Molly McLaren | Killed By My Stalker | S1E01

[Music] on june 29th 2017 joshua stimpson arrived at pure gym in chatham kent placing his mat next to his ex-girlfriend molly mclaren the human instinct in you wants to be wrong and you want to feel as though it is just a coincidence molly an a grade student in her second year of university with a promising career as a fitness instructor and blogger every day i feel like i'm lagging everyone gets that bit just got pushed it is not pressing stimson a double glazing salesman from rochester with a history of unhealthy relationship breakups that go undetected he turned very quickly into this very very nasty manipulative character she was upset every day the two would meet through the internet stimson would use his online presence to wage a reign of terror [Music] for 21 year old molly mclaren it's a fresh start week she starts university and can't wait [Music] molly is going to study health and fitness at the university of kent like for all young people uni means hard work but also new friends partying and boys [Music] [Music] fresh is weak after settling in it's time to explore kent university is only seven miles away from where molly grew up but here there are new students from all over the country in her first lecture molly spots a girl looking nervous and goes to speak to her we were both on our own just sort of looking around sort of that nervous feeling of don't know anyone right now but there was like this instant connection between us and we didn't at the time know what that was but we were just drawn to one another molly's charm means she quickly forms a new group of close friends they enjoy meeting up and socialising in nearby chatham as well as jennifer amelia davis is part of the group they all share lectures and a love of exercise molly was very motivating in uni especially when you were close to her she really could motivate everyone around her without kind of much trouble it was kind of just something that came naturally to her and just always asking funny questions in lectures um all the lecturers say like you know the questions she came out with or something she would say is just hilarious but um always just like puts 100 into everything and that's why she got amazing grades as well as making new friends and partying molly throws herself into study i think everybody knew molly right from fresher's week in in terms of she was such a bouncy lively personality always full of enthusiasm so you know one of the lecturers that i spoke to described as the light that came into the room every day she'd walk into lecture smile and a coffee in a hand powered by coffee every day with your closest friends it's not always about doing the most exciting things when you're really close to someone so for us it was going to the gym together we'd always have a laugh every time i went with her and that's why i loved going with her because she always made it firm [Music] as molly's friends get to know her they discover her outgoing lively personality something one of her close friends knew well molly and amy grew inseparable when they worked together at ted baker in dartford my first impressions of molly was how beautiful she was and we never really saw her without a smile on her face she was the joker of the pack shall we say she always brightened up your day if you were down in the dumps or if you were having a tough time with a customer should be the first person to come up to you and kind of make a joke out of it and make it all okay again for students dating is priority number one but molly is looking for something deeper my molly's dating history was um she never really had a lot of boyfriends she was quite passionate about finding the right person and then for her it wasn't about being in a relationship because everyone else was or because she felt like she should be it was very much about connecting with somebody on a personal level the tight-knit group of friends live their lives online uploading their daily activities to apps like snapchat instagram and facebook molly goes even further and starts her own fitness blog [Music] she was really really into her high intensity training in the gym she used to love hit circuits and stuff like that always posting videos of her little gym workouts get to the same bed every day i feel like i'm lagging everyone gets that bit just got bitter it is not pressing when molly was in university she started writing her blog and a lot of people read it and i read all her posts and was sharing them because they were just so motivational and she just seemed to overcome kind of every barrier she came to even even with things like hard university work she would always overcome it and do so well at it and get a really good grade but behind her good grades and busy social life molly is hiding her own personal problems at the time i had no idea that molly had battled her own sort of mental health issues of eating disorders as had i'd done and i don't know what it is but when you have had those issues there is something that draws you to a person you don't even have to know but you've just got to look at each other and there's this connection [Music] molly and amy had been working together for a while at ted baker before molly opened up it wasn't until later on when we really developed our relationship that i realised that she had quite a lot of struggles in the background and that she'd actually been suffering with bulimia nearly the entire time that i knew her every day she would have to make conscious decisions to stay on track and not allow this disorder to take over her and she was really good about it everyone has bad days but she was honest you know i'm having a bad day everyone has a bad day but this isn't the end [Music] molly would always say to me just find one good thing about every day and and your your thoughts will shift your mindset will shift and she was just so right despite issues that have plagued molly for years university is helping her to find direction and purpose but there's one element of her life still missing a serious relationship [Music] molly's first year at university has come to an end exams are over it's the summer [Music] it's been a warm sunny week and to make things better molly has had a match on dating app tinder molly met him online um through a dating app and they spoke for quite some time her tinder match is 24 year old joshua stimson he lives just nine miles away from molly in the village of wodom in kent molly sends her first message to him in late july and after a few months of online chatting they finally meet up i remember hearing a few times that she she'd met someone and that she seemed to be getting on really well and and they'd been out on a couple of dates it was just any you know normal relationship they were just chatting um after a while they started to meet up um and then eventually form into relationship and i was happy for her because of course i'm gonna be happy for someone who's who seemed happy at the time yeah as the weeks pass molly and joshua stimpson spend more and more time together meals out nights drinking and a shared love of exercise [Music] for molly this is her first serious relationship a person she can open up to and share secrets with they realised that they had what seemed to be quite a lot in common in sense of kind of the anxiety and their struggles that they'd been through it you know he'd said to molly that he'd also struggled with anxiety and and depression and they kind of connected on that level and she almost felt as though she needed to help him through his situation and he in turn was helping her stimson was raised mainly by his father after his parents divorced and his mother moved to stoke on trent during childhood he'd been treated for depression but what molly and her friends don't realize is that there's far more to stimson's past than he's letting on she said we that she had a bit in common because the person she'd met had said that he'd had some mental health issues himself and she said so they could sort of help each other lift each other up so at the time i was like oh this is really positive for you molly i'm like so glad that you found someone who you can relate to and and that you seem really happy they were kind of partners in in this dark place that could help each other to see the light on on their bad days hundreds of thousands of people have been celebrating the start of 2017 at events across the uk after christmas and new year molly's back at university she's now been dating joshua stimson for a few months and decides it's time to introduce him to her friend amelia together they go to a gym session in chatham but stimpson's behavior puts amelia on edge when i met him he wasn't overly chatty and obviously i was always going to be welcoming because that's my friend's boyfriend i made a joke about something and after me and molly left he was messaging her later trying to get in between me and molly um so that shocked me a lot and it instantly put me off molly and her friends think they know the real joshua stimson but they would soon discover his true character [Music] 22 year old molly mclaren has been in a relationship for four months with joshua stimson after meeting him on tinder but stimson is hiding a dark side he has a dangerous history with ex-girlfriends molly's friends are now noticing changes in his behavior if she wanted to have a day of studying he would tell her that you know he needed to be there for her and was very manipulative in his approach for them to spend time together he would often turn up unannounced um at her house molly begins to feel she needs more space in the relationship she texts him stimson doesn't respond well conversations between them take a turn for the worse molly confides in her friend amelia i mean i've never been spoken to like that and it surprised me that you know he was kind of saying those things and not saying sorry for them she was still herself and she was very brazilian but at the same time there was you know a lot of moments where he would bring her down emotionally or she would just feel really down in herself because she thought she was in the wrong because he made her feel like that i think that's when the crack started to show that a lot of this wasn't sincere that it was all quite manipulative and it had an end goal and that was to completely isolate her from from her friends as winter turns to spring stimpson's controlling and manipulative behavior continues she felt suffocated and imagine being stuck within an eating disorder for that amount of years and feeling so you have no control finally breaking three of that and then having a person try to control you it just it wasn't what she wanted molly has had enough and decides to end the relationship but stimson won't accept it and bombards her with a series of messages pleading for them to get back together [Music] what molly doesn't know is that when previous girlfriends have broken up with him stimson has displayed violent and threatening behavior including spitting in an ex-girlfriend's face he also slashed the tyres of another and threatened to drown her but a few weeks after molly breaks up with him against the advice of her friends she takes him back i advised her not to but she i think she was just so caught up in guilt because he had made her feel like that but as soon as they get back together stimson picks up right where he left off he would invite himself out on group nights out that she hadn't invited him to so for example she would go to a gig and he would say oh cool what time are we leaving or who else is coming so it was almost without being invited so i think again that was a flag that really he didn't want her to have any alone time with her friends and that for me isn't really something that i thought was okay you know what it's the first of may the darling butts have made it's made the lusty month of may in a last-ditch attempt to save the relationship molly decides to go on holiday to tenerife with stimson she wanted to see how the holiday went maybe some time just the two of them would make her feel slightly differently about the situation but things don't go well and molly reaches out to her friends back home [Music] the holiday went not too great and she texted while she was on holiday and this and she said they really weren't getting along i was very worried because she was just out there with him she'd said that he just wasn't listening he just wasn't taking on board anything that she was saying when she came home she was set on breaking up with him it's a busy saturday night in the centre of maidstone [Music] molly is out celebrating her 23rd birthday with friends although she's been arguing with stimson over facebook messenger for days they're still a couple come along and i think the evening was going okay [Music] and then they'd had a little bit of an argument and she'd just kind of snapped i think she just ultimately had enough and she just said she doesn't want to be with him anymore and yeah she broke up with him in the nightclub and he'd become quite aggressive stimpson shouts she's finished with me in front of all their friends [Music] and i think that was the first time any of her friends had seen any side of him that wasn't just the norm and then after that they'd argued quite a lot and she'd ended up blocking him on social media and any kind of communication platforms [Music] but for molly her family and her friends a cold and calculated nightmare would now begin stimpson starts by attacking her on facebook he'd then started to post malicious content on facebook that she was then made aware of because other friends of molly's still had simpson as a as a contact on facebook so she was able to see what he was posting um he'd tried to publicly humiliate her by disclosing information and tagging her family in it so that they would see some of the messages that she'd sent and things that she'd been up to with her friends so again it was more about this return of public humiliation that clearly he held her responsible for molly had spent a lot of time creating an online image based around healthy living and fitness everyone gets that bit just got this through it is not pressing stimson tries to ruin this posting that molly is using cocaine he tags her family in the posts so they can see them molly is distraught [Music] i saw some of the online abuse she sent me screenshots of them in a text conversation we were having and this was the time that we weren't at uni together but i knew she had people around her she had her family she had her friends and i was really thankful for that but it was definitely hard because i wanted to be there for her and i was also so relieved because i thought that was going to be the end of it and he was going to leave her alone molly's facebook friends block stimson so he continues his abuse on whatsapp she becomes terrified he will turn up at her house and message his family and friends but then stimson posts one particularly chilling message online [Music] molly now feels like she has to do something she screenshots and prints out stimson's abuse and that's when she sought advice from her mum and they decided to go down to the police station and report the behaviour and get some advice on how to get it removed and it was quite chilling because the police officer at the time had decided that the best course of action would be to phone him and ask him to take the content down the officer ring stimson and places the phone on speaker molly and her mother can hear everything that he says [Music] the police officer had said to stimson you know we're not we're not going to have to talk about this again are we stimpson simply replies aren't we you know he actually replied with a very arrogant statement and thought he was untouchable molly immediately texts her friend amy molly had sent me a message just saying that it was just so cold that there was just no emotion in the conversation at all and it had frightened her quite a lot he turned very quickly into this very very nasty manipulative character even more than when the relation i thought he was manipulative when they were together so when all that started happening it was nasty she was upset every day it definitely worried her mum um and they'd printed out pictures of stimson and handed them out to neighbours so that they could all kind of keep a look out for him [Music] stimson goes to work but leaves early he drives to asda in chatham here he buys a sabbatier pairing knife later that day he also buys a pickaxe that evening the police call molly they tell her that stimson has agreed to take down his abusive media posts all of her friends have now blocked stimson but he is one step ahead he's manipulated another girl into friending molly on social media he'd managed to gain access to her whereabouts and what she was doing and what she was posting through another individual who had offered to feed back all of her movements to him somebody that ultimately wanted to harm her and now had access to where she was and who she was with and what she was doing [Music] molly's getting ready for a night out with her friends she's heading out to a bar in chatham docks she posts where she's going on facebook [Music] but she has no idea that by doing this she's letting stimson know exactly where she's going to be we were in the pub and we were celebrating her enrollment on her pt course one of our other friends had been promoted so we decided to go for dinner and have a few drinks suddenly the evening takes a dramatic turn stimson shows up out of the blue [Music] he turned up to the bar that we were at with another girl you know we sat there and said oh how strange what what are the odds so you know maybe he was trying to stay out of your way but actually she'd posted a picture of where she was that afternoon where she was going when she was getting ready and then you know he turned up just what a shame that you'd have to be here to witness him going on another date and actually she had said to us i'm actually not jealous and that's how i know i don't love him anymore so for her that was confirmation that she'd absolutely made the right decision molly had been trying to put stimson out of her mind but he has other ideas molly had gone to the bar to find out where to pay for her parking and he'd been at the bar at the same time and smiled at her molly can't believe what's happening she and her friends can't work out if this is pure coincidence or something more sinister [Music] stimson continues to make the girls feel on edge he walked past the table probably 20 minutes before we decided to leave and we just said oh how childish there's more than one exit out of the pub and he didn't need to walk past our table after we'd finished eating dinner molly had said she needed to leave because she needed to make it home for love island so a few of us had stayed to have an extra drink and she'd left nobody escorted her to her car no one was worried that he might follow her nobody even battered an eyelid molly says good night to her friends she just wants to get home she thinks she's all alone [Music] 23 year old molly mclaren is enjoying a night out with friends however the night has unfortunately turned sour her ex-boyfriend joshua stimson has somehow found out where she's drinking and has turned up unnerving molly and her friends i remember seeing an instagram post where she took a picture in the toilets and and it said um that feeling when your ex shows up at the same club as you and so i instantly knew that she was sort of a bit uneasy because she was obviously out with her friends and he's turned up and she's already been threatened at a time and reports him to the police molly says good night to her friends and heads to the car park i just sent a message saying hey i really hope you're okay stay away and and just and just make sure you're safe she has no idea she's being stalked [Music] the next day molly mclaren wakes up early at her home in cobham kent she gets dressed leaves the house and gets into her car she drives to her gym in chatham she wants to record another fitness blog and post it online molly is unaware that she's being followed by joshua stimson [Music] molly arrives at the gym just before 10 a.m shortly after stimson enters the car park we'd been chatting in the morning and i just said to her you know don't worry about him um you know that you've made the right decision and she was feeling good as it's early in the morning the gym is eerily quiet molly has the place virtually to herself she happily works out oblivious that stimson has followed her again the second time in 24 hours [Music] he walks into the gym and climbs the stairs he seems to change his mind and go back down [Music] but he turns back [Music] molly is startled from her workout she stares at him wondering why he's there [Music] she sends amy a text and photo of stimson [Applause] [Music] and i'd said to her i don't think that's right first of all he'd turned up at dinner last night now he's at the gym molly then works up the courage to talk to him she'd said to him you know why aren't you at work and he'd just reply ten well i don't think that's any of your business molly's terrified that he somehow again in exactly the same place as her the human instinct in you wants to be wrong and you want to feel as though it is just a coincidence amy is really worried together they try to work out how stimson knew molly was there did you post anywhere that you were going to the gym was my first reaction she said that she hadn't put anything on facebook or instagram that she was filming stuff for uni no one could have known she was there but suddenly stimson leaves molly is now completely alone and unsure what to do next she texts amy i said to her you know maybe you should just leave just take yourself out of the situation um she'd find her mum and told her mum what was going on and her mum had given her the same advice as well which was to leave to go straight home and he'd been driving around the car park waiting for her to leave molly gets her belongings together and texts amy again [Music] and i'd replied to her saying you know don't speak to him just get out you know something's not right just leave um she said i was walking i'm walking to my car now and i'd replied to her saying don't worry about him he's a psycho as molly gets to her car she's unaware that stimson is in the car park she'd read the message and never replied i assumed that she was driving home 23 year old molly mclaren is being stalked by her ex-boyfriend joshua stimson he's been harassing her and she's reported him to the police but terrifyingly over the last 24 hours he's followed her to two separate locations first a night out with friends and then to the gym placing his mat right next to her molly is so frightened she texts her mum and friend amy to ask what she should do and i'd replied to her saying don't worry about him he's a psycho stimson leaves the gym and molly hopes he's left her alone but he's lying in wait for her outside he'd been driving around the car park waiting for her to leave just after 11am molly gets to her car and is completely unaware that stimpson is watching her every move if she'd been scared maybe she wouldn't have left alone maybe if we told her to stay there and and not leave that he would have got bored and maybe driven away before molly has a chance to leave stimpson crosses the car park and jumps into the car at 11 08 am he viciously attacks molly mclaren stabbing her 75 times i'd received a message from one of my friends at work to say you know have you seen what's happened at dockside and i'd gone online and i'd had a look and i thought gosh that's really really horrific and never for a second did i think that it was her and i tried to ring her and i tried to text her and she didn't answer and that's when i thought god i've got a really really horrible feeling and it just wasn't real it it'll never be real get to sing that every day feel like i'm lagging everyone gets that bit just got this through it is not pressing i wasn't really thinking it was just like shock [Music] it was just the worst night of my life ever i don't yeah i didn't sleep that night i just cried all night i just could not comprehend any of it at all it's not something i believed myself for ages like oh every morning i would wake up for a while after that and think that's that's not real [Music] the