Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
ST. GEORGE — Near the end of her long run on Nov. 3, Shanna Birchette found herself banging on a stranger's door and ringing the bell, frantically, in an attempt to escape a driver who had been following her. It was during the 5 o'clock hour, and the chances of someone answering the door that early in the morning were slim, but she had no other options.
Birchette, a mother of six and an elite runner, was out for an early-morning training run in her Desert Canyon neighborhood. She had been running for approximately two hours when she noticed a white car pull out in front of her. She didn't want to think much of it because she was running in her own neighborhood, where she felt safe.
"It's a lively neighborhood for 5 a.m.," she said. "People are out walking, running and walking dogs, and I've found comfort in the familiarity. But as I ran down a street, there was a white four-door sedan that crept down the street and came out in front of me and just sat there. I thought that maybe this person was looking for addresses or something, and so I just kept running."
As she kept doing the loops around the neighborhood, that same white sedan kept driving slowly in her direction, and with each turn she made, it continued after her. She recalled a moment where she stopped at an intersection to look at the car and couldn't see the driver due to its heavily tinted windows.
That moment was a standoff moment, where Birchette said she knew she needed to find a way out.
"That was the moment when I was looking at them and I knew they could see me but I couldn't see them," she said. "I started walking a little bit faster and then they started slowly creeping with me, like they were trying to go my speed and my gut was telling me that something was wrong. My body was in 'fight-or-flight' mode, and it was like, 'This is not good. This car has no good intentions. They're not going to work. They are following me.'"
She started to sprint with the intention of running home, and while doing so, she called her husband, hoping he would pick up. That's when she had the thought she shouldn't run home.
"I don't know how to explain it, but it sounded like a voice in my head telling me not to run home," Birchette said. "If I run home, they're going to know where I live and I don't want them to know where I live. So I started walking up to a house on the street and I just kept telling myself, 'Stay calm and pretend like this is your house. They don't know if it's your house or not, so stay calm, walk to the door, pretend like it's your house, walk in and then when you get inside the house, just scream.'"
They stole my love for running and it was hard for me to get back out there.
–Shanna Birchette
Around the time Birchette got to the door, she was able to call her husband, but she wasn't sure of the exact address for him to come get her. Not only that, but the door to the house was locked, and there she was knocking and ringing, hoping to escape her alleged stalker.
"The car came down while I was at the door and sat about 10 feet down the hill from me and stayed parked there on the side of the road, waiting to see if I would get in the house," she recalled.
Birchette's efforts paid off when the homeowner, who she described as an elderly man, answered the door.
According to Birchette, the entire ordeal lasted about five minutes and, as it turned out, much of it was recorded on neighborhood security cameras. In fact, after posting about her experience on a local Facebook group, she was able to get some footage and statements from community members who reported seeing the vehicle later that day. The car had a California license plate, but the car and/or driver have yet to be located by authorities, who have been alerted about the situation.
Healing from the ordeal, fearing the next
While the incident on Nov. 3 is over and Birchette is safe home, what happened has had a lasting emotional impact that she said is going to take some time to heal from.
"When I watched the videos, that's when it really hit," she said. "I remember those feelings so vividly and seeing the footage confirmed to me that the driver was stalking me and they did not have good intentions."
"There are a lot of times when I am mad because, in a matter of seconds, this person stole my safety and peace of mind," she continued. "They stole my love for running and it was hard for me to get back out there. I think that the hardest part that comes from being followed is having no answers because you're kind of just left with it by yourself."
Birchette shared the ordeal on her social media account @motherhood_running in an effort to not only draw attention to what happened, but to bring awareness to the possibility of it happening. She has felt supported and heard from many who have criticized her choice to run alone that morning.
"It's hard because when you share, you become vulnerable, and there are so many opinions and people asking things like, 'Why were you running at that time of the day?' and 'Why didn't you have this, or why don't you have a dog or why don't you run on the treadmill?' We don't know everybody's full story," she said. "Not everybody knows that I'm a mom to six little kids who have to go to school really early, and my husband leaves for work early, too. I was also carrying pepper spray, but at that moment, I still didn't feel safe."
Birchette said she has learned a lot from the incident, and hopes to start a conversation about people protecting themselves.
"We can't plan every circumstance, but we really need to think about our game plan because as much as I felt like I did everything right, that didn't make me feel safe," she said. "I relied so heavily on the comfort of having that pepper spray on my wrist, but it just taught me that in that vulnerable moment, I need to know my game plan better so that I am prepared to face another situation like that."
The investigation is still open in Birchette's case, and if there is any information on it, informants are asked to contact the St. George police.
