Former boyfriend stalks woman 40 years later

When a suspect was eventually captured on video, the reveal literally made a 57-year-old female homeowner sick. She doubled over in pain and needed time to collect herself. She was visibly shaken and crying. She began talking with a tremble to her voice, reported a Mille Lacs County deputy.

That’s because the suspect was an Isanti man whom she dated in high school nearly 40 years ago.

Now Delroy H. Gehrke, Jr. is facing up to 10 years in prison on felony stalking charges and a gross misdemeanor charge of harassment causing substantial emotional distress.

The two lived together in a reportedly physically abusive relationship for about 1 1/2 years after high school — beginning in about 1983 — the woman told investigators. The couple broke up. The boyfriend allegedly harassed the woman and her family to the point that she eventually fled to Arizona.

After a couple years, the woman returned to Minnesota — but was still afraid of her ex-boyfriend. She reportedly avoided her hometown. She and her family avoided the part of the state where she grew up for decades. Further more, she and her family shied away from listing information in phone books — and later, on social media sites. She refused to go to class reunions to avoid potential confrontations with the ex-boyfriend.

The woman hadn’t seen the ex-boyfriend since the 1980s. However, suspicious birthday cards began showing up in her mailbox the past few years.

For the past three years, screws and nails have been left at the end of her family driveway. The woman’s family has experienced three or four flat tires over the past three years. Neighbors have reported screws and nails in their tires as well.

During the latest incidents in March, April, and May of this year, trail cams picked up images of a 2017 Chrysler Pacifica van. A license plate on the van came back registered to Gehrke.

Law enforcement sought and received a warrant to place a tracker on Gehrke’s vehicle. On Thursday, July 21, the tracker picked up the van driving near the Milaca home of the female victim. A sheriff’s office investigator went to the residence and hid himself in the brush where he eventually observed a person throw items out the window of the vehicle towards the woman’s driveway. Gehrke parked his vehicle at a nearby residence that was in the process of hosting an auction. It was there that he was arrested.

In a mirandized statement, Gehrke admitted to his actions against his girlfriend from nearly 40 years ago, according to a criminal complaint filed in Mille Lacs County Circuit Court.

Gehrke stated that an acquaintance told him several years ago where his ex-girlfriend was now living, the complaint states.

Jeffrey Hage is the Managing Editor of the Monticello Times.