An Army of Normal Folks - Carly Rice: Food, Friendship, and Life Transformation (Pt 1)

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Carly has experienced molestation, prostitution, sex trafficking, addiction, loss, homelessness on Skid Row, and almost every trauma that you could imagine. Her escape and recovery have fueled her radical empathy for the least among us, starting with welcoming the homeless gentleman who appeared in her garden one day. Today, Miss Carly's has fed thousands out of her own home, and most importantly their volunteers walk alongside the homeless, helping 200 people achieve full recoveries and life transformation.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So I'm digging in my garden and this homeless person just gets down in the garden beside me and starts digging. Are you serious? Yeah. He's like, I want to help. He picked the right person to do it next to. I mean, you get him. He's probably high as hell, isn't he?

Yeah, he was. And I'm like, you are my people. This high homeless dude starts digging next to you. Yeah. I'm like, come inside. Let's go get something to eat. He's like, but I'm like, you are my people. This high homeless dude starts digging next to you. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, come inside, let's go get something to eat. He's like, but I'm filthy. I'm like, I don't care. I'm dirty too.

Go wash up and I'll make you something to eat. ["The Last Supper"] Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband. I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur.

And I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis in the last part. Somehow it led to an Oscar for the film about our football team. That movie is called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks, us, just you and me deciding, hey, I can help. That's what Carly Rice, the voice we just heard, has done. Why I said that Carly gets the homeless gentleman is that she was once homeless herself on the infamous Skid Row.

And that's only the beginning of her trauma, which has fueled her radical empathy for the least among us. Ms. Carly started by feeding the homeless in her own home, has since fed thousands, and most importantly, their volunteers walk alongside the homeless in their journeys of recovery and empowerment, helping 200 people achieve full recoveries and life transformations. I cannot wait for you to meet Carly

right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all-new story of betrayal. Stacey thought she had the perfect husband. Doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind. They led me into the house and I mean it was like a movie. He was sitting at our kitchen table. The cops were guarding him. Stacy learned how far her husband would go to save himself. I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed. He did not just say I wish he was dead.

He actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him. He to me is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The big take from Bloomberg News brings you what's shaping the world's economies with the smartest and best informed business reporters around the world. Western nations like the U.S. and Europe. Mexico will likely have its first female president. And then you have China.

And help you understand what's happening, what it means, and why it matters. He'll get his yo-yos to Europe in time. But the longer this drags on the more worried he's getting. They knew that they needed to do this as fast as they possibly could to get a drug on the market as fast as they could. I'm David Durat. I'm Sarah Holder. I'm Saleh Amosin. We cover the stories behind what's moving money and markets. Basically everyone was expecting if not a calamity certainly a recession. But the problem is that that paperwork, as our reporting showed, is fake.

Someone who's covering the market, I'm often very worried about an imminent collapse. I'm thinking about it quite often. Listen to the big take on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Solea Mosin, and I've covered economic policy for years and reported on how it impacts people across the United States. In 2016, I saw how voters were leaning towards Trump and how so many Americans felt misunderstood by Washington. So I started The Big Take DC. We dig into how money, politics and power shape government and the consequences for voters.

into how money, politics and power shape government and the consequences for voters. It's an election year, so there's a lot of focus on the voters that TikTok is reaching. The initial reaction is like, oh, things are looking so resilient. I don't want to be too pessimistic, but I just don't see the political will down in Washington right now to change their tune. I think the American electorate has been signaling that it expects a rematch of the 2020 election. These are unprecedented times. With new episodes every Thursday, you can listen to The Big Take DC on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or whatever you get your podcasts.

Carly Rice, good morning. Good morning. It is so good to see you. I hear you got in late from Chicago last night. Yes, there's a little bit of turbulence, so they had taken an alternate route, but we got here. We got here. Well, I am so happy to welcome you to Memphis, and I'm so appreciative of you joining us.

