Richard Farley - The Stalking of Laura Black

The Stalking of Laura Black

Laura Black was stalked by Farley for four years and was wounded in the shooting. Farley and Black (who was 22 at the time) first met at a company event in April 1984. When Black would decline his advances, Farley began leaving gifts, including cards and home-made bread, on Black's desk. Black later pointed out in an interview that she never went on a date with Farley and said she "never came near him" and "I tried really to ignore him but to be cordial". Despite her refusals, Farley persisted; he began calling her desk every few hours as well as showing up at Black's aerobics class. By providing false information to the ESL HR department through pretexting, Farley was able to obtain Black's home address and home phone number. Farley was also known to have befriended the custodial department in an attempt to copy keys to Black's desk so he could rifle through her files to gain an insight into her life. He was also known to have pried through confidential personnel files of Black through false pretenses.

During this time, Farley was sending one or two letters to Black a week. Though there were periods of time during which the letters would cease, in total Farley sent about two hundred letters over a period of four years, with the last letter sent from his prison cell after his rampage at ESL. Black moved four times during those four years, but Farley was able to track her address every time she did so. Farley even doctored photos of him and Black being together and mailed them to her.

In fall of 1985, Black asked the Human Resources Department at ESL for help. ESL ordered Farley to attend psychological counseling sessions, and even though he attended these sessions, his harassment of Black continued. By spring of 1986, Farley was threatening fellow ESL employees. Because of his poor work performance, his employment with ESL was officially terminated in May 1986. He had been working for ESL for nine years and spent several months stalking Black full time, then found work at a rival company, Covalent Systems Corporation in Sunnyvale.