
That's, uh that's always been my dream.
I've dated here and there,
but most of the times, I guess, uh
I was I would date the girl,
but the girl would, you know,
end up going off with a friend of mine,
or one of my siblings,
or something like that.
So I've always had, uh
trust issues with girls because of that.
When I was working in a nursing home,
all these other girls at the nursing home
were after me.
They were, like, trying to come after me,
trying to date me.
And I was, like kind of, like,
too timid to, uh
who I would like
Uh, kinda How do you say?
Pick which girl I wanted to be with.
She came over to me and started,
I guess, pushing herself onto me.
I wasn't really interested,
because most of the girls I used to date
were between 18 to 24,
no older than 24.
But at that point in time,
I felt alone, you know.
I just, uh had nobody, really,
to communicate with, you know?
But when Maria came into that picture,
I could tell her my problems.
We were talking, and before you know it,
one thing led to another,
we started, uh, making out, and
From there, it just started, uh
We just started dating.
[woman] At the time I met Ruben,
I was in a relationship.
It was 18 years that I was married,
and, um it was a rough marriage.
When Ruben came aboard,
it was like someone to lean on,
or be comfortable to talk to.
It all started when I was employed
at a nursing home,
and he got hired.
And he was comfortable to talk to.
He was very nice, and, um
soft, and sweet.
I was, like, in love,
and, uh I would say, in lust.
He was young.
I was, um probably, like, 18 years older.
As months went by,
I decided to leave my husband,
and I moved in with Ruben.
From there, it went on really nice,
you know?
He loved going out and getting me
gifts and stuff,
and, uh it never crossed my mind
that he would do something like this,
you know?
[insects chirping]
[Jaramillo] One day,
she showed up at my door.
She was standing there,
and she said, "Look."
"I got some divorce papers.
I got I divorced my husband."
And I'm like, "Uh why'd you do that?"
She goes, "'Cause I want to be with you."
And I was like, "Okay."
I mean, I liked her and everything,
and I figured, well,
we could have a relationship and see
how it blooms from that point.
It was something
that I was kind of looking for,
'cause she had family,
and I didn't have that growing up.
But when I first met her family,
they were kind of hostile.
That's when it kind of turned.
Her parents were like,
telling me that I was too young for her
and I need to find somebody my own age,
and that's when I knew
that something was up.
[birdsong]
My first impression of Ruben
was that he was quiet, uh shy.
She thought she was in love with him.
She's young at heart herself.
I guess she thought it was a match
made in heaven.
But I didn't like the relationship.
My family thought that he was creepy.
They didn't like him,
especially the age difference
between him and my mom.
In my eyes, I saw their relationship
as a boyfriend-slash-son relationship.
She was always tending to him,
like you do a child.
She couldn't even just, like, come visit
our family, like, without him.
He had to follow along,
like a little kid, I guess. [chuckles]
He always had to be, like,
part of everything,
saying some crazy things.
In 2001, when I found out
that I was pregnant with my first child,
he told my mom that he wanted
to raise my daughter with her.
Which is crazy.
I was thinking, "Are you kidding me?"
"I live with my boyfriend,
why wouldn't we want our child?"
And this is just one of the the ways
that would show how he was delusional.
I know that Ruben had given her
lots of attention,
and I think that's what she was craving
until she finally had come
to the conclusion
that he was cheating on her.
[Maria] For about four years, you know,
the relationship was great.
But when I was at work,
and I'd come home to the apartment,
I would see females' belongings.
And I'd say, "Well, who was here?"
He goes, "Oh, my female friends."
You know?
I did suspect he was cheating on me.
That just kept on going and going.
And so, I was hurt.
And, uh he denied,
but that's when I started, like,
feeling, "This is not gonna work out."
I told Ruben that I was gonna leave,
and he says, "Why?" you know?
He says, "I love you," and stuff.
That's when Ruben was begging me
and begging me, you know,
"Don't go, don't go."
I think that's why I called my daughter
and my sister.
I felt maybe something
was gonna go wrong.
[Veronica] When my mom said
she wanted to leave,
I felt so relieved and so happy to go,
"Let's go," you know, "get your things
and get you out of here."
Not knowing, like, what could happen.
[laughs ruefully]
Me and my aunt went to my mom and Ruben's
apartment to go gather her things.
So, we walk into the bedroom,
and he's there on the bed,
and he was holding a knife.