You're from Rockford, Illinois. I'm from California, but I came here from Rockford. Yeah, well, you're from California, but you now live in Rockford, Illinois. And you do some really cool stuff there. So before we get to Miss Carly's and what you do, it's important, and some of this is gonna be maybe a little rough for people to hear your life pre Miss Carly's and pre Rockford, but Definitely.

without understanding all of that, I do not think that the impact of Miss Carly's and why you do what you do and why you do it with the fervor and heart you do it with is so personal and matters to you so much. So your history has to be told. So tell me where you grew up and how you grew up. Nicole Jardim I appreciate you saying that because it is important. If we can't understand why people do the things they do, then we can't help them. And trauma and our histories, I believe, are key to understanding that. I grew up in San Diego, California.

By the way, hold on. I'm trying so hard not to interrupt my guests, but there are some of these I wish people were watching as well as they're seeing. Y'all, I am looking, when you hear the story you're about to hear, what I want you to keep in your mind's eye is I am looking at this bright, big smile. Long, black, jet black hair in, I guess those are weaved pigtails. What do we call those things? They're just braids. Braided, but they're pigtails, right? Yeah, braided pigtails down to her waist with this cool black brimmed hat on

and these really groovy black glasses with a black t-shirt on that says fight addiction, not the one addicted. And she's got both her arms are tatted up that I am sure every one of those tattoos has a story behind them. Someone who is generally embracing life with a genuine kindness and kind of light to you. Grateful to be alive. That's interesting. So now, with people with that mind's eye, tell us where you came from. I came from San Diego, and it's a very affluent area where I was from. But my city, I mean, my family was kind of like,

you know when you have a neighborhood and there's like that family that the police are always at their house and they have too much junk on their property and stuff? That was my family. We were the, I guess you could say trashy family. I know I'm going to need a Kleenex because I'm already getting tears in my eyes. We will get you Alex. Alex the producer is good at two things, making my life miserable and getting Kleenex for guests. So there you go. in getting Kleenex for gas. So there you go. Okay. My hanky.

Okay. I grew up in San Diego and I actually grew up in a very affluent area. But my family was troubled, deeply troubled. There was a lot of mental illness and drug addiction in my family. And we were ironically also a my family. And we were ironically also a close family. So we had like three buildings on one property. And my grandfather was just, my great grandfather was just an amazing man. And he just kept building houses on this property. And it was overlooking the ocean and a lagoon. And it was a beautiful place to grow up. But beautiful things didn't happen in those buildings and I I suffered through as a child a lot of

neglect and abuse molestation all of the the bad things that can happen to a kid happened and I turned to drugs at a very young age. I'm not sure when I started using drugs, but I do know that by 13, I was a full blown drug addict doing the hard stuff. What is hard stuff? I started on meth was my first hard drug. At 13? Well before 13.

So somewhere between 11 and 13, I would guess. Things got real heavy when I was eight. Eight? Yeah. Where was a parent? Sick, very sick. My mother was very mentally ill. My grandmother was mentally ill.

I won't get into the specifics, but there was a lot of molestation happening and the drugs made it bearable for me to get through that. It's like- By family members? By family members, by other people and family members were involved. It was a really, really sick situation. Did you have siblings? I did, but I wasn't with any of them. I was adopted by my grandmother who was just a sick woman and I lived alone with her and we lived outside of San Diego, like on the top of this hill up a dirt road. And it was one of the people that was harming me was my only neighbor.

Well, I had another neighbor, but they were never home. So it was like my neighbor was taking advantage of me. My grandmother's boyfriend was taking advantage of me and my grandmother knew about this and was party to it on top of that. So there was no safe people for me. Dr. Justin Marchegiani And you were, you're talking at six and seven and eight years old? Dr. Lyle This is eight, nine years old. And it did happen before that. I just don't know when it started. And I didn't have a safe place to go because my grandma would always keep me home from school and say that I was sick. And I was actually sick. My anxiety and my stress came out in physical symptoms. I had ulcers as an

eight-year-old child and I remember just laying in bed in agony with these ulcers in my esophagus and it later I found out was a result of just being under so much duress, you know. So and then I my neighbor was a forty-something year old man just pumping me full of methamphetamine so he can do what he wanted with me. And the drugs gave me the escape. I learned early on that if I put the substance in my body, I could get through whatever was in front of me. And it worked. It worked until it didn't work. That is traumatic. And I've interviewed a lot of people, and I've heard a lot of trauma stories, but the abuse of a child is just the worst.

