Let's Go To Court! - 244: LGBT Bullying & a Home Invasion

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

When Jamie Nabozny reached middle school, several of his classmates began bullying him for being gay. They called him names. They spat on him. They tripped him in the halls. Jamie and his parents asked Ashland Middle School Principal Mary Podlesny to discipline Jamie’s tormentors, but she didn’t do shit. Naturally, the bullies became emboldened. When Jamie went to high school, the bullying and harassment worsened. He endured verbal and physical attacks. Once again, Jamie and his parents went through the proper channels. They met with Ashland High School Principal William Davis and Assistant Principal Thomas Blauert to ask that they hold the bullies accountable. They didn’t do shit, either. Nothing moved the administrators to action – not when Jamie was assaulted, not when he was beaten to the point of needing hospitalization, and not even the multiple times he attempted to die by suicide. Years later, after Jamie had time to reflect on what he’d endured, he decided to sue. Then Brandi tells us about a double murder that shocked the community of Napa, California. On the evening of October 31, 2004, three roommates were at home, settling into bed. The young women were all in their 20s, and all active in their careers. Lauren Meanza was a volleyball coach. Adriane Insogna was a civil engineer. Leslie Mazzara worked in public relations. That night, a man broke into the little home the three women shared. He climbed the stairs and attacked Adriane and Leslie. Lauren, whose room was on the first floor, managed to escape. She hid in the backyard and watched the man escape. In the darkness, she couldn’t be sure who he was.   And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: The documentary, “Bullied: A student, a school, and a case that made history”  The book, “From the closet to the courtroom: five LGBT rights lawsuits that have changed our nation,” by Carlos Ball “The ballad of dad and papi,” by Chris Tarbox for Lavender Magazine “Mother recounts gay-bashing of her son,” Associated Press “He taught his school a lesson,” by John Tanasychuk for the Detroit Free Press “A stand for human worth,” by Clifford Rothman for the Los Angeles Times “The pain of growing up gay,” by Jennifer Weiner for The Philadelphia Inquirer “School to pay gay man $900,000,” Associated Press “Nabozny v. Podlesny,” caselaw.findlaw.com “Jamie Nabozny: Bullied,” by Team TVS on YouTube “Fighting anti-gay abuse in schools: The opening appellate brief of plaintiff Jamie Nabozny in Nabozny V. Podlesny,” by Patricia M. Logue and Davis S. Buckle for the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Nightmare in Napa” episode 48 Hours “Eric Copple” episode Snapped “Good as Gold” episode Forensic Files “The 2004 Napa Halloween Murders” by Lori Johnston, Medium “Sole Survivor of Napa Killings Speaks” ABC News “Cathy Harrington” theforgivenessproject.com YOU’RE STILL READING? My, my, my, you skeezy scunch! You must be hungry for more! We’d offer you some sausage brunch, but that gets messy. So how about you head over to our Patreon instead? (patreon.com/lgtcpodcast). At the $5 level, you’ll get 40+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90’s style chat room!  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Pond. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll be talking about bullying. And I'll be talking about a home invasion. Okay. Yeah, that's rough. Okay. Alright, well, you know what? We learned from last week. That's right. So you have a lighter one for us? Yes. Oh, thank goodness. It's still pretty bad, but, you know, it's not devastating.

Okay. Now, what were you saying about how beautiful and wonderful I look? Okay, so, okay, Kristen has this new shirt on that just, like, shows off her whole titties. All right, calm down, everyone. It's true, though. But I was just glancing across the table at her, and there's just like this glimmer on her chesticles. And so I asked her if she highlighted her cleave. As if I'm Dolly Parton on stage. No, I am in my home.

So that's just a natural glow. Yeah, I can't believe you would think I'd highlight my tits for you. Okay, but then you said you moisturize your tits? When I, okay, what are you doing when you hop out of the shower? I hop out of the shower, towel down, and then I moisturize my body. Yeah, I just like, you know, do my legs. Legs only? Usually, yeah. And then, okay, when I do my face moisturizer, I, like, bring it down my neck a little. Sure, sure, me too.

And I usually hit, like, my tattoo area. So your hips and your arms are just as scaly as can be, huh? I don't think they're particularly dry, but I could be wrong. No, they feel soft. Okay. See, this is... You want to feel? No, people are going to get mad at you from last week when you were like, what's a pimple patch?

Okay, all right. So what are blackheads exactly? I legitimately thought a pimple patch was like something you put on and then you like cover it with makeup to like hide a blemish. No. Everyone, Brandy knows nothing about pimples i get pimples sometimes and they're very tiny except for one time she did have one and it was awesome it's huge it really wasn't that big two days go. It was great to see how the mighty can fall. You see, it's tough to have a friend who was blessed with great genetics. I wouldn't know.

I'm just kidding. Look at your huge titties. Oh, my God. Look at your huge titties. She, my God. Look at your huge titties. You hateful, hateful woman. This podcast is horrible. It's funny because I'm going to be telling a terrible story about bullying and you're bullying me. Oh, and I just bullied you.

Right. It's full circle. Hey, we have a big announcement. Oh, we do? We sure do. Hey, we have a big announcement. Oh, we do? We sure do. I highlighted my tits just for this announcement. Just for this announcement in preparation of this announcement? Tell them.

Okay. We have a live show coming up very soon. Very soon. Very soon. It is here in Kansas City. We will be appearing at Planet Comic Con Kansas City. We are performing on March 17th at 8 p.m. All you need to attend our show is a ticket to Planet Comic Con Kansas City. That gets you into any of the programming, including our live show.

But it is on a first-come, first-served basis for seating at our live show, and I have no idea how many seats there are. We really have no clue. We know various family members will be there. So that'll probably take up the whole room. Maybe. No, but come see us, please, supporters. We are going to be covering.

What are we covering, Brandy? The QS to Corpse Bride. Bring your vomit buckets. Gross story. Nasty old man. I won't ruin it for you. Yeah. Anyway, come see us.

We're so excited. Yeah. Yeah. We'd love for you to come out and see us, please. Have I mentioned that? I think you did mention it. Do you want people to come see us, Kristen? If you don't come see us, you're dead to me.

Tickets can be purchased through Planet Comic Con's website, which is planetcomicon.com. I think you need to say www. I'm not saying that. Then how will people know that you're talking about a website? Oh, Brandy. By the way, hold on. You know what we're doing this episode? We're giving you a little taste, a little taste of the good life.

Of the Bob Moss lifestyle. Yeah. When you're a Bob Moss on our Patreon, you get no ads. You get ad-free episodes. It's another way to say that. It is.

And this episode is ad-free because we demanded it. Not because... Not because no ads were sold for this episode. So get on over to our Patreon, won't you? At the $5 level, you get all kinds of bonus episodes.

We just released a bonus episode. Yeah, there's like 44 of those fuckers on there. Calm down. I'm sorry. I was excited. That sounds like a lot. It is a lot. And they're all like over two hours.

That's a lot of programming. We just talk and talk and talk. Usually we talk about, you know, interesting stuff. And sometimes you insist on talking about yourself. That's rude. I had to get back at you. I had to. Because you said I had bad genes.

