The Mail | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

this episode contains adult content please use discretion well I was 13 and it was just a few days
before my ninth grade year began and I went out to check the mail and there was a large manila envelope addressed to me
and of course it's always exciting to get mail but when I opened it up it was page
after page of black and white photocopied extremely graphic pornography this is Sarah garone the pages were
images that appeared to have been cut out and arranged on New pieces of paper and then photocopied a stack of them an
inch thick I hardly even knew what I was looking at and I think for that reason it was extra horrifying just not even
knowing what what on Earth this was and the minute I pulled it out you know you just have this gut reaction of horror
and I just remember I was trembling shaking I started to cry this was 1996 in Chandler Arizona
Sarah says she grew up in a very sheltered environment her mother and stepfather were very active in their
local Evangelical Church on the day she received the package she remembers immediately taking it inside
to show them and I said look at this someone sent me this why would someone send me this there was no return address
on the envelope no other markings no note just pages and pages of these pictures
what did your parents think I mean what do you remember them saying about who did this or
I think we all just were in shock from it and and racking our brains about who would do this and why
um I think they sort of interrogated me are there any creepy boys at school or anybody who might have a crush on you or
anyone you might have slided in some way you just kind of go through all of those
questions in your head when you're trying to make sense of an incident like this because I think in my mind it could
have only come from of course someone that I knew and most of the people I knew were at my school so anytime anyone
expressed interest in me in a sort of romantic way I would add them to my list and kind of
consider well could could they have done something like this was this them we decided to call the police the police
came took it made a report and nothing ever happened every time Sarah went to get the mail
she worried about what might be in it but no more letters came weeks passed and then months nothing
and then one year later something else arrived I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
[Music] oh this time there was just a single business-sized envelope with my name on
an actual printed label this time no return address then I opened this one and this time it
was color photographs Each of which took up the entire page and I would say it was two or three eight by eleven sheets
again of very graphic pornography and this time there was a little extra there for me which was a message scrawled in
red some kind of red ink it looked like it could have been paint or even lipstick and this time it was addressed
to me personally and it said dear Sarah I love you I want you I need you and it was signed with the name of a boy
at my school who I had a crush on what did you do I recall again just shaking like a leaf
it's crying um epically freaking out just a mess that this had happened again did you confront the boy no no I did not
didn't want I did not want to talk to him about it at all Sarah says she didn't believe it was
actually from this boy it was too similar to the package she'd gotten a year before before she'd even met this
person he was a foreign exchange student who wasn't even in the country when she got
the first package what scared her most was that as far as she remembers she'd never even told
anyone that she had a crush on him the only place that I had expressed that was in my diary
and I knew that it couldn't have actually been this boy who had sent it to me so someone had to have either read my
journal or been a very good guesser and put his name on this I think I would have just been I so
flipped out yes and I think probably even worse because A year had gone by thinking maybe it's over and then
thinking oh no it wasn't yeah exactly and this time that personal aspect and that personal violation to know
it's very possible that someone read my diary but then I would think of yeah those
sort of creepy boys at school and think oh maybe somehow like it's so far-fetched but you think that they come
in my house or I would think of my male friends who had you know come over for parties or to hang out and think oh we
were all out of the pool did somebody slip into my bedroom and and flip through my diary
and then things went really quiet for a number of years and you start to think maybe that was just a weird incident
from high school maybe it's over I moved I went to college in Chicago and I never really heard much for about
I would say five years and then things began to happen again I was I was dating seriously and I had
just actually gotten engaged when the level of harassment really ratcheted up what happened
first my email was hacked and initially you think oh I just maybe I forgot my password that's funny or
maybe they ran some update on this website and I have to have a new password my old password's not working
anymore and so you know that seemed kind of harmless at first but then a lot of strange things began to happen with and
from my email I would suddenly get subscribed to things that I knew I hadn't signed
myself up for things especially with the sexual connotation after I got engaged you know and when
you're young and in love you're this was before the age of text and so we were sending each other these really intimate
emails and then a friend came to me and said did you mean to send me that email that very intimate email that was
addressed to your fiancee she realized someone was logging in copying her emails and then sending them
to new people from her email address and then even a very good friend of mine who
I didn't go to school with at that time she had emailed me a really painful story of experiencing a sexual assault
and then she began to receive anonymous messages about the details she had shared with me in that email
Sarah felt horrible but didn't know what to do she kept changing her password her fiance at the time now husband was
studying computer science and he started tracing the IP addresses for the emails
that appeared to have been sent by Sarah they came from Chandler Arizona where she was from
