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Amy DuPont and Zach Brown were once on-air colleagues at WXOW in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Gabriel Falcon
AC360° Writer

They were friendly co-hosts on camera. But behind the scenes, something was wrong. “I was scared,” said Amy DuPont, the anchor for WXOW/ABC 19 in La Crosse, Wisconsin. “You think you know someone and obviously I didn’t.”

DuPont is referring to Zach Brown, her former on-air partner and colleague at WXOW. Brown, who was also a meteorologist, bantered with DuPont for several years on the station’s morning newscast.

“I thought we had a good working relationship,” DuPont told CNN. But in November, 2007, DuPont began receiving strange emails from someone who used the screen name “Mario.”

Captain Kurt Papenfuss of the La Crosse County’s Sheriff’s Department described the messages were “catty” and contained “weird stuff.” In an interview, he also said some of the comments were about the on-air relationship between DuPont and Brown. “The gist of it was,” Captain Papenfuss said, “you need to be nicer to Zach, you’re mean on air, quit talking about your baby.”

The first email was sent in late 2007. And they didn’t stop until this June. In all, the authorities said 21 inappropriate emails were sent to DuPont. And she began to suspect they may be coming from her co-host. “In the back of my mind I wondered,” she said.

DuPont asked the police to investigate. It didn’t take long to get some answers. Armed with a subpoena, authorities were able to trace back the emails to a computer in Brown’s home.

But was he the one sending the emails? “We brought him into the station,” Captain Papenfuss said, “and he wouldn’t really respond to anything.

The police did say Brown told his employer he was aware the emails were coming from his residence, but insisted his roommate was sending them, not him.

Brown could not be reached for comment. In a brief phone call, Sean Dwyer, the News Director for WXOW told CNN, “all I can say is, he is no longer an employee at News 19.”

This week DuPont was granted a temporary restraining order against Brown. She’s also hoping to put this story behind her. “I’m ready for something else in the news to take the attention of me,” she said.