The worst part is when authorities don't believe you, because there were times that I called the police and they, my grandma would just say, Oh, she's lying. She's on drugs. She's lying. What those police officers, you know, at this time, maybe I'm 13, I'm 13 years old and these police officers that come to this house, see a 13 year old girl that's on drugs saying that she's being harmed. I just wonder still to this day, sometimes why did those police officers walk away from that house? Clearly something was going on.

You know? Why wasn't somebody being called? Yeah. We were out in the country, you know, but I did call the police and they just dismissed the whole situation. So it's important, I think, for people to just be aware and when those cries for help are made to look into things, you know. Deist I've heard these stories before and they typically

lead to the minute you have the ability, you get out because you have no other choice. Is that what you did? Dr. Sara McNeese Yeah. To some extent, shortly after the time that I called the police, it was, I'll never forget that night when I finally called the police. My grandma's boyfriend was threatening me with a big knife and he wanted to do things to me that hurt really bad and I didn't want to do them and I got really fed up and I called the police. And a few days after that situation, my dad came to pick me up, whom I was estranged from all my life. I didn't know he was my dad.

I grew up with my sister's dad. And here comes my dad in his little Ford Festiva, and he's high on drugs. And he's like knocking on the door and he's like, hey, are you packed? And I was like, what are you talking about? And I had met him prior to this, but we had no real relationship, you know? And he's like, you're coming to move with me. Aren't you excited? And it was like news to me. So I had, you know, like minutes to pack up my whole life. I was 13 years old. I'm pounding on my grandma's bedroom door. She won't answer the door. She's

in there, but she won't answer the door. So I just grab whatever I can and I go to live with my dad. My dad was in his addiction at the time and my other grandma, whom I call my good grandma, she did her best to support my dad in newly being a father of a 13 year old child. And she helps him with rent and we got a place together and I was going to an alternative school because I was really smart but I didn't have great school transfer records because I can't imagine why yeah because my because I didn't go often so I was like president of the student

government at Mark Twain Junior Senior High School, which is a continuation school. And I loved school so much. But then my dad started hanging out with a lot of my classmates and allowing them to come over and do drugs at our house. And one day, and I was actually, I was flown to Kansas City, Missouri, to be part of the Center for the National Society

for Experiential Education with my principal and one of my teachers because I was just so active in school and I was helping write grants and whatnot. Did your principals and all know the background of what you dealt with, where you came from? I believe so to some extent. I don't think they knew that it was bad again though. They knew my past, but they didn't know that it was bad with my dad because one day I just stopped showing up to school. I had missed some days of school because my dad, he wasn't coming up with the rent. My grandma would give him rent money and then he would buy drugs with that. So I got two jobs. I told, I started working at

Save On Drugs and another drug store and I told both of them that it was the, that I was working only at them. So I had two part-time jobs to make one full-time job. And I just stopped going to school because I had to pay the rent. And I'll never forget my school librarian, and I believe it was my principal, showed up at the house to look for me, but I was at work or God knows where, and they saw my dad and all these kids in my house high on drugs and stuff, you know? And I was so mortified that I never went back to school because now they saw what my home life was like. Were you using drugs at that time? Yes I was. Still using? With my dad. Well right

alongside my dad. Like he would leave me a line you know and we didn't talk about it but he would leave it on the mirror for me and then when I knew he was out I would leave him one. We didn't use together. well that's a lovely father daughter relationship. Listen, you go out and do what you got to do. When you get back, I'm gonna have a line set up for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, some families might leave dinner on the table. You guys were leaving lines for one another.