Sarah graduated and moved home to Arizona she and her fiance got married and rented an apartment in Tempe
she got a job working as a secretary at Arizona State University and then one day I came home from work and there was
an anonymous package on my doorstep by 2005 Sarah Caron had been intermittently harassed for almost 10
years whoever was doing this to her seemed to find her wherever she lived she and her husband had been in their
apartment for about nine months when the anonymous package showed up on her doorstep and inside was a dildo
and someone had printed off just in large caps letters my husband's name and taped
it to this thing which is almost comical but at the time really scary she realized that her front door was
unlocked she knew she hadn't left it like that she called her husband but he was 30 minutes away so she called her
stepfather whose office was right around the corner I was terrified that someone
was lurking in my apartment you know the person who'd been perpetrating this harassment against me all these years I
thought oh here it is he's finally gonna have his say in person so I waited outside
until my Dad pulled up and I said please look behind all the shower curtains and
in all the closets and behind all the doors and make sure there's no one hiding in my apartment
and he did and he stayed with me and we made a police report together so when the cops show up are you
recounting not just the story of this package but the fact that you've been internet stocked and you received
packages in the past and definitely I will say I found it difficult to really hold out much hope though because
in the past nothing had ever come of it before and so when I made this report even though this seemed more invasive
and more intense than some of the previous incidents I just still wasn't convinced that
anything would ever come of it and that this would just go on and on what happens next
it was probably a week later that I got a phone call and a detective introduced himself and
that floored me I just like I said I never thought any you know police action would ever happen on this
he introduced himself we talked a little bit about what had been going on and he
said do you know someone named Gary Hardy [Music] and I said yeah that's my stepdad
and we knew at that point if it was him this time it had to have been him all along
and it turns out my stepdad secretary that morning as part of her job she had been opening his business mail
and she had also been pretty horrified to discover a dildo in a box addressed to him at his office
and so she had closed it up surreptitiously acted like she never saw it and put it in his office
when I called him and asked him to come to my Aid he told his secretary exactly what had
happened and exactly why I had called and exactly what this object was that had arrived on my doorstep
and it did not take her long to put the pieces together that he was not coming to save the day he was
coming to see my reaction and so she went down to the Tempe Police Department which was right down the street and she
made a report I had his secretary called you and said beef no she didn't and that's surprising because
she was a friend of the family in fact she and my mom were very close but I think she just felt it was her
duty to make that police report and let things play out from there going through all the things in in your
mind times in high school growing up and oh yeah yeah and that was really revolting to think of how I had trusted
him even trusted him with the raw emotion of my reactions because I was giving him
exactly what he I believe wanted from this what other things did you start thinking
about that were weird with him yeah that you hadn't really thought about before yeah
well I think when I was a kid and he and my mom were first married I felt pretty
copacetic about him being my dad but then as years went on and as I became a teenager I just would get kind of a
yucky feeling about him sometimes so if it was just me and him alone in the house I recall that Monday nights my mom
had a recurring event and it would be just him and me in the house and I just would want to go to my room
or go to bed early I just I had a sort of a strange sense of not wanting to be alone with him
and then I also realized something that had never crossed my mind as being strange but in
retrospect really seemed strange was that in my bedroom which was on the ground floor of our house I had these
rolling blinds and part just a little kind of corner a little square of the blinds had been missing for a long time
and we had a cat so my mom always said oh you know cats get playful and Cat probably went behind there and just
knocked out these this section of blinds but there would be times when Gary would
go to take out the trash on that side of the house and I could swear that I hurt
his footsteps and then I would hear them stop and he I knew he hadn't come in the house yet
and so my suspicion is that I was being watched by him at those times Sarah's mother and stepfather divided
their time between Arizona and Illinois they had two homes Gary Hardy was a financial advisor and
had clients in both States so by the time the investigation had determined that Gary was the one behind
the harassment my parents were in Illinois and so we needed to find a way to get
him and them back to Phoenix and by this time I wanted nothing to do with him I never wanted to speak to him
see his face any contact so my husband and my brother actually jointly got on the phone and they asked both my Mom and
Gary to get on the phone and they said the police have figured out who's been doing this to Sarah and we're not at
Liberty to say anything about it but they need you to come home to be a part of the investigation
foreign calls and says I have to know is it Gary Sarah's mother met Gary Hardy in 1991.
they were married six months later here's Sarah's mother Sherry how did you and Gary meet
we met at church we were attending the same large church we were in a music and drama Ministry
together and then we really got to know each other better when we were in the same weekly small group that met in the
home of mutual friends and what was he like he was witty and funny very intelligent you know I mean he's a smart
guy um good professional people really liked him and uh you know people were just kind of
drawn to him Gary Hardy was very active in his Church's men's group for husbands and
fathers he had a son from a previous marriage he worked a lot and Sarah says he was successful his clients liked him
