A couple who were terrorized by a woman after they outbid her on a 'dream home' have revealed the strain that the year-long ordeal put on th...
A couple who were terrorized by a woman after they outbid her on a 'dream home' have revealed the strain that the year-long ordeal put on their marriage. Jerry Rice, 40, and Janice Ruhter, 37, who have a young son and daughter, were targeted by 53-year-old Kathy J. Rowe after they bought a home in San Diego, California, in late 2011. Soon after they moved in, the couple had their mail stopped, $1,000 of magazine subscriptions delivered and Valentine's cards with Rice's name sent to other women on their quiet suburban street in Carmel Valley. She had called religious missionaries to their multiple times as well in addition to purposely stopping their mail. Even more sinister, when Mr Rice searched his wife's name online, he discovered in horror that there were ads for sex parties at their home, entitled 'Carmel Valley Freak Show'. Mrs Rowe, pretending to be the couple, had advertised for men to visit the home while Rice was not there and force themselves upon Ruhter, claiming it was her fantasy to be raped. Ruhter's photo and address were included in the posts which were made sometime between October 2011 and June 2012. 'I love to be surprised and have a man just show up at my door and force his way in the door and on me, totally taking me while I say no,' Rowe wrote to one man who responded, according to reports. One man did show up at the couple's home but was thwarted once by a locked gate and a second time when the husband answered the door. The couple contacted the police who traced the emails to Rowe. Rice, a school teacher, and Ruhter, a hospital lab scientist, told People this week that the campaign of harassment badly damaged their marriage. Mr Rice began to neglect his family and became obsessed with watching online videos on how to install security lights and cameras. The couple now attend therapy sessions to rebuild their marriage. They both also spend two nights of the week practicing self-defense martial arts after the harassment destroyed their sense of safety in their own home. Ms Ruhter added: 'It was a huge stress in our life for so long. We are trying to heal the best way we can.' Rowe was sentenced last month to a year of electronic surveillance and five years of probation for terrorizing the young family. The 53-year-old, who was fired from her job as a county administrative analyst, was charged with solicitation of rape and stalking charges in June 2012. The prosecutor said the charges were filed because Rowe's actions went far beyond a prank. In December, Rowe entered a plea bargain over the stalking charges, in exchange for prosecutors to drop felony charges of soliciting rape and sodomy and misdemeanor charges of identity theft and harassment. A conviction for soliciting rape would have required Rowe to register for life as a sex offender. In court last month, Rowe apologized to the couple for what she had put them through. 'I just wanted to say how humiliated I am by my behavior – that this is not representative of who I am. I've never behaved like this – never will again,' she said. She said she acted due to the stress she was under and never intended to cause the couple any harm. Rice and Ruhter both made victim impact statements at her sentencing. 'The home should be a place of safety and sanctuary,' Ruhter said. 'But I never truly felt this way in our house. I felt most secure away from my home. The house became my prison.' Rice added: 'Had law enforcement not intervened in this case, I am certain Mrs. Rowe would have continued her attacks until she successfully brought physical harm to a member of my family.' In a letter to a judge last year, Rowe explained it had been 'devastating' when she lost the house due to miscommunication with real estate agents, and a more attractive bid from the other couple. She had her heart set on the home because it was a single story, to accommodate her severely disabled daughter, and had a pool, to provide exercise for her husband who has stage 4 stomach cancer. 'The anger and grief over losing that house (and especially in the way we did) drove me to behave in a very childish way and to do what I thought were childish pranks to let off steam and ease the pain,' Rowe said in January. 'I never intended for them to be hurtful.' Less