victim of the attack yesterday at the dockside shopping center has been named as 23 year old kent university student molly mclaren from cobham near gravesend now joshua stimson from near rochester has been charged with murder and appeared before magistrates in medway stimson's trial for the murder of molly mclaren began on the 23rd of january 2018 at maidstone crown court he makes a plea for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility it was just a really horrible time because you just think to yourself how could he possibly possibly walk away with this with manslaughter i just i i just don't know how we're all going to live with that at the trial it's revealed stimson has a history of stalking other women so in court it was quite difficult to listen to some of simpson's previous encounters with women um he was known to the police for threatening behavior he had sent messages um to one of the girls saying that he would fly to where she was on holiday and drown her he'd been suspected of slashing her tyres outside her house he'd also had another encounter with a local girl around turning up at her flat unannounced and being in the same nightclubs that she was in and waiting outside for her and he'd also spat in her face in a nightclub the jury take less than four hours to return a unanimous verdict they convict joshua stimson of murder and he's sentenced to life in prison without parole the judge said during sentencing that stimson was a highly dangerous young man who would pose a very considerable risk to women in the future [Music] five months later rochester cathedral hosts the graduation ceremony for molly mclaren's university year the main hall is packed and there are two guests of honor in the audience molly's parents most honorable chancellor it is a great sadness that i now invite doug and joanne mclaren to accept the award of undergraduate diploma in sports and exercise for health awarded posthumously to molly mclaren he gives them the certificate speaks to them and it's at that stage after that that everybody gets the nod and at the same point gavin turned joe and doug towards the congregation so they could hear and see the celebration it was just like i was cheering for as though she was getting her certificate because i would have cheered so loudly because i've been so proud of her the students the staff everyone in that cathedral lifted the roof we were cheering we were whooping and yeah we were really really remembering molly everyone felt very honored that you know joe and the managed to be there that was incredibly strong of them and every every parent should feel like they can go to that ceremony because she would have still been there and she would have done amazing [Applause] [Music] since molly's death friends and family have set up a charity for people suffering with eating disorders called the molly mclaren foundation there's one thing i've learned from her relationship and their situation is that there are red flags as you go along but unless you really sit and evaluate them as a whole they don't look like red flags and and that's probably one of the most upsetting things the rise of social media and the internet has meant that stalkers have found a new way to track and target their prey i don't think there's enough awareness about it at all because before this happened to molly quite honestly i was completely unaware of it maybe someone may bring it up in a conversation but i wouldn't draw any attention to it at all you never think it would happen to you or it's never happened to me i don't really understand it who would do anything like that i think in the modern day it's still very new it's not something that people have had a chance to really look into and it's more scary than anything many people that post where they are when they're there the introduction of live videos snapchat being in the moment you don't necessarily know who's watching and yes you can control your friends list and you can control who is viewing your things on instagram but do you really know those people it has really impacted me with dating i'm sure there will be a time where i will meet someone and i will be okay and maybe have a nice relationship but at the moment i'm just always on edge when i'm doing things like that especially when someone contacts me on social media molly and her friends unwittingly fell into the world of a psychotic stalker partly because of their generation's dependence on online life a lot of this cyber stalking can lead to things like you know death and serious injuries and i don't know what's more serious than that to be honest in the uk at least two women a week are murdered at the hands of partners or ex-partners [Music] stalking related behavior is identified in 94 of these cases [Music] the tight-knit community of cobham are standing strong every year they celebrate molly's birthday by hosting a charity festival called molly fest her story resonated with so many people she was so young and everyone has a best friend everyone has a daughter everyone has you know a cousin and it was really important for us to have her remembered for who she was and what she stood for and not what happened to her some days it's easier than others and i do shed a tear most days um but i talk to molly every day and i love watching videos of molly right we just all you know had to believe what had happened and just move on from it and do the best that you can and take every day as it comes [Music] you

Channel: True Crime Central

Views: 2,589,282

Keywords: Episodes, Full, ID, Latest, Online, Season, Series, TV, UK, Women, documentaries, documentary, justice by any means, snapped, True Crime Central, true crime, Killed By My Stalker, Molly Mclaren, Stalker, Killed by my stalker, true crime documentary, killed by stalker, stalker ex, stalker, stalker example, killer stalker, stalk, what to do, crime, crime stories, best true crime documentaries, best true crime, true crime stories, crime news, crime documentary real stories

Id: f0kgNayzAUM

Length: 44min 26sec (2666 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 12 2022