From Gregory Stock’s The Book of Questions: A psychotic online stalker fixates on you and mounts a relentless assault to ruin you through threatening emails, public postings with horrible accusations, and vile notes to your family, friends, and acquaintances. The authorities can do nothing, and everything else has failed to help. Only two options remain: learn to live with it or pay a large sum to someone who will discreetly find and kill the person. Which would you choose?

While I can certainly empathize with the temptation to go the “permanent solution” route in a scenario this extreme, I have to say – I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Hiring someone to murder the stalker, no matter how evil they may be, is a bridge too far for me. It’s not only illegal, but I believe it’s morally wrong to have someone killed, even if they are making your life a living hell.

That said, simply learning to live with such a nightmarish situation seems unbearable and untenable. There’s got to be a third option, right? In a case this severe, I feel like you’d need to go above and beyond – hire the best private investigators and computer experts money can buy to track this person down and figure out how to stop them through legal channels. Get restraining orders, sue them for defamation and emotional distress, and pursue every possible avenue to get them to cease and desist.

Essentially, spare no expense (easier said than done, I know) to solve this through means that don’t involve descending to the stalker’s level and committing murder. It wouldn’t be easy, but I believe that with enough resources and determination, a non-violent, lawful resolution could be achieved. At least, I’d have to exhaust those possibilities before I could ever feel right about something as drastic as murder-for-hire.

But hey, that’s just me. What do you think you would do in this situation? Let’s discuss this in the comments, but maybe try to keep things a bit lighter than “murder is sometimes okay actually.” Looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts!