Woolrich returned to Dartmouth in fall 2014 to find that almost everyone knew her story. Friends didn’t know what to say. Classmates asked if she was carrying. (No.) Administrators were more responsive to her needs, granting her a more secure dorm room in a busy part of campus and a nearby parking space.



Halfway through the 2015 winter term, she took another leave from school, feeling unable to handle the stress of Bennett’s upcoming trial.

It took place over spring break. For two days, Woolrich fielded questions from Lacher, the defense counsel who sought to discredit her, and Ryan, the prosecutor who needed to portray her as raw and damaged to the jury.

From the defense table, Bennett watched and listened. Occasionally, he laughed.

“Do you feel safe as you sit here in court?” Ryan asked Woolrich.

“No—” her voice cracked. “I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe I’ll be safe for a year, maybe for six months, maybe for four years. It doesn’t matter. It’s coming.”

On March 30, 2015, after a weeklong trial, and eight months after the op-ed appeared on Fox News, Bennett was convicted of felony stalking. The jury’s brief deliberation centered on the ethics of convicting a man who appeared mentally unsound, according to juror Floyd Rainey.

Bennett received a sentence of three years — not the maximum, but almost, because he stalked Woolrich while her restraining order was in effect. His attorney has filed an appeal questioning the legal definition of a credible threat. Regardless of the appeal’s outcome, Bennett will serve exactly a year and a half and be released on parole this Dec. 6.

Then what?

The recidivism rate for stalking is around 60%. Some stalkers are stopped by treating an underlying mental disorder, if that illness is a contributing factor to their behavior. Otherwise, they’re left to state supervision. If Bennett has been diagnosed, he’s not disclosing it.

“Obviously I’m going to do whatever I have to do to stay alive,” Woolrich says. How? She’s been to court. She won. She doesn’t believe the verdict will keep her safe in the long term. Maybe his parole will keep him from attempting contact for a while, she thinks. “Maybe he genuinely means it right now, that he’s done. But as soon as he gets out, he gets bored, he gets drunk, or he gets high, then everything snaps back.”

Now there are two people to protect — Woolrich and Reilly got married this summer. She plays out possible scenarios in her head. “Him stalking me, I can maybe see coming,” Woolrich says. “Him trying to kidnap me, I can see coming. Him getting one of the rifles in his house and waiting outside for Christian to open the front door and shooting him? There’s no way for us to prevent that.”

Every step of the way, people told Woolrich to relax, that Bennett wouldn’t keep pursuing her. Every time, he came back, and it got worse.

Bennett says he’s done. “The motivation’s gone.” He will go his own way, he says, with a brighter outlook on life and greater patience. “I will never contact her again.” He remembers promising something similar to a judge when he was arrested for breaking Woolrich’s restraining order. He remembers not meaning it. During that case, he says, “I told the lawyer, ‘I’m going to try to keep contacting her.’ He said, ‘Don’t tell the judge that. You just go in there and say you’re done with it.’” So Bennett did. “I told her, ‘I’m not going to st—’” he pauses, “‘contact her any more.’”

No one in the police departments, no one in the district attorney’s office, Woolrich says, has told her that she can expect Bennett’s obsession to end, no matter what promises he makes now. On the day the verdict came down, even Lacher couldn’t say. Will he stalk Woolrich again? “People aren’t the same in jail as they are outside of jail,” is all she answered.

Woolrich is making plans. She’s also laying the groundwork that will allow her to go into hiding if she needs to. And she’s training with a gun.

“I have to keep myself safe,” Woolrich says. If — when — Bennett shows up, she calls the cops. Documents it. Then he goes to jail for six months, or 18 months, or a few years. He gets out; she waits again. “And then he comes to me,” she says. “And I handle it.”