Stalked For Years By An Obsessed Ex | Stalked: Nowhere To Hide

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]The cricket ball that he threw through the front window of my parents' house.

[00:00:06]I can't move without you being there.

[00:00:11]Two of them, they were what were put on my tires at Kogarah train station.

[00:00:19]His eyes were just glowing in the in the footage, and I rang triple 0 straight away.

[00:00:26]He basically wrote my car off with the damage that he was doing.

[00:00:33]I stupidly thought if I wasn't in the picture, everyone else would be safe.

[00:00:41]From being a victim trying to save everyone around [music] me to then wanting to get this guy.

[00:00:55]>> [music] >> I have a file going back 2015 all the way through to 20 21.

[00:01:12]My name's Di McDonald. I'm a stalking survivor. My stalker was a man called Max Gardner.

[00:01:26]20 14, October of 2014 when I met Max Gardner. He came into the Big W that I was a supervisor at, and he just wanted a particular item in the store, and um we didn't actually have it. Um but he thanked me for my assistance, and off he went, and I didn't think anything more of it, and then later on he came back in with [music] a rose to thank me. Um and then he kept coming in and asking me out for coffee and but a lot of people that I knew knew him and said, you know, he's he's a sweetheart, you know, go out for coffee, it doesn't have to go any further and, you know, after a few more coffees, um, we went out for dinner.

[00:02:16]We were dating, we were going out for dinners, um, I introduced him to my family and friends, I met his family.

[00:02:25]He was incredibly charming. He would, um, you know, buy you little gifts and and even for my daughter and and things like that, you know.

[00:02:37]So, in November 2014, the cracks started to appear. Max got extremely jealous of my son.

[00:02:45]Yeah, so I broke up with him.

[00:02:49]That was the first time I broke up with him.

[00:02:56]Yeah, I eventually took him back and it was around, >> [music] >> um, Valentine's Day. By the time May came around, I I really couldn't do anything.

[00:03:08]So, I said, look, I'm done. I am done. I can't move without you being there. So, that was it.

[00:03:18]That was it. You know, he would, um, turn up at my house >> [music] >> and I'd tell him to go away and, um, I ended up ringing police and they just said, you need an intervention order.

[00:03:34]Literally days before, um, [music] that intervention hearing, the first of the flyers Max put up at the venues.

[00:03:58]>> defaming me, saying, you know, I'm a prostitute.

[00:04:02]Blah, blah, you know, just just terrific.

[00:04:08]One of the lines that has stuck with me and was in several of the flyers was that he said I'd had more pricks in me than a dartboard.

[00:04:23]Put them up on the front windows of two venues, so the Wine Ladder and Elwood Food and Wine.

[00:04:29]On the windows, he would slide another copy under the door. He would then put them in Australia Post as well to be mailed to the venues.

[00:04:43]So, I was given a 1-year intervention order. With within intervention order, you get like a boundary of safety. Like it's about 200 m and it you it usually applies to your workplace. But because I worked in retail, his local shopping center, I wasn't given that 200 m cuz it's his local shopping center.

[00:05:04]And he couldn't come in to Big W, but he could stand out there all day watching me if he wanted. He wasn't excluded in any way. So, I left my job. The stress was just too much.

[00:05:17]Cuz he was always there every day.

[00:05:23]He basically wrote my car off with the damage that he was doing. So, multiple uh tires.

[00:05:32]Yeah, he put in he put in strip nails, which uh they're long things like this that you use to hammer down shade cloth.

[00:05:41]He had slashed the tires.

[00:05:44]Um Um, that was the first thing that happened.

[00:05:48]Uh, my youngest and I, we'd been to the movies. We got home late, about 11:30.

[00:05:54]And, um, in the morning when I got up to go to work or wherever I was going, um, there was a used condom on the doorstep.

[00:06:06]What What I'd started doing was, uh, withdrawing equity out of my home to put in fly um, roller shutters and the cameras. So, that was how I got footage of Max throwing whatever on my roof and wearing the balaclava. That was when he started with the balaclava.

[00:06:28]And I could see him walking across the neighbors on the other side of the street and then crossing and walking to my >> [music] >> my place. And and then he must have seen that I had cameras installed.

[00:06:42][clears throat] And he's uh had a big arbor over the front gate. He hid behind that.

[00:06:49]Yeah, but you know, his eyes were just glowing in the in the footage. And I rang triple 0 straight away.

[00:06:59]There's only so much you can take.

[00:07:02]>> [music] >> You've got your family yelling and screaming at you to make it stop. Your best friend. You've got two venues dealing with this, you know, being attacked on a regular basis. You know, hyper-vigilance you live with. The intense fear of something happening to you or your family or friends. You know, I I I had to live with that.

[00:07:29]>> [music] >> Two and a half years into it, I got Detective Bec Norris. Bec, she's got the flyers up on on a notice board.

[00:07:40]She's got papers everywhere on the floor. She's It all made sense to her, but to no one else. It just looked like, you know, piles of paper on the floor.

[00:07:49]Um and her friend said to her, "Well, you know who you need to contact.

[00:07:55]You need a linguist." Beck rang and she said, "I've got some news, but you can't tell anyone." And she said, "Is your daughter home?" She said, "Put me on loud speaker. I want her to hear this."

[00:08:06]And um then she said, "Have you got Netflix?"

[00:08:10]And we did.

[00:08:12]And she said, "You need to watch Manhunt Unabomber."

[00:08:15]"This is the guy that I'm emailing and sending all of the paperwork, the flyers, the love letters Max gave you, um court documents that he had written, um just to have the linguist, James R.

[00:08:30]Fitzgerald, um tell us if it's the the same person."

[00:08:36]And it took a bit of time. It You know, this is now 2019. So, we're I'm 4 years into it now.

[00:08:44]And um he eventually comes back with, yeah, the highest level that he could give, that it is the same person that has written all these three different forms of writing.

[00:09:14]2026, it's still Yeah, it's still at the front of my mind constantly. Um I I live very secretively. I don't have much social media. Um and being a suicide survivor as well, um yeah, I I know the the that that it it pushes you to.

[00:09:43]I would like every stalking victim that goes into a police station to be taken seriously, to be believed, to you know, call these people in, you know, male, female stalkers, it doesn't really matter, but treat them the same.

[00:09:59]Um and and just believe the victims going forward and and yeah.

[00:10:06]To use your voice, that's what they want. They want you to be quiet. They Yeah, they want to control you. So, don't let them.

[00:10:16]Don't let them. Yes, you may go through similar things that I went through, maybe not to the degree of what I've been through, but what's going to happen if you stay silent?