U R NEXT | 1. An “Internet Terrorist”

Esther has ambitions of becoming a full-time streamer. But then she crosses paths with a dangerous online predator with one mission; to make her life hell. Want the full story? Binge every episode of U R NEXT ad-free now by subscribing to The Binge+. You’ll unlock over 60 true crime series instantly, get early access to drops on the first of every month, and hear exclusive bonus episodes. Search for the channel on Apple Podcasts or head to GetTheBinge.com. For behind-the-scenes details, join our free newsletter at Patreon.com/TheBinge. U R NEXT is a production of Sony Music Entertainment and Novel. Follow @sonypodcasts and discover more at sonymusic.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices at podcastchoices.com/adchoices. The Binge — feed your true crime obsession. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 0:29Speaker 01

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• 1:04Speaker 01

  Have you ever had one of those nightmares where someone is after you, but you can't get away? You're stuck, running through water that's up to your neck and rising. Grace has.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  I woke up to a phone call. I want to say it was four o'clock in the morning.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Only, when Grace wakes up, the bad dream doesn't stop.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  It was a woman's voice, and she asked me, "Are you okay?"

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Grace isn't her real name. We've changed it for her protection, from the waking nightmare who's targeting her and her daughter, Esther. His aim is to terrify them, and he'll stop at nothing.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  It's late 2014. In a quiet American street lined with brick houses either side, softball pitch around one corner, and elementary school around another, most of the residents are fast asleep. Apart from Grace. Who the hell is calling her at 4:00 in the morning to ask if she's OK?

• 2:18Speaker 02

  She said, "My name is so-and-so from the police department, and the police are on their way."

• 2:27Speaker 02

  "Is your boyfriend in the house with you?" And I said, "Yes, he's right next to me." And she goes, "Are all the kids OK?"

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Down the hall, Grace's daughter Esther and her siblings are fast asleep. They're safe, aren't they?

• 2:43Speaker 02

  It was starting to escalate and make me nervous. And then she asked me, "Are there any guns in the house?" And I said, "Yes, should we go get them?"

• 2:56Speaker 01

  The officer on the other end of the line tries to calm Grace down.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  "No, no, but I need you to stay on the phone with me, and we need you and your boyfriend to come outside with your hands up."

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Obviously, my heart's racing at this point. It really scared me.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  A terrified Grace shakes her partner awake. As they walk together through their deathly silent house, Grace catches movement in the corner of her eye.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  We have a big front window in our house, and I'm just looking out the window. And I see a shadow of a person running across a house, like across the street from us. There's somebody outside.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Grace's breath catches in her chest. She's almost at her front door, but she feels paralyzed. She tries to get control of herself, but she can't think straight. Her legs are like jelly. Her heart is beating almost through her chest. She slowly opens the front door with shaking hands and then raises them high above her head.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  We get big, bright lights in our face and we have guns pointed at us.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  The police have the house surrounded.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  This is a story about a prolific online predator who targeted Grace's family and countless others.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  An internet terrorist. That's the best thing to describe him as.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Whose crimes would span across the United States.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  San Joaquin Sheriff's Office, Jackson County Sheriff's Office in Missouri, Racine Police Department in Wisconsin.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  And beyond.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  Waterloo Regional Police in Canada.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  A story about someone whose online actions crossed over into real-world danger.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  He was doing malicious things intentionally to harm people. I could be next.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  But most of all, this is a story about the brave people who came together to fight back.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  If I find out how he's doing it, I can stop it. Nobody's gonna get away with anything.

• 5:15Speaker 05

  Once we got started, we never stopped.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  You wanna motivate me? Tell me I can't get you. Tell me I can't find you. Tell me that.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  From Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, this is You Are Next. I'm Leigh Alexander.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  This is episode one, An Internet Terrorist.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Long before Grace had to worry about her local police department storming into her home, or about online predators, she was just a regular mom, worrying about her kids, especially her daughter Esther.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  She was suffering with anxiety, and I think a lot of that was internal, and she didn't really share outwardly that that was going on.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Esther is not her real name, and she's asked for her words to be spoken by an actor.

