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Obsessed
Two nights later, around 10 p.m., Gayane saw a faint light moving right to left outside her living room window. As she went to look out, shaking in fear, she suddenly couldn't feel her feet under her body. Outside, in the dark, she saw Ara, holding his luminous cell phone. Immediately, she closed the blinds. He had been calling her repeatedly, but with caller ID, she'd been able to ignore him. Now here he was lurking outside, stalking her at her own doorstep.Out of sheer frustration, she picked up the phone. "I asked you not to call me," Gayane said. "I will call the police. Leave!" She tried to sleep but couldn't. She kept getting up, fearful he was still around the house.
The next morning, she was blow-drying her hair in the second-floor bathroom when she saw his silhouette through the balcony window. There were no stairs to the balcony; he must have climbed the fence.
Ara began pounding on the window with his fist. His behavior seemed to be escalating to a new level. Panicked, Gayane called the police, and a dispatcher sent an officer. Afraid to wait, Gayane grabbed her purse and got in her car. Ara gave chase and tried to cut her off. As she fled, a police car came speeding toward her house. Ara pulled over -- then drove away.
Later that day, Gayane went to her office on Burbank Boulevard, a busy street she hoped would deter Ara from doing anything crazy. Yet he traced her to the office and drove up and down in front of the building for hours, calling her constantly on both of her work phone lines.
Finally, she took his call, just to make the incessant ringing stop. "You reported me to the police," he said. "Either you're going to be mine or together we'll go to eternity."
Frantic, she went to her sister's house. Then, acting on a premonition, Gayane called her home number -- and Ara answered.
"Yes, I'm here," he told her, "and since you don't pick up my calls, I'm going to call you from your own number. What I'm doing now is just one percent of my abilities. If I use all hundred percent, you'd rather be dead."
The stalking had gone on for so long and had been so stressful that maybe Gayane wasn't thinking straight. It was only the next day, August 29, four days after she found Ara under her car, that the light dawned and the whole sequence of disturbing encounters made sense. She pulled over to check under the car, and then called the police.
The officer who arrived did a quick check and found a black box attached to the chassis with magnets. Inside the box was a cell phone equipped with a Global Positioning System that activated whenever the car moved. A signal was transmitted to a satellite and then to a website that allowed Ara to track her.
When Gayane had caught him under her car, the police theorized, he must have been trying to change the phone's battery.
Detective Tracy Lowrey arrested Ara, who was charged with multiple counts of stalking and criminal threats. If convicted, he faced a six-year prison sentence.
In Ara's car, the police found other evidence. On the front seat were detailed Internet driving directions to Cancún, Mexico, where Gayane was planning to take a vacation. Ara's visa had expired, and he couldn't fly, so apparently he intended to drive -- round trip, all 2,888 miles -- to follow her. The police viewed this as part of a pattern -- an absolute need for control and an escalating series of events that could possibly lead to murder-suicide.
But why did it take so long for Gayane to seek help from the police? Glendale Police Sergeant Randy Osborne says that Gayane's behavior and her resolve not to anger Ara further by reporting him was chillingly typical of stalking cases.
Less typical were the stalker's methods: This was the first high-tech stalking case prosecuted in Los Angeles County. Normally, GPS tracking technology, now included in many cell phones and in certain makes of cars, is used by drivers to get directions. It also helps law enforcement personnel track criminal suspects, and assists emergency-service operators in locating 911 callers.
"We get about three stalking cases a month," says Sergeant Osborne, "and we deal with people who stalk their victims 24/7. But they don't usually go to these lengths. This takes stalking to a whole new level."
At the preliminary hearing in January of this year, Ara sat at the defense table with his lawyers, and glared at Gayane as she testified about her ordeal. But ultimately he pled no contest to one count of stalking and one count of making criminal threats, thereby avoiding a trial. He was sentenced to 16 months in state prison. He served a little more than 9 months, and was released in June 2005 to immigration authorities. Held first in a federal detention center, Ara Gabrielyan was deported to the Republic of Armenia on August 16, 2005.
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