Yeah. And you were how old? This, I was still 13, 14, maybe 15. This is a whole like three year period, thereabouts. I knew I moved in with him when I was 13. And I think we kind of held it together for about two years of not, you're going to get evicted, you're not going to get evicted, you're going to get evicted. We just kept toeing that line. And we lived right on the beach, though. That was one consolation. We found a rent control apartment right on the beach. So I was kind of into the idea of staying because it was just such a

beautiful location. And I had made some friends, well, friends. In quotes. Yeah. And I didn't find much trouble in leaving them. Ultimately, I never missed them a day of my life. But I eventually got fed up with my dad because he wasn't paying the rent and I moved into this apartment. I can't remember. I think it was like $200 a month

or $150 a month, but it wasn't an apartment. It was a room about the size of this, maybe a little bit smaller. And this Middle Eastern guy, and he was actually Persian, I'll never forget. And he told me that I could have it for I think 150 or 200 dollars a month. I just had to have sex with him every once in a while. That was it. And I was like, okay, yay, sounds good. Sign me up. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, I'm excited to announce that we're hosting a live interview in Memphis on Saturday, July 20th. And all of you folks listening that are close, join us. It's with Russell Butler, best known as the Dancing UPS Man. Russell once was close to committing suicide

and he'll share his powerful redemption story, which led to this dance ministry that accidentally went viral. And when I say viral, this guy's got 1.5 million followers on TikTok and a million on Instagram. I'm telling you, you'll love hearing his story and you'll love meeting him.

And I'd love to meet you too. You can learn more and RSVP at dancingupsman.eventbrite.com. at dancingupsman.eventbrite.com. Once again, dancingupsman.eventbrite.com. Come on down, Saturday July 20th. Listen to the interview, see how it's done, see how we go back and forth. Meet me and meet our guest. It'd be a good time. We'll be right back. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception.

I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all new story of the trail. Stacey thought she had the perfect husband. Doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind. It led me into the house and I mean it was like a movie. He was sitting at our kitchen table. The cops were guarding him. Stacey learned how far her husband would go to save himself. I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed. You not just say I wish he was dead,

you actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him. He to me is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Solea Mosin, and I've covered economic policy for years and reported on how it impacts people across the United States. In 2016, I saw how voters were leaning towards Trump and how so many Americans felt misunderstood by Washington.

So I started The Big Take DC. We dig into how money, politics and power shaped government and the consequences for voters. It's an election year, so there's a lot of focus on the voters that TikTok is reaching. The initial reaction is like, oh, things are looking so resilient. I don't want to be too pessimistic, but I just don't see the political will down in Washington right now to change their tune. I think the American electorate has been signaling that it expects a rematch of the 2020

election. These are unprecedented times. With new episodes every Thursday, you can listen to The Big Take DC on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Big Take from Bloomberg News brings you what's shaping the world's economies with the smartest and best informed business reporters around the world. Western nations like the U.S. and Europe. Mexico will likely have its first female president. And then you have China. And help you understand what's happening, what it means, and why it matters. He'll get his yo-yos to Europe in time.

But the longer this drags on, the more worried he's getting. They knew that they needed to do this as fast as they possibly could to get a drug on the market as fast as they could. I'm David Duret. I'm Sarah Holder. I'm Saleh Emosin. We cover the stories behind what's moving money in markets. Basically, everyone was expecting, if not a calamity,

certainly a recession. But the problem is that that paperwork, as our reporting showed, is fake. Someone who's covering the market, I'm often very worried about an imminent collapse. I'm thinking about it quite often. Listen to the big take on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So I had my own apartment at 16 years old. Didn't have a bathroom, but there was a bathroom down the hall.

And remember I was so messed up on drugs I wrote poetry in a circle, starting at the light of the, in the middle of the room and it spiraled down all the way around the walls and it met at the floor. Just like that's how my mind was just really cluttered and confused. So at 16, your rent payment is $150 a month plus occasional sex diversion guide. Yep. Okay. That's horrible. Yes. There's a lot of people that take advantage out there in the world, an awful lot.

It gets worse. I have this drug habit, you know? And the drug habit is meth at this point? Still meth at this time. Okay. It's meth in anything that I can really get my hands on. I just didn't want to feel. Can I ask you a question?

Yes. At 16, you a question? Yes. At 16, you're not an adult. I'm not saying anybody's an adult at 16, but at 16, you're not an adolescent. You're kind of in that middle ground. I remember being at 16. And while half of the stuff I thought was probably the most ridiculous, stupid, immature, unexperienced things that you think at 16. But at 16, you are able to form reasonably cognitive ideas. When you were sober, what was going on in your mind? I was never sober. Never. You woke up and did drugs? Every day. There was never a time when I was sober.

