Barb Zimmerman is tired of Tacoma police saying her family’s wounds are self-inflicted.

Her husband, David, a plumber who doesn’t fear much, has been threatened with a baseball bat. Her daughter Kayleen, 18, is afraid to sleep alone, fearing that promises to behead her will come true.

Barb Zimmerman says the repeated threats – scores of them, sent by text and cell phone – come from a 19-year-old man with a prior conviction for cyberstalking and a history of harassing young women over wireless phones and the Internet.

“He’s gonna keep doing this to people, and somebody has to stop it,” she says.

Zimmerman believes the man is the same individual who terrorized her daughter and three other Tacoma-area families in 2007: the cell phone stalker, an unsolved case of cyber-harassment that gained national attention.

Back then, the stalker was careful to remain anonymous. There is a difference now. In some conversations with Kayleen and her father, the man has identified himself and given his phone number. He has taunted them with obscenities, daring them to call police.

Barb and David Zimmerman did just that in January, when the harassing calls and messages reached intolerable levels.

They say police told them the harassment was probably coming from her daughter’s best friend or a family member. Police added they don’t believe the current incidents are related to the earlier 2007 case.

What police won’t do – why, Barb Zimmerman can’t understand – is track down the young man who identified himself. He has social ties to the teen victims in the original 2007 case, and he has a juvenile court record that includes multiple incidents of cyber-harassment.

Spokesman Mark Fulghum said police are investigating the man’s possible links to a recent assault at Tacoma’s School of the Arts.

He said police remain skeptical that the man is the anonymous cell phone stalker. Some of the reported incidents, including remote control of phones, can’t be done without inside help, Fulghum said.

“Our phone tech people say you can’t do the stuff they’re talking about without having some kind of inside help,” he said.

The original case involved a pair of Fircrest families who endured months of anonymous harassment. The Zimmermans knew one of the families, and expressed sympathy after the case went public. They soon joined the ranks of victims.

The stalker stopped bothering the first two families after a few more months, a relative recently told The News Tribune. But the harassment of Kayleen Zimmerman continued.

Kayleen said she always wondered whether the stalker was a teen she knew from school. He had attended the same schools as the other young women tied to the case, and knew them all.

The News Tribune is not naming the man because he has not been charged with harassing the Zimmerman family.

The man was convicted of cyberstalking in 2008, after a Dec. 20, 2007, incident tied to Peninsula High School – about five months after the cell-stalking story appeared. Records from Pierce County Juvenile Court say the youth, then a student at the school, posted a message on his MySpace page.

He complained about other students talking about him, and added a threat: “One of these days, I’m going to go COLUMBINE on the (expletive) school if this (expletive) keeps up.”

Pierce County sheriff’s deputies arrested the teen, court records say, and found him with a pair of computers. He confessed to the threat. He said he was angry that other students were talking about him and discouraging a relationship with a girl he wanted to date.

He was expelled from the school.

A separate accusation of harassment followed a few days later. A Pierce County father requested a restraining order against the teen on Dec. 24, 2007, saying his daughter was being stalked, followed and threatened.

The teen “continues to harass and threaten me through phone, e-mail and text messages,” the girl’s restraining-order petition states. “I have saved multiple messages of him threatening me.”

When reached by The News Tribune, the father refused to speak for the record about the case. He asked to have his name and his daughter’s name withheld. He said he and his daughter fear the man.

A survey of the teen’s MySpace page and associated comments show a continuing pattern. He sends hundreds of notes to young women from the schools he has attended, asking them to send text messages or call him. Many of the young women respond with comments such as, “Do I know you?”

The MySpace page also shows the teen occasionally threatens suicide, which typically generates sympathetic responses.

Kayleen Zimmerman said she has noticed the same beha- vior. Court documents also reflect it. The 2007 restraining order petition says the man threatened suicide, and posted pict- ures of himself on MySpace with a knife held to his throat.

In recent weeks, the Zimmermans, frustrated with police, have talked to the man by phone, text messages and e-mail. Kayleen asked the teen to stop sending messages. Her father was more direct.

“All I said to him is back off. Quit harassing my daughter,” David Zimmerman said, adding he asked the man directly if he was the source of the anonymous harassment.

“He kind of not really admitted it,” the father said. “He said, ‘Oh, I thought you knew it was me, ha-ha.’ ”

Zimmerman again told the teen to leave his daughter alone. The youth got angry.

“He said, ‘I’m gonna follow her home from school, I’m gonna find out where you live and I’m gonna break your legs with a baseball bat,’” Zimmerman recalled.

The family hasn’t heard from the stalker for about two weeks. They have considered filing a restraining order against the teen. David Zimmerman is hesitant.

“I don’t want to antagonize him at all – he’s a little unstable. And now the cops are talking about going and talking to him,” he said. “If he were to do anything else, we probably would.”

Sean Robinson: 253-597-8486

sean.robinson@thenewstribune.com