{This podcast is a short interview with Marissa Girard}
We know from stories about Kailin Wang and Paul Boyne that law enforcement has a habit of misusing the cyberstalking statutes to issue flimsy charges against people it targets.
What about the other side?
What happens when a real case of cyberstalking is presented? Do police aggressively investigate and arrest in that case?
Take the case of Kenton and Marissa Girard. Last year, I wrote about Kenton’s child custody case with his ex-wife Jane. Both his maternal twin daughters- Gwen and Grace- accuse their mother of sexually abusing them and starting in the summer of 2022 they refused to see her.
The court didn’t like that: it appointed lots of experts, dragged out the case, and when I first looked at the story, it appeared as though the case was headed toward a haphazard change of custody. All of that was put on hold when Gwen and Grace made well received videos calling out their mother, the court, and others.
The girls remain with their dad, but the drama with Jane continues.
This April, Kenton and his wife Marissa discovered an AirTag underneath their car.
The AirTag wasn’t even removed before the two went to the Glencoe Police Department, which opened an investigation.
The local NBC affiliate did a story on the case; in that story, no suspect was mentioned, and the statement from Glencoe {Il] said the case has been closed without an arrest.
Glencoe provided me with nearly an identical statement, only with a hint they do have a suspect.
On April 5th, 2024, Kenton and Marissa Girard arrived at the Glencoe Public Safety Headquarters and made allegations that an electronic tracking device was placed on their vehicle without their permission. Glencoe Public Safety is committed to fully investigate all criminal allegations to the extent of their authority. Detectives took significant steps to determine how the device came to be placed on the vehicle. All investigative leads were exhausted to include court orders, review of video and attempts to interview persons alleged to be associated with the incident {emphasis mine}. To be clear, Glencoe Detectives were unable to definitively determine any guilty party in this incident. Specifically, Glencoe Detectives have not been able to uncover direct evidence nor confirm the identity of the person that placed the device on the vehicle. That specific point is necessary to formulate probable cause, which is the legal burden necessary for any arrest. The full details of the investigation were then shared with Kenton and Marissa Girard on multiple occasions, to include on Friday.
Marissa told me she has no doubt who placed the air tag underneath her car: Jane Girard, Kenton’s ex-wife.
I reached out to Jane, along with her attorneys at Beermann Law, but no one responded to emails and voicemails for comment.
The police think so also, and it’s not mere speculation. Apple confirmed to them that the AirTag found underneath the Girard’s car is registered to Jane. Furthermore, Jane refused to cooperate with the investigation, though she’s not required. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the pot brothers at law.
Even without her cooperation, if the AirTag is registered to Jane, why didn’t Glencoe make an arrest?
In their police report, the police explain, “Without evidence of the suspect monitoring the device, there is not enough evidence to support the filing of charges.”
Doesn’t Apple have this evidence? Is Glencoe Police too lazy to get a search warrant for this evidence?
Glencoe Police did get a warrant, but there’s this, “Apple Inc’s production did not include historical GPS data, which would have aided in identifying in a time/date the device was affixed to the complainant’s vehicle, as well as where the vehicle was located when the device was affixed.”
Whoa! Apple, known for gathering as much data as possible on their users, conveniently doesn’t track GPS data on a device designed to track others.
I asked Apple for an explanation, but they didn’t respond to an email for comment.
It seems Apple is inviting illegal tracking with this policy, and Apple is already facing a lawsuit for refusing warnings about AirTags being used to stalk.
A class-action lawsuit against Apple claiming stalkers are using its AirTag devices to track their victims can move forward after the company’s motion to dismiss the case fully was denied Friday by a judge in San Francisco, according to court documents.
Over three dozen women and men who filed the lawsuit in 2022 claim Apple ignored warnings about how the devices could be used for stalking before they were released and its alleged failure to mitigate the dangers of the AirTags makes them responsible for the misconduct under California law.
Apple could “mitigate the dangers” by keeping and providing historic GPS data to police.
Congress may need to step in and require Apple to keep this data.
Is this really Apple’s fault? Not necessarily because others have been arrested with the exact same information Glencoe developed on Jane. Check out this story.
A woman’s discovery of an Apple AirTag attached to her vehicle has unraveled into a case of electronic stalking.
Anthony Magro, 33, of Bridgeport, was identified in this case as the owner of the tracking device.
It all started on March 27, 2023, when the woman, residing in Goshen contacted Troop B in North Canaan to report finding an Apple AirTag tracking device. It was affixed to the interior of her vehicle’s front driver’s side wheel rim.
Wasn’t Jane identified as the owner of this AirTag? They arrested Mr. Magro with the same amount of evidence.
The evidence developed was enough for one court. Marissa was able to get a no stalking order against Jane by presenting the evidence the police developed, she told me.
The standard of proof is less to get a no stalking order than it is to get a conviction, however, people have been convicted with the same evidence Glencoe has.
Hopefully, the police will reconsider their position.
Glencoe Police "Lackadaisical" in investigating cyberstalking