And I know you're not talking about my genes on my body because I'm wearing the ones that you recommended I purchased. Oh, you got your Judy Blues on? Yes. They look wonderful. Mm-hmm. So, Mom, Dad, Aunt Denise, I know you're all listening. Sorry, Brandi's so mean to you.

Is this where they all stop liking me? They've liked me since I was, like, 10 years old, and now this is the end of it? Yeah. You've had a good run. But now you showed your true colors. True colors shining through.

You want to talk to us about bullying? No. This is upsetting. But it is also. Well, no, I won't spoil anything. Okay. But it is also... Well, no, I won't spoil anything. Okay. Jesus.

But it is also never mind. Never mind. I am also in a goofy mood because I had cheese dip. We did have some cheese dip for lunch at a place we can never go back to because I'm deeply disappointed in their business practices. They charged us $2 extra for using a credit card and we don't appreciate it. It's a weird choice to me, but okay. That's passive aggressive speak for fuck you, I'm never coming back. I mean, credit card processing fees are just a cost

of business. They are also tax deductible. So don't understand. It's fine. I'm going to move on with my life now. Are you? I don't know. Probably not.

I'll probably think about it a lot throughout the rest of the day. Uh-huh. Probably talk about it with some more people. I will. That's fine. That's good. All right. Shout out.

Oh, my. I've got a little fuzzy. On your titty. Right on my titty. Is it growing out of your titty? No. I'm putting my phone in do not disturb here. Hold on. Oh, mighty good of you, ma'am.

Okay. I'm ready now. Do I like how everything's positioned? I guess it'll do. I feel like you're a little hyper, too. I am. I'm feeling like. What's with us?

Are we like. I don't know. I'm feeling very amped up right now. So. I don't know. I'm feeling very amped up right now. So I don't know. I'm pretty excited about our live show. I know. I am, too. That's going to be cool.

Yeah. Unless it sucks. Unless it sucks. Then, you know. That'll be the end of the podcast. No. I mean, you got to give the people a good live show. Also.

And if it starts to tank, then what's better than the live show that ended the podcast? Oh, gosh. Oh, that's dark. Also, you know what next week is? By the time this episode comes out, it will have been the five-year anniversary of this podcast. I cannot believe that. Me either. Yeah, it's incredible.

Yeah. What a, it's incredible. Yeah. What a joy it has been. What a journey it has been. We've had highs and lows. Yeah. We've changed both our names. That's right. That's the end of how we've changed.

All right. Shout outs to the documentary, Bullied, colon, a student, a school, and a case that made history. Oh, shit. Okay. Also, the book, From the Closet to the Courtroom, colon, Five LGBT Rights Lawsuits That Have Changed Our Nation by Carlos Ball. All the colons. Everybody's got to. I just don't think you have to say the colon out loud.

You have to. You just insert a pause there. People have to hear the colon. Otherwise, it sounds like a run-on sentence. Okay. Also, the court record, very informative. Oh, excellent. Colon, I enjoyed it very much.

Great. Exclamation excellent. Colon. I enjoyed it very much. Great. Exclamation point. Wonderful. Picture it. Oh, wait, no. Don't picture it. I've got to zoom in on my screen a little more. I feel like I have a little slight heartburn from our spicy lunch. Uh-oh.

Someone commented on our Patreon and was like, what's wrong with the restaurants in Kansas City? I feel like you guys have mild food poisoning every week. I mean, that is fair. I think it's partly because we go out to eat before literally every

single episode. Yeah. We often don't make smart ordering choices. When have we ever? Yeah. And then I sit down and I drink iced coffee, iced tea, and water. Maybe some other beverage. Yeah.

Usually some other beverage. Yeah. I never do just two. No. All right. I think we've said what needs to be said. Okay. Picture it.

We're in Ashland, Wisconsin. Ashland is a small town, and it's right on Lake Superior, which is a snobby name for a lake. I was going to say, so they think they're better than everyone else. According to one article that I found, in the 80s and 90s, most of the people in Ashland worked at the local toilet paper making factories. Oh, there were multiple toilet paper making factories? You know what? I might have added the word multiple because that seems ridiculous, doesn't it? You didn't say multiple.

You just added an S on the end of factory. Yeah. So it made it sound as if there were multiple factories. No, that's a fair leap. But how could that be possible? This is a town of like 8,000 people. All of the toilet paper in the United States was made in Ashland. That's not a fact, folks.

I just made that up right now. Ashland is small, conservative, and home to the cleanest assholes you ever did see. Because they have so much toilet paper. Although you would argue that toilet paper is not getting you as clean as a bidet. Yet anyone would argue that unless you're from Ashland and you're part of big toilet paper. Maybe that's the deal. Maybe I've sold my soul to big toilet paper. Well, now, don't you agree?

If you're hosing something down versus just wiping it. Brandy, the trouble is you know I'm right. No, I mean obviously the logic there is that yes, if you're spraying water on it, it's getting plenty clean. I would argue that it's getting clean without the water as well. I'm doing a very

very thorough wiping, ma'am. Everybody, it's so sad to see a grown woman lie to herself pathetic really anyway continuing on but what do you have more about their buttholes why do you smell so crusty stop oh yeah yeah no. You wipe super well. Super well. Okay. Anyway. But it is also home to the kind of asshole that can't be wiped clean. And I'm talking, of course, about homophobes.

Beautiful transition. How does she do it? We're not sure. She's amazing. I bet she's got a really great story for us today. And it's true. I do. Are you just inserting what you assume the listeners are saying? It's what I know they're saying. Oh, okay. You see, Brandy, the listeners and I right now are in a constant dialogue.

And they're always like, oh, what's she going to say next? I'm just on the edge of my seat. They knew I didn't put highlighter on my boobs. They just knew I was naturally dewy. You, on the other hand, my friend of many decades. I had no idea. Okay. You ready for this? Yes.

Brandy, are you sick of my shit already? No, I love your shit. I feel like I lost you when I made fun of your butthole. Fair to say? No, I wasn't bothered by you making fun of my butthole at all because I'm very confident in my own butthole, thank you. Less confident in your butthole. Wow.

But I've got it just in case. Wow. But I've got it just in case. It's so odd to me because you're really not confident in a lot of things. But man, for your butthole, you are really right there. You know, people say this podcast has too many tangents. They are wrong. Yeah, they are wrong.

Jamie Nabuzny was born and raised in Ashland, Wisconsin. And from a very early age, he knew he was gay. So he tells this cute story about how when he was little, he spent a lot of time at his grandma's house. And one summer, his uncle, who was gay, came to visit them a lot. He usually brought his partner along, and Jamie was just kind of like enthralled by his uncle because his uncle had this cool job managing a hotel and a restaurant and he drove a Cadillac. Ooh, very cool. To seven-year-old Jamie, this was the coolest thing ever. Yeah.

He was obsessed with that Cadillac and a Cadillac. Either one. When you lock the Cadillac, that's what you call it? He took n you call it. He took naps in it. He'd get in, press all the buttons. And one time after his uncle and his partner left, Jamie was sitting around with his grandma. And he turned to her and he was like, Grandma, I'm a homosexual.

