Julie Manganis
The Salem News, Mass.
BEVERLY, Mass. — A Beverly woman who has previously served jail time for stalking a nurse has now been charged with criminal harassment of an emergency medical technician.
Kathleen Hammond, 31, of 93 Cabot St., Beverly, was arrested Tuesday morning on a warrant and arraigned on the charge later Tuesday in Salem District Court. She pleaded not guilty to a charge of criminal harassment, subsequent offense.
Judge Randy Chapman set bail at $7,500 cash, and ordered that if she is released she will be required to wear a GPS bracelet and remain under house arrest, according to the district attorney’s office.
Beverly police were contacted earlier this month by the EMT, a woman in her 20s, who had become increasingly concerned by Hammond’s behavior.
The EMT told police she had first responded to a medical aid call from Hammond about a year ago. Within a short time, Hammond had managed to learn her name and then her work schedule.
Hammond made numerous calls to the ambulance company, Northeast Regional Ambulance, for rides to the hospital, including five calls just in the past month. She would always ask for the same EMT.
The EMT told police she had been concerned but grew even more so when she discovered that Hammond had learned where she lives and the names of her young children, according to a police report.
Police were already investigating the report when, on June 7, Hammond called asking to go to the hospital for dizziness and nausea. When she realized that police were following the ambulance, she began to ask questions and mentioned that she had been banned from Beverly Hospital.
That was as a result of a 2014 case in which Hammond became infatuated with a nurse there and began stalking her, showing up at the emergency room by ambulance 93 times in the span of a year. Hammond had used the nurse’s personal information to create a fake Facebook page.
She would grow irate, she later admitted, when the nurse wasn’t there, yelling threats directed at the nurse.
Her attorney at the time blamed Hammond’s history of mental illness and trauma. Hammond, at that 2014 sentencing, admitted she was not complying with her medication regimen.
According to logs from the Peabody and Beverly police, Hammond has also engaged in multiple outbursts at Lahey Hospital in Peabody, resulting in her being placed into protective custody. There have been approximately three dozen calls for assistance to her address in Beverly since 2018, though the nature of each call could not be confirmed.
A probable cause hearing in the new case was scheduled for July 16.
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©2020 The Salem News (Beverly, Mass.)