A good neighbor is difficult to find and can be worth their weight in gold. But how do you really know that the person who smiles and waves from across the way truly has your best interests at heart ?
What if their intentions were darker , more sinister, and downright dangerous? It might like something out of a horror movie, but it’s precisely what happened to a 64-year-old widow , by the name of Debbie Wearing-Jones.
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A good neighbor is a hard thing to come by.
A good neighbor understands that your street is a community unto itself. They watch out for you when you aren’t home, shovel the driveways of the elderly, and help you out when your car breaks down.
But how well can you ever really come to know the person living across the street?
Sure, Ron across the way might seem like a great guy, but how do you know that he isn’t moonlighting as a stalker or something far more sinister?
This is precisely the situation that 64-year-old widow, Debbie Wearing-Jones, recently found herself in.
Debbie had lived next to her neighbor, William Nolan (59), and his wife for years. She trusted them both implicitly and even gave the couple a key to her house in order to feed the cats while she was away.
But upon her return home, Debbie discovered every woman’s worst nightmare.
Hidden beneath the floorboards, directly underneath her living room coffee table, was a listening device. Upon further investigation, Debbie found another piece of spyware concealed in the headboard of her bedroom.
Understanding that the perpetrator would have to return to collect the devices, she set up a webcam in her house.
Debbie then created a ruse wherein she told her neighbor Bill’s wife how she was headed out of town Thursday night and would return home the next day.
This is what she saw on the webcam:
It took her neighbor Bill less than 30 minutes to slink over and let himself into Debbie’s house. He quickly set to work removing the devices, closed the door to her home behind him, and left.
“I really didn’t think Bill or his wife would do something like that, but I needed to know for sure,” Debbie explained via Tyla.
Once Debbie had the proof, she reached out to her adult son to help her confront her stalker neighbor. But when the two of them went to the door, Bill denied everything.
Debbie had no choice but to collect her evidence and call the police to press formal charges.
Once the police had gotten involved, Bill admitted to “Stalking without fear, alarm, or distress” and was jailed for 15 weeks at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court.
The presiding judge, David Wain, called the case one of the most egregious and serious stalking incidents he’d seen in his career.
He came down hard on the police for their choice of charge, which he explained severely limited his sentencing powers.
Debbie has said that although Bill was punished for his crimes, she still feels totally consumed by what happened.
“To this day I worry thinking: ‘ was there anything else planted ?’ I still don’t know whether there is,” she said.
Fortunately, Bill has also been served with a restraining order that will keep him away from Debbie indefinitely.
But the question remains, was this the first time Bill exhibited stalker behavior, or is this just the first time he got caught? Don’t take chances with your life. Learn from Hamlet’s table that, ” One may smile, and smile, and be a villain .”