We look around the room,
and on the three walls was the word,
"Die, die, die."
"Die" on one wall, "die" on the other wall
and "die" on the other wall,
in his blood.
And my mom, she didn't want us
to call the police.
She said, "Let's just go
and just leave him alone."
[Jaramillo] I wanted to die right there
and then. I felt my heart pounding.
I wanted to cry, uh
because I had put my hope on her.
I kept trying to, uh get in contact
with her and everything else,
because all that all that emotion
came flooding back.
Technically, I did cheat on her.
But I wanted to contact her
and I wanted to, like, see,
"What can we do to resolve this, uh
this conflict of emotion?"
and things like that.
So, uh I'm not real, uh keen
on on subtle hints or things like that.
You know, I'm more a person that needs
If you want something,
you have to say it bluntly
in order for me to understand,
because I don't grasp, like,
hints or things like that.
The way I used to try to contact her
was writing her letters.
That occurred over a period of time.
Every time I asked a question,
it would it would go unanswered.
And so I had to I had to try
to get to communicate with her,
to get in contact with her to try to get
those answers, but I couldn't.
It's like, the more I tried
to communicate with her,
the more I failed, the more I was like
I was like, "Man, I'm"
I kept coming up with more, uh questions,
but without answers.
[birdsong]
[Maria] I had stacks and stacks
of letters, you know,
that he would leave on my car.
The letters would say
that he wanted to talk things over,
and that he really loved me,
and he's not going to hurt me,
and he just wants us to get back together.
At that point,
all this really got me worried.
[woman] Stalking is considered
to be a serious crime
involving repeated and persistent
behavior that threatens,
harasses and creates fear in our victims
and can turn into violence.
My name is Dr. Hae Rim Jin,
and my research specialization
is in intimate partner violence.
In my line of work,
I have studied a large number of cases
focusing on stalking.
These are letters that Mr. Jaramillo
wrote to Maria.
These letters are records
of his stalking behavior.
In my opinion,
his case is very, very dangerous.
His letters gave me a lot of insight
to his mindset.
One particular
is that he consistently says,
"I love you, I love you, I love you.
Why don't you get that I love you?"
And she gets it, but she doesn't want it.
This individual fits the profile
of rejected stalker,
because his sole motivation
behind stalking Maria
is that he can no longer accept
that she has left him.
Mr. Jaramillo also says quite often
that he is ready to die for her,
so that reiterates that feeling of,
he really truly believes
he has nothing left to lose.
It's her or nothing, even his life.
The likelihood of that case turning into
a dangerous one is relatively high.
This particular letter is a red flag.
He says, "If we're not together,
then that gives me the right
to go after your family
for breaking us up."
"But if we're still together, then I have
no right to go after them, right?"
First, he's blaming her family
for breaking them up.
He's implying to her that,
"I know your parents were
one of the reasons why we broke up,
and I have every means to hurt them,
especially if you don't come back to me."
His letters are demonstrating
that the violence truly was inevitable.
It was going to happen,
because he just could not let her go.
[Maria] Ruben was stalking me at my jobs.
He would be parked, like, at the corner,
and so I would spot him
and I would get off and start running.
He was not giving up.
He said in letters, "Not gonna give up."
But by that time, I was, like,
really, really frightened.
Wherever I would go, uh he was just,
like, constantly following me.
He knew where my parents lived
and where my daughter lived.
[Veronica] This was the beginning
of a a time to watch our backs.
He started delivering letters
to my apartment,
taping them to the door.
And then one of the letters said
that if I don't give my mom the letters,
he was gonna put naked pictures of her
around my apartment complex.
And he did.
I actually didn't know
what was gonna come next.
I moved from my apartment
to a different apartment.
I wanted to hide.
I didn't want him to, like,
know where I lived anymore,
because he threatened to kill me
if she didn't go with him.
He was stalking multiple members
of our family.
Lurking around in different places,
you know?
He was at the front door of my brother
and his girlfriend's apartment,
and she was terrified.
He was driving by
the other family members' houses.
My cousin's house, my brother's apartment,
my grandparents', me.
Now everybody had a piece
of being stalked.
My mom was getting lots of anger
towards her.
"You brought this crazy into our family,
and now he knows where we all live."
I don't think she knew
what was gonna happen next,
and I think she thinks
he was just gonna, like, fade away.