That's what he said? Yeah. He's seven. Oh, my gosh. And she just smiled at him. She goes, oh, honey, you don't have to be gay to have a Cadillac. So Jamie was, you know, a little different from his peers. But in elementary school, that didn't seem to matter much.

He was just quiet, polite. He got good grades. His home life was definitely not perfect. He was the oldest of three boys, and his parents, Bob and Carol, had an unpredictable relationship. They married and divorced and remarried each other and divorced and remarried each other. Money was always really tight. Bob and Carol didn't graduate from high school, so they mostly worked minimum wage jobs. So, you know, they had these hardships, but it really seems like it was a very loving family. Like, they really looked out for each other. And like I said, Jamie managed to do, you know,

just fine all through elementary school. But then he got to middle school. And suddenly the things that made him a little different from the other boys were not okay. Jamie wasn't into sports. He was a little effeminate. He knew he was gay. And the other kids at Ashland Middle School picked up on it. They started bullying him and mocking him. They called him gay slurs. They said really gross sexual stuff to him. So Jamie complained to his parents that he

was being harassed at school. And so in an effort to protect him, they allowed him to be homeschooled and live with an aunt and uncle who were kind of nearby. Okay. So, you know, Jamie goes to his aunt and uncle's house, and his aunt seemed to really feel awful for him. She hated the fact that he'd been bullied, and so he kind of opened up to her, and he was like, I'm gay. And rather than supporting him, she told him that she didn't approve and then insisted that they begin praying the gay away

oh boy which always works no that's and is not super damaging at all don't worry about it okay great jamie was miserable of course and he away. He ran back to his parents' house. But as soon as Jamie went missing, the aunt called the police and an officer and a social worker were assigned to this case. And those two did a little digging and found out that Jamie had likely run away from his aunt and uncle's house because of their reaction to him coming out of the closet. reaction to him coming out of the closet. So when the officer and social worker showed up at Jamie's house and were sitting there with Carol and Bob and Jamie, they point blank asked Jamie if he was gay. Ugh. Yeah.

And, you know, Jamie's a polite, honest kid. Someone in authority had asked him a direct question and he answered it. He said yes. And his parents broke down sobbing. Luckily, Carol came around pretty quickly. She loved her son and she wasn't really shocked that he was gay. The truth was she'd known Jamie was gay since he was about five. She just said, you know, a mother usually knows these things.

Jamie's dad, Bob, wasn't quite so accepting. He had a really hard time with it, and he insisted that Jamie was going through a phase. Spoiler alert, Jamie is now in his 40s, and he's still in that phase. Oh, my gosh. Get over it already. I think when he hits 50, things are really going to change. So Jamie was out to his family and he could no longer be homeschooled by his aunt and uncle. So he had no choice but to return to Ashland Middle School. And once again, Jamie found himself the target of terrible verbal abuse.

And Jamie found himself the target of terrible verbal abuse. And when no one in a position of authority stood up for him, the bullies just got bolder. Yep. They started throwing things at him. They knocked books out of his hands. As he walked down the hallway to his next class, students would kick him. They'd trip him. They'd spit on him.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It was terrible. What year is this? Uh, we're talking about early 90s. Early 90s. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Jamie knew that what was happening to him was wrong. And because he was a rule follower. I don't know anything about that. I really don't like how you looked at me when you said that. Brandy, this this part made me smile so much because I was like, how would a young Brandy handle this problem? Brandy, what does a young rule follower do in a situation like this? I don't know. I'll tell you what you do.

You go to the student handbook. Uh-huh. And you look up the section on harassment. Okay, that sounds... And it has some guidelines on what you are supposed to do. Okay. And you follow those. What are the guidelines? Okay, you go to the guidance counselor.

Okay, and then what? Well, I'm about to tell you, are the guidelines? Okay. You go to the guidance counselor. Okay. And then what? Well, I'm about to tell you, ma'am. Okay. By the way, fun fact. Did you know that Wisconsin was one of the first states in this very nation to get a statute going that said, hey, schools, you can't discriminate against students on the basis of sexual orientation. Wow. Yeah.

All right. I see you, Wisconsin. That won't fit under a Snapple cap, I'll tell you that. So Jamie read through the handbook and studied the steps. Oh, wait, I got a little ahead of myself. So, you know, he loves the, you know, it's all spelled out right there. Right. Got a little ahead of myself.

So, you know, he loves the, you know, it's all spelled out right there. Right. He told the guidance counselor, Ms. Peterson, that he was being harassed. And she asked him if he was gay. And he said yes. What does that fucking matter? I don't really know. The one thing I'll say is that this guidance counselor did take it very seriously.

And so I guess I just don't see the difference. Are they bullying you and lying about you or bullying you and telling the truth? Does it matter? I mean, I really don't think so. But I mean, if you are part of a protected. I guess that is true. That is true. OK. All right. I'm seeing it I guess that is true. That is true. Okay. All right.

I'm seeing it from the other side now. That makes more sense. And I can also see, like, if you're really genuinely trying to help a kid, then having that information could be helpful. You could, you know, keep an eye on them or look out for them because you know it's going to be tough. Right. At any rate, Ms. Peterson was like, all right all right i will help you and she talked to the students i don't love that he's like being forced to no no it sucks yeah it sucks by multiple people now he's been forced to i mean that's that's one of the amazing things to me is like first of you know, he's not denying it. And he's a kid.

So these adults are asking him this question because he is well-mannered. Yeah. He's like, well, I can't lie. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So the guidance counselor talked to the students who were bullying Jamie and she put two of them in detention. And that stopped the bullying for a little while,

but it definitely wasn't a long-term solution. And shortly after that, Ms. Peterson was replaced by a new guidance counselor. So when the bullying resumed, Jamie went to the new guidance counselor and reported the harassment. And the guidance counselor asked Jamie if he was gay. And Jamie said yes. Right. And the counselor was like, OK. And, you know, once again, this counselor took it seriously. And he was like, you know what? This really seems like something we need to talk about with the principal. The principal is in charge of discipline. And this is definitely rising to that level. So the principal of Ashland Middle School was a woman named Mary Podlesny. And she was responsible, as I said, for discipline. So Jamie went to Principal Podlesny and told her what was happening. And she was like, oh my gosh,

okay, I'll take care of this. I'll put an end to it. But the harassment continued. It was almost as if... She had done nothing. Uh-huh. Yeah, it was almost like she didn't give a shit. Yeah, got him to shut up and got him out of her office and then did nothing. Who cares if a child is being treated terribly? School became hell for Jamie.

He talked to his parents and they started advocating on his behalf. So the sort of funny thing was that Jamie's dad, Bob, had initially struggled with his son being gay. But once he found out that Jamie was being horribly bullied at school, he was like, nope, nope, I'm on your side. We're not doing this. Yeah, we can't treat my kid like that. Fuck right off. Uh-huh.

So Carol and Bob complained to the principal about the harassment that Jamie was experiencing. And every time the school administration would be like, oh, my gosh, yes, absolutely. We will handle this. And then nothing would ever happen. Great. Students tormented Jamie. And the ones who didn't torment him just, you know, stood by laughing or just watched. Jamie could feel his resolve breaking down.

