True Crime With Caledonian Kitty

I've been writing about various cases on this blog since 2019 and I've had all sorts of people contact me, from relatives of victims to relatives of convicted murderers, Jeffrey Dahmer fans and so on. I'm currently working on my next post in my Serial Killers of The 70s, 80s & 90s and that installment is coming next but I just wanted to say something about this topic of ghoulish groupies. 

I've had people tell me that they knew Ted Bundy personally, spoke in spirit to Jeffrey Dahmer through an Ouija board and knew who was responsible for unsolved murders. My email inbox is quite a roller coaster at times but it is easy to distinguish the obsessives to the people who are genuine and it's not just some women who can be obsessed with serial killers, some guys have contacted me too. Only just the other day I followed back a man (he had what looked like a family profile picture on Twitter) and within 5 seconds he asked me ''Who is your favourite serial killer?'' and ''Taylor Schabusiness is hot.'' (Taylor Schabuisness was not a serial killer but she was obsessed with Jeffrey Dahmer and had murdered her lover by strangulation before dismembering his body and committing sexual acts on his remains before leaving his decapitated head in a bucket for his mother to find). One check of this guy's 'likes' and I could see that he'd 'liked' every tweet mentioning Taylor. I promptly blocked!

There's been guys asking me to cover Jodi Arias and asked if I had her address (Jodi murdered her on/off lover Travis Alexander back in 2008. Travis had been stabbed multiple times and slashed across the throat so violently that his head was almost decapitated. Jodi had also managed to drag his body across the floor before shooting him in the head.) because they wanted to contact her ''cause she was hot''. It is both disturbing and interesting that such men and women fantasize about having sex with some of the most sickest and evilest of individuals if they happen to be somewhat attractive. It doesn't help when certain movies based on the cases have a tendency to over-glamourize the likes of Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez. 

As well as my interest in the human (or inhuman) behaviour of people who commit heinous crimes, I'm also interested in the psychology of their fanatics. How could anyone think of the likes of Richard Ramirez in a romantic way? It's baffling and it makes you worry for these people because those are the types that will fall in to traps laid by such evil doers. Those of us with a healthy interest in true crime (YES, having an interest in criminology is healthy because we are willing to put such cases under the microscope and try to understand and try to prevent such behaviours and personalities from occurring. Plus, we learn how to protect ourselves and become more self aware) do tend to be more vigilant and suspicious of people because we know not to judge a book by it's cover, just because someone has a pretty face, does not mean that they have your best intentions at heart. We all have to keep ourselves safe in this world both physically and psychologically. 

It's not just serial killer groupies that contact me, I had a very strange experience back in 2021 (I just looked at the date on the post involving what I am about to tell you and I didn't realize that it had been that long ago that I had published the Ian Watkins case). If you are a long time reader of my blog you maybe remember the post I had written about the former UK rock star Ian Watkins who was convicted of child sexual abuse offences. He was and is a pretty sick individual and when the story broke about what he had been doing, his fan base adored him so much that they refused to believe it. Ian had such devoted fans that they had his name and lyrics tattooed on their skin. He denied everything but the overwhelming evidence was there for all to see and he is still serving time at Wakefield Prison as of 2018. 

With Ian Watkins, a lot of his fan base was young people who turned to his music as a form of therapy, they felt that they could relate to him and his lyrics. There were a number of young teenage girls who adored him and he took advantage of that fact. He was and is a manipulative groomer who is able to have a frightening psychological hold on his victims. The girls (or should I say women because they are currently in their 30s) who started off as fans of his music have become so entangled in his web that they still believe he is innocent to this day. When I published my post about him, all hell broke loose and I had drama for about a month. I'd been contacted by, what I was led to believe as 5 different Ian Watkins fans plus Ian himself. I knew that Ian was not contacting me himself but the '5 girls' were actually one woman in her 30s who was obsessed with him. 

When I first published the post I noticed that various Ian Watkins Twitter accounts started following me and I was getting bombarded in my DMs. One woman sent me pictures of herself and Ian in a bedroom and told me that she had, had a relationship with him when she was a teenager. At first she sounded genuine and the pictures were real, she sounded mature and explained that she was a mother and a victim of his. She mentioned that she suffered from depression and that times were hard. I made the stupid mistake of giving her my phone number as a way of offering some support if she ever needed a chat. 