he had no criminal record when Sarah told her mother that it was Gary who'd been harassing her Sherry
knew that the most important thing was to be calm and to get Gary on a plane back to the police in Arizona
so she had to pretend that she didn't know and that everything was normal for a whole week
yeah so she spent the next week pretending like everything was fine I had to go home and smile
I had to listen to him tell me he loved me I had to sleep in the same bed with this man who sexually stalked my
daughter that was awful and my mom started experiencing some strange things with him as well
so she would say be out on a walk and suddenly his car would come pulling up beside her
and she hadn't told him where she was going and he would just sort of say oh hi just just checking in
or she went to her aunt's house hadn't told him where she was going and the phone rang over there and it was him
checking to see where she was what she was up to and that was not normal behavior for him so he started watching
her oh definitely and then she newly alerted to this whole situation began kind of going through
the home with new eyes and found a lot of really incriminating stuff around the house she found in his
he had like a briefcase that she looked through one day when he was out and she found 40 credit cards with her own name
on them that she had never taken out herself and then she went down in their basement
and kind of Hidden Away in a corner of the basement were all sorts of high-end gadgets and golf clubs and purchases
that she had never heard about the night before their flight was supposed to leave for Arizona Gary began
to behave even more strangely he said he felt very sick Sherry later recounted to investigators
that Gary had gotten on the floor he was shaking he said something was quote possessing him
then he stopped and he he sat up and he said well I guess I might as well tell you
this because I think you know anyway and I said I do you're right I might be in a position to help you
I will not help unless you tell me the entire truth Gary confessed to harassing Sarah
starting when she was 13 years old Sherry remember staying very calm and asking him okay what else
and Gary kept confessing he said that he had been unfaithful to her every day of
their marriage most often with prostitutes talked to her the other night and I don't I don't know how she did this
but she said well I think maybe for records it would be best if you could write all this down and and sign it and
she even got him to do that so she had a signed confession that he was the perpetrator behind all
of these incidents for all these years this must have been so horrible for your mother
it really was yeah I think just about the psychological impact of that week on her and I'm amazed that
she got through it as well as she did Sherry thinks that Gary believed that she would stick with him no matter what
when he went to bed that night Sherry remember staying awake in a chair in the living room and the next morning they
went to the airport when they landed in Phoenix they went directly to the Tempe Police Department
where Gary turned himself in Gary Hardy was charged with aggravated harassment and Criminal Trespass both
felonies it was later discovered that he had been breaking into Sarah's apartment and
taking things including her journals and then it emerged that he'd been stealing money from his clients which
brought a whole new set of charges he was a financial planner and what he had been doing was
instructing his clients to write checks that went to an account that was really his personal account
in the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars Sherry had been under the impression
that she and her husband were extremely wealthy she says she didn't realize they were
broke until she tried to pay her divorce attorney [Music] I wonder as a mother the guilt you must you must feel yeah
absolutely absolutely how could I have married this person how could I have been so stupid and so naive
has this changed your relationship with Sarah unfortunately yes it it changed it she
was angry with me she was angry and she said I'm I'm sorry but I am when I said Sarah you have every right to be angry
at me you have every right to be angry at me how could she not be angry at me now
so today Sarah lives in Mesa not far from where she grew up she's a freelance writer mainly focusing on health
she and her husband have been married for 15 years now and have three kids do your kids know about this I mean
they're young yeah they know that Grandma was married to a bad man and that's they know that he was a
criminal they don't know exactly what he did to me and I'm not quite ready to tell them yet
have you met with other victims who've had similar experiences never I've never met anyone who's had an
experience like this and in fact that's at the time what made it feel really isolating
so if anything listening to Crime shows watching crime shows is kind of my way of
of resonating with other people who've been through anything similar do you like cram chips oh I love crime
shows I love my husband says my Netflix queue looks like I'm a Serial Mom hi I don't
know your own crime show why do you worry I don't know that's a good question I'm
I'm maybe I'm more messed up than I think I am maybe because my life has so largely
gone back to normal and very safe and I feel very secure and great Community great neighborhood friends all these
things but it's like maybe I still resonate on some level with that kernel of being the
victim of a crime and wanting to see Justice Done for anybody that that perpetrates crime
on someone else do you like to see how the story ends oh yeah I want to see the bad guy get put away
[Music] Gary Hardy is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence at Iman State Prison in Arizona
[Music] criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me nydia Wilson is our senior producer
audiomix by Johnny Vince Evans special thanks to Susanna Roberson Brandon Tenney and Jeremy Umali
Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal you can see them at
thisiscriminal.com where on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show criminal is recorded in the studios of
North Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia from PRX a collection of the best
podcasts around I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal [Music] radiotopia from PRX

