- A 33-year-old man from upstate New York was arrested on a stalking charge thanks to a canny mother who trusted his instincts and turned to TikTok.
A 33-year-old man from upstate New York was arrested on a stalking charge thanks to a canny mother who trusted his instincts and turned to TikTok.
Last month, MaryBeth Nappa was shopping for school supplies with her daughter at Walmart in Cicero, a Syracuse suburb.
Everything about the shopping trip seemed normal until Nappa realized that she was apparently being followed by a man she had seen leaving the store earlier.
In the now-viral TikTok video, Nappa approaches a man wearing a tank top with dark hair, who appears to be making no effort to hide the fact that her phone camera is pointed in her direction. .
@mb_escapades #traffickingawarenes #walmart #staysafe #humantraffickingawareness
The man looks to the left and right of him before his eyes return to the screen of his phone.
Nappa stealthily took out her own phone and began filming the man, footage of which she later posted on TikTok.
“So this guy is like following me around Walmart while I’m with my daughter,” she says in the clip. “He keeps following me. I don’t know him, and he follows me and records me.”
@mb_escapades Wasn’t expecting to make it to People but we did it! #update #stalker #fyp #staysafe #stayalert #wedidit #arrested
Nappa says in the pictures of her that she took the “strange” and “creepy” pictures to a store employee, who then alerted the store manager.
“If you have a gut feeling something isn’t right, then it’s probably not right,” Nappa told WSYR-TV, speaking about her experience.
Nappa told the station that she went on “high alert” when she noticed the man, identified by police as Eric Fuller, “walked past the hallway we were in and turned around and stood at the end of the hallway.” ”.
For its part, People accessed online records confirming that Fuller, who has since turned himself in, was charged with fourth-degree stalking.
Nappa said that since she posted the video, other people have come forward to share similar experiences of her being followed by other men.