• 6:36Speaker 06

  I think a lot of my view of myself when I was younger was very warped by insecurity, just a very, very sad little child, very worried about what the world thought of her, and whether she was good enough. I felt like an alien. I was like, nobody else feels things the way that I feel them.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  In 2014, a 16-year-old Esther is having a really tough year. Her parents have just divorced, which she's actually relieved about. At least now, she doesn't have to handle the tension at home whenever her dad is there. But it's still a lot of change to deal with for someone so young. She's also struggling with school. At one point, she was out of classes for months.

• 7:28Speaker 06

  When I came back, I was super behind. I was kind of getting, what I didn't know at the time, were the beginning of panic attacks, but were definitely panic attacks.

• 7:41Speaker 06

  The only time that I felt okay was when I was asleep. I didn't want to wake up. I didn't want to be here. I couldn't see myself going to college. I couldn't see myself doing anything. I just felt so hopeless, because I was like, I want to have a dream, but I just don't see it.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Grace is slowly watching her daughter disappear into her own personal darkness.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  I think she felt depressed and withdrawn, so there was a lot of anxiousness and trepidation around that.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  But there's the faintest glimmer making its way through that darkness, like a single star in a black velvet sky.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  It's distant, light years away, but it's there and it's shining.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  That's when she found gaming kind of as that social outlet.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Esther, being such an introvert, especially one who's struggling with anxiety, spends a lot of time at home. Hour after hour, she watches on as her big brother plays video games.

• 8:48Speaker 06

  It was like watching a movie that my brother kind of had influence on. And I just thought that was so cool. At some point, he got busy, or you got bored, or you just stopped playing as much. And I wanted to watch him, and he wouldn't do it. So I just started playing the games that I wanted to watch him play. And then I got into gaming a lot. And then, once I started playing, I just got absolutely immersed in it.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Esther starts spending hours playing games online. She talks to other gamers over a headset while she plays, which is a mixed bag.

• 9:25Speaker 06

  There wasn't a lot of girls doing it at the time. Before I had a webcam, I would just pretend to be a boy, like a little squeaker. Because they would be nicer to me if they thought I was a little boy than if they thought I was a girl. Because if I was a girl, it's just you here. Make me a sandwich, get back in the kitchen. All the same stuff, over and over. Like, it gets boring.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Esther doesn't let these extremely unoriginal and boring jokes push her away. She keeps gaming, hour after hour, building up her skills. Before long, she's dropped the squeaker alias and she's playing as herself. And she's winning.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  For whatever reason, she excelled in this male-dominated arena. She can pretty much show up anybody. I think gaming was a place where she felt powerful.

• 10:17Speaker 06

  I kept up with the boys, and they seemed a little bit embarrassed about it. Like, this little girl just kicked their butt. It felt like I was kind of turning something that I had always been into a good thing of like feeling like the outcast, feeling like I don't belong, and making myself belong. And being like, the boys don't want me here, but I'm gonna be here anyways. That felt really good. That was a pivotal moment for me, and I was like, okay, okay, maybe I could do something with this.

• 10:50Speaker 06

  That is when I started making videos.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Esther was on to something because now millions of people all around the world are spending hours watching their favorite gamers on livestream. The biggest platform is Twitch. In 2014, it has more than 50 million users, half of them spending up to three hours a day on there collectively watching 12 billion minutes of content every month. It's transformed gaming into something that was just a hobby into a career opportunity. If you're good enough at your favorite game and engaging enough on camera to captivate an audience while you play it, then you can make some serious cash.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  But for the moment, Esther's just starting out.

• 11:38Speaker 06

  I'd made my own little logo for myself and created my own alias online. And I was on Twitter getting into the gaming community. It was very active.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  One day, Esther is scrolling through Twitter. In amongst all the memes, gaming gossip, and that one photo Ellen DeGeneres took at the Oscars that everyone lost their damn minds over.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  She gets a message.