He started wondering, do I deserve this? What's wrong with me? Oh, no. The verbal and physical abuse took a toll on him. He felt completely helpless. He'd done everything he was supposed to do. Yeah. But the school administrators weren't holding up their end of the bargain.

When he got bullied at school, he tried not to show any emotion. He knew that if he did, it would just put a bigger target on his back. So when things were really bad, he'd get home from school, go to his room, shut the door, and cry. He hated going to school. But he didn't have a choice. So he kept going, and the bullying got worse. Okay, so are we ready for this to get even worse? Here we go. Great. What happens next? Okay, so one of the awful things that amplified all of this bullying was that Jamie had been molested by his youth group leader.

The abuse went on for about a year and Jamie kept quiet about it. But then one day, Jamie caught the youth group leader, Nick Rising, attempting to molest one of his younger brothers. Oh, my gosh. And Jamie put a stop to it. He called the police. He told the truth. And as a result, Nick Rising was arrested. He pled guilty to assault.

And he spent a few months in jail. So that's deeply unsatisfying. I mean, there's going to be so many things like that. So that's very upsetting that that's the punishment he got for molesting one child and attempting to molest another. Yeah. But we can at least all agree, I would hope, that what Jamie did was heroic. It was extremely brave. Yes.

But that's not how some of the kids at school saw it. That youth group leader had been so cool. Oh, my gosh. Don't you hate this shit? Yeah. We've talked about this a lot. Yep. How sometimes the predators come across to the kids as, like, the cool one. Yeah. We've talked about this a lot. Yep. How sometimes the predators come across to the kids as like the cool guy.

Yep. Yeah. And Jamie had just ruined it. Oh, my gosh. So that made the target on Jamie even bigger. Mm-hmm. And one day when Jamie was in science class, the teacher stepped out of the classroom momentarily. And these two students, Jason Welty and Roy Grandy, who had been two of his biggest harassers, started messing with him in front of everybody.

One of them whispered to him, you're so cute. We want to go out with you. And the boy started touching his legs and telling him that he liked it. Jamie pushed the boys away, but they wouldn't stop. And finally, Jason Welty grabbed Jamie and pushed him to the floor. And Jason and Roy held Jamie on the ground and performed what the court documents refer to as mock rape. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So they're attacking him.

Uh-huh. And all the while yelling about how much he enjoys it. And they made references to him being molested. Oh, my gosh. And the whole time, like 20 other students were watching and laughing. This is horrible. It is unreal. Oh, my gosh.

Eventually, Jamie was able to push the boys off of him and he ran to the principal's office. He was crying, of course. He had just been assaulted. His shirt was torn. He told Mary Podlesny what had just happened. And she turned it around on him. What? and she turned it around on him.

What? She explained to him that if he was going to insist on being openly gay, then he needed to expect this kind of treatment. What? Yeah. First of all, I've never heard of a mock rape in my entire fucking life. But how does anyone in any position of authority hear that that happened and be like, well... Well, I mean, you're just out here being all gay, so what'd you expect to happen? That is disgusting.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She also expressed her displeasure because he had come to her office, but he did not have an appointment. He was just assaulted. Right. He's asking for help. Yeah. I mean, he was sexually assaulted. Yeah. In a classroom in your school in front of 20 other kids. He's crying and asking for help. And I mean, hey, kid, next time you're assaulted, please make an appointment. Yeah.

And then I can shame you at a scheduled time. It's like that scene in Dangerous Minds. I don't really recall. There's the one student who's gotten, I think his name might be Emilio, but I may have made that up. I don't think that's his name now that I said it. She's losing confidence very quickly here. If only she was talking about her butthole. He stayed at Michelle Pfeiffer's house because

he was worried there was some gang activity and he was worried somebody was looking for him. And so then she told him, just go talk to the principal. Just go talk to the principal. They'll help you out. So he left her house that morning. He went and talked to the principal they'll help you out so he left her house that morning he went and talked to the principal but he got to school but then he like never showed up at school and so michelle pfeiffer goes and talks to the principal and she's like did he come see you this morning he goes yeah and she goes what did you tell him and he goes i sent him away he didn't knock

i have to tell you something. What? This whole time. I have been mistaking in my mind the film that you're referencing. Dangerous Minds, you said? Dangerous Minds, yeah. With the movie Wild Things. Those are very different films.

With Neve Campbell? Yeah. And Matt Dillon? And What's-Her-Face? Denise Richards? Yeah. with nev campbell yeah matt dylan and what's her face denise richard yeah and i was thinking huh that was more of like a sexy film if i do recall i don't remember the part with where the principal gets involved anyway that's terrible it's always sad when a white savior isn't able to do their job so after that you know jamie ran home yeah the next day at school jamie was not allowed to go to class until he talked to the guidance counselor you see he was in trouble why is he in trouble he was assaulted why do you think he was in trouble for not having a fucking appointment oh no because he left class yeah you can't just leave brandy he's in trouble for leaving class are you fucking kidding me yeah he was not allowed to leave the school he ran home after he was assaulted and then the principal refused to help him not only refused to help him i mean was

like you were asking for it yeah also i'm super busy please make an appointment oh my gosh yeah so i'm willing to bet that what happened to Jamie probably trumps any other situation that's going on at school that day. I mean, unless someone was full on raped. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can you believe can you imagine being this stupid as an educator? Right.

No, it's not even that. It's not being Right. No, it's not even that. It's not being stupid. No, it's... It's Jamie just doesn't matter as much as the other students. Jamie doesn't matter at all. Correct. At all.

Yep. I mean, that's what the principal's saying. How fucking evil do you have to be to look... I mean, what are you, 12 in second grade?

Yes. Look at a crying 12 year old and be like wow yeah so he's forced to go to the guidance counselor and you know the guidance counselor i guess is prepared to give him this lecture on like you can't just leave school. But this guidance counselor, unlike the principal, seemed to actually have a couple working brain cells and maybe a moral compass or something. So he starts talking to Jamie and was like, well, you know, kind of what tell me what happened yesterday. So Jamie told him. And Mr. Nowakowski, the guidance counselor, was horrified. He was like, oh, my God. And he immediately went to the principal, Mary Podlesny, and was like, hold on. Do you know what happened to him?

And yada, yada, yada. Jason and Roy, the two boys who mock raped Jamie, were never punished for what they did. Wow. So Jamie had to keep going to school following this exact same schedule, by the way, back to science class you go, evidently, with these students who had assaulted him and all the other students who had watched it happen and done nothing. Jamie was terrified to return to school. Yeah, of course he was. But he had no choice. Yeah. He entered the eighth grade and the harassment continued. One time, Jamie and his younger brother, Corey, were in the bathroom and a group of four boys attacked them. They hit them, knocked the books out of their hands. And when Jamie and Corey told their parents, Carol and Bob were livid.

So they called the school and insisted on having a meeting with the principal and the boys who'd attacked their sons. So they had this meeting. And Roy Grandy, the boy who'd assaulted Jamie the year before and had participated in this latest attack, was there with his brother, Don, who had also participated. And they were there with their mom, Mary Jane. How do you spell Don? D-O-N. Brandy, do you want to explain why you would ask such a question? Apparently, there's some confusion about the case you recently covered regarding a woman named Dawn.

