Before being stalked, opening an art studio in Port Townsend had been Anna Nasset’s fantasy.

“It was like my life dream to own a gallery,” Nasset said from her Vermont home during a recent Zoom interview.

Her thick dark hair and blunt cut bangs gave her an edgy vibe, with funky glasses, and a ready smile. She radiated excitement, still buzzing from a recent presentation at the National Organization for Victim Assistance’s annual training conference in Florida.

“I always get nervous before I speak,” Nasset said.

But this conference was different.

Nasset’s story was the subject of a panel, with a “dream team” network of support at her side.

“I had such a calm about me,” she recalled.

Retired Jefferson County Superior Court Judge Jill Landes, Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney James Kennedy, and Amy Farr, an advocate from the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, gathered in an unprecedented display of support for Nasset. Two years previous, her stalker had successfully been put behind bars for a decade, one of the longest sentences given to a stalker to date.

“It was just so incredible to shine a light on them,” she said of her champions. 

But Nasset knows her outcome is rare, and has taken it upon herself to do something about that.

“We have to start believing,” she said, what stalked people are saying.

One study Nasset shared showed that 54 percent of femicide victims had reported stalking before their murder, and that a whopping 81 percent of women stalked by an intimate partner had also been physically abused by the same partner.

One in six women, and one in 17 men, will be stalked in their lifetimes.

Nasset’s stalker didn’t just force her to close her gallery, or make her feel unsafe walking alone, or subject to her to a barrage of lewd messages.

He forced her to flee the state of Washington.

SHUTTERING A DREAM

In 2009, Nasset moved into the building that would become Artisans on Taylor. Located in downtown Port Townsend, the space was long and narrow with big front windows, perfect for an art space. 

But her life changed in 2011, when a man named Fraser Rotchford dropped by with some of his art.

His portfolio didn’t captivate Nasset, but he was smitten with her.

She started getting emails from Rotchford, which annoyed her, but she brushed it off until he wrote, “It was nice to see you today,” and she realized she hadn’t seen him.

By the time Nasset made complaints to the Port Townsend Police Department, Rotchford had been stalking women in town since 2009. 

“He was known for stalking people for short spurts of time,” she said. “They already knew what was happening, before I did.”

She started closing the gallery early. The barrage of behaviors, from physically following her, to sending messages via Facebook Messenger, was overwhelming.

Nasset couldn’t afford the keep the business she’d worked so hard to open, writing a solid business plan and finding an investor who believed in her business acumen.

When she was hired on at Edensaw Woods as marketing director, she insisted her desk be placed in the back rear corner of the building, where she could see all points of entry into the business as well as the road outside. It felt safer to her that way, and knowing a force of physically fit men were on-site was reassuring.

Her father was diagnosed with cancer in 2015, and she took a trip back to the Midwest to be close for his last days.

It was oddly freeing, she said. While one side of her wanted to acknowledge the grief and gravity of the experience, she also felt elated to have some of her freedom back.

“My life just kept getting smaller and smaller,” she said of living in Port Townsend.

As a last-ditch resort, she packed up and headed east.

“I truly thought I’d disappear and hide away in Vermont,” she said.

But eventually, Rotchford found her.

“I don’t know how he figured it out, but he found out the actual town I lived in,” she said, incredulous.

“The last place you want to be is where they know you are.”

FIGHTING BACK

After standing as the key witness in the 2019 trial against Rotchford in Clallam County, where he was then residing, Nasset has a lifetime protection order against her stalker. He is not to come within 150 miles of her, a distance that Judge Landes mandated before she retired. 

When Kennedy, Jefferson County’s prosecuting attorney, took the case, he was familiar with the defendant.

“I knew the name Fraser Rotchford very well,”  he said during a recent conversation. Rotchford had stalked Kennedy’s female predecessor, a deputy prosecutor, a corrections officer, and two civilians — all women.

Normally, a felony stalking charge carries a maximum of 13 to 17 months in prison, but Kennedy argued for “aggravating circumstances,” including cyber stalking.

Rotchford had 12 prior convictions for stalking and harassment, 16 separate protection orders, and had spent a total of 55 months incarcerated before receiving the maximum sentence of 10 years on Sept. 18, 2019.

While there’s some time until his release from Monroe Correctional Complex, which houses 2,400 male inmates, Kennedy emphasized the “psychological torture” of stalking on victims. When he asked the judge to put Rotchford behind bars, he implored, “sentence Ms. Nasset to this many years of peace.”

In the meantime, Nasset has managed to perform psychological alchemy, twisting a debilitating fear that pushed her toward suicide into a lifeline of self-advocacy. She’s taken self-defense training.

And perhaps most importantly — lest she be relegated to a life of simply running, a true silencing of her voice and impact — she started her own business.

As an international advocate for victims of crimes ranging from sexual assault to stalking, Nasset’s business, Stand Up Resources, promotes self empowerment, education, victim advocacy, and awareness.

“I think I found my light by working in the victim services field,” she said.

“It gave me a sense and meaning to everything,” Nasset added.

Victims of stalking aren’t often taken seriously, she said. Based mostly on a witness’ trail of evidence, it’s hard to argue the ramifications of a crime where no one lays a hand on the victim.

“Stalking is nearly impossible to prosecute,” Nasset said.

The solution?

“Trust your gut and document everything.”

HOMECOMING?

This August, Nasset got into town right as her friends were playing Concerts on the Dock. In her trademark white-framed sunglasses, she was surprised at how many people recognized her from the old days, the years from 2006 to 2016, when she called Port Townsend home.

“It was one of the best times of my life,” she said.

When asked if she felt safe during her visit, Nasset said yes.

Then she looked up, tilted her head, and took her glasses off her face.

Wiping tears from her eyes, she admitted that if her stalker were out of the picture, she’d be in Port Townsend for keeps.

“I definitely want to spend more time out there,” she said.

In the meantime, there’s work to do.

“I would like to start working on some legislation,” Nasset said.

She has a book proposal making the rounds, and estimates she’s talked to at least 20,000 people this year, and counting.

“I really admire Anna for what she’s been through,” Landes said during a recent phone call.

“Her story is truly inspiring.”

Kennedy agreed.

“I’ve never had a victim that I worked with do this,” he said. “I’m so incredibly impressed.”