Method just for breakfast anymore kind of thing. Yeah, no, there was no sober time. There was no sober time. The only time I was ever sober is if I was in jail. And I hadn't started going to jail at this point yet. I didn't luckily start going to jail until after I was 18. I was never sober. So you never were able to take a realistic and reasonably cognitive look at your stake in life.

At this point, you literally numbed yourself every waking moment to just get through the day. So sex with the Persian guy for room was just part of the process. Yeah. And the beginning, and that's what led me to what came next, which was prostitution. I got sick of having just all of the headaches that went along with trying to get enough drugs. I'm breaking my back, you know, working these two jobs and then I get my paycheck and it's all gone like right away. And I was like, there's gotta be a better way here.

This guy approached me when I was on the boardwalk in San Diego and he said, I can help you make a lot of money. And I was like, okay, sounds good, what do I do? I mean, you want to talk about naive. And he said, all you have to do is bring me homeless people down to this billiards hall in Tijuana and we'll get them all cleaned up and we'll pay them too. And you make lots of money. You make lots of money. So I did it. I started working with this guy and these people are long gone, I'm sure. So I would take these homeless people down on the train and I would take them to this

billiards hall and I'd meet this guy named TJ, I believe his name is. In Tijuana. In Tijuana, yeah. Okay. 16 years old. And I would essentially sell these homeless people to this guy named, I think his name was TJ, there was two guys, TJ and another guy. And they would give me $300 a head.

And what they would do is, there were a couple times where I stayed along for the process. What they would do, what they would clean the homeless people up, they would take them to this hotel and they would shave them and clean them up and they would go to this store called Dorian's and they would get them like suits or clothes and they would dress them up and they would put them in cars weighed down with drugs and get them to the border. And I stayed along for the whole process a couple of times like I said, and one of the

times they asked me to do it because they said women got through easier. So they put two kilos of drugs on the front of me and three kilos of drugs on the back of me and a big Tommy Hilfiger coat and a mini skirt and high heels. And I just walked right through the border with these five kilos of, I guess it was probably cocaine or something. I doubt it was pot cause I didn't smell anything. of, I guess it was probably cocaine or something. I doubt it was pot because I didn't smell anything. But, and then we went to this house in Chula Vista and we dumped all the stuff

up. They had a pile about the size of this room of packages. So they were just people were coming through the border all day long. These are not, these are high level cartel people that you're screwing around with at 16 years old. Dr. Sara Larson That's when... So then they started saying to me, you know, the women get through easier, the women get through easier, you're just start bringing us more women. Because I had... Dr. Hill How much money did they pay you to be a mule? Dr. Sara Larson $300 a person. Dr. Hill

For the people 300, but what about when you cross the border? Dr. Sara Larson So I got $1,000, plus I got as much drugs as I wanted basically. They would give me Ziploc gallons of drugs, meth, pot, and I was on top of the world. I thought I've just figured out, you know, supply and demand. Now I have the supply and I could sell this and I never have to worry about being able to afford my drugs again because the drugs made the feelings go away. The drugs made the memories of getting you know heart hurt really bad go away. So I found an endless

to me it was like medicine. I found an endless supply of medicine. So I'm bringing these women down there and they have this gated community. It's kind of near the beach and they literally had armed guards walking around on a wall and the guards would walk on the top of the wall and there was a little like... None of this ever freaked you out and scared the hell out of you? I was so high all the time. No, it didn't. And I thought it was cool.

Hey, there's a massive room full of drugs and armed guys and trafficking. The room full of drugs was a cool vista. And now I'm in Tijuana at this... It's basically a housing complex that I think was built to be a resort town and it somehow went defunct. And they had the armed guards walking around on the wall and they had a little store I remember outside that had like just really random items like some laundry detergent, like convenience store stuff, but like just like one of everything or two of everything. It was so strange. And then inside they had people living in these houses just high out of their mind on drugs. There was no running water. The toilets were full of poop and pee.

And there's these people like from America, white people like me, runaways and homeless people. And they were just like, it was like a holding place until they needed to use them for something, right? They were the transport. Yeah. And, but some of them had been there for months without any movement.