D-A-W-N. Apparently we say the names the same, which we 100% do. Dawn and Dawn. Like, they're pronounced exactly the same to me. Yeah. Other parts of the country do not pronounce them the same, which I'm just having the hardest time understanding. Those people are lying to us. They are absolutely lying to us. They are absolutely

lying to us. Don and Don. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's the same. Yeah. Alright. Okay. The other two boys who attacked Corey and Jamie were there

without their parents. At least I assume. Anyway, not important. Continuing. Okay. So the principal asked the four boys about the attack and the boys all denied it. Of course they did. Jamie was wrong.

Who's making it up? It's Jamie. Always looking for attention. Yeah. Just like him. I bet he gave himself those bru attention. Yeah. Just like him. I bet he gave himself those bruises. Yeah, I'm sure. So they said they hadn't done it, and that was good enough for Mary Podlesny.

I'm sure it was. She said, no shit. Boys will be boys. Fuck right off. boys will be boys. Fuck right off. Anyone who says boys will be boys should not be anywhere near

education. No! No. You are helping raise the worst humans. Mm-hmm. Boys will be boys. They're always assaulting each other in science class and beating each other up in the bathroom. It's hilarious.

If you see one mock rape, you see them all. How fucked up. Seriously. She told Jamie and his parents parents once again you know for the people in the back that if jamie was going to insist on being openly gay then he should expect this kind of treatment i don't even have like i don't even know what to say to that because it's I don't even know what to say to that because it's so fucking terrible. Yeah.

This kid is just trying to exist. Right. As himself. Right. And you are refusing to offer him even the most basic protection. Yeah. And where does it protection. Yeah. And where does it end? Exactly.

So this cycle continued. Jamie would get harassed. He and his parents would go to the principal and say, here's what's happening. Here's who's doing it. You know, it's like it's all laid out for you if you want to do anything. And the principal would say she'd handle it and then she wouldn't do shit. Yeah. Bob later said, we begged, we pleaded, we screamed.

We were in that office so many times. And every time we walked out, they said, we'll take care of it. We'll take care of it. And they didn't. They estimate that they met with Mary Podlesny seven to eight times over the course of two years. I'm not talking phone calls. I'm talking face-to-face meetings. I mean, at what point do you go above her? Who do you – the superintendent?

Do you contact the school board? Do you – I mean – You contact – What? I was going to say the media, but then you're forcing your son to become the poster child for maybe something he has no interest in being the poster child for. Right. I think it's really, really hard because, okay, so you're having to factor in the time period.

Because you're right. Like if this were to come out now. Yeah. I think absolutely the solution is I'm going to the superintendent. I'm going to the school board and I'm letting every fucking media outlet. No. Yeah. Yeah. And it will end badly. Yeah. Oh, gosh. My assumption, and I could be totally wrong, you know, Jamie's a rule follower. I think Bob and Carol kind of were, too. Yeah. And so they kept going again and again to the person who's in the highest position of authority. Right. You know, the other thing I'm thinking about now is like Google wasn't around to figure out like, OK, well, who do I go to next? Yeah, I don't know. Finally, Jamie decided he couldn't do this anymore.

He'd be going to school with these kids until he was 18 years old, and that felt like an eternity. Yeah. So he attempted to die by suicide. I mean, thank God he survived. His parents rushed him to the hospital. Carol was heartbroken. She said it had never even occurred to her that a child would even think of suicide. After that, Jamie was able to finish out his eighth grade year at a local Catholic school,

which ironically was, I guess, way more gay friendly than the Ashland School District. But I know the look you're giving me. No, I think this other place, like, you weren't allowed to harass the shit out of another student. Yeah. Imagine. Imagine. Yeah. What a concept.

But that school only went up to the eighth grade. So when his freshman year of high school rolled around, Jamie had to go to Ashland High School, back with all the kids who'd tormented him. He was a little optimistic. He hoped that maybe in high school he'd blend in a little bit more. But just a few weeks into his freshman year, Jamie was using the restroom, standing at the urinal, and a group of boys walked in. Jamie knew this was bad, but he just tried to ignore them.

Tried to ignore him. And all of a sudden, one of the boys, Stephen Huntley, came up behind him and pushed his knee into the back of Jamie's knee. And so Jamie fell forward into the urinal. Yeah. And Roy Grandy, who was at that point standing at the urinal next to him, turned and urinated on Jamie. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Jamie went directly to the principal's office.

This was a different school, different principal. Surely there'd be a different outcome. Jamie told the office administrator what had just happened to him. He wanted to speak to the principal, but that wasn't possible. The principal was out of the office. By the way, the assistant principal, Thomas Blauert, who was in charge of discipline, saw Jamie coming into the office that day. He's covered in urine. Distraught, obviously.

But Tom was evidently pretty busy, too busy to deal with this. So, Jamie told the office administrator what had just happened. And she called the principal, told him the story. And Principal William Davis offered the following solution. What do you think the solution is to this problem, Brandy? Oh, Lord, I don't know. Stop going to the bathroom at school. The solution was

go home and change your clothes. Great. Un-fucking-believable. What about the boys that did this to him right right are you allowed to just knock someone down in the bathroom and urinate on them are you fucking kidding me oh just change your clothes jamie called his dad and bob came and picked him up. But Jamie said he didn't want to talk about what had happened.

I don't blame him. I cannot fucking imagine. No, I can't either. He eventually did tell him a few weeks later. He was talking to his parents about why he was so depressed. And he, you know, finally told them what had happened in the bathroom. And he, you know, finally told them what had happened in the bathroom. So Bob and Carol scheduled a meeting with Principal William Davis and Assistant Principal Thomas Blauert. And at that meeting, Carol and Bob told the administrators that, you know, this is part of a horrible pattern of behavior.

It needs to stop. But these two guys did nothing to punish the boys. It was kind of the same as the middle school principal. It was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we will take care of it. Yep, yep. The one thing they did do was they referred Jamie to the school guidance counselor in the hopes that maybe the guidance counselor could change Jamie's schedule so that he wouldn't have to spend quite so much time around the boys who'd attacked him. Mm-hmm.

So that really didn't do much of anything because he was most vulnerable in bathrooms, in the hallway. Passing periods, yes. Before school, after school. Yeah. That's when he was the most vulnerable. So without any real help, Jamie had to get creative. This poor kid's probably being forced to go to gym class, too, and like change into a fucking uniform. Oh, my God. too and like you know what's funny oh my god now i i saw in some of the court documents just that

he had been harassed in jim which is like yes yeah but no i cannot fucking imagine in the locker room what he went through so jamie had to kind of come up with his own, like, survival skills. Yeah. He would take as many books with him as possible everywhere he ran to his classes. Which, when I read that, do you remember in high school there were a couple of guys who got picked on a lot now and i remember they would have their backpacks super full and they'd run during passing periods and i never understood what they were doing yeah but that's what they were doing 100 that is so fucking sad yeah no i never put that together either no and i remember we'd see them and be like, what the hell?