When Sarah Garone was 13 years old, she received something very strange in the mail. She didn’t know who it was from, or why they would have sent it. And then it happened again.

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Join Criminal Plus on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Criminal) for ad-free listening, bonus episodes, listener chat rooms, behind-the-scenes content, and more membership perks.

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Episode 112 originally published April 12, 2019. https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-112-the-mail-4-12-2019

Music in this episode: “JoDon” by Blue Dot Sessions “Horizontal Glow” by Blue Dot Sessions “A Moment” by Blue Dot Sessions “Janitor” by Blue Dot Sessions “Flitless” by Blue Dot Sessions “Farsical - Pieces” by Blue Dot Sessions “Diner Gothic - Intercept” by Blue Dot Sessions

Brief Summary

Sarah Garone shares her traumatic experience of being stalked and harassed by her stepfather for years, culminating in his confession and arrest.

Key points

The Start of Harassment. At 13, Sarah receives a shocking package of graphic content, igniting years of fear.
A Disturbing Message. A year later, Sarah receives another envelope with a personal message from a boy she liked.
The Investigation Begins. After years of harassment, Sarah's stepdad is implicated as the source of her trauma.
The Confession. Gary confesses to years of harassment and infidelity, shocking Sherry.
Life After Trauma. Sarah now lives a safe life but still resonates with her past as a victim.
Justice Done. The story concludes with a sense of justice being served.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I just remember I was trembling, shaking, I started to cry.

Sarah recalls her emotional reaction to receiving the graphic package.

0:55WatchMar 31, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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