PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — Imagine opening your mail and finding feces and a dead kitten inside! It happened to one Southwest Florida woman and the men who mailed her these packages are in prison.
29-year-old Bretton Howard Osborne has been sentenced to 3 years and 8 months in federal prison for stalking and conspiracy to commit stalking of a woman in Port Charlotte, along with his co-conspirator 30-year-old Ian Douglas McGuire.
The harassment began in March of 2019 and lasted through June of that same year after McGuire walked into the Punta Gorda Farmers Market, which is where victim “A.G.W” worked at the time.
“The suspect, in this case, he likes to go into public wearing signs around his neck, with a video camera he likes to engage groups of people to get a reaction. The victim, in this case, was working at the time, told the suspect that she did not really like his sign and want to be videotaped by him and ever since then he just began to target her. The phone call harassment was on a daily basis for the victim, in fact, she had to get a different phone number because she was getting what’s called a spoof call,” said Detective Adam Taylor with the North Port Police Department.
However, the harassment continued after the victim filed a restraining order, the suspects were able to obtain her personal information through public record, which led them to send their victim a disturbing package in the mail.
“She received multiple adult-themed toys in the mail. She received packages of fecal matter in the mail, and she actually received a dead kitten in the mail, she was mailed to at work,” said Taylor.
9 years into his career, Detective Adam Taylor with the North Port Police Department, says this details of this case came as a shock to him and advises anyone if you find yourself in a situation like this, contact authorities immediately.
“Someone that is a victim of harassment should make a report to the police so it's documented, so we have a paper trail to start to show that someone is getting harassed, but just be cautious on where you put your address and phone number because it can become public,” said Adam Taylor.
On top of the disturbing package the victim received, the suspects also harassed the victim by posting videos of her on a YouTube page that has since been taken down.