Yeah. Like, why are they running? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. No. I just ruined people's day because now everybody's thinking about that. Yes. He told the home economics teacher, Nina Anderson, what happened to him in the school bathroom.

And since she had a private bathroom in her classroom, she was like, you can just use this. You know, whenever you need to go to the bathroom, just come in here. So, I mean, it's funny. It's like you read that and you're like, oh, thank God. But, I mean, that's the lowest bar. Here's another one. In the ninth grade, a teacher got mad at him in class and called him a gay slur and told him to leave. What? And the whole class laughed at him.

Fuck that teacher. Oh, my gosh. How did they not lose their fucking job? Who would care? Principal doesn't care. Holy shit. Assistant principal doesn't care. I'm sure that teacher looked so cool in front of all the other students.

Yeah. At one point, Jamie was moved into a special education class. The logic was that he'd be more protected since he'd stay in the same classroom every day. But two of his biggest tormentors, Stephen Huntley and Roy Grandy, were special education students. So now he's just in a room with them, with the biggest douchebags. Jamie's parents kept meeting with the school administrators. They estimated that over the course of his freshman year of high school, they met with Principal William Davis and Assistant Principal Tom Blauert three or four times in person. Each time, the administrators promised they'd put an end to the harassment, and each time they did jack shit.

So, once again, Jamie attempted to die by suicide. Oh, my gosh. Afterward, Carol and Bob sent Jamie to live with relatives so that he could attend a different school. But the uncle Jamie was sent to live with ended up being super homophobic. So Jamie couldn't live there. And he was just in this terrible place where, like, he loved his parents. He wanted to live with his parents, but he didn't think he would survive. He literally thought he would not survive if he went back to Ashland High School. So he ran away from home.

He left a note instructing his parents not to look for him. But, you know, Carol and Bob freaked the fuck out. Of course. They were worried sick about him, but they also knew their son pretty well. And they were like, OK, if he's running away from home, he's got to be going to Minneapolis because there are gay people in Minneapolis. And they were right. That's exactly where Jamie was. And that's exactly why he'd gone there. Are there like more gay people in Minneapolis than in Ashland? Yeah, I mean, yeah, obviously.

No, it's just funny to me. Like, it's not like some gay hub I'm unaware of. No, it's just funny to me. It's not like some gay hub I'm unaware of. I mean, it might be. I just think it's probably the biggest city in quite a way. So, yeah. It's just kind of funny to me that they knew him so well. Minneapolis is about four hours from Ashland and is famously a gay hub.

I think that's so impressive that his parents knew him well enough to know where he would go. Oh, they knew exactly where he was. Yeah. So Carol and Bob packed their bags, drove down. And man, they put up missing person posters all over town. Bus stops, coffee shops, every light pole. Bam. They put up so person posters all over town. Bus stops, coffee shops, every light pole. Bam. They put up so many posters that Jamie actually saw the posters and then had to avoid the posters because he didn't want to like stand next to one and have someone be like, hey, that's you. Jamie eventually landed at a youth shelter where he met a social worker named TC Large Espada.

And Jamie really stood out to TC because in their professional experience, a child who is running away from home is either running to something or away from their parents. Yeah. And Jamie was unique in that he wasn't really doing either of those things. He had nowhere to go. And he actually loved his parents. He was just in danger. Yeah. Okay, so ironically, on the same day that TC met Jamie, Carol and Bob called the youth shelter looking for Jamie.

You know, they're just freaking out. Desperate to find their son. So TC went to Jamie and was like, hey, your parents called. And Jamie was like, OK, look, I will talk to them, but I'm not going back to that school. He literally didn't think he would make it. Yeah. If he went back to that school. So the social worker facilitated a meeting between Jamie and his parents,

and they all cried and hugged. And Carol promised him, if you come home with us, we will not send you back to that high school. We will find alternative education for you. And Jamie said, okay. Yeah. And afterward, TC was like, really? You changed your mind?

You were so certain. And Jamie said, I can't see my mom like this. TC said in the documentary, he was torn between saving his own life and not breaking his parents' heart. Nobody should have to make that decision. Seriously. So Jamie went back home, but Carol and Bob couldn't find alternative education for Jamie. I said earlier, neither of them had graduated from high school, so they couldn't homeschool Jamie. And they tried to get him in with another local family that was homeschooling their kids. But that fell through. And I want to say there was like a private school, but it was a fundamentalist Christian school.

And finally, the Department of Social Services intervened and said that Jamie had to go back to Ashland. Oh, my gosh. By this point, Carol and Bob and the kids had moved in with either Carol or Bob's parents, I wasn't sure which set. So that meant they were further away from school, which meant that when the 10th grade rolled around, Jamie had to ride the bus. Oh, great. That's going to be wonderful for him.

Yeah. Kids threw nuts and bolts at him on the bus. Oh, my gosh. Yes. They said terrible things to him. And eventually, Jamie told his parents, I'm not riding the bus anymore. No. And they asked him why.

And he was like, OK, well, here's what's happening to me on the bus. Ma'am, do you need a coffee? No, I'm just fine. Sorry. I actually have terrible heartburn. Oh, no. And so it's making me, like, sit funny. We're just making me yawn.

I'm sorry. Bleh. Look at you and your little stretchies. So his parents called the school, and the school's solution was to have Jamie sit in the front of the bus with the elementary school students. But when he did that, the older kids told the elementary school kids that Jamie was a child molester. Holy shit. By the way, the driver heard all of this and did nothing. Right.

Cool, cool, cool. Because why would you want to put an end to talk like that? Yeah, no kidding. So Jamie stopped taking the bus. He walked the two and a half miles to school every day. And in the wintertime, that was really terrible. Yeah. But kind of like he did earlier, he started developing more skills.

Kind of like he did earlier, he started developing more skills. He decided he needed to get to school super early and find a place to hide with his books. And he'd wait for the bell to ring and he'd run to class. After school let out, he'd wait for about 20 or 30 minutes before he actually left. At that point, activities would have started or people would have otherwise left and he would walk home. He also found a teacher that he really liked. She was in her second year of teaching and she looked out for him. He asked her if he could eat his lunch in her classroom and she said sure. And she talked to him a bit and when she learned about kind of what he was going through, she went to the assistant principal, Thomas Blauert.

She told Tom that Jamie was getting harassed, and Tom said, what do you expect when you hit on the whole hockey team? What? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, my gosh. Yep. Yeah, that's what this kid is doing.

Right. Yeah, okay. Also, if you do hit on the whole hockey team, does that mean... No! No! No, that's the thing! Even if he had done that, like... Yeah, this guy's a piece of shit.

Oh, my gosh. The high school guidance counselor, Lynn Hansen, was in Jamie's corner. She was incredibly frustrated by the fact that the principal and assistant principal were doing nothing to help Jamie. Yeah. She tried to get the administration to discipline the boys who were tormenting Jamie, and they just wouldn't. In the meantime, though, kids were getting disciplined right and left. For example, that boy who urinated on Jamie got suspended for calling his girlfriend a bad name.

