There is a popular story on the Internet about an American woman taken into custody for her incredible persistence: in just a week, she called and sent SMS to her ex-boyfriend several tens of thousands of times. We have verified the accuracy of this story.

Publications about an extremely persistent woman have appeared in the media and social networks over the past few years. They can be found among users Facebook And Twitter, and in enough popular publics on VKontakte. The story of the arrest of a girl who called her ex too often was also mentioned in the media, for example in the publication "Days24" in 2017 and SMnews in 2020.

Despite the differences in the presentation of history, the primary source of these publications was most likely message World News Daily Report. The author of the note, published in June 2014, states: 28-year-old New Mexico resident Linda Murphy was arrested after she overly actively tried to contact her boyfriend, William Ryans. The breakup after three weeks of dating was allegedly so painful that the girl called her lover 77,639 times, as well as sent 1,937 emails, 41,229 text messages and 217 voice messages, as well as 647 paper letters - all within a week. In later retellings in other sources, the number of calls and messages changed, and the names disappeared, but the essence of the story remained the same.

World News Daily Report is one of many resources that publish humorous news. About this directly it says in the disclaimer posted on the publication’s website. It also specifically notes: “All characters appearing in the materials on this site (even if they resemble real people) are completely fictitious, and any similarity between them and any people, living, dead or in a borderline state, is an absolute miracle.” One of their notes, dedicated to an Italian woman who gave birth at 101, has already been “verified” sorted it out previously.

In the photo attached to the World News Daily Report, indeed, a girl miraculously appeared who had nothing to do with New Mexico in principle. This Sierra Steed from Oklahoma, and the photo was taken in 2010 while she was intoxicated tried get into McDonald's through the window for issuing orders to motorists. After the publication of an article about an obsessive girl from New Mexico, Steed even published on his Facebook post about something that has nothing to do with this story.

In Russian-language publications, the news about the insanely annoying American woman is accompanied by other portraits, but they are in no way connected with cases of stalking of exes. Two photos of a crying girl back in 2011 appeared in a selection of the funniest pictures of criminals (it was not reported that the girl was accused of stalking). In turn, the World News Daily Report was published only three years later.

Although the story about the American woman and the 77,639 calls in a week is completely fictional, similar events actually happened. So, in 2002, RIA Novosti reported about the arrest of Japanese woman Hiroko Kobayashi, who unnecessarily bothered her married lover after breaking up. However, the diligence of this woman is much inferior to the heroine of numerous publications on social networks - she called her lover “only” about 1,200 times in a month and a half. According to the Japanese police, such actions violate the law on stalking people for “love purposes,” which was passed in 2000 to protect stars from annoying fans.