• 12:03Speaker 06

  Someone that I was mutuals with in the community. "Hey, I know that you're really good with words and my friend is really struggling with depression right now. Do you think you can talk to him?" And I was like, "Yeah, absolutely, of course." So he sends me his Twitter and I started DMing him. I think he had like a black and white photo or something. It wasn't of him, it was like a character of some kind. So I had no idea what he looked like. It was very, very common, especially in the gaming community, to just have your logo as your profile picture or like a character from anime or whatever. Like, a lot of people didn't have their faces. I didn't see it as a red flag.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  The two of them exchanged some messages back and forth.

• 12:47Speaker 06

  I could just tell that he was really, really struggling. Just generally depression, I think, and not trusting people, low self-confidence. He told me that he was having a hard time communicating through text, like it was too much to say through text. So we would just talk on Skype. That, again, is very normal. When you would game with people, you would get on Skype and like game together and talk.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  He still doesn't show his face a lot while they're talking on Skype. On the rare occasions that he does, he cuts a pale, kinda heavyset figure with brown hair past his shoulders. But he usually has his camera off, so most of the time Esther can only hear his voice. She doesn't know that much about him. She knows he's around the same age as her, a teenager. He tells her he's having a hard time at home, he's struggling to make friends, that he doesn't feel like anybody cares about him, and that's about it. But again, it doesn't feel that out of the ordinary. It wasn't so long ago that Esther was pretending to be a little squeaker herself online, so a bit of anonymity is no big deal amongst friends.

• 13:57Speaker 06

  We gamed and trusted him.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Plus, she's nearly always in earshot of her mom, Grace.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  She was always out in the living room with that, so I could always hear what everyone was saying and what they were doing and how they were talking to each other. You could tell it was a bunch of people talking smack to one another. I didn't feel like it was a volatile thing. I didn't realize too that there was a lot more computer online stuff, like she had her laptop in her room. That was me being totally naive.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Esther and her friend game together pretty often, hanging out on Skype while they play. In between, they message each other on Twitter.

• 14:39Speaker 06

  Then he developed feelings for me. He asked me to be his online girlfriend.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Esther's heart sinks. She's not ready for any kind of online relationship, especially not with someone whose face she's barely seen. She tries to let him down as gently as possible.

• 14:58Speaker 06

  I really hope that you don't take this the wrong way and that this doesn't change our friendship at all, because I value our friendship a lot and I love playing with you. I love being your friend. Please still be my friend. Please don't let this ruin things. I'm sorry I don't feel that way, but like I value you and I love you as a friend. Like, please, let's keep being friends.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Esther holds her breath, hoping she's done enough to spare his feelings and save their friendship.

• 15:29Speaker 06

  But as soon as I had rejected him, it was hostile immediately. The switch had flipped. If I can't have you,

• 15:41Speaker 06

  then no one can.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 16:20Speaker 00

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• 16:40Speaker 01

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• 17:01Speaker 01

  After Esther rejects his romantic advances, the person she thought she knew as a friend has become anything but. He's not talking about his troubled home life anymore, not lamenting about how he has no friends or how nobody seems to understand him. She's turned him down, and in response, he's turned on her. Vicious messages from him start pouring in.

• 17:27Speaker 06

  I don't know how many messages a day. Not a ton to start off with, but it's every day. He's being threatening, hostile. I'm not responding to his messages. I'm gonna let this die down. He's just upset right now. Maybe he's gonna calm down and I'll be fine.

• 17:46Speaker 06

  I didn't tell my mom about it because I was like, "Okay, I can deal with this on my own."

• 17:55Speaker 06

  There was this day when a random pizza showed up. And I was like, I didn't order this. I asked my family, did you order this? No one else ordered it. And the guy's like, well, it's paid for, so I can't take it back. And I was like, oh, okay. I thought it was odd. And then he messaged me somewhere, Skype or on something. And he was like, are you enjoying the pizza?

• 18:22Speaker 06

  Oh, that's really creepy. I'd never given him my address.