Calling his girlfriend a bad name. Mm-hmm. He got in trouble for smoking on campus. Mm-hmm. Kids were getting in trouble for name calling, all kinds of stuff. But not to Jamie because Jamie doesn't matter. Right. In the 10th grade. And Jamie's just out here asking for it.

Right. Right. Hiding. Yeah. Right. Hiding. Yeah. Terrified. Yeah. But yeah, for sure asking for it. Mm-hmm.

In the 10th grade, Jamie once again attempted to die by suicide. And afterward, he was forced to return to high school. Oh my gosh. This is infuriating. Yeah. It's awful. It's absolutely awful. What happens?

Who helps him? You're going to be waiting a while on that. Jamie got to school early one morning, like usual. His plan was to go to the library and just study before class, you know, kind of tuck himself away in there. But the librarian wasn't there yet. So he just sat in the hallway outside the library. And a group of eight boys, led by Stephen Huntley, approached him. Stephen Huntley called Jamie a name and kicked the books out of Jamie's hands. Stephen told Jamie he wanted to fight. And Jamie was like, I'm not going to fight you.

And Stephen said, well, if you're not going to fight me, then I'll just kick the shit out of you. And Jamie went to pick up his books and Stephen kicked him in the stomach. Stephen was wearing cowboy boots. Stephen kicked Jamie for anywhere from five to ten minutes as the other boys cheered. Right. He told Jamie if he said anything about what he'd done, he'd kill him. The only thing that stopped the attack was that the librarian arrived and turned on the lights and the boys just scattered. Jamie was able to call his parents. He was terrified to tell anyone what happened, so he didn't.

He just said he felt sick, which was true. He felt terrible. His stomach hurt for the next three days, so he stayed out of school. And eventually when he went back, he told Lynn Hansen, the guidance counselor, what happened. And she was horrified. She set up a meeting with the school's police liaison, a guy named Dan Crawford, and Jamie told Dan that he wanted to press charges. And Dan was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, calm down.

Yeah. I'll take care of the boys. I'll make sure they don't do this again. I'll take care of the boys. I'll make sure they don't do this again. According to court records, the boys did get some sort of minor punishment. But the main ringleaders, Stephen Huntley, Roy Grandy, and Ryan Goulon, continued to torment Jamie. As part of that process, the police liaison had Jamie talk to the assistant principal, Tom Blauert. In fact, over the course of 10th and 11th grade, Jamie had to talk to Tom Blauert three or four times. And during one of these talks, I'm not sure which one, Tom laughed at him.

He told Jamie, well, if you're going to be gay, this kind of stuff's going to happen to you. Oh, my gosh. Mm-hmm. Jamie endured the next couple weeks in constant pain. What? Do these people that keep telling him that, do they have, do they think this is a choice that he is making? Here's what I bet. I bet you they think it's a choice for sure and if they think that if if it isn't a choice then he just needs to hide it and he shouldn't flaunt it and you know he should deny it blah

blah you know either way it's all his fault oh lord by the way the wildest thing i mean all these people are still out there doing their thing. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Probably listening to this podcast. I fucking hope they are. Honest to God, I don't really think, what? No, don't try to warn me, Brandy.

Oh, no, I'm not warning you. What I'm saying is, like, nobody with these views in this case is listening to this podcast. Um, but I wonder if you're Googling yourself or wanting to hear. Okay, sure, sure. They could come across this podcast. No, no, they're not fans of the podcast. But they might oopsies stumble upon it. Uh-huh. Let me tell you, Brandy.

You got a message to send? I went on a real deep dive. Uh-huh. I didn't do so well these last couple days. Yeah. Because the funny thing is, like, this is not, like, a super long story. I mean, it kind of is long, but, like, I guess it's been a while since... Well, no, I'm going to...

We'll talk about it at the end. Okay. Goodness gracious. I know. I know. I know. So Jamie endured the next couple weeks in constant pain. And finally, one day, he was at school, and the pain got so bad that he collapsed.

He had to be taken from the school by an ambulance. Jamie had to have exploratory abdominal surgery and it turned out he had internal bleeding of course he did which let me fucking tell you is terribly painful now he was in the hospital for five days is this enough? does this get somebody's attention? Now, he was in the hospital for five days. Is this enough?

Does this get somebody's attention? What do you think? Probably not. Can you imagine? No. A kid is taken away in an ambulance because of something that happened on your watch. Yeah. From kids who you knew had been targeting him for years.

Oh, well. He shouldn't have hit on the whole hockey team. Yeah. Right? Right. Right. At this point, Jamie was like, I'm never going back to that school. No, never. He said, if I do, it'll kill me. Yeah, I will die. Yeah. I will not survive it. He decided he needed to leave. That was terrible for his parents. Carol was devastated. She didn't want to be separated from her child. I mean, he's still like 16 at this point, maybe 17. But she feared that keeping him in Ashland would mean that, yeah, he'd either die by suicide or at the hands of some total shithead. My words, not hers.

Thank you for that clarification. Carol really let loose. Bob later said that he understood why Jamie didn't want to go back to school, but he felt strongly that Jamie should stick it out. See, this is kind of what I mean about rule following people. Yeah. No, absolutely. Like there are always those people who are like, you should never quit anything. And no, sometimes.

Sometimes you have to. Sometimes you should. So this is huge. Bob and Carol and Jamie met with the high school guidance counselor, Lynn Hansen, and she basically told them, look, I have taken this as far as I can go. The district won't do anything about this. The administration won't do anything about this. It probably is best to find alternative education for Jamie. And if that means he has to leave Ashland, then that's probably best. Oh my gosh. Yeah. The guidance counselor has to say that. Right. So they did. They let him go. Carol said we had to let him go.

And that was probably one of the hardest things I had to do as a mother. It was probably one of the hardest things I had to do as a mother. So Jamie moves to Minneapolis. But his life wasn't easy. He had horrible depression. He had anxiety. Yeah, and what? He's living on his own in Minneapolis?

I think he went into foster care and was eventually placed with a gay couple. Yeah, I mean, but like that. He loved his family. Yeah. There are a lot of silver linings about this. And one of the things was that he was able to get support and resources that he hadn't had before. He went to counseling and got diagnosed with PTSD. Obviously.

Obviously. I mean, he spent, what, four years of his life feeling like he would be attacked at any minute. He got his GED. One day, about three years after he left Ashland, he was at the Minneapolis Gay Community Center and he met a legal advocate. And he told her everything that had happened to him at Ashland schools. By the way, he was still having random stomach pains, random episodes of vomiting because, hmm. Yeah, lasting effects of that abuse that he suffered. Yeah. What would the legal advocate say?

She's like, file a lawsuit, my dude. Yeah, fucking sue the pants off that school. Mm-hmm. So Jamie was a little. Literally get the principal's pants. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yes.

Although that would not be enough. Well, no. What we need to do is torture this man for four years and tell him, hey, if you want to stop, you just just come see me in my office. Yeah. And then be like, hey, if you want to stop, you just come see me in my office. Yeah. And then be like, oh, no. You shouldn't have been out here all being a principal if you didn't want this to happen to you. You little slutty principal. I just have a feeling he was slutty. Okay, great.

