Three Kiwi women have opened up about their terrifying ordeals with stalkers – one who went on to murder a Christchurch mother-of-two in front of her children – in a chilling new documentary series.
Stalked will soon screen on Neon and Sky Open, featuring target="_self" rel="" title="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/author/anna-leask/">harrowing accounts of women followed, watched and subjected to online, psychological and physical abuse at the hands of men who became obsessed with them.
The first trailer for the series was released this week.
The full series is expected to be available as New Zealand introduces its first specific stalking laws in a bid to protect people from various forms of unwanted contact and harassment.
Stalked is the latest project for award-winning director and editor Justin Hawkes.
His previous work includes streaming giant Netflix’s first original commission out of New Zealand - Dark Tourist; Live and Let Dai, which followed comedian Dai Henwood’s private battle with terminal cancer, and the Patrick Gower: On series.
Hawkes said it was “a privilege” working with the three survivors to tell their “insane, crazy and maddening stories”.
He said their experiences showed “the frightening reality of stalking in New Zealand and beyond”.
The launch of the series will coincide with the introduction of new legislation aiming to better protect victims of stalking.
On May 26, the Crimes Legislation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Act 2025 will officially make stalking a specific criminal offence with up to five years in prison.
Under the new law, stalking is defined for the first time as “a pattern of behaviour [two or more acts in two years] that causes fear or distress, including following, tracking, surveillance, and online harassment”.
“To avoid doubt, the specified acts may be the same type of specified act on each separate occasion, or different types of specified acts,” the legislation states.
Stalked follows the stories of mental health advocate and influencer Jazz Thornton, the high-profile kidnapping and domestic violence survivor Nortessa Montgomerie and Zeni Gibson – a Wellington woman who endured almost 10 years of being stalked by an older man.
“When Jazz Thornton receives obsessive messages from a stranger overseas, she assumes it’s another stan — a very enthusiastic follower,“ the series synopsis reveals.
“Within weeks, the man has flown from the Netherlands to New Zealand and is sitting on the beach below her home. As police respond, Jazz discovers a chilling reality: in New Zealand, stalking is not a criminal offence.
“She is not alone. In Wellington, a brief encounter at 16 spiralled into nearly a decade of relentless harassment for Zeni Gibson.
“What began as unwanted declarations of love escalated into graphic sexual violence, threats against her family and pets, and a sustained psychological siege that fundamentally altered how she saw herself.“
Telling her story, Gibson says she made “repeated reports to police” but intervention came “painfully late”.
And Montgomerie reflects on “how a whirlwind teenage romance became coercive control, isolation and ultimately kidnapping.”
In 2011, Montgomerie was bashed unconscious and dragged across a rainy and cold Great Barrier Island by her ex-boyfriend, Nathan Boulter.
She had left him after repeated violent assaults – but he could not accept the end of the relationship and stalked her from Southland to her father’s island home.
Over 38 hours, Boulter subjected Montgomerie to prolonged physical attacks and terrifying threats before she led him to believe she wanted to leave the island with him.
In doing that, she saved her own life.
Earlier this year, Boulter was jailed for life for murdering Christchurch woman Chantal McDonald.
The pair had a brief relationship, but McDonald dumped him when he was recalled to prison. She told Boulter she did not want any further contact with him.
When he was released, he immediately began a “significant electronic harassment”, including making almost 600 calls to her in a 13-day period and sending a raft of threatening messages.
McDonald was terrified and began locking her front gate with a padlock to keep herself safe.
On July 22, Boulter went to a hunting store in Christchurch and purchased a 19cm pig-sticker knife.
The next night, he “lay in wait” outside her Parklands house.
When she arrived home from the supermarket with her children, and as she walked to lock her gate, Boulter pounced.
In a “frenzied” attack, he stabbed McDonald 55 times as her terrified children ran for help.
She died soon afterwards.
Hawkes’ documentary, made with support from NZ on Air, aims to “expose the patterns of obsession, escalation and systemic failings that leave victims unprotected until violence erupts”.
“As these women take their experiences public — from viral TikToks to Parliament — the series asks the question: does stalking need to end in tragedy before it is taken seriously?" the synopsis ends.
Anna Leask is a senior journalist who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 20 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz