Missing Michigan doctor: Gospel singer Marvin Sapp says he was stalked by Teleka Patrick, doctor missing since December: report
A Grammy-nominated gospel singer says he was forced to file a protection order against missing doctor Teleka Patrick after she showed up at his church, sent him scores of letters and contacted his children.
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Marvin Sapp, a Grammy-nominated gospel crooner and Grand Rapids pastor, claimed that Teleka Patrick sent him more than 400 love letters, joined his congregation, contacted his children and even moved to Michigan from California to be closer to him, local WOOD-TV reported.
Sapp, 46, filed the protection order in September, some three months before the 30-year-old doctor vanished, the station reported.
The stalking had gone on for at least a year, Sapp said. In at least one instance, Patrick even professed that Sapp was her husband, according to the order.
In a statement to the station Thursday, Sapp said, "As a father of three and pastor of one of the largest congregations in west Michigan, I cannot take this kind of obsessive attention lightly."
Patrick was last seen on Dec. 5 at her job at Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo, where she was a psychiatric resident.
Authorities in Kalamazoo and Indiana were searching for her, and, so far, the case was being treated as a missing person.
There were no suspects or signs of foul play, authorities said.
News of Sapp's protection order raised questions about whether he was the one Patrick was addressing in a bizarre series of YouTube videos that surfaced last month.
The clips, filmed before the disappearance, showed Patrick appearing to send tender messages to an absent boyfriend and serenading the camera with love songs.
Pointing to a plate of veggie bacon, tomatoes and an omelet, she says, "If you were here, this would be your plate."
Her parents have said she was not dating anyone, and they have no idea who she was talking too.
But her ex-husband, Ismael Calderon, told WOOD-TV earlier this week he suspected Patrick suffered from mental illness.
The two were married and lived in California from 2006 to 2011, but their relationship began to unravel after Patrick became delusional, paranoid and began hearing voices, Calderon said.
Calderon told the station, "She went to Michigan on purpose and I don't believe it had anything to do with, 'Oh, Michigan has a really great psychiatric residency program.'"
"What I heard is that there was somebody that she maybe felt that God wanted her to be with."
He added, "Every day that she's still missing, it's a danger. This is a red alert."
In a statement on Thursday, Patrick's parents said they believed "wholeheartedly" that their daughter "had encountered some harm or danger."
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