• 18:29Speaker 06

  I was scared. And yes, I did think, okay, I should probably like tell my mom at some point. Cause I don't really know what to do. But I was also like, it's just pizzas. It's just words. He's just angry. It's just a boy on the internet. Like, it's not that deep.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Grace asks her daughter what's going on, but Esther just brushes her off.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  She kind of played it off like, oh, that's kind of weird. But someone did that as a joke. They think it's funny. It didn't seem hostile or aggressive in any way. It just struck me as really strange.

• 19:05Speaker 06

  I thought that he was just trying to like, maybe win me over by sending me a pizza or like being nice or something.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Sending pizzas to people is kind of a classic internet prank. It's innocuous enough because, I mean, after all, it's just a pizza. But as much as Esther wants to believe that it's not that big a deal, she knows it's not really true.

• 19:29Speaker 06

  This is threatening. This is like niceness disguised in, I know where you live.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  The subtle threats don't stop there.

• 19:40Speaker 06

  He texted me and I was like, I don't think I gave you my phone number. I'm confused and a little concerned. This is not just on Skype anymore. This is not just on Twitter anymore. This is not just video games anymore.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Esther's tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it's gone way beyond that now. She's feeling sick with anxiety over what he's gonna say or do next. So she decides to cut him off.

• 20:10Speaker 06

  I can just block him. That's what they tell you to do. They're like, oh, turn off the screen. Just shut it off. You know, walk away. It's fine. So that's what I did. I was like, alright, I'm gonna block him.

• 20:27Speaker 06

  It escalated very quickly after I had blocked him.

• 20:34Speaker 06

  Pizza guy shows up again. And this was maybe a week later. And I was like, again? Okay, I'm not accepting it this time. And then, as I'm rejecting this order from this pizza guy, another pizza guy shows up from another pizza shop, and he shows up with a pizza. And then, at some point, there was like every pizza shop that existed. Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's, Little Caesars. Name it, and they were there. And some of them had a lot of pizza.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  There was a pizza guy standing there with 12 pizzas. And I was like, what?

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Grace is already starting to grasp that something is not right here. While Esther's still frantically trying to contain everything, like any teenager, she's also terrified of owning up to the situation she's found herself in.

• 21:25Speaker 06

  I was so much more scared about getting in trouble than I was about fixing the situation.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  So Esther is still keeping her mom Grace in the dark about the harassment. But it's all gonna be fine, right? She just needs to wait it out.

• 21:41Speaker 06

  I thought that I would be able to get through to him. I thought that he's gotta see eventually.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  But her former friend has no intention of stopping.

• 21:53Speaker 06

  He started making a bunch of different Google accounts to message me. All kinds of threatening messages from all kinds of numbers. Like, hey, respond. I'm not gonna stop messaging you. I'm not gonna stop until you answer. You can't get away from me.

• 22:10Speaker 06

  And then that's when I told my mom. I was like, this guy is messaging me. I can't get away from him. This isn't okay. Can we go get a new phone or something? Like a new SIM card? Can I change my number? What can we do? We go and we get a new phone and we get my number changed. And we get home and literally like as soon as we get home, I've got this brand new phone, brand new number, and I get a text message from him. So you think it was gonna be that easy?

• 22:42Speaker 06

  My heart just sinks out of my butt, honestly. I was like, oh my gosh. How is he doing all of this?

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Esther feels completely under siege. Everywhere she turns, he seems to be there. But then he starts coming for her mother, Grace, too.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  He said, I have access to your bank accounts and your bills.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  But weirdly, he doesn't take anything from them.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  I don't know if it was stupidity on his part or smart on his part to not steal the money. And I had changed my password and he went in there and changed it again. And he changed it to something derogatory. And he did that to several of my accounts that I had online. So he clearly had the tech to get in there and do that. It was a really strange exertion of control. It was really strange. I thought, why? What's the motivation other than to say, hey, I can get in here and mess with your life anytime I want?

• 23:50Speaker 06

  There's no reason for this. Like, why? Because I don't want to be your girlfriend?

• 23:57Speaker 06

  This is not a normal reaction.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  As the threats and the pizzas continue to roll in, Esther's still not replying, hoping that her silence will eventually let the message sink in, hoping that he'll just move on. But he's always there in the back of her mind.

