Man guilty in 30-year stalking case
A Houston man avoided prison time after pleading guilty to two felony stalking cases, one of which involved the decadeslong torment of Houston philanthropist and socialite Carolyn Farb.
The plea could close the more than 30-year saga in which Robin Chiswell, now 63, sent threatening letters to Farb and was believed to have targeted other highprofile Houstonians who lived in the River Oaks and Tanglewood areas.
If Chiswell successfully completes a type of probation called deferred adjudication over the next seven years, he will not have a conviction on his record.
Chiswell’s lawyer, Val Zuniga, did not return a request for comment last week.
Prosecutors charged Chiswell with stalking Farb after years of investigations and dead ends. She had made numerous police reports, but the letters Farb received had fake return addresses and the sender was anonymous, authorities said.
“It’s hard to believe that someone could be that evil,” Farb previously said. “The last straw was when he wrote, ‘I’m glad your son is dead.’”
Farb’s son died unexpectedly in 2004 at age 34.
Police took a fresh look at the case in February 2018, working with U.S. postal inspectors to eventually identify Chiswell as the prime suspect.
Authorities arrested Chiswell in November that year. At his home, they found several pieces of evidence, including stationery similar to some that was sent to Farb. Detectives also learned that Chiswell had sent a harassing letter to former Texas A&M University coach Kevin Sumlin in 2017, authorities said.
Prosecutors charged Chiswell again in January 2019. Authorities said he sent threatening letters to another victim, a Tanglewood woman, for 12 years.
During his years of stalking, Chiswell even attended funerals and weddings of his victims, police said. Court records indicate Chiswell had sent more than 100 messages to Farb, some of which saying he wished she would die. In some, he said he knew where she lived and when she had traveled to certain places.
Farb declined to comment on the plea.
State District Judge Abigail Anastasio on April 29 signed off on several conditions of Chiswell’s deferred adjudication, including that he is ineligible to possess a firearm or ammunition and cannot contact his victims.