An award-winning former news-anchor says that she quit her job of 10 years after receiving threatening emails from a cyber-stalker, according to her site, TheVillageCelebration.
To the dismay of scores of viewers, Vickie Newton quit her job at KMOV in St. Louis, Missouri, in July to return home to Arkansas to live with her family out of fear for her safety, the report says.
During her tenure, she won a Regional Emmy Award for Best News Anchor. Sean McLaughlin, KMOV executive news director said at the time of her departure: “Vickie has been a St Louis fixture for more than a decade. In that time she has made an incredible connection with the people of St Louis. She will be missed, and we wish her great success in her future endeavors.”
The move came after Newton said she had been harassed during almost half her tenure at the station by a cyber-stalker, who sent abusive emails to her private and work email accounts, the report says. But now, she claims the harassment has only increased, the report says.
The stalker has gone as far at to describe items in her home in messages and names members of her family, she told the site.
“I don’t know who is stalking me and I don’t know what the end game is,” she told TheVillageCelebration. “Recently, some of the postings have included key words that describe rooms in my home, family members’ names are included and so the level of the threat is more aggressive.”
In an effort to counter harassment, the family has hired technology experts, changed the locks and installed new security systems.
“The internet allows cowards to harass and intimidate,” she said in the interview. “People who would never in a million years say or do the things they do on the Internet are emboldened by the anonymity it provides.”
But she plans to fight, saying; “Moving again is not going to work because I have done that once. There is nothing to do but stand and fight.
Read more at the Daily Mail.