So I don't know what exactly they were up to there. But they were asking me at that time, bring more women, bring more women, women get through faster. And I wasn't seeing the women come back to the American side. And I was like, after seeing those armed guards and after seeing that the women weren't coming back out the other side, I was like, wait a minute, I don't want to be one of those women that doesn't come back out the other side. So I tried to get away from them.

And I did effectively so. And I ended up packed with the Persian guy. So I'm now in downtown San Diego and I'm living in this makeshift apartment, which is owned by this Persian guy who owns a bunch of liquor stores. And he's got this big building in downtown San Diego. And inside the big building were all these like, they were meant to be offices, I'm sure. Just like this, like how you have a big building and then you have smaller rooms inside the building, except there was no tops to the rooms. And we were all living in these

like basically what are cubicles. and this Persian guy was charging us $350 a month same deal. If you have sex with me once in a while, I'll give it to you You know for $100 a month or whatever. He charged me I don't think he ever charged me anything actually and he had a barbecue place right next door, too. And Sometimes I would work at the barbecue place for him But mostly he just wanted to have sex with me. And he would pick me up and he would take me to his mansion and he had like this whole

wall of TVs and had all these like Middle Eastern channels on them and stuff. I don't think he was, I just think he was like a rich dude. I don't think he was involved in like, people ask me, do you think he was a terrorist? I just wasn't like that at all. He was, he was a really actually kind of a nice guy, but he was definitely subjugating a lot of people, which is not okay in keeping them in abhorrent living conditions in their disease, you know?

So I'm living with this guy and I'm having my dope dealer come, the Persian guy, I would go to the liquor store and I'd say, I need some money, you know, like give me some money and you know, a head for our next date because he would give me money every time we dated like 50, $60 every time he had sex with me. And I would go to the liquor store and beg him for money and he would want me out of there so his wife didn't see me or his family didn't see me.

So he'd always give me money, right? So I would call my drug dealer, but not always. Sometimes the security guards wouldn't even let me in the store to ask him for the money. So I didn't always have my money. And the drug dealer came and he said, you know what? You never have your money. You can't afford your drugs. Why don't you get off drugs?

My drug dealer is telling me this. And he says, he barely speaks any any English but he's got this like guy translating for him. He said, you come to my house, I give you less drugs every day, you know, be sick. And I said, okay, sounds good. Let's go. Because I mean, it's better than this disgusting situation I've been with the Persian guy. And the apartments, the cubicles we lived in were just filthy, filthy. And I wanted out there so bad because it was just so dirty, you know? And it was sad because, and this is kind of key

to where my story is gonna go later. Those other people in those cubicles, a lot of them are very sick people, like sick with cancer or COPD or very treatable and they just were not getting medical attention. They were just in this little cubicle living off their social security, giving this Persian guy $350 a month rent and just doing drugs all day and they were like dying in their own filth. And it was so, so sad to see the way that this man let these people live and profited off of them knowing that they needed and deserved better than that situation.

And it never, the smell of that place and the sight of that place never left me. We'll be right back. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all-new story of betrayal. Stacey thought she had the perfect husband. Doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind. They led me into the house and I mean it was like a movie.

He was sitting at our kitchen table. The cops were guarding him. Stacey learned how far her husband would go to save himself. I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed. He did not just say I wish he was dead. He actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him. He, to me, is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. than Jeffrey Dahmer. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The big take from Bloomberg News brings you what's shaping the world's economies with

the smartest and best informed business reporters around the world. Western nations like the US and Europe. Mexico will likely have its first female president. And then you have China. And help you understand what's happening, what it means, and why it matters. He'll get his yo-yos to Europe in time. But the longer this drags on, the more worried he's getting.

They knew that they needed to do this as fast as they possibly could to get a drug on the market as fast as they could. I'm David Dura. I'm Sarah Holder. I'm Saleh Emosin. We cover the stories behind what's moving money in markets. Basically everyone was expecting, if not a calamity, certainly a recession.