• 24:17Speaker 06

  He already knows my name. He already knows my location. He already knows all these things that I haven't even given to him. Now, I'm definitely scared. This isn't just messing around. Like, he's got really bad intentions.

• 24:41Speaker 05

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• 25:12Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  As Grace blinks into a blinding beam of light, her hands are raised high in the air. She's standing before an army of cops in her front yard.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  It's like 11 degrees outside. It's freezing. And of course, we didn't plan to go outside, so we're not dressed for being outside.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Police officers slowly approach her and her partner. After a few tense moments, they allow them to lower their hands. Then they tell Grace they need to sweep the house.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  I'm like, well, all my children and their friends are in there.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Grace's daughter Esther has some friends staying over. She's got a house full of teenagers that's about to be overrun by heavily armed cops.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  They're like, we'll be respectful, but we do have to clear the house and make sure everything's okay and that all the children are safe. They made us stand out there with them while they swept the house.

• 26:46Speaker 06

  I was asleep.

• 26:49Speaker 06

  I heard, "Police, you need to wake up." And I like, kind of pulled the covers over my head because I thought it was a dream. I was like, "What the heck? Like, what is going on? I'm tired. Leave me alone." And then they said it again, more loudly.

• 27:07Speaker 06

  I kind of jolted out of bed and I look over and there's a cop standing next to me with a gun in his hand. Like, a really big one. I'm terrified. I have no clue what's happening. And then they bring us out into the living room.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Grace and her partner have been escorted back inside. The whole family, plus all the kids' friends who are staying over, are gathered in the living room. That's when the police tell them that they received a call from someone saying that he'd broken into their house with an AR-15 rifle and 250 rounds of ammunition. That he'd tied up five hostages and put duct tape over their mouths. Then he demanded $20,000 in cash and said he would kill one hostage every two hours until he got it.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  One of the policemen played a recording and he said, "Do any of you recognize this voice? Do you know who this person was?"

• 28:10Speaker 02

  You could see the color almost drain from Esther's face.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  She said, "Oh, my gosh. I know who that is."

• 28:21Speaker 06

  I recognized his voice because we've been Skype calls or video game calls. I was just like, "Oh, no."

• 28:30Speaker 06

  I was just trying to be nice, trying to be helpful, but I'm talking to a stranger on the internet. The reality of how unsafe it was kind of hit me.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  The police want to know just how much Esther really knows about this online stranger.

• 28:45Speaker 06

  So I just told the cops everything that I knew at the time. I was like, "I only know him online." And like, he sent me pizzas? I didn't know how scary he was.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Now Esther is in no doubt. And neither is her mom, Grace.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  It felt like it was just so hate-filled, you know? It felt very violating and just... I couldn't understand that line of thinking, to treat someone else's life like that. I just... That's so crazy to me.

• 29:16Speaker 06

  Swattings had like, kind of been a thing, but I'd only heard about them from major streamers. I didn't know that random people were doing it to other random people.

• 29:26Speaker 07

  There's a dangerous new prank going on, and it's putting innocent people in the crosshairs. Well, it's called swatting. Swatting? Swatting.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  If you're a gamer, or just chronically online, you'll have heard of swatting. It's been on the FBI's radar since at least 2008. But by the time Esther is swatted, it's warped into a toxic craze.

• 29:47Speaker 07

  Frightening moments for a couple last spring as a SWAT team surrounded their apartment with guns drawn.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  It's a kind of prank call, where you fake an emergency so serious that it's all but guaranteed to get a special weapons and tactics or SWAT team response. An active shooter, a bomb threat, something that suggests an imminent threat to life or mass casualties. Something that's designed to get armed cops to scramble and then storm the target's property.

• 30:17Speaker 07

  Tanks, riot gear, tear gas, flashbangs, and heavy-duty firearms. When you see the SWAT team, you know it's serious.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  It became more and more popular within gaming communities, especially targeting streamers. By 2011, it was estimated that about 400 swattings were happening every year in the United States.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Often, a swatter tries to time calling in a fake threat while a gamer is streaming. That way, they get to watch the swatting happening live on camera and get their kicks while police batter down the door and tackle their poor bewildered victim to the ground.