The next thing I know, she was begging me to be part of her 'group' of Ian supporters and wanted me to go to Wakefield prison to see him because ''you are his type, he'd agree to see you.'' The whole thing was bizarre and I had no idea what was going on. It started to become a real hassle because I refused to visit Ian Watkins and expressed my opinion of him which wasn't exactly complimentary (which didn't go down to well as she believed that he was like a God). I realized that this woman was a bit of a nutcase and was surprised to see that she had given me her real name, I researched her and found various newspaper articles about her. She had been so obsessed with Ian and had written to him a few times in prison. She did have a brief relationship with him a long time before but had never seemed to let go. Ian Watkins, one of the vilest individuals to walk the earth, actually had to have her banned from the prison. He refused her letters and visits and prison officials were that fed up with her harassment that they made sure that she never set foot wherever Ian was. 

I said that I was going to delete the post and that seemed to make things even worse because I was being bombarded on all of my social media platforms and the scary thing is that it was all one woman. She was pretending to be Ian and 4 other girls. She became obsessed with me and it was at this point I was trying to figure out the best way to deal with this. I realized that I was dealing with someone who had severe psychological issues and so I started to think back to my counselling training and although she was trying to justify Ian's abhorrent actions by saying he had been through abuse and that he'd only did bits of this and that, I was trying to work out a way in which I could make her see sense. 

I decided to approach this in a sensitive manner and I asked her some questions about her childhood and it soon became clear. She had been through a lot in life and in Ian she saw this sort of saviour figure before any of his crimes were exposed. She was already obsessed with him before he was brought to justice and couldn't let go. Ian had been playing a few of his female fans whilst he was first in prison, he was using them for money and would groom each of them making them feel individually special. This woman was one of those girls who had been tricked into sending him money and when he cut her off she couldn't cope with it. 

I told her that I knew that Ian wasn't really contacting me and that the four girls didn't exist. I told her it was ok to tell me the truth, I wouldn't make anything public (I promised I wouldn't reveal her name and I'm keeping that promise to this day), I told her that I understood what it was like to come from difficult circumstances and feeling that you had this bond with someone who turned out to be not who you thought they were. I encouraged her to forget about Ian and tried my best to talk sense into her about how evil he was and how grooming works. 

I don't know if anything I said to her made a difference but she apologized for the catfishing and the weeks of harassment. Something in me forgave her, maybe because she was from a difficult childhood and had been through a lot of hardships in life. I just saw a frightened, confused young girl underneath it all and very much another victim of Ian Watkins. 

After our conversation she agreed not to contact me again and I agreed not to take the matter further. She deleted the Twitter and Facebook accounts and we both blocked each other on WhatsApp. It ended on a friendly note. I knew she was deeply embarrassed and probably a bit shocked at how I discovered that all of the accounts were hers. She tried to use different terminology on each account but I paid attention to the spelling of words, the placement of full stops etc and I knew it was all her. 

At the end of it all I felt sorry for her because there was a lot of problems there and I think she just needs proper help to get out of this frame of mind (I'm hoping that by now in 2023 she has moved on from the Ian Watkins obsession and is healthy and happy). 

I have so many stories from over the years that could fill a book, I know this post is a little bit different to my usual posts but I wanted to make sure that this week I kept my word in publishing regular content on a Sunday evening. I appreciate you guys and gals, your kind words about my work mean a lot to me and I appreciate the support. If you found this post an interesting read and would like me to talk more about my experiences with similar situations with groupies or even worse....so-called professional writers who have turned out to be compete nutcases who've tried to get nudes from me in exchange for help with publishing a book. Or, a guy who was so obsessed with serial killer Ian Brady that he wrote to him for years back in the 1980s and still had the letters which he wanted to show me in exchange for painting me naked. It was bad enough that he was creepy but he seemed to be actually proud of his contact with Ian Brady and used it as an attempt to try and impress me....which it didn't! I have always hated Ian Brady with a passion. 

Anyway, I have so much tea and creepy stories about my encounters to leave you scratching your head in confusion or worse, keep you up all night. Let me know if you would like me to include these types of posts in the future. For now, I return back to researching my latest installment of my Serial Killers of The 70s, 80s & 90s (which will be my next post) whilst also enjoying a big slice of chocolate cake. 

I'm always open to comments either below, on socials or privately by email (I know some people don't feel comfortable to leave comments on a true crime blog so fire away a few lines if you like to me at jocaledoniankitty@gmail.com) 

[Side Note: On a strange turn of events just after I typed up this post the other day, I found out yesterday that Ian Watkins had been attacked by 3 fellow prisoners at Wakefield Prison. He had been held hostage for about 6 hours and suffered from a severe beating as well as a slashed neck. He's currently being treated for his injuries but the level of severity is unknown. I will keep you updated on my original Ian Watkins post]

Please stay safe out there and online & I'll (hopefully) see you in the next post or on my socials