"We Caught Our Stalker"

For five years, he filled their days with dread, their nights with fear. Then they fought back.

- By Tess Kessler

It's just before 8:45 p.m. on April 20, 2020, in the Los Angeles suburb of Westlake Village, and I'm waiting for our family's harasser to show up.

Specifically, I'm hiding in the back of my mom's SUV, wearing a black hoodie, and holding a walkie-talkie in one hand and a can of pepper spray in the other. The car is in the driveway of our two-story home, the second-to-last house at the top of a hill, just before a cul-de-sac. It's especially quiet up here tonight. No traffic. No pedestrians.

I'm tense, even though my parents are inside watching me on the security cameras. It's been over an hour, and he's due any time now. I practice taking slow, deep breaths.

Then it happens. A man ascends our steep street. His eyes scan our home, darting from window to window. I silently plead with myself to stay calm as he passes within ten feet of me, his gaze landing on the car's dark rear window. A split second passes before he beelines toward our mailbox and opens it.

Slowly, shakily, I raise the walkie-talkie to my lips. "Carole Baskin," I say into the microphone. "I repeat, Carole Baskin is here." Carole Baskin, of course, is the infamous feline fanatic featured in Tiger King, the Netflix docuseries everyone in America seemed to be watching at the time. But to my family, "Carole Baskin" is the code name for a man who sows fear and inspires a revulsion not unlike what the show's protagonist, Joe Exotic, feels for his arch nemesis. No large cats were harmed in the making of this story, but my family and I were haunted night after night.

But tonight, we're fighting back, focused on catching the man who has been harassing us-and ending his perverse reign of terror once and for all.