A woman who allegedly harassed a married doctor and his family, calling him 500 times and sending him 1,300 text messages, is in police custody in Brazil.
Kawara Welch, 23, began harassing the doctor, who withheld her name, a year after he treated her for depression at a hospital in the southeastern city of Ituiutaba in 2018.
The doctor told the Brasil news program Fantastico that Welch regularly waited around the corner of the medical center until his shift ended to follow him.
“He said it wasn’t a coincidence, that no one saves another person’s life so many times out of the blue, that there was something else,” the doctor said.
The doctor revealed that Welch broke into his clinic and “chased him several times” out of the practice.
Brazilian student Kawara Welch was arrested last week for harassing a married doctor. The 23-year-old reportedly called doctors 500 times and sent 1,300 text messages on one occasion.
The doctor recalled how Kawara Welch was waiting for him outside the hospital, where he treated her for depression in 2018, and at some point followed him. He added that Welch once barged into her clinic office while he was treating a patient and then got into a fight with his wife.
Welch, who was arrested last week at her university, sent numerous emails to the doctor and even visited his home.
On one occasion, Welch threatened the doctor by telling him that he was going to tell his son that they were in a relationship.
The doctor said the harassment worsened when she was able to obtain his cell phone number.
‘She had access to my cell phone and started sending really disturbing messages and photos, tying a sheet, a rope around her neck, saying goodbye to me. I panicked,’ she said.
He recalled changing his phone number at least three times. And every time he somehow managed to get the new number from him.
“He ended up, in a special situation, sending me 1,300 messages in one day. And calls, he sent me more than 500 calls in one day, just one day,’ the doctor said.
‘I changed my cell phone number three or four times, but I stopped changing it because I saw that it was completely useless. He had an incredible ability to find my new number.
The doctor, who denies having any relationship with Welch, filed 42 police reports.
Kawara Welch claimed that she and the doctor were involved in a relationship, a claim he denies.
Kawara Welch had been wanted since March 2023, when a judge ordered her preventive detention in connection with a robbery at the medical clinic.
Kawara Welch became so obsessed with the doctor that she threatened to tell her son about her relationship with him.
Welch signed a document with the district attorney’s office promising not to contact the doctor in 2020.
His obsession imploded in 2022 when he broke into the doctor’s office where he was treating a patient and attacked his wife.
She confronted the doctor at the clinic again in 2023 and was arrested for assault and allegedly stealing a cell phone and was released after only a week in custody after posting $685 bail.
In March, a state court judge approved his pretrial detention for robbery and ignoring a restraining order.
Although Welch insists that she and the doctor had a romantic relationship, the head of the Civil Police, Rafael Faria, stressed that her behavior proves otherwise.
“We believe that no such relationship existed,” Faria said. And even if there were, it in no way justifies this type of action, this type of behavior on Kawara’s part.’
However, his lawyer told Brazilian media UOL that there is sufficient evidence pointing to his relationship with the doctor.
“This situation is demonstrated by fingerprints and testimonial evidence that was never correctly evaluated by the judiciary and the police,” said Jean Alves.
News of Welch’s arrest comes after a woman was revealed as the featured person in the Netflix series ‘Baby Reindeer’ who harassed series creator Richard Gadd.
Gadd claimed she received 41,071 emails, 744 tweets, letters totaling 106 pages, and 350 hours of voicemails from her stalker over a four-and-a-half-year span.
He and Netflix have insisted that the story does not reveal the stalker’s true identity; Gadd previously claimed to have disguised the identity of his stalker to such an extent that he said, “I don’t think she recognizes herself.”
But Fiona Harvey has claimed otherwise.
A powerful scene in Baby Reindeer shows the stalker tearfully pleading guilty in the dock and being jailed for nine months.
Harvey insists this is a defamatory and devastating fabrication.
Her lawyer, Chris Daw KC, told the Mail: ‘Fiona claims she has never been charged with any crime, let alone pleaded guilty and served a prison sentence, as suggested in Baby Reindeer.
‘She maintains that this is complete fiction. I haven’t seen anything from Gadd or Netflix that supports this part of the Baby Reindeer plot. The serious damage done to Fiona, if this key part of the plot turns out to be fiction, should be obvious to anyone.