Emily Infeld's story of a persistent, mentally ill, stalker (and runner) . . . an ugly story

horror story wrote:

You failed to read the story. He was stalking for many years BEFORE he hit his head.

Not true, but the article made it seem that way. It jumps around with time and makes it seem like the fall was after the stalking. I had to go back a couple times and look at the dates in the story to get it straight.

Sad story for every party. It sounds like Donnelly was a decent person before he suffered a head injury. Unfortunately he got turned out to fend for himself without getting the mental help he needed - or refused it because of his condition. I think this is more a case of mental illness than anything else.

This guy absolutely fits the profile of a letsrunner. There are probably more like him on this site right now and probably at least another one or two female elite runners are being stalked by someone like him, with a mental illness. I wonder how many of the crazy screed on this site that this guy was responsible for.

>> you get stalked by a creep

>> you successfully secure a protective order

>> creep violates the restraining order

>> you leave the state

>> the police interview the creep, agree he violated the restraining order, and extract a confession that he’s premeditating violence

>> the police don’t make an arrest and encourage you to stay out of town to protect your life

>> creep leaves town, police stop investigating entirely

Back in November, 2020 I received a facebook friend request from Craig Donnelly. I ignore it. I don’t know him so I sent him a message asking “how do I know you?” Eventually on December 2nd I accepted his friend request.

About 3am on the 3rd all of a sudden my phone lit up with facebook messaging pings. Relentless bing-bing-bing-bing. Clearly manic behavior. I looked to see what the hell was causing this racket. He starting going on and on about how he was going to have me imprisoned for life, etc, etc, rambling delusional and incoherent behavior. His wife, who had access to is account, jumped in the text messages and tried to apologize for him, and asked to take it to private text messaging so she could explain his bizarre behavior. It was crazy. I took screen shots. When I get a chance I'll post his rants. They're both scary and entertaining.

I can literally remember bumping into her on trails a few years ago and thinking she looked really spooked and jumpy. Guess this is why.

This guy is a ticking time bomb, and as much as I feel bad for him, I feel worse for Emily. As somebody else mentioned, he most likely will need to be or SHOULD be institutionalized for the rest of his life, but this costs major $$.

I also had a few interactions with Craig on Messenger. He is in a constant state of high agitation, there is nothing anyone can say that can calm him down enough to make him see the delusion he lives in. He needs medication, neurological help and psychological help. I am very happy for Emily, Lindsey, Carrie, Lauren and there may be others that now this case is being taken seriously.

Yes the concern is he can be out within one or two years for good behavior etc. and then he’s back in the open and possibly back to the same type of tricks again. It’s a delicate situation because he needs help but at the same time people like Infield should be protected from individuals like this.

Donnelly is in the gray area between criminality and mental illness, ostensibly due to his previous epilepsy and falling on his head a number of times.

burritogate wrote:

pavement88 wrote:

I know this isn't the point of the story and I feel bad bringing this up, but:

There was some serious finger pointing towards Nike for handling this poorly making her return to Oregon to race. Is she the next one to leave Bowerman?

Infeld’s fiancée works for Nike, which did — to their credit — apparently devote a lot of security resources to protecting Infeld when the police failed to do so.

I think most Nike athletes would say to a person that they don’t like the Swoosh’s reductions clauses.

From the article -

"In late July, Nike asked Infeld to return to Oregon to satisfy her race requirements. "It was implied to me that if I didn't return to race there was a high likelihood that my pay would be cut, without consideration for the pandemic or my situation," she said."

We know Nike sports marketing really, really doesn't give a sh!t about their athletes, but holy hell this takes it to a new level!!

Yes, that would be one of the reduction clauses I mentioned. Nike contracts have lots of them.

It does seem pretty ridiculous that Nike wouldn’t have allowed her to fulfill those obligations away from Oregon.

Someone else implied that Nike can dictate their athletes’ race schedule to a certain extent. I can’t say whether or not that’s true, but it doesn’t sound outlandish.