Marathon man arrested for threats, extortion

A Marathon man was arrested after stalking and threatening a Marathon couple.

The suspect, 51 year old Matthew Collins, is a previous employee of the male victim. While working for the victim, he reportedly injured his knee. The victim said he offered to have Collins’ knee  looked at afterward. Collins was subsequently terminated from employment with the victim’s business.

The victims said since then, for the past year and a half, Collins has been periodically contacting them; this behavior escalated on January 12^th when he called them 12 times in 24 hours. The victims did not answer the calls and instead, let them go to voice mail so they would have a recording of them. They provided these recordings to Deputy Aaron Coller, who investigated the case.

During his calls he makes threats, referring to his knee injury and says he wants them to pay him $5,000 or “he knows where they live.” In one message, he says they can either pay for his knee or pay for their daughter’s knee, saying a knee for a knee is a fair trade. On another call, he made a threat to kill them.

Deputy Coller obtained warrants for the arrest of Collins, who was picked up on February 9^th. He was booked into jail charged with aggravated stalking and extortion.