EAST COUNTY RESIDENTS REPORT MULTIPLE STALKINGS OF WOMEN BY WHITE VAN

 Updated 4 p.m.

By Miriam Raftery

September 16, 2010 (San Diego’s East County) 1:00 p.m.– A white van implicated in the assault on a teen jogger in Blossom Valley on September 5th may have been involved in multiple stalkings of women in East County neighborhoods during the past couple of weeks. Other women have reported that they were stalked by a white van in the Cottonwood, Monarch Ridge and Rancho San Diego areas, East County Magazine has learned. 

Jolene Crowley, president of Avocado Estates Homeowners Association, shared an e-mail with ECM that she received last night from Lindsey Emerson asking the HOA to send out a warning to members of a predator in the neighborhood. Emerson forwarded a string of e-mails from Rita Barkett, a La Mesa dentist who notified friends via e-mail that she was stalked by two men in a white van while jogging in the Cottonwood area behind Valhalla High School on Friday, September 10 shortly after 11:30 a.m.

ECM  interviewed Barkett, who shared e-mails she has received from more women claiming to have been stalked and, in one case, chased by men in a white van.

“I noticed this van driving really slowly through the neighborhood,” said Barkett, a La Mesa dentist.  “On my way back from my run, I saw it again ahead of me. “ The van repeatedly pulled over to the side of the road ahead of her, recalled Barkett, who tried taking evasive actions such as crossing the street, only to have the van make a U-turn and continue to stalk her. “When they flipped a U-turn, that’s when I started running,” she said. “They got me to an area on Donahue near Hillsdale, and that’s where there was a vacant lot and nobody around,” she said. “They tried to hang a u-turn and come back at me, but there was traffic…There was no way they didn’t know how scared I was.”

Spotting another vehicle, Barkett said she flagged down the driver. “I actually walked into the road waving, yelling `Help, help!’” she told ECM. Barkett said she told the driver she was being stalked by the van and asked to use a phone to call her husband. “She said, `Get in.’”

Barkett describes the two men in the van as Hispanic or Middle Eastern men in their 20s, one with curly hair, around 5 feet 6 inches or 5 feet 7 inches tall. She and the woman who picked her up wrote down the license plate as 1XJG067, though she is unsure of the first number. She described the van as box-style with tinted rear windows—the identical description given by the Blossom Valley jogger who was assaulted, but escaped. Barkett says the van that followed her was more boxy than a photo circulated by the Sheriff in the Blossom Valley incident, however that victim also described the van as boxy. Barkett said the van that stalked her had two rear doors and horizontal dent on the back.

She said she notified the Sheriff immediately after the attack, at 12:30 p.m. She listed a case number as 10057001 and an incident number of S8616496. A deputy was dispatched, but could not locate the vehicle, Barkett said. She went online and identified a 1995 Chevy Cargo van as most closely resembling the one that stalked her.

“The same vehicle with two men was seen `casing’ on Teton Pass at 3 p.m. the same day, two and a half hours later, by one of the families in that area. One of the girls leaving a Valhalla practice had seen that while leaving for cross-country,” said Barkett, who declined to disclose the minor’s name until she can get permission from a parent. “The daughter said they were driving slowly like they were looking for a house to rob.” Barkett said a Sheriff’s officer told her “They are probably using fake plates and that’s why they think they can get away with this.”

One of those friends forwarded an e-mail that she received from yet another woman, but the woman’s name was not included on the e-mail, which was also forwarded to ECM. The writer described a frightening incident in nearby Rancho San Diego. “This sounds like the same van that was following me on Willow Glen about a month ago,” she wrote. “I had my I-pod on…A car saw what was happening and stopped. Apparently one of the guys was out of the van following me on foot and the other was driving along the edge of the road. When the car stopped, the man ran back to the van and got in thru side sliding door that was open and they made a u-turn onto Willow Glen heading back toward Rancho (San Diego).”

After hearing about the Blossom Valley attack which had occurred before her incident, and then the subsequent Willow Glen stalking, Barkett said she went back to the Sheriff. “I said, I need to talk to you again. I’m not the only one.” At that point, she said the Sheriff opened a case. “Once they realized, they jumped on it. “ She said she’s had multiple calls from law enforcement as a result.

Yet another incident occurred yesterday, said Barkett, according to yet another e-mail she received with no name, this one regarding a purported stalking in Rancho San Diego. “Yesterday morning, September 15, a woman was walking near Rancho San Diego Elementary School when a white van with two men starting tracking her. She said it was watching her every move. She knew what was going on, only because the day before she’d been in a car with a friend who read her my e-mail.” The woman indicated that was able to run home safely in that case.

A white van was also involved in a reported stalking and chase of an 11-year-old in City Heights earlier this month. In that case, a sliding door opened and the boy said there were two passengers, a man and woman, both African-American. The man reportedly chased the child, who outran him. There was no description of a driver.

"What would have happened to me if they'd got me into that van?" asks Barkett, who wants to see schools and community members notified of the danger.

Late today, after this story was initially published, ECM’s editor received a call from a woman who provided her indentification but asked that her name not be published. She said that on Thursday, September 2 at 5:30 a.m., while leaving for work she saw an older white van with two men “going up and down the streets in my neighborhood, going pretty slow.” She said the two men appeared Hispanic or Middle Eastern, the same description given by Barkett. “I felt very uncomfortable,” she recalled. “I went around the block again and came back, wondering were they looking to rob houses or what?”

The tipster said she lives on Elva Street in the Cottonwood area, around the corner from Valhalla. She mentioned that she has a teen daughter who likes to jog, but doesn’t want to take her dog along because of the danger posed by coyotes. “Now she won’t go jogging at all,” said the woman, who thanked East County Magazine for issuing a Viejas emergency alert warning East County residents about the recent stalking. (Sign up for our free Viejas Wildfire & Emergency alerts at the top right side of our homepage.)

“We believed we live in a nice, safe neighborhood,” she said. “Had you not put that alert out, I would never have known and I would have let my daughter go out jogging.”

East County Magazine contacted the Sheriff’s media line, where Lieutenant Munson referred us to the Lemon Grove Sheriff’s substation. Officer Matthew Dolmage, who Barkett said took her report, was not on duty today. ECM has also asked the Sheriff’s public information officer, Jan Caldwell, to research how many other stalking involving a white van have been reported within the past couple of months.

We have also asked for an explanation as to why the public and the media were not informed about the stalking reported by Barkett and any similar incidents of which the Sheriff’s department was notified.