I was already determined to leave her
and her family and everything behind,
because I already had it.
I had enough with it and everything else.
I was walkin' towards her parents' house.
I was gonna tell them, like,
to piss off or something like that.
I was gonna tell her parents that
to tell her not to contact me at all,
not to do anything with me, 'cause
I didn't want no part of her or anything.
I'mma give her one last gift, you know,
because in the scripture it says,
you know, uh if people hate you,
uh bless 'em or love 'em, you know.
So I thought, "Okay,"
so I went into this Chinese store,
bought some, uh, toy handcuffs
for her grandkids.
And, uh Oh, I
And, uh, I I had this, uh toy stun gun.
And I started praying,
and I was I was, like
I was like, um you know,
"Lord, I want you to please stop me."
You know
Uh "Stop me from going to the house
and then confronting the parents,
because I I feel that
I'm gonna do something crazy."
[Angulo] What happened
on September 26th of 2005
is the end result of Ruben's journey
of stalking.
Right now, we're looking at the driveway
where Ruben accosted Maria's father.
He actually brought three sets
of handcuffs.
He brought duct tape.
So they are filming right now the stun gun
or the Taser that he left behind.
All signs of something very violent
that occurred.
[Jaramillo] I went to the house.
I rung the doorbell.
Her dad came around the corner,
and I startled him, he startled me.
And he came at me
like like you know, like, to fall.
And I thought he was trying to attack me,
so I pulled out the toy stun gun,
and then I pushed him down.
I looked down and I saw him on the ground,
and I saw he was grabbing his heart.
That's when I realized
he was having a heart attack.
I was trying to pick him up,
but he was too heavy for me.
And so the mom came out
around the corner, and so she screamed,
so I dropped him and I went over
to tell her, "I'm not here to hurt you."
And I tried to calm her down,
and she wouldn't calm down.
So I grab the toy stun gun
and I stun her.
So, uh I picked her up.
And I remember I had the toy stun gun,
so I mean, the toy handcuffs.
So I grabbed one of the toy handcuffs
and I put 'em on
uh, put the toy handcuffs on her.
I walked her to the restroom
and I sat her down.
[Angulo] He handcuffed both of them.
With the mother,
he took her into the house
and he went back out
to deal with Maria's father,
and Maria's mother was able to escape,
run across the street
and get help from a neighbor.
And they called 911, and the police came
and responded fairly quickly.
He was interrupted,
and so he got in their van and he fled.
[Jaramillo] I had no intention
of hurting anybody, because that's not
I hate people hurting other people.
And when I look back, what what
what occurred, that's not who I was.
I mean I mean, that's not who I am.
So, Ruben says that he had no intention
of hurting anyone,
because he hates people that hurt people.
Ruben's not only trying
to minimize his culpability,
he's trying to change the narrative.
His delusions are
quite intact.
The Taser definitely was not a toy.
It caused such a heart attack
that Maria's father had to have
quadruple bypass surgery,
and, um, to me, this confirms it.
He is not willing to accept responsibility
for the damage that he caused
to this family.
- [Maria] There was ambulance and police.
- [siren wailing]
My sister was yelling at me,
"Your ex-boyfriend attacked Mom and Dad!"
And that's when I, like
God, I just felt so bad and at fault,
because he did this
because I wouldn't go back to him.
I just felt so ashamed.
[Veronica] It was the scariest thing,
to not know where he could be.
I gave the daycare a picture of him,
because my daughter was in daycare,
and I let them know the situation.
I was afraid that he was gonna find me
and my daughter.
I didn't know if he was gonna kill me
to try to get to my daughter.
I didn't know what he was gonna do.
It's the fear of the unknown.
We didn't know where he could pop up.
One of the nights that he was on the run,
I went to my best friend's house,
and I had a major panic attack.
I thought I was dying. I I did.
I thought I was I thought I was dying.
[Angulo] I decided to try only
the aggravated robbery,
because stalking is more difficult,
in the sense that you have to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt
all of the elements.
So you have to prove many tiny moments
instead of just one big moment.
Aggravated robberies are typically
a first-degree felony,
so just like murders,
it carries a punishment range
from five years up to 99 years,
or life in prison.
It it was a very strong case
that we took to trial
for the aggravated robbery.
This case was odd in that Ruben left us
all the evidence of his intention
at the scene of the crime.
