University students are targets of cyber stalkers

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Sorority pledges in Florida and several other states are being harassed online by one or more cyber stalkers who target them with intimate questions, such as the color of their underwear, and then bully them with threats, police say.

Campus police Maj. Jim Russell said Thursday that nine victims have been identified at Florida State University since Aug. 31, but he believes there are more.

"One of the messages we're putting out is don't feel ashamed or embarrassed," Russell said. "If you've communicated with this person, it's time to fight back."

Two sorority women at the University of Florida reported similar online encounters in August and campus police there also are investigating, said Janine Sikes, a spokeswoman for the Gainesville school.

Russell said similar incidents have been occurred at the University of Alabama, Auburn University and Louisiana State University. University of Tennessee police reported two such cases in September.

The stalker or stalkers first ask victims to be friends on Facebook, claiming to be an alumna of their sorority and part of the pledging process, followed by a request for a video chat.

"Then they say, 'Oh, my side of the video camera doesn't work,"' Russell said. "Now you've got a one-way video chat, and as they continue this conversation they get more and more suggestive."

The stalker may ask what kind of bra a victim is wearing or demand she disrobe on camera, Russell said. If she refuses the stalker threatens to post compromising pictures of the victim on Facebook.

The stalker has used fake names that include "Marissa" and "Lexie."

One of the first to complain at Florida State was Ashley Atchison, a freshman from Clay County. She told Jacksonville television stations WJXX and WTLV in a recent interview that "Lexie" said she was being eyed as a future leader by Kappa Delta sorority.

"Every day was a new kind of task," Atchison said. "First day, she asked what color underwear I was wearing. The second and third day they knew the distance between the dorm and KD house."

When she refused to obey commands, Atchison said Lexie asked "What if I told you there were two girls outside your dorm that could handle you?"

She eventually withdrew from school and went home but plans to return.

Florida State Vice President for Student Affairs Mary Coburn sent a letter to sororities on Sept. 8 and then to all students on Oct.1 urging them not to befriend Internet strangers and warning that material given to someone online becomes their property.

The University of Florida distributed a similar warning to sorority women on Aug. 30, Sikes said.

"This is certainly a disturbing event and it's something that we certainly want our students to look at and make good decisions about," said Florida State Dean of Students Jeanine Ward-Roof.

Russell said investigators are working with Internet providers to backtrack e-mail addresses but that could be a problem because they are easy to fake.

"We're hopeful we're not at any complete dead ends on this, but we also acknowledge the difficulty," he said.

Russell said the only "shadow of a clue" investigators have is that whoever is doing it "seems to talk the speak of Greek organizations. They seem to know at least the rudimentary structure of how they work."

That knowledge, though, is not deep. Ward-Roof said one student immediately knew something was up when her would-be friend misspelled her sorority's name.

Possible charges include extortion and cyber stalking if someone is caught, but Russell said there may be another problem.

"Say for instance we track a computer to Canada," he said. "What do we do then?"

Campus knowledge the stalker or stalkers have, such as the distances between buildings, can be obtained from such sources as maps, Russell said.

"There's nothing that we've seen that says this person knows something that only local people would know," he said.

At the University of South Florida, police put out a campus wide e-mail Friday afternoon. Lt. Daniel says so far, USF students have not reported anything like this.

"We do want to take a proactive measure. We are going to put out an alert to the community that outlines cyber safety, cyberstalking," said Lt. Chris Daniel with USF’s Police Department.

"We would hope that if it has happened, somebody would come forward and let us know," said Lt. Daniel.

Investigators say the cyberstalker has targeted other universities like Auburn, University of Alabama and University of Tennessee.

Atchison says she withdrew from FSU for the semester and wants other college women to protect themselves.

"I was just like 'I don't know who you are, but you can keep your Greek letters. You can keep whatever you need,'" said Atchison.