She Wanted This California House So Badly, She Allegedly Tried to Get Strangers to Rape the Woman Who Bought It

Kathy J. Rowe was named "Mother of the Year" in 2007, KFMB-TV reported.

Four years later, her mothering instincts took a dark turn: When a couple purchased the house she had deemed perfect for her sick husband and disabled daughter, she went on a vengeful bout of "pranks" — that ended with what prosecutors called the online solicitation of rape.

Kathy J. Rowe. (Image via KFMB-TV)

Between October 2011 and June 2012, Rowe harassed the couple that had moved into her "forever home," KFMB reported, presumably trying to get them to move out.

As the Los Angeles Times told the story:

Rowe said she visited the house as soon as it came on the market. It had three bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a pool and garden and a red-tile roof.

"I knew the minute I walked in that it was my new home," Rowe said in a statement filed in San Diego County Superior Court. "Having it right in front of us was like a dream come true."

Rowe said she made an offer and assumed she would soon get the keys, but [a couple,] [Jerald] Rice and [Janice] Ruhter got the house.

She offered the couple $100,000 more than the $779,000 they paid, but Rowe said she did not hear back from the couple.

"Losing that house was devastating to my family and broke our hearts," Rowe said. "Every time my husband would say, 'If only we got that house,' or my daughter wanted to go outside to play, it would just tear at my heart."

The home Rowe allegedly coveted. (Image via KFMB-TV)

At first, Rowe pulled typical juvenile pranks, prosecutors say: signing the couple up for magazine subscriptions and putting a hold on their mail around Christmastime.

But soon she started posting sex ads on Craigslist.

In the ads, she posed as Ruhter and offered strangers the home's address.

"I like the element of surprise," Rowe wrote posing as Ruhter, claiming that Ruhter enjoyed anal sex and that her husband "knows about my men," the Times reported.

"I love to be surprised and have a man just show up at the door and force his way in the door on me, totally taking me while I say no," she wrote in another online message, according to the Times.

Prosecutors are calling that what it sounds like: Setting someone up to get raped.

According to the Times, Ruhter wasn't raped, though according to messages reviewed by the court, a man showed up at her house on at least one occasion looking for the "surprise" sex with Ruhter that Rowe had been advertising.

Thankfully on that day, Ruhter's husband, Rice, was home.

Rowe pleaded not guilty to felony charges, and will face trial in February, KFMB reported, but for now she's free on bail.

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