It’s been a minute since we updated y’all concerning Angela’s latest death threat. 

That’s because we were waiting to hear back from the local detective working our case. Turns out he was on vacation for a couple of weeks. But during the interim, since we first alerted you to this development, something equally mind blowing occurred. We’ve kept mum about it until the investigator got back to us – and he has. Now we can give you the full skinny!

So, as you may recall, Angela received the same message submitted to her via email, and through our website’s contact form. So this loser went the extra mile to make sure that she got it. And it was graphic! The original story and message are here.

Now, as I mention in that story, this isn’t the first death threat that Angela has received. But it is the most disturbing. And the fact that the dirt bag took the effort to send it to her personal email AND to our contact form was even more disturbing. It was jarring enough that, when we reported it to the local Sheriff’s office, they passed it along to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and they passed it onto the FBI.

A couple of weeks ago, while we were waiting to hear what the various investigative agencies came up with, we received an email from Stacey Smekofske. Stacey is an editor and author coach, and she is one half of the “Pros Talking Prose” podcast. If you didn’t catch it, you should listen to our 2-part podcast with her and Troy Lambert here and here. 

Anyway, Stacey asked us to call her because she had a question. We called, and she said she needed advice to give an author who was being contacted by a “scammer.” Of course, we were glad to help and asked what the situation was.

Stacey said one of her author clients had received a “disturbing” email, and offered to send us a copy of it.

She shot us the copied email, and when we read it, we were FLOORED!

It was almost exactly the same email that Angela had received! Some things were different, but it may as well have been the same thing.

Right away, we recognized the “B*TCH” effort to circumvent the email spam filters. Then there was the threat of rape before killing – but this time they threatened to rape the victim before killing her family.

And the motive was identical – they wanted the victim to stay off the internet and social media, and stop promoting her book (they wanted Angela to stay off the Internet altogether)! This victim isn’t even going after scammers like we do. She’s just an author promoting her book!

More toward the end of the message, they warned the victim again to stay off social media and “LIVE LIKE AN ANONYMOUS LOSER” – which is exactly what he said to Angela.

So, right away, we knew we were dealing with a serial email threatener. To be honest, it made me feel a lot better, because this victim lives over 1200 miles from where we are.  I cannot imagine that whoever this is sending these threats has a network of killers across the U.S. If someone with that much power wants you dead, they aren’t going to send emails about it.

We told Stacey to have the victim call us. It turns out that the victim had already notified the FBI about what she received. She sent us copies of the original emails with the digital headers attached. We forwarded all of this to our local detective, who sent it to the Atlanta FBI office. So now, the FBI can connect the two cases (and perhaps any other similar cases).

We did find out they were able to identify the fact that the emails sent to us went through seven VPNs. That’s really all we know. I’m sure they aren’t telling us everything. I’m hoping whoever is sending these is actually in the states. Eventually, I’m confident the FBI can nab them. If they are in some third-world mudhole, then they may never be caught. But if that’s the case, I don’t really care.

In the meantime, we remain vigilant. We keep the security system armed 24/7. Our exterior cameras alert us to any movement outside. And one gun or another is always within two steps away wherever we are in the house.  It’s not the most fun way to live, but we don’t let it bug us too much.

If you happen to know anyone who is receiving threatening emails that sound similar to ours, have them reach out to us. We will happily walk them through the process of getting the FBI involved.

RELATED

• A Scammer Wants Us DEAD! AGAIN!! We Posted the Entire Email! – by Brian Whiddon, Managing Editor
• Just Published? Great! Now, Get Ready for an Onslaught of Scammers! By Angela Hoy
• Scammers Impersonating Amazon are Charging Authors THOUSANDS to Get Their FAKE Amazon Accounts Back!
• Nigerian Scammers are Impersonating WritersWeekly, and Stealing Money from Translators and Writers!
• Scammers Are Offering to “Help” Scam Victims Get Refunds…For a Fee, of Course

Brian Whiddon is the Managing Editor of WritersWeekly.com and the Operations Manager at BookLocker.com. An Army vet and former police officer, Brian is the author of Blue Lives Matter: The Heart behind the Badge. He's an avid sailor, having lived and worked aboard his 36-foot sailboat, the “Floggin’ Molly” for 9 years after finding her abandoned in a boat yard and re-building her himself. Now, in northern Georgia, when not working on WritersWeekly and BookLocker, he divides his off-time between hiking, hunting, and farming.

 

 

 

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