If you haven’t read part one, go here.
Four years after their frightening brush with a stalker, the Kesslers of Westlake Village were settling into a new routine.
Tess, now graduated with a degree, was between apartments and living at home while commuting to a job in the city. Brooke was working abroad, and Summer was away at college. With their daughters now grown, Ron and Alyson were apt to travel.
The matter of “the notes” rarely came up in conversations. But it was there, Tess said, in the back of their minds, the unsolved mystery lightly tugging at their subconscious, an itch left unscratched.
Then it started happening again.
‘It made my jaw drop’
It was December 2019 when the first note in over four years appeared. Left on the windshield of the family’s Acura, it was identical to those that had come in 2015: all white paper typed in Arial font.
Included with the note were nude photos of a woman torn from an old Playboy magazine. For the first time, it was addressed to the Kesslers’ oldest daughter, then 24.
Tess- you are so darn cute and love watching you drive that Jeep. I hope Disney is treating you good you are so hot they are lucky to have you. See what you look like to me
“It made my jaw drop,” said Tess, who received a picture of the note via text from her mother. “I didn’t know I was on his radar.”
Although Tess wasn’t working for Disney, she was the primary driver of the Jeep.
“Just knowing that he had an idea of what I was doing with my life was terrifying,” Tess said.
Things went quiet for three months between late December and March as SARS-CoV-2, better known as the novel coronavirus, swept the globe, triggering strict travel restrictions and forcing many—including the Kesslers—to work from home. In March, Summer, then 20, was back in Southern California but living elsewhere. She visited the family’s Three Springs house on occasion to see her parents and sister.
On April 3, another note appeared in an envelope marked “S” left on the outside of the mailbox. Her return had not gone unnoticed.
Nice to see you back from CU. I am back from BU. You still like you did at OC but I know you look like this girl behind those clothes. Miss seeing you and having you near me.
Again, the note was accompanied by pages of a nude woman torn from Playboy. The family’s new security system didn’t capture images of the person responsible.
“We probably sound inept, because most people say, ‘Just put the security cameras up,’ but it wasn’t that simple,” Tess said. “These cameras would fail us all the time.”
Unfortunately for the stranger, their luck was about to change.
Familiar face
Ten days after the note for Summer arrived, Tess, on high alert, was looking out the living room window in the early evening when she saw a man with two dogs walking unusually close to the mailbox.
STRANGER NO MORE—Louie Valdez of Westlake Village, the man the Kesslers say stalked their family over the course of five years, leaving sexually suggestive notes for their daughters, going in their mail and peering into their vehicles. Valdez, 52, declined multiple requests to comment for this story. Beyond his business exploits, he’s a well-known volunteer and philanthropist.
She rushed outside after he left and found a rock taken from beneath the family’s olive tree wedged between the box and the post that held it up.
The family turned to their security cameras and hit rewind. It showed the man walking up to the olive tree, bending down and returning to the mailbox.
Even through the dark and grainy screen there was no mistaking it, the family says—it was the same person the Kesslers had suspected five years earlier after a run-in at the mailbox: Louis “Louie” Valdez.
The name meant nothing to them, nor did it help explain what may have triggered his obsession.
But while he was a stranger to them, he was not to the community.
An image of Valdez taken outside the Kessler home in June. The picture was one of several presented in Los Angeles County court as evidence in support of the Kesslers’ request for a restraining order—which was granted in August without objection from Valdez—who has never been arrested.
Valdez, 52, is a native son of Thousand Oaks. Raised by the owners of a successful Mexican restaurant on Thousand Oaks Boulevard, he earned degrees in finance and economics from Cal State Northridge and launched his career in Moorpark.
In between growing his wealth management business and raising a family, he built a reputation as a volunteer and philanthropist, giving his time to causes like the Moorpark Foundation for the Arts (where he served as president), Big Brothers Big Sisters of Ventura County and, most recently, Thousand Oaks-based Senior Concerns, where he served on the board of directors between late 2018 and early 2020.
He resigned this summer.
The names of organizations he’s supported reads like a “who’s who” of area nonprofits: Casa Pacifica, St. Jude Children’s Hospital, High Street Arts Center, California Museum of Art Thousand Oaks, Conejo Players Theatre and the Boys & Girls Club of Moorpark.
After spending his 26-year brokerage career with UBS Financial Services in Westlake Village, he left for Wells Fargo Advisors in July 2018. A press release announcing the move notes Valdez “generated $1.7 million in annual revenue for his former employer” and “his team managed about $200 million for around 250 household accounts.”
Of note—his Westlake-based financial firm puts on an annual women’s conference. The most recent was held in October.
“Lou feels this event is about ‘creating an environment where women can learn from one another, in a relaxed environment, with the idea of having a good time in a beautiful setting,’” says a recap of 2019’s conference posted on his firm’s website.
Valdez’s list of achievements means little to the Kesslers because they’ve seen another side of him.
“It’s scary that a local, successful person in the community could lead such a duplicitous life,” Alyson said. “I feel badly for his family, friends, whom I’m sure have been blindsided by this. I sincerely hope he gets the help he needs.”