But the problem is that that paperwork, as our reporting showed, is fake. Someone who's covering the market, I'm often very worried about an imminent collapse. I'm thinking about it quite often. Listen to the big take on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Solea Mosin, and I've covered economic policy for years and reported on how it impacts people across the United States. In 2016, I saw how voters were leaning towards Trump and how so many Americans felt misunderstood by Washington. So I started The Big Take DC. We dig into how money, politics

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These are unprecedented times. With new episodes every Thursday, you can listen to the Big Take DC on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or whatever you get your podcasts. So this drug dealer took me home and I'm like, great, yay. And instead of giving me less drugs every day, he gave me more drugs every day. And now I'm basically like a sex slave for guess what? A cartel member. He is part of the same group of people

who I initially had worked for. I think they were, they found me again, you know, through my own stupidity. So now I'm living on the third floor of this four story apartment complex and I tried many times to get out and he just beat the crap out of me. I had in the beginning of my time with him, you know, I was very resistant. I wanted out. I didn't want to be hurt anymore. I didn't want to be raped anymore. But I learned very early on that I was not getting out. And that the best thing for me to do was to please this man so that I would

have opportunity to get out so that I could earn his trust. You were basically kidnapped. I was, absolutely. Do you think that's what happened to the girls that were going to Tijuana and never came back? 100%. So they were effectively becoming Tijuana sex slaves for the cartel. And that's on my conscience because I did take a couple down there, only a couple. But

I always think about that, like what happened to those girls, you know? I have no idea to this day. And we'll get into more of that later. I decided that the only way out is to convince them I could be the best wife ever. Because I- Best wife? Wife, yeah. So now how old are you at this point? 18? I think 17, 18. Probably 18. So I'm in this building and what's notable that I like to tell people that most people would not assume is it wasn't actually the men who kept me in that building. So the men had all the third floor apartments and I don't really know what was on the second floor. The fourth floor

were stolen goods. They had lots of boosters they would send out to steal things. They were very into boosting and drug dealing. They washed cars. They sent cars to Tijuana and they came back clean. So I'm on the third floor. The women and children were on the first floor. They were the ones that kept me in that building. Because if I tried to get out of that building, they would physically drag me back into the building kicking and screaming because their kids were at stake. So when people say... So the cartel would say, you let her out, I'm gonna beat your kids.

It was the own cartel's wives and children and mistresses and whatnot. And they didn't have a choice. They were scared for themselves and their children. That's why today when people say, why doesn't she just run? If she can come to your house and get condoms, why doesn't she just run? If she can come to your house and get condoms, then why doesn't she just run? You have no idea why she doesn't just run. There could be a lot of reasons.

I tried to run, but those women weren't going to let me out because they would have killed their children. They absolutely would have done it too. I would not put it past them. So I'm in this apartment and there's no phones, there's no computers. This is like 1997, 1998. There's no phones or computers, I mean, in the apartment that I'm in.

The only way to get out is to behave, is to earn his trust, right? I had already tried to scream when we were out on an outing and it didn't work. So I knew the only way was to earn his trust and get him to love me. So now I'm like trying to seduce this guy and just be the best little wifey ever. And I'm telling him things to get at the store and I'm cooking him food and he's teaching me how to cook Mexican food. Mind you, I didn't speak any Spanish and he didn't speak any English. So I had to learn how to speak Spanish just to get the things I needed. He was very,

very like he in the Latin culture, they really frowned upon drug addiction. And he was addicted to coke, but he didn't want any of his people to know that he did and I knew that he was and he took it out on me. The fact that I knew that he was addicted to drugs was the most shameful thing in the world to him and when he would not do them he would just beat me to a pulp. His favorite thing to do is to beat me with his shoes. So I just kept working to earn his trust and be a good little wifey and he used to take me to a pulp. His favorite thing to do is to beat me with his shoes. So I just kept working to earn his trust and be a good little wifey. And he used to take me to a video store. What is it like to act like to cook dinner for and seduce a man as if you're a good wife

and love him when in your heart or heart you wish the guy would burn in hell? It's tough. It was definitely tough. I had the drugs to help. He gave me unlimited amounts of black tar heroin. So as long as he gave me enough drugs, I could do it, you know? Could I do that sober? I mean, I'm sure I could, but it would be awful. It would be awful. So you were on heroin at this point. Oh, I forgot to tell you, yeah. You graduated from meth to heroin.