He had a bag that he left behind
when the police started to come,
and inside of that bag, there was a note.
And on this note, it basically laid out
what Ruben was going to do.
Ruben writes, "Pick up cash,
pick up check and cash it."
"Stun gun, four sets of handcuffs."
"Locate parents. Mom and Dad only."
"Handcuff Mom and Dad."
"Lock the gates and head towards Mexico."
"Drop the parents off in a ditch."
"Head back and pick up Maria's daughter,
pick up the car with her,
pick up Maria's daughter's daughter,
then take her in green van."
"Look for Maria, get hold of Maria."
"Pick up the Suburban, bring it to Mexico,
move into house
and live in Mexico forever."
We are talking about five people
that Ruben planned to kidnap,
um, and relocate,
in his desire to win Maria's heart.
Ruben definitely suffered from delusions.
It didn't make him incompetent.
It didn't make him insane.
But it made him very dangerous.
[Angulo] They put the defendant
on the stand.
He was really their only defense.
He did not seem to accept
any responsibility for his conduct.
He didn't seem to think that the nature
of his relationship with Maria
was anything other than a love story.
It was not a good defense.
The evidence we had was strong,
against him,
and I think, at the end,
that there was no question, um
that Ruben Jaramillo
was a dangerous individual.
[Angulo] The aggravated robbery that
we tried was ultimately the culmination
of all the stalking
that he committed on Maria.
So, even though she wasn't the ultimate
victim in the case that we prosecuted,
I think that the jury
appropriately considered
the dangerousness of the situation.
Maria was definitely an injured woman.
Emotionally injured.
She suffered a lot of abuse
at the hands of Mr. Jaramillo.
I think it was very crucial for the jury
to hear from Maria,
because the history of stalking
was central to this case.
If you take Maria out of the picture,
there's not much context
for what the defendant did.
She explained to the jury the abuse
that she suffered from him,
the psychological,
the emotional abuse that he used.
And that's gonna scar an individual.
It scarred her.
[Maria] I was on the stand,
and I did tell them about the stalking.
I was very scared telling the judge
everything what had happened,
and, um I was just, like, crying.
Just nonstop crying, um
I was so so afraid,
just having him there.
[Jaramillo] I've been in prison, uh
16 years, almost 17 years.
I had plenty of time to think of what
what was
what was the malfunction in my thinking,
and and so forth.
I do feel that, uh
pretty much anybody could be a stalker,
given the right set of circumstances.
And I guess I, uh
I lost touch with reality
and, uh just started fantasizing.
I was hoping, I guess, in a way,
to be able to get back that
that feeling of, uh being wanted.
Chasing after her, uh
would get her attention
and she would, uh
once again see me as a person,
and say, "Hey, look, there's this person,
you know, who cares about me."
And I was hoping she would see that,
you know,
I was willing to bend over backwards
for her and do whatever she wanted.
I do possess, uh remorse over what I did
to Maria and and her family,
because it shouldn't have occurred
in the first place.
I should have been the bigger man
and just walked away.
Uh, putting your, uh your emotions
100% into a person,
it's like playing Russian roulette.
It's like, uh Unless you're
with the person like 20, 30 years,
yeah, I can understand,
but when you meet a person like I did,
and I was with her for five years,
uh you know, I shouldn't have been
100% into into her.
Uh, because no matter
how many times she cheated on me
or how many times I cheated on her,
uh I should have seen the signs.
But there's no way to correct the past.
It's just continuing to the future with
and trying to correct myself,
uh, and hoping that
this situation doesn't occur
with somebody else, or anything else,
and that I'm better able
to control myself mentally.
And, uh and
and see disappointments
as a as a stepping-stone
rather than a than a a tragedy.
[birdsong]
[Veronica] I definitely think
about him getting out,
and I just want to, like, disappear.
I don't want him to find me.
I am still living
with the effects of this.
I deal with anxiety attacks weekly.
It makes me very, very angry
that I have to deal with this,
my kids have to deal with this
my husband has to deal with this.
[tearfully] It's frustrating.
It's torturous.
[sobs]
And my grandparents deal with it, too.
This is lifelong.
[Maria] Everybody fears
that he's gonna get parole.
I myself am very, very scared.
We are writing letters to the parole
not to release him,
because I feel that he's gonna
come and finish me off.
He said he would hurt people that I love,
and so we just have to live in fear.
I believe he will continue looking for me.