Dozens of women denounce alleged serial stalker Rebeca García, say authorities ignored it because ‘she’s a woman’
Dozens of young Venezuelan women have denounced a woman called Rebeca García, who they claim has been harassing, stalking and threatening them over multiple years.
The case has now gone viral on social media in Latin America, in part because of the overwhelming response to the victims’ accounts and pleas for justice in the country where officials have claimed that “harassment between women doesn’t exist.”
Ms García, who is now being referred to as the “Venezuelan Baby Reindeer” by Latin American media, has been accused of sending hundreds of inappropriate emails to her victims, breaking into their residences, and publishing a book on Amazon detailing “false” encounters and fantasies with multiple women.
Over the years, her victims have reported her to Venezuelan authorities without success, claiming officials dismissed the case under the pretexts that Ms García has “obvious mental deterioration” and that “harassment between women doesn’t exist.”
One of the first victims to speak out against Ms García’s alleged harassment was the Venezuelan makeup artist Anny De Trindade, who claims that she has “called me from different phone numbers, written on Instagram, insists on sending me gifts to my work” and even painted graffiti near where she lives.
Jamás pensé que tendría que hacer este hilo. Pero creo que llegó el momento: Estoy harta del acoso sexual de Rebeca Garcia y estoy harta que la ley la proteja solo por ser mujer.
Rebeca es una mujer que ha dedicado su vida en acosar mujeres inocentes.— Anny De Trindade (@ADeTrindade) May 6, 2024
In her thread, Ms Triande shared screenshots of emails Ms García has sent her detailing crude sexual acts she wants to engage in with her and saying she will “regret treating me this way.”
“Rebeca is a woman who has dedicated her life to harassing innocent women,” wrote Ms Triande. “I am sick and tired of the law protecting her just because she is a woman.”
Claudia Aguirrezabal, another victim under the username @cocoaguirre, claimed that Ms García “came almost daily to my building, filled my entire street with graffitis with my name, my last name, my username” and sent her “hundreds of messages a day.” She claims that the harassment worsened in 2020, and took a turn for the worse after she broke into her building and jumped on top of her car asking to be let in.
Videos de Rebeca cuando entró en mi edificio y se montó en el capó y techo de mi carro: pic.twitter.com/vczC7Me3bc
— Couquirou (@cocoaguirre) May 7, 2024
“[During the pandemic] we were able to keep the situation ‘under control’,” Ms Aguirrezabal wrote. However, after Covid restrictions lifted, the police refused to physically remove García from Aguirrezabal’s house and said they “could only ask Rebeca to leave, since (in their words) they could not stop her because of her obvious mental deterioration.” Ms Aguirrezabal claims that Ms García has been hospitalized in the past, but always resumes her harassment once she is out.
In the screenshots that Aguirrezabal shared of García’s emails, the alleged stalker sends her pictures from inside her apartment complex with the caption “The killer is inside the house”. In another email, Ms García tells Ms Aguirrezabal “if somebody is touching you, I am going to kill them as that is disrespectful to us and our relationship.”
Hace un mes entró nuevamente a mi edificio y me envió por correo esto: pic.twitter.com/a5YiUWa1T9
— Couquirou (@cocoaguirre) May 7, 2024
Ms Aguirrezabal maintains that, even though they went to the same school, they were five years apart, and she never “met, spoken or had a relationship with” Ms García.
Ms García has also written a 518-word book titled “libro para cocoaguirre” [“book for cocoaguirre”] in which she details sexual fantasies and false encounters with her victims.
In it, she writes about waiting outside of Ms Aguirrezabal’s house to see her car arrive. She also talks about wanting to “crash a party” Ms Aguirrezabal and her friends were attending that weekend before going into a tirade against Ms Aguirrezabal and her friends asking God to “let her see them again” and then saying she wants them to get away because she has “humiliated herself enough for them.”
Rebeca tiene un libro online que actualiza constantemente, donde narra eventos ficticios y distorsiona la realidad de manera obscena y aterrorizante. Le gusta ilustrar detalladamente su fantasía (o intentos) de secuestrar a mi grupo de amigas y abusar sexualmente de nosotras. https://t.co/KdJTnBAsMO pic.twitter.com/RlNzDhsuXS
— 😋 (@isabellagior) May 7, 2024
“It is a problem that has no end and [that I have felt] has no solution,” Ms Aguirrezabal wrote. “It has been 7 years of fear of going out alone, of having to hide, of having to explain why my name is written all over my street, of being afraid.”
A majority of Ms García’s alleged victims, who have gone to the El Hatillo Police in Caracas, the Scientific, Criminal and Criminalistic Investigations Corps (Cicpc) and the Ministry of Internal Relations, have faced obstacles due to Ms Garcia’s alleged psychiatric disorders.
Furthermore, they have failed to file official complaints because of Ms García’s gender in the past. According to Ms Aguirrezabal, the officer in charge at the Venezuelan Public Ministry told her and Ms Trindade that “there is no law protecting harassment of women against women” when they tried to file another complaint.
La fiscalía investiga a Rebeca García y a su hermano no solo por acoso sexual sino por amenaza de muerte. El MP ha recibido 4 denuncias formales en su mayoría mujeres y niños. pic.twitter.com/T5xRZLkRSO
— Harley Monseguileman (@harleymonse1) May 7, 2024
However, on Tuesday, after the threads went viral on X, the prosecutor’s office started investigating Ms García for sexual harassment and death threats. The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office had already received four formal complaints, mostly from women and children.