Yeah, about the time that I started sleeping with the Persian guy at the store, that's when the heroin use started. You're a wreck at 18. A wreck, a wreck, a wreck. Okay, so I assume you eventually earned this guy's trust? I did. And he would take me to the video store. This is how long ago it was. And eventually, you know, kept going to the video store and I was like, okay, this is my time. We always go at night, like nine, 10, 11 at night. And believe it or not, it was pretty busy at that

time. So I waited until it was like the busiest I thought it was ever going to be. And I said, I went up to the guy at the desk and I was like, call the police, help me. I'm being held captive, you know? And he was just like, I'm not doing that, blah, blah, blah. Are you kidding me? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. What, he just didn't believe you?

Yeah, he thought I was kidding her, I guess, or something. But by that time, Cesar heard me, his name was Cesar, and he grabbed me and pulled me out of there by the arm. And we didn't go back. I got the crap beat out of me after that. And then he made me pull a train with his friends, meaning I had to have back-to-back sex with like several of his friends.

And not in a comfortable way. It was just the most demoralizing thing ever. So... How are you able to talk about this? Because my story is not unlike the stories of the women that I serve. Some of them are worse, the people that the women that we serve. And it has to the conversation... Can we just stop for a second? Yeah. people that the women that we serve and it has to the conversation. Can we just stop for a second? Yeah.

I'm so sorry. Nobody deserves to be treated like that Carly. That is absolutely heartbreaking and I'm, I wish I could stop but I'm just envisioning this 18-year-old kid who's been abused her whole life now dealing with that. It happens every day to women. It happens every day. There are some details about my story that are obviously different, but this kind of stuff happens to women, the women

that I serve and women all over this wonderful nation every day. talking about the is going on literally right this minute somewhere in this country. I mean, I can't quit thinking about it right now. Listen to you. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart. I cannot believe I'm sitting three feet across the table from this bright-eyed person living in Rockford, then we're going to get to it, that it had to succumb to this. I mean, this is worse than... I mean, it's slavery. It's slavery. It is. How did you get away from this guy? So one day I was cleaning the apartment and there was a flip phone in the couch cushion

and I called the only number I can think of and it was an ex-boyfriend who was like a film student nerd. And I said, Neil, come to this address, do not call the police. I'm going to jump out the window. And third story. Yeah. I said, I'll probably break my legs. Just drag me to the car. But I'll be on heroin. I won't feel it. Don't worry. I'll make sure I shoot a really good thing in my arm before I jump. That was your

onto. I'm being I'm kidding. No, that's exactly what I thought. Like, Oh my gosh, what I thought. I said, just don't call the cops because the cops were in bed with the cartel guys, right? And- No, not right. Really? Oh yeah. Absolutely.

Not all of them, but- But they had protection there. Yeah. So that's why I never, you know, that's why my plan was to get citizens because there was another time when I tried at a grocery store and do you know every single person

ducking dove from me at that grocery store? I yelled rape. That was the second time I tried to get away. I yelled rape. It was like 10, 11, 12 and we're at a 24 hour grocery store. Everybody ran from me. Nobody came to help me. What'd you look like?

I'm trying to understand why people, was it that you were out of your mind high and probably look like hell and people just thought you were crazy? I had scabs all over my face. That's why. I don't think my teeth were falling out yet, but I definitely had like cavities and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Very much why I'm so protective of my people these days. And that concludes part one of my conversation with Carly Rice. And I'm telling you guys, you don't want to miss part two.

It's now available to listen to. The redemption, it's coming. Together guys, we can change the country,al podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all-new story of Betrayal. Justin Rutherford. Doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover to hide behind. Detective Weaver said, I'm sure you know why we're here. I was like, what in the world is going on? Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The big take from Bloomberg News brings you what's shaping the world's economies with the smartest

and best informed business reporters around the world. We cover the stories behind what's moving money in markets and help you understand what's happening, what it means, and why it matters every afternoon. I'm Sarah Holder. I'm Saleh Amosin. And I'm David Gura. Listen to the big take on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. MTV's official challenge podcast

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