Miracle Story #13
“The story really starts in 1989. I had an infant daughter that died at 3 ½ months and I pretty much lost all my faith.
I was 24.
I had already lost my mother when I was twenty. So, no faith.
It was gone.
I got divorced and I started working at the Wichita Police Department. I had gotten two promotions and usually with a promotion, you changed shifts. So I was going back on to third shift at the time it all began.
My boys and I were living in a duplex at that time, where the units were side by side and the front doors faced in toward a courtyard. And there were two parking lots separated by a garage, and then an alleyway. And that’s an important detail in the story.
So my first night back on third shift I was walking down the sidewalk toward my parking area, which had a large evergreen tree alongside it, and I noticed tennis shoes sticking out from the tree. Now trees don’t usually have shoes and when I stepped back, a man stepped from behind it and toward me. But then he hesitated a little bit and ran off.
I made a police report and they looked for him, but never found him. This would have been right about ten o’clock at night.
So that was the first encounter with him. I’d never seen him before that.
The next encounter wasn’t a direct encounter with me. I was dating an officer that worked with me at the time, and he had come over to my house on this particular evening. We had had a picnic on my living room floor with my two little boys that night.
I put them to bed and about half an hour, maybe an hour later, there was a knock at my front door and it was uniformed officers. The lady that lived behind me, in a house, had been raped that evening.
So that was a bad deal.
I went to work the next night and had to type up all of those reports, which included how he got in, his modus operandi, all of those kind of details. I just kind of tucked that away. I did my job.
Several months down the line I was back on first shift because another promotion had come. I had put my boys to bed around nine o’clock. And within a few minutes of that there was a knock on the door. I looked out through the window and it was someone that I didn’t recognize, but I talked to him through the locked door.
He used the same modus operandi that he had used with my neighbor. He said, “My car broke down and I need to borrow your phone.”
So I said, “I’ll call somebody for you.”
And he goes, “Well I need to use your phone book.”
“Tell me the name and I’ll look it up.”
And he gave me some fake name. I went and grabbed my phone and phonebook and when I went back to look out the window, he was gone.
So I called 9-1-1 instead.
They came out and looked for him. The patrol officer that came by was cruising down the street, looking between houses to see if he saw someone, and he thought he saw someone and so he threw his car into reverse, but backed into a parked car. So that ended that search.
So I was still on first shift, and one of my co-workers was in the National Guard. His normal days off were Saturday and Sunday. And I believe mine were like Tuesday and Wednesday, because I was lower on the totem pole. He needed to trade days off with somebody so I told him I’d trade with him. I thought it would be nice to take the weekend off for a change.
I think it was on Wednesday that week, could have been Tuesday, I don’t remember for sure. But I had gone to work and then picked up my boys after school. And when we got home, both of my doors were standing wide open. Now the landlord had always let me know when he was going to come by, but this wasn’t the case.
So I ran over to a neighbor’s house, called the police, and they came out. They did a burglary report and left.
I called my grandpa. I said, “Hey, I just picked up the boys from school and the house has been burglarized, and I just want to make it look as normal as possible.”
A lot of electronics, the boys video games and stuff like that, were missing. It was a lot of their things that were missing. They had the good stuff apparently, not me. (laughs)
He said, “Yeah, no problem.”
So I took the boys over to stay with him while I cleaned up.
And while I was cleaning up I just had this feeling.
So I called my boyfriend, who was an officer at the time. I couldn’t get ahold of him because he was out of the office. So then I called one of my best friends, who was also an officer, but he wasn’t available either.
I battled with the last one, because I really don’t care for my brother-in-law, I just don’t. But I really felt like I needed to get somebody over there to be with me. He was an officer as well.
And so I called him. I got ahold of him and I told him that the house had been burglarized and that I really needed him to come by. He told me he would come. And then I called my grandpa back to talk and in that conversation I told him that after my brother-in-law came by, I would go pick up the boys.
About that time, I looked out the back window and I saw this car cruising very slowly down the alleyway. So I watched him and the guy in the car was really checking out my duplex.
And then he pulled around that garage that separated the parking areas and parked on the other side, where I couldn’t see inside. He got out and he walked up to the neighbor’s duplex and knocked on their door. And almost immediately, he turned around and walked over toward mine. The screen door was still locked.
So I walked up to the door, with my grandpa still on the phone and he started in with, “Yeah, does Michael Spinks live over here?”
“Nope.”
“Well he lives around here somewhere.”
“No he doesn’t.”
And he goes, “Well I need to use your phone.”
I said, “I’m on it.”
It was broad daylight still.
So he walked back over to his car. I told my grandpa to hold on for a minute and I grabbed a notebook and a pen and ran outside to grab his tag number and vehicle description. And about that time, I saw my brother-in-law pull in down the alley, so I signaled to him that I didn’t know who was in that car. He pulled up behind him and I ran inside real quickly and told my grandpa, who was still on the phone, that my brother-in-law had arrived and that I would call him back.
I headed back outside just in time to see that guy take off running toward the alley, and my brother-in-law start chasing him. I ran back inside and I called 9-1-1.
I told them the direction the pursuit was going in and about that time, my brother-in-law also hit the “officer in trouble” button on his mobile device that he was carrying. I don’t remember what that’s called. And I remember thinking my sister was going to kill me.
So then I went into the alley and my brother-in-law had caught him by that time.
