ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — One of his victims says she briefly met Robert Merkle at an event years ago, and that was all it took for him to track her personal information and start threatening to assault her and the friend she was with that night through text and online messages.
Another woman briefly dated him nine years ago.
And other women never met him, but he saw their pictures online and started stalking them online and via text messages.
Merkle was sentenced Thursday to 71 months in federal prison for harassing five of his victims - 11 months more than a plea agreement recommended. Judge Stephen Clark also sentenced Merkle to three years of probation - the maximum the law allows.
"If the law allowed me, I would impose a much longer term," Clark said.
Merkle is also accused of similar crimes involving other victims in St. Louis County. Those charges are still pending, and his federal sentence is to run concurrently with whatever sentence he is given in those cases.
Three of the victims from those cases attended Thursday's hearing. Both said they were pleased with the sentence Merkle got, but say it shouldn't require multiple victims to get that kind of accountability.
Their stories have been included in years of reporting by 5 On Your Side's I-Team, which has shown Missouri lacks laws to adequately punish cyberstalkers like Merkle.
The women, who did not want their names used publicly, say they are disappointed Missouri Gov. Mike Parson vetoed a bill this year that would have established a cybercrime stalking task force. Parson's office has said the governor vetoed the bill due to other provisions in it that did not include the cyberstalking task force.
Merkle spoke to the court and apologized for his conduct, saying if a family member or friend of his told him about a person sending them the type of messages he sent to his victims, then he would tell them to call the police.
Clark read the content of some of those text messages in court, which included graphic descriptions of raping his victims. He told one woman he replicated a key to her house and was planning to break in.
Victims sent statements to Clark saying some of them fled their homes in the middle of the night, have suffered from depression and anxiety and lost wages after fear of Merkle finding them took over their lives.
Merkle said he didn't see what he was doing as anything more than a "drunken prank," at the time, but has since gotten sober and realized the gravity of his crimes. He also said he was abused as a child by caretakers and a teenage boy in his neighborhood, which led to years of self-medicating with alcohol rather than prescriptions doctors provided for him to cope with his own depression and anxiety.
"I have stolen from these women their peace of mind, and their sense of security, it wasn't until I sobered up in the city jail that I began to grasp the enormity of what I had done," Merkle said.
The judge appeared unmoved.
Clark said his reason for going above the recommended sentence was Merkle's previously served time for similar crimes - and the fact that he only went on to commit more. In one instance, he sent threats just nine days after his parole ended.
"Despite his words, his actions demonstrate just the opposite," Clark said, adding that it is his job to follow the law devoid of any emotion.
In another case against Merkle, St. Louis County prosecutors charged Merkle in April as a prior and persistent offender. A spokesman said that the charge will increase a potential sentence if Merkle is convicted in their case.
Merkle was arrested in January 2022 by Town and Country police, when he was accused of texting a woman he previously dated, threatening to break into her home and rape her. She called the police, and when they arrived, police said they found Merkle sent another message telling her to stop contacting them.
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