July/August/September 1997 Events

Date

Incident

Thursday, July 17, 1997, 9:00am The trial for harassing phone calls that was originally scheduled for March finally took place July 19. The judge stated that we did prove that I had been harassed, and that we did prove that at least one phone call made to my home was traced to Hillyard's home phone number. Unfortunately, we didn't prove that Hillyard dialed the number, so he was found not guilty.

The prosecutor entered a Nolle Prosequi order for the stalking charges case, which is apparently fairly standard in Georgia. That means that the state postpones prosecution on the stalking charges for six months on the condition that Hillyard have no contact with me in any form, including on the internet.
Thursday, July 17, 1997, 3:30pm Dick Coward posted a message to atl.general stating that Hillyard had been declared "innocent" and was bringing suit against me, MindSpring Enterprises, Unsolved Mysteries, and NBC. The message was posted through the basement.replay.com, the same remailer used for most of the prostitution and sex-wanted ads (hey, why learn something new? He should certainly have the replay.com site memorized by now). I faxed the post to Noah Pines, the prosecutor, who took it to Judge Anne Workman and called Hillyard's attorney, Steve Roberts.
Friday, July 18, 1997 Roberts almost certainly called Hillyard, who must have gotten a bit nervous. Two more posts were made to atl.general, this time through zippo.com and claiming to be from his daughter, Christy Hillyard. The second post claimed that the first had been made through replay.com because she feared I'd "stalk" her as she claimed I'd stalked her father. The third post was in response to something that was, again, said in a Mindspring-only newsgroup, again claiming to be Christy Hillyard, again posting through zippo.com. It isn't surprising that the email address given for Christy Hillyard had never before been used anywhere on the internet, and that Christy Hillyard had never had any previous internet presence. The writing style of all three messages was that of Richard Hillyard, who had used zippo.com in the past--in fact, I have copies of five posts Hillyard had made to atl.general using zippo.com on June 19 and 20. The posts were made to promote his web site. (He uses the web site to advertise the two multilevel marketing organizations in which he's involved.)
Wednesday, August 6, 1997 Hillyard spammed more newsgroups using zippo.com.
Friday, August 86, 1997 Hillyard posts more ads, using zippo.com and ibm.net.
Monday, August 11, 1997 Dick Coward posted another prostitution ad, this time using one of my work email addresses, which I had never used in any public communication anywhere on the internet. It was, of course, posted using basement.replay.com. If they ever start charging to send messages, Dick Coward will have to find another MLM to fund his habits--but he should be able to get a volume discount from them! Hillyard posted another ad for his web site using ibm.net.
August 13-18, 1997 Hillyard posted another ad for his web site in atl.general using ibm.net. He also hit other newsgroups with ads for one of his MLMs. He repeated his ads in atl.general on the 13th and 18th.
Tuesday, August 20 and Wednesday, 21, 1997 Five messages were posted to atl.general by someone who called himself "Satan" using one of Hillyard's email addresses, adsales@atlga.com. Another six messages were posted to various other newsgroups. I believe these were probably forged by someone annoyed by Hillyard's repeated spamming of the newsgroup with posts about his commercial website. They were posted through an MCI newsfeed at Georgia Tech. I remarked to a friend that I was rather annoyed, as any public mention of Hillyard by anyone has always resulted in retaliation directed at me.
Saturday, August 23, 1997 Several people emailed me to warn me that Dick Coward had posted messages through basement.replay.com to atl.general with the subject line "1997 Bitch of the Year" and advertising a web page at geocities.com about me. The same message was also posted to ga.general. I found another copy posted to alt.sex.prostitution. (I take it he is now comfortable with both that newsgroup and the replay.com remailer--slow learners do usually need to stick with the familiar. Hillyard has another web page at Geocities, as well, so he didn't have to learn anything new there, either.) The web page included a doctored version of the photograph from my own web page. As it obviously violated GeoCities' published content guidelines in many ways, I contacted them and requested that they remove the offending page. I do, of course, have an archived copy of the page, as well as screen captures showing the page at its original URL, and I faxed a copy of the page to the prosecutor. While Hillyard has said that he had nothing to do with the web page, it was was changed to merely say "Hi!" right after the prosecutor spoke to Hillyard's attorney about it. (Oh yeah, Hillyard? What on earth is this font you specify in that HTML, "technical?" It's utterly useless and poor design to specify anything but standard fonts on any web page.)

Earlier that week I had released the new version of my web site. I had not yet released this section about Hillyard, but there was a placeholder stating that it would be released soon. It appears that simply knowing the information would be released was enough to provide Dick Coward's attack through the "Bitch" web page.
Sunday, August 24 thru Friday August 29, 1997 Messages were posted to atl.general through ibm.net's news servers claiming to be from Jonathan and Kay Hillyard. They were responses to posts from others in the thread about the "Bitch of the Year" web page. The messages attacked me despite the fact that I had not even participated in that thread, or made any public response to the web page or the posts about it. One reader pointed out that the same characteristic misspellings appeared in the postings made by Jonathan and the first post from Kay Hillyard, and her post was immediately cancelled, edited, and reposted. The post from Jonathan does not read like the words of a 12-year-old, and the writing style in each post matches that in Hillyard's other posts. One message posted on August 26 says it is from Hillyard himself.

Confirming my belief that simply knowing I would be releasing information about him provoked the fresh attacks, all the messages supposedly from the Hillyard family referred to watching my web site and claimed they'd be sure I would be in court as a defendant if I did release any information about Hillyard.
Monday, August 25, 1997 I had delayed release of this portion of my web site until the prosecutor's office could review it. Mr. Pines told me that in light of the web page and other activity I should go ahead and release all of the information, as that was the best way to protect myself.
Tuesday, September 2, 1997 Oh look! He learned a new trick! Dick Coward sent another email through a new anonymous remailer, efga.org. Ironically, the message said "Some people have no sense!" (And if Dick Coward had any sense, he'd realize that every time he posts or emails such things there is more evidence against him, more information will be published about him, and this web site will stay up that much longer to annoy him.) I assume it was prompted by the addition of much information and evidence to this web site on September 1. A few minutes later, he posted a message saying "cum see me boys" and giving the URL for my web site to atl.general, alt.sex.stories and alt.sex.sounds. I cancelled it, he posted it again. Then he posted another one that said "Free Sex Pics at www.mindspring.com/~technomom" in an obvious attempt to get so many visitors to hit my site that it would be taken down by MindSpring for exceeding their bandwidth quota. The information here is obviously something somebody really wants to suppress!

Between 12:35am (just after midnight) and 12:11pm Dick Coward posted a total of 17 anonymous messages to atl.general, alt.personals, alt.personals.ads, alt.personals.fat, alt.sex, alt.sex.bondage, alt.sex.erotica, alt.sex.oral, alt.sex.orgy, alt.sex.sounds, alt.sex.stories and alt.sex.wanted. He used several remailers: efga.org, alpha.jpunix.com, and replay.com. The messages varied from promising free pornography on my web site to saying I was looking for a "talented stud puppy" to asking that "nasty email" by sent to my email address.

I also received another email from Dick Coward with a time stamp of 9:21am, this one sent through obscura.com and said "You are a discusting individual with all these posts. I hope you rot in hell." The sender seems to have been trying to imply that he was replying to the posts Dick Coward made anonymously, but it was certainly from Dick Coward himself. As I've had mine and Katie's email addresses blocked from receiving email through each anonymous remailer as he discovers them, I suppose he's having to look for new ones to keep invading our mailboxes.

 

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