The guy was sitting on the curb and when I looked at his profile, I said to my brother-in-law, “That’s the guy who was behind the tree. He’s the same guy that had come to my front door the first time too.”
He said, “How sure are you?”
And I said, “I’m 99.9% sure. That’s him.”
I think that finally getting that good, solid profile view is what finally made it click. The other times I’d seen him it was more of a profile angle, it was brief, and it was at night time.
So they took him in and did all of their interviews and stuff, and he admitted to some burglaries and sexual misconduct. Not necessarily rapes or anything.
When I went to work the next day, one of the burglary detectives, who was a friend also, called me. He said, “Why don’t you come up here to the fourth floor and talk to me.”
So I went to see him. I sat down and he said, “Where do you know this guy from?”
I told him I didn’t know him.
“You didn’t meet him at a bar or just run into him somewhere?”
“I have no idea who he is.”
And he slid the typed report across the desk to me and he goes, “I want you to read this.”
So the first paragraph was mundane, you know, ‘Officer so-and-so went here, did that, etc., etc.’
But the second paragraph. The second paragraph basically said that when he was arrested, he had handcuffs and a scalpel on him.
I was just sick.
So needless to say, for the next month I didn’t sleep but maybe two hours a night.
In retrospect, and it took me a while, I realized that even though I was angry at God, he loved me. (crying) Because if any one of those things had been different…
I was so fortunate.
It just floors me that this guy was planning whatever he was planning for over two years. He was arrested in 1993, so it would’ve started in 1991.
God saw it coming and He said, ‘Yeah, but this is my plan.’
And He didn’t let it happen.
After a few months, I calmed back down and I was good.
About eleven years later I moved to Austin, Texas. I moved into an apartment. I was old and chubby like this (laughs), but about a month after I had moved in, I started getting notes on my car. In the first note the guy gave me his name and his phone number. And I called and talked to a friend of mine who is a psychologist and he told me to nip it in the bud, to just call him and tell him I wasn’t interested.
So that’s what I did.
It didn’t stop the notes. And since that one, I’ve had anxiety issues.
I started making reports to the Austin Police Department every time he would leave a note. They’d tell me there was nothing they could do about it since he hadn’t broken any laws.
That would’ve been 2005, about 12 years ago.
And the thing is, when the first one happened, there were no stalking laws. In Kansas, if it was basically a domestic partnership, then maybe. And still to this day in most states, it doesn’t span to strangers. I didn’t know either one of those people.
I’ve never really lived a real ‘out there’ life. I’ve always been fairly low-key. But I’ve had my moments.
With the second one, he saw me when I was moving into my apartment. I was gross and sweaty and my friends and I were just working. It’s like, really?
Crazy is as crazy does.
I have issues mowing my front yard. There’s this little thing in my head that says, ‘Where’s the next one?’ I’m always looking.
I’m always looking, wondering, ‘Did I see that person just down the street?’ And to most people, it’s not logical. And it’s crazy for most people for me to be that way.
And it’s like, statistically I shouldn’t have had even one stalker, let alone two.
When I worked at the police department all those years ago, I used to go run in the mornings before work. I can’t run now. I may fool myself every once in a while and make it a block and then it’s like, ‘Nah, I think I’ll go home.’ (laughs)
He’s still locked up today. We had to go to court twice. The first time it was a hung jury. I’ll never forget, the state attorney general called me up to the stand and I just had an adrenaline dump. I was shaking so hard. And I couldn’t stop.
She finally looked at me and said, “It’s going to be okay.”
So the first time it was a hung jury and the second time I remember her saying to the jury, “Do you want him coming and knocking on your door?”
I don’t think they were thinking about it like that.
He was convicted of raping the woman who lived behind me because she was able to identify him in a line up. And he is still in prison as a habitual violent sexual predator.
My faith has been slowly evolving.
I would say it started when I was still in Texas and I was living at my condo there. A girlfriend of mine from high school actually, lives just outside of Austin. And I started going to church with her and her husband. They wanted me to. And I love them, so I started to go to church with them. It was weird though, I discovered that I cried every time we went to church.
And I asked her one day, I said, “Why am I doing this?”
And she said, “He’s working in your heart.”
But it was frustrating to me because I’m so tough, you know. So I would say that was probably more of the turning point. And that would’ve been in about 2007 I think.
My paternal granddaddy was a Baptist preacher, so I know a lot of the things but I’m pretty hard-headed. And I’ve always been the kind of person that has to know all of the angles.
So the Bible says, ‘Do this, this and this.’ And I’m like, ‘But is that right?’ Like I know better. (laughs)
But after going to church with them for a while, they’re very strong Christians, she told me several times, “You’re a treasure to me. And you’re a treasure to God.”
I’d tell her, “No, I’m nothing special.”
And she’d say, “Yes you are. Yes you are.”
I just started paying more attention.
And it’s funny, if you listen, just how many times God talks to you.
Now I own a nation-wide transport business, so I travel the lower forty-eight all the time. And I have seen and experienced so many little miracles, blessings. And I always share them with my friends on Facebook.
They’re like, “Oh you’re so awesome.”
And I tell them, “No, this isn’t about me. I want to share this experience with you.”
And they’re finally learning. Don’t praise me. This isn’t about me. (laughs)
But I still have very far to go.
Most of us do.”
©2017 by One Million Miracles. All Rights Reserved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My name is Lori, and I live in *Wichita, Kansas.
In the midst of being stalked by a stranger for two years, I AM Miracle Story #13.