Jessica Nordquist Pic: Met police
A woman has been jailed for four and a half years after faking her own kidnapping, rape and pretending to carry her ex-boyfriend’s child after he left her in November last year.
Jessica Nordquist, 26, from Whitechapel, began persistently cyber-stalking work colleague Mark Weeks after a brief relationship.
The harassment included lying about carrying his baby, messaging and emailing him multiple times from fake social media and email accounts, and staging her own rape and kidnapping.
Nordquist also sent allegations of rape to Weeks’ clients at Unruly, the Whitechapeld based advertising company where they both worked.
Last December, Nordquist bought a fake baby bump on Amazon in order to convince Weeks that she was pregnant with his child. Weeks accompanied her to an abortion clinic but Nordquist told him she hadn’t gone through with it.
When he returned from a family holiday in the New Year, she told him that she had suffered a miscarriage.
Tyrone Silcott, the prosecutor told the court that Weeks was left feeling “unsafe in his own home”.
Silcott said: “He mentions specific occasions where he would receive a text from an unknown number saying he was being watched and his home was being watched”
Jessica Nordquist in 2016 Pic: @JessiNordquist
In April, Nordquist staged her own kidnapping by sending an email to family, friends and colleagues which purported to be from an alleged crime group who claimed had raped and kidnapped her. Photos of Nordquist naked, bound and gagged were attached to the email.
Weeks received the same email but it read: ‘Jessica Nordquist is the one who has been protecting your children from us. We raped and stole her tonight’. The email told Weeks to reply by the next morning but he called 999 and showed the emails to the police.
The officers swiftly established a crime scene at Nordquist’s flat on Cavell Street in Whitechapel, where they discovered a disturbed scene, along with a kidnap note pinned to the front door.
This pushed the officers from Tower Hamlets’ Community Safety Unit and the Kidnap and Modern Slavery Unit to launch an urgent investigation to locate Nordquist.
Following numerous inquiries to trace her, Nordquist was found alone, safe and well by Police Scotland in a B&B in Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands on April 21.
She gave them a false name and discarded two mobile phones in a toilet bin when officers took her to see a doctor to ensure she was fit to be detained.
Police also discovered disguise kits and camping equipment in a rucksack along with booking information for accommodation further north of Aviemore. Officers arrested her on suspicion of stalking.
Nordquist was found guilty at Snaresbrook Crown Court of two counts of stalking involving serious alarm/distress, two counts of malicious communications and perverting the course of public justice.
Originally from Alaska, she and went to Northern State University in South Dakota and is said to have had a difficult childhood.
Judge Paul Southern told Nordquist: “I am satisfied that your early traumatic experiences have shaped your personality. That does not excuse or justify your offending behaviour, but it does help to explain it.”
DC Joanne Farrell, formerly of the Community Safety Unit at Tower Hamlets, said: “Infatuation or revenge, Nordquist’s motivation remains unknown. She pursued a relentless campaign of stalking – culminating in faking her own kidnap and assault – that caused immense distress and embarrassment to the victim, his colleagues and loved ones; and even her own family.”
