An unhinged mother terrorized a teenage boy and his girlfriend because she was desperate for him to date her daughter instead.
Marcie Smith, 41, began harassing Preston Sorensen in July 2023 while he was dating her teenage daughter but went off the rails after that romance ended, it is claimed.
Smith, of rural Wyoming, allegedly sent Sorensen a slew of text messages that were sexual in nature and encouraged him to be romantically involved with her daughter after they broke up.
She began to target Sorensen’s now-girlfriend Gillian Holman in November 2023, when the pair’s friendship started to evolve into romance, the families claim.
Smith is accused of using a burner phone app to impersonate Holman, who was 15 at the time, and send disparaging texts to Sorensen and a fellow classmate in an attempt to make the teenage girl look like a bully.
Holman received sexualized messages from Smith, causing her to fear that she could be attacked at any time.
Smith also sent messages to Holman’s parents, pretending to be a concerned teacher, in which she detailed fictionalized accounts of sex acts that she claimed Holman was engaging in.
She did so in a bit to end Sorensen’s romance with Holman so her daughter could have her old boyfriend back.
The 41-year-old was sentenced to two years probation in March this year after pleading no contest to two misdemeanor counts of stalking, Cowboy State Daily reports.
But the Sorensen and Holman families say their fight is not over yet as they are now pushing Wyoming lawmakers to create stricter penalties for adults who stalk minors.
Sorensen, now 17, endured months of ‘grooming’ by Smith as she tried to coerce him into reigniting a romantic relationship with her daughter, his family alleges.
He and Smith’s daughter broke up after their freshman year of high school, but the meddling mother insisted on intervening.
Screenshots of Smith’s text messages to Sorensen, which have been shared publicly shared on Cathy Holman’s blog Prairie Wife in Heels, show how the mother urged him not to ‘be afraid to randomly send a text’ to her daughter.
Smith, in other messages, accused Sorensen of making her daughter ‘bit upset’ because of his interactions with Holman. She claimed if he changed his actions, her daughter would ‘probably date you again’.
A year after their break up, Smith continued to text Sorensen and begged him to ‘just marry her daughter’, according to the messages. Screenshots show she even urged the teen to send her daughter a photo of himself in his underwear.
But Smith’s sexualization of Sorensen went well beyond text messages, with the teen’s mother Brandi Sorensen alleging that Smith sent her son ‘multiple sexually inappropriate things’.
Smith sent Sorensen direct messages from an ‘anonymous’ account on Instagram calling him a ‘hottie’ and asking if it would ‘want to hit it tonight’, screenshots reveal.
The account, which saw Smith pretend to be someone from another town, questioned the teen about his relationship with Smith and her daughter.
In one message Smith – as the anonymous user – asked if Sorensen found them attractive and if she was a ‘MILF’, his mother Brandi Sorensen said in her victim impact statement.
‘She asked my son if he had a boner while dancing with Gillian,’ Mrs Sorensen added.
Mrs Sorensen further accused Smith of ‘grooming’ her son and claims she ‘worked to isolate him from his family, friends, and girlfriend’.
Smith joked that she ‘left her daughter lingerie as an apology’ for Sorensen, the horrified mother recalled.
And in a move reminiscent of the popular 2004 teen comedy Mean Girls, Smith seemed to encourage intimacy between minors.
In the film, the mother of popular high schooler Regina George tells the teen’s friends that ‘I’m not a regular mom. I’m a cool mom’.
The mother, portrayed by Amy Poehler, offers the teenagers alcohol and in a steamy scene between Regina (Rachel McAdams) and her boyfriend, even asked if they need a condom.
Smith, in a similar move, purchased matching underwear for Sorensen and her daughter, the victim’s family claimed. She also invited the teen to move into their home.
Sorensen, in his own statement, shared that the ‘harassment I’ve experienced has completely changed the way I’ve had to go about my days’.
He was left feeling ‘anxious, afraid, and just on edge’, and claims that the stress from Smith’s stalking ‘impacted my schoolwork, my friendships, my ability to compete at sporting activities’.
In addition to the abuse he suffered, Sorensen also felt the weight of the terror that Holman was facing at the same time.
Holman, now 16, was first victimized by Smith in November 2023 when Smith impersonated her in text messages to Sorensen and another student.
The messages contained ‘disparaging remarks about multiple students at school, including Preston’, the Holman family alleged.
The family reported the incident to police, but were advised that nothing could be done unless they were sent messages directly.
In February 2024, Smith allegedly sent an anonymous text to Cathy Holman and her husband Dan Holman impersonating a ‘concerned parent’.
The message claimed that Holman had engaged in oral sex with other male students and that Sorensen said he was only interested in a relationship with the teen because he wanted to ‘take her V card’, screenshots show.
Mr and Mrs Holman reported the messages to police. Meanwhile, Smith anonymously sent another student a text alleging that Holman was ‘going to beat her up’.
Mrs Sorensen, around the same time, received messages from an anonymous number claiming that her son and Holman were being ‘inappropriate’, and that the young girl was a ‘bully’ and ‘bad influence’.
The abuse continued for months, with Holman receiving messages from an anonymous social media account that called her ‘ugly’.
Other accounts, allegedly created by Smith, sent Holman messages claiming that Preston was talking to other girls.
In one series of messages, Smith sexualized Holman’s appearance while she was at a youth leadership convention.
‘Your a** is super hot in that skirt,’ Smith wrote.
Holman, in her victim impact statement, said she tried to ‘blow it off’ but Smith sent another message: ‘S***, you must be blind. I’d tap that a**.’
‘That was the moment I realized whoever had been watching me and harassing me was probably in the same room as me,’ Holman said in her statement.
‘This person was no longer a vague threat. They were someone who was watching me and my friends and who could hurt me at any given time. I was afraid to go anywhere alone because I didn’t know who was watching my every move.’
Throughout the school year, Smith continued to send anonymous texts, social media DMs and emails to the families.
Smith even impersonated at teacher at the teens’ high school and sent Mrs Holman an email calling Holman a ‘s****h’.
Holman and Sorensen began officially dating in May 2024, amid Smith’s ongoing stalking, bullying and harassment.
Investigators finally identified Smith as the source of the anonymous messages in September that year.
Smith admitted to police that she had been sending the messages because ‘Gillian was bullying her daughter’, the Holman and Sorensen families claimed.
A protection ordered was put in place in order to keep both families safe and Smith was charged with two counts of stalking.
She pleaded no contest to the charges in March this year and was sentenced to probation.
But the Holman family is now campaigning for legislation that would impose stricter punishments for stalkers.
The Joint Judiciary Committee on Tuesday voted to consider a change to Wyoming’s law so that adults who stalk children more than three years younger than them could be charged with a felony and jailed for up to 10 years, Cowboy State Daily reported.
The committee also agreed to study an anti-grooming law that was passed in Montana earlier this year.
The legislation criminalized grooming a child for sexual offenses, strengthened charges for crimes against children and enabled prosecution of sexual predators who use AI to digitally alter images.
The Holmans have also requested that new definitions for ‘cyberstalking and bullying actions’ – which were not included in the draft – be added to the Wyoming bill.
Holman, who spoke at the committee hearing, said that it is ‘not easy to continuously share what happened’.
‘But I have to at least try to make it better for future stalking victims in Wyoming,’ the teen added, through her tears.