DOZENS of women have been left terrorised after they were targeted by a disturbed serial stalker known to follow and watch his victims for months at a time.
Random phone calls, showing up on the women’s doorstep, following them to work and endless text messages are all part of his routine.
To make matters worse, the man, known to the women as Christodoulos or Christos, has never seen the inside of a jail cell despite a multitude of police complaints against him.
“He’s crazy,” a police source told the Sunday Mail. “He used to work for the fire department years ago and they fired him. I know there are loads of cases against him, but I don’t think one has been tried in court yet.”
Crazy or not, the women want this “horrible little man” stopped.
“He stalked me last summer. When he showed up at my office and a neighbour saw him she told me she recognised him because he’d stalked her 10 years ago. This guy has been doing this for years,” 30-year-old Maria said.
Apparently the man, said to be in his mid 30s to early 40s, mainly targets women in their twenties and early thirties who work for large organisations such as private companies, semi-government organisations, banks or schools.
He is said to harass them regardless of whether they are married, in a relationship, single or living at home with their parents.
“With me, he used to park his car and wait outside my house every morning at 7am and follow me to work when I’d leave at 7.15am,” Christina said.
“I lived with my parents at the time but that didn’t stop him. It was really creepy coming out and seeing him there every single morning, just watching you and following you.”
Until the past year, the majority of his victims have lived in Nicosia, but police told one of his more recent victims that he had started targeting women in Larnaca and other towns.
“He’ll call you up and he knows your name and where you work. With me, he pretended to be an insurance salesman and the first contact I had with him was in person at work. In fact he came right up to me and introduced himself,” said Anna, who was stalked five years ago.
He only stopped coming to her workplace after her managers intervened and told him never to go near her again.
“That’s when he showed up at my flat. He rang the door bell and I opened the door and there he was. He tried to tell me something and I shouted at him and slammed the door in his face. I ran to my room and locked the door and stayed there for hours. It was late and dark outside and I was so scared.”
After that he started to come round her apartment block harassing other women in the building and ringing their doorbells. It finally stopped after the husband of a woman he’d stalked two years before caught him and chased him away.
“He’s that crazy he came back with police to complain that he’d been assaulted. When my neighbours explained the situation he ended up being arrested. I know they gave a statement but after that I don’t know what happened.”
Maria added that she’d receive phone calls from the stalker at any time and from different numbers each time. He also showed up at her workplace
“Once he called me from a Limassol number. Eventually I stopped answering the phone if it was from a number I didn’t recognise and got my boyfriend to screen my calls,” she said.
“He only stopped when my boyfriend threatened to beat him one day. But even now if I notice a car following me from the office I get scared. I don’t work late any more either and if I do, I lock the door and move my car from the underground parking lot and leave it in the street. I do things I wouldn’t ordinarily do,” Maria said.
Another woman said he knew what car she drove and called up pretending to be from her car dealer.
“He was insisting I give him my home address so that he could supposedly send me information but I recognised his voice and hung up on him,” she said.
Some women are said to have even received text messages from him wishing them good morning, good night, or simply to have a good weekend.
“Sometimes his messages were just to say hello,” 26-year-old Stalo said.
The incident became known through word of mouth when a close friend of one of his victims recently sent an email to every woman on her email list. The message was soon forwarded from one woman to another and his victims started to come out of the woodwork.
“Everybody knows who this guy is. It’s an open secret. Whatever woman you talk to there’s someone he’s either done it to or they know someone he’s stalked,” Stalo said.
Another woman told the Mail her cousin had been targeted and that when her parents shouted at him he smashed her father’s car window.
“He’ll ring you up and ask you out and if you say no he starts to shout and becomes really angry. It’s frightening because you don’t know what he’s capable of,” Elena said.
Andrea said when she reported his stalking to police he was called in for questioning and later called her swearing abuse down the phone. Days later, he rang the school where she worked at and pretended to be a police officer investigating a parent’s complaint against her.
“The police told me that he’s been known to do that and that he’s crazy,” she said.
Although a lot of women said they had reported the stalker, others were told that unless he had insulted, threatened or swore at them, there wasn’t much police could do.
Maria said: “I made the mistake and didn’t report it. I know there have been reports though. He’s done it to a lot of girls and I know it terrifies the hell out of you. To have this fear that someone is following you and can call you at any time, from any phone is terrifying. And not to know where he is at the time of the call, he could be outside your apartment.”
She added: “To say he’s harmless is untrue because harassment is harmful. Does he have to physically hurt you to get something done? This is psychological damage. My only advice to other women is that if it happens to you try not to get scared. Report it to the police. He ruins your life. Try not to let him. He’s not worth it. He’s a sicko.”
Andrea said that during the four months he had followed her she stopped visiting her friends for fear that he’d see where they lived and target them.
“I live with my parents at least, but they live alone. I was still scared of coming home at night alone though; just that idea that he could be there. He invades your privacy and knows stuff about you. He was able to fool my mum and get her to tell him where I worked and to give him my mobile number because he makes up these elaborate stories with just enough fact to make it credible, and it’s been happening for years,” she said.
“Someone should do something. I just know he’s crazy and that means you don’t know when he might attack. My advice to others is that if you’re a target contact police immediately. Show him that you’re not scared of him and that you’ll take steps to stop him. That’s what I did,” Andrea said.
Contacted by the Mail Nicosia Assistant Divisional Commander Demetris Demetriou yesterday confirmed that police knew about the stalker and were investigating numerous complaints against him.
“We know who he is and he is under investigation,” he said.
