As sad as Mr. McLeod is, he was manipulated. The Cyrus employees should be arrested for fraud.
SAVANNAH, Ga. --- A Georgia grand jury has refused to indict a 53-year-old Appling man on charges that he attempted to stalk Miley Cyrus as she filmed a movie this summer near Savannah.
The grand jury decided Wednesday that prosecutors failed to present sufficient evidence to indict Mark McLeod on charges of attempted stalking, obstruction of a police officer and disturbing the peace.
Mr. McLeod has been jailed since Aug. 4 after police arrested him twice on Tybee Island, where the 16-year-old Ms. Cyrus was filming the movie The Last Song .
Police say Mr. McLeod told them he was engaged to the Hannah Montana star and resisted being escorted from the set.
Mr. McLeod never made contact with the Ms. Cyrus, but Tybee police said he sought her out and told officers she was his fiancee and communicated with him through secret messages.
Prosecutors said Mr. McLeod is dangerous and should remain in custody, but one of his closest friends, Daryl Morris, of Appling, told The Augusta Chronicle in September that Mr. McLeod was misled into believing he had a friendship with the actress and would never harm anyone.
Mr. McLeod, he said, cultivated his "relationship" with the actress over a two-year period through his association with a $60-a-year fan site, www.mileyworld.com.
"He was always on Miley World," Mr. Morris said. "He got, basically, sucked in on that thing. It was every day. He'd e-mail them, and they'd e-mail him back, like he was talking to someone. In two years, he thought he was talking to Miley the whole time."
Mr. McLeod, who has a degree in classical guitar from a music college in Florida, eventually decided to raise money to send Miss Cyrus an expensive diamond ring, according to Mr. Morris.
Mr. Morris described his friend to The Chronicle as a gentle person who simply didn't understand that he was involved in something that wasn't real.
Comments
As sad as Mr. McLeod is, he was manipulated. The Cyrus employees should be arrested for fraud.
Ignorance is no excuse ... isn't that what they always say?
I see the 9 Insert usual suspect description) crowd is absent today.
Kind of scary. Does that mean anyone can stalk someone? This man needs help.
How is it really stalking when someone is out there trying to get the public to notice them? He did not do anything but be a fan of hers.
A little overboard maybe, but that is because he was misled by her own fan club. Apparently her publicist is doing to good of a job.
Manipulated? Prosecute Cyrus employees for fraud? McLeod needs help. The Theresa Saldana and Rebecca Schaeffer cases are not remembered.
He is seriously mentally ill. He doesn't have the capacity to assist in his defense. It is very sad that people like Justnuts would think that Mark is laughing about this. He is so sick, that he didn't know the fan club was playing him for a fool. He truly thought he was engaged to her. Shame on that fan club, they are the ones who did wrong in this.
If I'm reading y'all wrong, I'm sure you'll tell me. Here is a man accused, arrested, evidence presented to the Grand Jury, and not indicted. I could swear I learned waaaaaayyyyy back when if that occured, the man was not guilty. He is free to be an obsessed Miley Cyrus fan. I am an obsessed Colts fan. I've driven 10 hours to attend a game. I stood outside for 2 hours to get Peyton's autograph (failed). I am an obsessed golf fan. I've paid embarassingly high prices to get within 2 feet of Tiger Woods, only to be ignored. Those of you clairvoyants forecasting this man's future actions care to share those winning MegaMillions numbers? "This man needs help". Brother and Sister, in the USA in 2009, name someone who DOESN'T need help.
Wait a sec here. He was a fool, but did the Cyrus people make like they were her answering his mail? Yes, they did and that's fraud. An editorial in the CCNT said they encouraged and accepted gifts from him all the while making him think it was her. The employees should be locked up.
Guess we with to wait until a John Lennon to take place or that young lady that was stabbed by her "Fan"?
MrAlways, I know someone who is more obsessed with the Colts than you are.
You can't take away someone's freedom and lock them up because of what you "think" they might do. They have to present a danger to themselves or others and that has to be proven for a magistrate to write a court order. It's called THE LAW. He didn't say he was going to hurt or kill her, he didn't say he was going to hurt or kill himself, he didn't have a weapon. Rightly or wrongly, no one can do anything until he actually does something. There is no law against thinking that Miley Cyrus wants to marry you.
Yes, ispy. Our legal system is predicated on the theory that it is far better to let one hundred guilty people to go free than to convict one innocent person. Not that I agree with that theory completely, but such is our justice system. Corgi's description of what it takes to get a person committed is precise and exactly correct. Note "committed", not "convicted". Nice job Corgi.
Individuals such as McLeod do present a danger to the victim they are stalking; there are quite a number of now deceased victims where the stalker was set free "for lack of evidence" as noted in the article. Once these stalkers were put back on the street, it didn't take them long to end the life of the victim. Even his friend stated McLeod was delusional in his thinking; the Tybee PD was correct in taking this man into custody. While I agree with corgimom that "this man needs help," I think it is more appropriate to qualify that statement that he needs the services of the mental health profession and should be detained in a mental institution until treatment is completed.
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