Below is a summary of the events and alleged harassment that sparked the rant by Jessi's father.
Jessi’s Mom Dianne Leonhardt spoke exclusively to MomLogic.com. Here’s some of that interview:
momlogic: How did all of this Internet drama start?
Dianne Leonhardt: On Thursday evening, it all started. I got a phone call from a guy [representing] himself as a police officer and inquiring about an alleged missing person — a kid — who knew or was associated with my daughter. I asked for the missing kid’s name and my daughter said she didn’t even know who he was. Something didn’t seem right; the call seemed weird. So I asked the “officer” what the police chief’s name was, and he hung up. The phone rang again, and I told the guy that if he was a real police officer to send a unit to my door. My daughter became more upset because someone had posted a photo of her over the Internet using her head with someone else’s body. My daughter was sitting by the computer, and that’s the video where my husband was screaming for all of this to stop. We shut the computer down and we were very upset.
ml: When did the actual police get involved?
DL: We all went to bed that night, and then at 1:15 AM, my doorbell rang. Our dog started barking and we heard bam, bam, bam … someone was banging on our door. It was the Marion County Sheriff’s Department. An officer said an anonymous tip had come in that our daughter was hurting herself. He wouldn’t tell us who called the tip in, but he made me wake my daughter up to make sure she was OK. The officer was really rude and my daughter kept denying that she made any videos. She kept saying, “I didn’t do any of this!” He was here for about 15 minutes.
The next morning, my husband and I were sitting in our home when the doorbell rang again. Another sheriff’s department officer was banging on the door. This time, they had another anonymous tip from someone in California claiming my daughter had female prostitutes coming in and out of our home from ads posted on Craigslist. Again, my daughter denied making any of these videos. In the meantime, my mother-in-law called from Michigan, saying she’d gotten a message on Facebook from a man who sent a photo of my daughter with some other guy. I have no idea how they even found her on Facebook! I putthe officer on the phone with her and he took down the information. I then went onto my Facebook page and the same guy had sent me a message, too.
y left his name and number. I also received a death threat on my voice mail, so we called the police back. It was from a bogus number, so they couldn’t trace it. The same number has been calling for the last two days, all day and night. We believe it’s the same person.
ml: Were you aware that your daughter had been making and posting these videos online?
DL: Jessica has a webcam and a computer. All of her friends have webcams, too, so they video chat with each other. I knew she’d made a video to apply for “America’s Got Talent.” She sings and sent an audition video in. I had no idea she was making other videos. I have seen her chatting with her friends, but not making videos.
The rest of the interview, which you can see in its entirety here, reveals a young girl who indeed was taken into protective custody, has apparently lied to her Mom about the videos she made, and is existing in a kind of “hell hole” of a place that is protective custody and with defined hours for the children and visitation times. Jessi told her Mom she didn’t make the videos that have her using the term “pop a Glock,” and I’m sure her mother would want to know where she got that term from.
What’s also disturbing is that Jessi’s Mom seems to be in a state of denial about the whole thing. At one point she tells Mom Logic.com that “I haven’t watched the videos” – she should.
