CONTENT WARNING: THIS STORY DISCUSSES STALKING, SUICIDE AND MENTAL HEALTH.
It started with a message from a stranger. Within weeks, Jazz Thornton was sleeping with a knife beside her bed, fleeing her home and being given instructions by police on how to survive a potentially life-threatening encounter. The man responsible had travelled 18,000 kilometres from the Netherlands to New Zealand, determined to find her. And when he did, he sat outside her home, watching her through the windows.
For the award-winning filmmaker, author and mental health advocate, whose work has helped millions of people navigate their darkest moments, it was an experience that would change her life forever. Speaking to marie claire editor Georgie McCourt on theYou’re Gonna Want To Hear This podcast, Thornton recounts the terrifying ordeal that inspired her documentary series, Stalked, and the disturbing reality of what happens when online obsession crosses into the physical world.
It began innocuously enough, or so Thornton thought. As the co-founder of mental health organisation Voices of Hope, she regularly receives thousands of messages from people around the world. Among them was a man from the Netherlands who had become fixated on her. For approximately three weeks, he had been sending increasingly obsessive messages, most of which she hadn’t seen. It wasn’t until her housemate received a message from him, declaring his obsession and his intention to travel to New Zealand, that Thornton began paying attention.
“I’m so obsessed with you right now, and you don’t even know it. I can’t stop thinking about you,” one message read. Even then, Thornton struggled to comprehend the seriousness of the situation. Surely someone wouldn’t actually fly halfway around the world to find her? But then he arrived.
After discovering photographs that suggested the man was in New Zealand, Thornton checked his messages again. What she found terrified her. “I’ve done something really bad that involves you. I’m so sorry, and I can’t promise you not to do something with the information that I’ve gathered about you, even though it’s going to affect you.”
That night, she slept with a knife beside her bed. The following day, Thornton returned home to discover a brown paper bag outside her house. Inside were Dutch treats and two letters, signed by the man who had been pursuing her. “There’s this person who has travelled, uh, now we’ve figured out 18,000 kilometers around the world to find me, and within 24 hours he has found my house.”
She called the police, but even then, she chose the non-emergency number. She didn’t want to overreact. Moments later, she walked into her lounge room. “As we walked in there we just saw this man sitting on the beach looking into our windows and it was my stalker.” The man was sitting on a bench directly facing her home. Thornton froze. Her housemate crawled along the floor to close the curtains without being seen. Police were called, but by the time officers arrived, the man had disappeared.
What followed was a terrifying escalation. Police advised Thornton and her housemates to leave their home and stay in a hotel. The man continued sending messages, including one that appeared to suggest he intended to take his own life. But detectives interpreted a particular sentence as something far more sinister: “I hope to see you in the next life soon.” Investigators feared he intended to kill both himself and Thornton. Police located him near her home, and she later learned he had obtained a white rental van, cash and a phone that would make him harder to trace.
Yet at the time, New Zealand’s lack of specific stalking legislation made it difficult for authorities to detain him without evidence of an explicit threat or another chargeable offence. Despite police protection, Thornton was forced to confront the possibility that she was in immediate danger. Security cameras were installed at her home, and a forensic criminal psychologist explained the precautions she and her housemates needed to take. They were advised to travel in groups, check surrounding vehicles and remain alert for tracking devices.
But one conversation proved particularly devastating. When Thornton asked whether she could visit her therapist, she was told the man might already know where her therapist lived. “That, I think for me, was worse than anything else,” she recalls. “It suddenly hit me that this wasn’t just my life in danger, but everyone around me had just been put in danger by just being associated to me.”
Eventually, the man voluntarily left New Zealand. Thornton describes receiving confirmation of his departure as the best phone call of her life. But the fear didn’t disappear with him. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt a day of feeling that sense of security that I had before Peter came into my life.”
Today, she continues to scan crowds for his face. White vans trigger anxiety. She experiences panic attacks and remains acutely conscious of her surroundings. The experience also threatened the mental health recovery she had spent years fighting for.
Thornton has spoken publicly about her childhood trauma, sexual abuse and repeated suicide attempts as a teenager. After leaving home at 16, she experienced housing instability and multiple psychiatric hospital admissions. She eventually channelled those experiences into advocacy, determined to offer other young people the hope she once desperately needed.
But the stalking ordeal brought back emotions she hadn’t experienced in years. Sitting in her therapist’s office after the man left the country, Thornton broke down, overwhelmed by guilt that her friends had been endangered simply by knowing her.
“I remember saying to him, ‘My mental health is exactly where it was when I was a teenager. I can’t believe this. Like, I’m in the same spot. I’ve learned nothing.'” Her therapist offered an analogy that changed her perspective. Recovery, she explained, is like climbing a mountain. Sometimes you find yourself on the same side again, but you’re much closer to the summit.
Thornton realised that while the feelings were familiar, her response was different. She was seeking support, speaking openly and using the coping strategies she had developed. It was a powerful reminder that recovery isn’t linear. For a time, Thornton considered disappearing from public life altogether. Then a woman approached her in a supermarket, crying as she explained how Thornton’s book had helped her teenage daughter through a severe mental health crisis. “That was an absolute saving grace,” Thornton says. “She’ll never know that.”
Rather than retreat, Thornton decided to turn her experience into a documentary, Stalked, which also examines the experiences of other women whose lives have been devastated by obsessive behaviour and failures in the systems intended to protect them. The series also highlights a confronting reality: stalking is too often minimised until the danger escalates. Thornton believes women are conditioned to question their own instincts, to avoid making a fuss and to wait until something unquestionably terrible happens before asking for help. Her own experience is proof of how dangerous that hesitation can be. The documentary has also forced her to reconsider how she uses social media. Her stalker, she reveals, located her home using geographical clues from old videos, including a motorway bridge and images filmed from her balcony.
Today, she posts less frequently, avoids sharing her location in real time and filters identifying information from her accounts. Yet she refuses to let fear silence her. And perhaps the most important message from Thornton’s extraordinary conversation is not about the man who stalked her, but about the women who may currently be experiencing something similar. “If you think you’re in danger, and you think you have a stalker, it’s okay to ask for help,” she says. “Don’t wait for things to escalate.”
And if the first person doesn’t listen? “Keep asking, keep pushing until you find someone who listens. You do not have to do this by yourself.” Because as Thornton knows all too well, silence can be dangerous. “These situations and these people specifically within, like, a stalking situation thrive in isolation. They thrive in your silence.”
Her message is clear: trust your instincts, speak up and never underestimate your right to feel safe.
Listen to Jazz Thornton’s full conversation with Georgie McCourt on marie claire’s podcast, You’re Gonna Want To Hear This.
If you or someone you know needs support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 for support relating to domestic, family or sexual violence. If you’re in immediate danger, call 000.
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