• 30:55Speaker 05

  Uh oh, this isn't good. I think we're getting swatted.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  Get on the ground! Get on the ground! Put your hands behind your back.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  To the people that engage in swatting, it's the ultimate high-stakes prank. Trolling in its final form. To the police, it's a crime. One of the most extreme forms of false reporting. And to the rest of us, including Esther, it's a life-threatening gamble.

• 31:20Speaker 06

  He's sending a SWAT team here. We could have gotten hurt. They could have gotten hurt.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  And make no mistake, people have gotten seriously hurt.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  In 2017, two Call of Duty players called Casey Viner and Shane Gaskill got into an argument reportedly over a wager worth just $1.50. Viner threatened to have Gaskill swatted and reached out to a guy called Tyler Barris, a known swatter, to make it happen. Barris then threatens Gaskill, telling him a swatting is coming. Gaskill responds by sending an address in Wichita, saying, "Please try some shit, I'll be waiting." Barris then called the police. He told them he'd shot his father and was holding the rest of his family hostage. He also told them he'd poured gasoline all over the house and was thinking of setting it on fire.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Within minutes, police had the house surrounded as the panicked resident made his way outside. A warning: The next clip you hear might be distressing.

• 32:25Speaker 07

  Shane! Walk this way! Walk!

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Gaskill had sent Barris the details of his old address. He hadn't lived there in a year.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  The current resident at that time was a man named Andrew Finch, a father of two. He didn't know Gaskill, Viner, or Barris. And he wasn't a gamer. He'd simply answered his door only to see a SWAT team in his front yard, and 10 seconds later, he was shot. He died later at the hospital. All stemming from an argument over a video game and $1.50.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Thankfully, Grace and Esther's local police department were able to make contact with them before anyone was hurt.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  It could have been so much worse. We have guns, we would have defended ourselves if we thought someone was breaking into our home. I mean, that was absolute insanity.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  The police take statements from Grace and Esther and tell them that they're gonna open an investigation into the false report.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  But they seem kind of pissed off at Esther.

• 33:44Speaker 06

  They made me feel like it was my fault. I tried to explain to them, like, I was already kind of a public figure online, and I streamed, and like, if people wanted to, they can kind of get your information. People can find your address. People can do all kinds of stuff. I didn't ask for this. I don't know how to prevent this. Nobody knows anything about online security at this point, because it's still like very new and not taken seriously. They were just like, don't let it happen again.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  It just didn't feel like they were working on it from our perspective. It felt like kind of nothing.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  What Grace and Esther don't know is that about 1,400 miles away, in a small town just outside of Atlanta, there's at least one cop who's been waging all-out war against Esther Swatter for months.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  Six, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. I started tracking back all these different cases that he's done.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Sergeant Ben Finley.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  I never liked losing. You know what I mean? I never liked having bad people beat me.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Coming up on You Are Next.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  I am gonna find out who did this.

• 34:58Speaker 05

  I can't believe what I just saw.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  Jesus Christ, are you serious?

• 35:01Speaker 04

  The motivation for him to do these things is to feel like he has power over these women. It's part of like a controlled harassment campaign.

• 35:09Speaker 05

  Very aggressive and sociopathic. The hairs on the back of your neck go up.

• 35:14Speaker 04

  If he wanted to ruin your life, he really could.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  This is You Are Next, an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and Novel, hosted by me, Lee Alexander. Lee Meyer is our senior producer. Verdi De Cala is our assistant producer. Sandra Schmueli is our editor. Production management from Cherie Houston, Joe Savage, and Charlotte Wolfe. For Novel, our executive producer is Max O'Brien. From Sony Music Entertainment, our executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. Story development by Nell Gray Andrews, Willard Foxton, and Selena Metta, who is director of development for Novel. Special thanks to Carolyn Sher Levin at Miller-Korsenick Raymond LLP, and to Ford Collier,

• 36:48Speaker 01

  who performed the woodwind for our theme music. And a big thanks to the whole Sony Music Entertainment team.

• 37:04Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.