While Valdez declined to comment for this story, a spokesperson did provide the Acorn with a statement: “The matters reported in the Acorn are of course deeply affecting the Valdez family. They ask for privacy so that they can be together during this very difficult time.”
Carole Baskin
With their target identified, the Kesslers hatched a plan to gather evidence of his wrongdoing. All under one roof as a result of the pandemic, Ron, Alyson and Tess decided they would wait before going to the authorities.
“We didn’t confront him because we had been advised by the police not to confront him,” Tess said when asked why they didn’t just go to Valdez and tell him to stop. “We also didn’t want to go back to the police until we had enough evidence. We had tried that once before.”
To ensure there was no way the camera could fail, Tess offered to hide in the back of the family’s Land Rover, which was parked on the street, and signal to her parents when Valdez was coming. The first night she tried it, she sat and waited for over two hours before deciding to call it quits.
But only a few minutes into her stakeout on the second night, she saw a man approaching with a Great Dane and Jack Russell terrier in tow. Their agreed-upon code name for him: Carole Baskin, the star of the hit Netflix reality series “Tiger King,” which had debuted around the same time.
“Carole Baskin! . . . Carole . . . Baskin!” she whispered as loudly as possible into her handheld radio.
Within minutes, Tess said, she and Valdez were nearly face to face, though he could not see her through the vehicle’s tinted windows.
“I was shaking uncontrollably. My teeth were chattering. I seriously felt like I was on a ski lift,” Tess said.
“Seeing this absolute stranger surveil my house with such a fascination, it was surreal. This wasn’t somebody who was trying to not get caught.”
After the close call, the Kesslers adjusted their system slightly, with Alyson and Tess parking at the end of the block and calling up to the house whenever they saw Valdez, always with his dogs, round the corner.
Between April 20 and June 27, 2020, he was videotaped walking past the home at least 15 times, according to documents provided to the court as part of the family’s request for a restraining order. On six occasions, the records say, video captured him going into their mailbox; on other nights he could be seen shining a flashlight into the Kesslers’ various vehicles. Sometimes he simply put up the windshield wiper on the Acura, as if to send a signal he’d been there.
The final note appeared June 17 underneath a rock near the mailbox, the same night the Kesslers’ security cameras recorded Valdez in the same vicinity, they said.
It’s the longest and most disturbing to date, signed using the same initials as in 2015: “SM.” Though the account is now deleted, Valdez’s old Twitter handle was @sexymexy68.
“V.S.” the family assumes, stands for Victoria’s Secret:
S
OMG. I THOUGHT YOU WERE A CLASSY GIRL LIKING V.S.: YOU LEFT A THONG ON YOUR FRONT SEAT. YOUR NOT THAT GIRL FROM THE OC ARE YOU? I HAVE A “SUMMER” DEAL FOR YOU: LEAVE YOUR PANTIES OUT AND I’LL GET YOU A VS GIFT CARD SO YOU CAN TAKE MORE BACK TO BOULDER? IF YOU WANT A SUMMER FLING THEN ITS NOW IN YOUR SWIMMING POOL! LEAVE THIS LETTER AND PANTIES BY THE WALL ON TOP OF STREET IN AN ENVELOPPE WITH “Ralphie” aka SM AND I WILL GET YOU V.S. GIFT CARDS PROMISE!
HAVE A GOOD “SUMMER”
LMK
Ralphie aka SM
The final straw came June 22, when Valdez was caught on camera climbing a small hill in front of the home and looking in the direction of the backyard swimming pool. That evening Summer was in the Jacuzzi with friends.
Victory in court
On Aug. 14, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge granted the family a two-year restraining order against Valdez. It requires him to stay 100 yards away from them and their home at all times until August 2022.
Valdez did not contest the order, nor did he fight a request to pay their legal fees. He also agreed to receive counseling, per the order.
At no time have his representatives sought to deny anything to the Acorn.
Tess, 25, said the order has given the family a modicum of peace, and yet there remains some dissatisfaction that Valdez has never been charged with a crime.
“It’s deeply, deeply unsettling and unsatisfying, and it doesn’t feel like there’s been any justice,” she said.
Alyson said she’s glad the situation is finally behind them. As difficult as it was to endure, she said, it brought her family closer than ever before.
“Our daughters empowered themselves to not just sit back and be the victims,” she said. “It was a concerted and well-planned group effort to put an end to the stalking and catch this individual once and for all.”
The Kesslers said they have no ill will toward the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, which they feel did its best to make a stalking/harassment case against Valdez using the physical and video evidence they provided them (the D.A., they’ve heard, made the call not to pursue charges). Calls from the Acorn to the lead investigator to discuss the status of the case were not returned.
“I am hopeful that our actions through the court and LASD will make it difficult for him to commit this kind of behavior in the future,” Ron Kessler said of Valdez. “And I hope our story inspires anyone with similar experiences to come forward.”
Ultimately, Tess said, the family’s motivation for going public with their story was simple.
“We didn’t want this to happen to anyone else. We don’t want this to happen to any other teenage girls, or young women, or women, period,” she said.
This story was updated at 10:40 a.m. Wed., Nov. 25 to include evidence suggesting the meaning of “SM.”
Hear the story behind the story on this week’s episode of Branching Out, a podcast presented by the Acorn Newspapers.