A man from Florida has admitted cyberstalking a woman who survived a violent attack in her childhood that left another young girl dead.
Alvin Willie George of Cross City pleaded guilty to two counts of cyberstalking related to the online harassment of the survivor and her sisters.
According to court records, the victim was in a Texas bedroom with another girl in December 1999 when an assailant entered and attacked the two friends. Both girls had their throats slit.
One girl died from the attack, while her friend survived. The perpetrator of this vicious assault was later caught and convicted.
George, who has no connection to the surviving victim or her family, began harassing the victim and her family 17 years after the attack took place.
In or around November 2016, George started researching the deadly crime on the internet. The 25-year-old then created various Facebook accounts that he used to send harassing messages to the victim and her sisters, all of whom live in Idaho. In the messages, George threatened to rape and kill the women.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Boise Police Department.
A federal grand jury in Boise indicted George on December 11, 2019. On Thursday, the US Attorney's Office in Boise, Idaho, announced George's guilty plea.
Sentencing is scheduled to take place on April 8, 2021, before US District Judge B. Lynn Winmill at the federal courthouse in Boise.
In Idaho, the crime of cyberstalking is punishable by up to five years in prison, a maximum fine of $250,000, and a supervised release period of up to three years, per charge.
According to the Stalking Prevention, Awareness and Resource Center, an estimated 6 to 7.5 million people are stalked annually in the United States.
The majority of stalking victims are stalked by someone they know; just one in five stalking victims are stalked by a stranger.
A quarter of stalking victims report being stalked through the use of some form of technology such as e-mail or instant messaging. While 10% of victims report being monitored with global positioning systems, 8% report being monitored through video or digital cameras, or listening devices.