I was going to say, I hadn't picked up any context clues that led me to believe that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think I know. You saw the documentary. You know. So Jamie was apprehensive at first about a lawsuit. Yeah.

But he talked to his parents about it, and his mom was like, no, you have to do it. Yeah. She said, if you have to do it. Yeah. She said, if you don't do this, it's going to keep happening to more gay kids. And so later he was talking about it. He's like, you know, so with a touch of Catholic guilt, you know, my mom basically makes it like, oh, not only is this something you need to do, you're letting down all the kids. Yeah. It was kind of cute.

So he hired a lawyer named Ray Randolph. I thought you were going to say Ray Romano and I got so excited. And he was like, Debra! And Jamie was like, are you qualified for this? He was like, no, but everybody loves me. Oh, boy. he was like no but everybody loves me oh boy everyone if you could see how much she loved that joke so much so much so wait what was the lawyer's actual name i'm sorry well unfortunately it was ray randolph okay It was Ray Randolph. Oh, okay. Yeah. But rumor has it that when Jamie went into Ray's office, Ray was watching Everybody Loves Raymond on TV. Yeah, so he comes back around.

But Ray wouldn't turn it off for the meeting, which I find unprofessional. He'd turn the volume down at least. Here's the thing. These were the days of must-see TV. And so once you miss it, you're screwed. Done. Appointment television, as it were. Anyway, Ray had experience with harassment suits.

So Ray filed the suit in federal court. Everybody. That's our dance for federal court, Brandi. Yeah, okay. Sure. Ready for some justice. Are you? That was court, Brandi. Yeah, okay. Sure. Ready for some justice. Are you? That was not rhetorical.

Oh, sorry. Yes, I'm ready. Yeah. Bring on the justice. Big truckload of it. Beep, beep. It's not happening, is it? Backing up over the principals and assistant principal and the schools.

Okay, tell us. I'm not really backing. It's a metaphorical trip. I didn't want to sound threatening to these douchebags. I just want them to feel badly about themselves. You know? Oh, my God. I'm sorry.

I got so excited. I started coughing. Real wild times. We're out of here, folks. All right. So, please stop stalling. Uh-huh. And calm down. What happens with the justice?

Here comes the justice. Big and beefy. Everyone, I'm moving my shoulders kind of slowly like a what would you say i don't know superhero no what superhero does that i don't watch a lot of superhero movies i'm feeling very powerful because i represent justice right now marching toward you. I thought you represented the lollipop guild. I do look like I'm doing really basic choreography very poorly. I represent the lollipop guild. The lollipop guild.

The lollipop guild. Oh, we're a little off there. How embarrassing. We were doing it so well. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay. Can you continue? Ma'am, are you on the edge of your seat?

I am. I'm about to fall out of it. This seat has wheels. It does have wheels. Indeed. You ever worry about that when you're, like, leaning forward in a seat that has wheels that, like, is going to pop out from behind you? Do ever worry about that when you're like leaning forward in a seat that has wheels that like no it's gonna pop out from behind you do you worry yeah has that ever happened to you before then i don't think so what do you mean i don't think you would remember right i feel like i'd probably remember slid out from under you yeah I think that's a reasonable thing to be worried about, though.

You do or don't? I do. No. I've never heard of that happening to anybody. Okay, you never been, okay, you never, you know, got yourself on the edge of seat,

you're kind of leaning forward. Actually, that happened to my grandma one time and it was very traumatizing for all of us. What? We remember in my kitchen growing up. What?

When I saw the light flick on behind your eyes, the last thing I thought you would say is that happened to my grandma. Well, here's the thing. If it happens to, like, a young person and they pop up. Yeah, it's funny. Exactly. Not to a grandma. Anyway, you remember my kitchen? Yeah.

They had the rolly chairs. Yes, I remember the chairs. Well, I feel like my fear started in those chairs. So maybe you fell out of one of those chairs. Maybe I did. Just like my grandma yeah but because you were a child i was a sprightly 10 year old right back up freaking grandma stayed on the ground for a minute i used to laugh that you acted like this was the most ridiculous thing ever.

And then you're like, that did happen to my grandma. You know, I'm very sorry. Here was the problem. I was thinking exclusively of office chairs. Yeah. But then I remembered sometimes non-office chairs have wheels. They do. And like, I have a tendency

to kind of move around in my seat and, you know, lean forward. You know what I always say? If you're gonna move around in your seat like that, then this is the kind of thing that'll happen to you. Chairs will be chairs, Brandy. Think on that. I don't think this is going to happen to you. Chairs will be chairs, Brandy.

Think on that. I will. Won't you? I will. The next time you wiggle your butt all over a chair. You're looking at me now like maybe I should move on with my story. I think maybe you should. We're waiting for justice.

Oh, okay. Also, does it concern you at all that I've been talking for nearly an hour and a half and you just now saw the light go on behind my eyes? I was telling this story on autopilot. No, you weren't. No, I wasn't. You're telling it wonderfully. Thank you.

You're welcome. Kind of boobily, huh? Very boobily. Anyhow, yeah, lawsuit, federal court, justice. I'm doing the shoulder thing again, but I've taken your notes. I'm not doing it quite so lollipop gild. Okay, great. I can tell from your eyes that I'm not doing it well yet.

That's correct. Devastating. Anyway, they also brought the lawsuit against specific administrators. Oh, yeah. Middle school principal, Mary Podlesny. Yeah. Yay. Yay.

High school principal, William Davis. Yay. Yay. High school principal William Davis. Yay. Assistant principal Tom Blauert. Yay. B-L-A-U-E-R-T. Blauert? Sure.

All right. Butthole? How are we pronouncing that? Yeah. They sued them for violating Jamie's constitutional right to equal protection. Yeah. So this lawsuit alleged they didn't protect Jamie because he was gay. And he'd also been treated differently on the basis of his sex.

Because if a girl had received this treatment, the school would have disciplined the offenders. The attorney for the school district was a guy named Timothy Janicek, and he immediately tried to get the case thrown out. He argued that basically the claim had no merit. The administrators hadn't harassed Jamie. They had never endorsed the harassment. So why was everyone mad at them? No, but they'd done nothing to protect him and nothing to end the harassment. So why was everyone mad at them? No, but they'd done nothing to protect him and nothing to end the harassment. They are the administrators. That's their fucking job.

Brandy, these are good hard working folks. Okay. And you seem hysterical. The case went in front of Judge Did I say Judge? Judge. That's a judge who The case went in front of Judge John. Did I say? Judge.

Judge. Judge. That's a judge who jogs into court every day. Does he smell a little funky? I thought it was like a judge who brought their dog to court every day. Oh, that'd be wonderful. I guess it depends on the dog. Yeah. Most dogs would be good.

I like the idea of kind of a bitchy little dog sitting up there. Yeah. It's got like a little bed up on the bench. You know what I like even better is the idea of a cat. Oh, yeah. But cats are so. What? I know.

But then we're getting into like weird, like super villain territory with like a judge stroking their cat from the bench what if the judge is not allowed to touch the cat would that make you more comfortable ma'am is there a reason you're not moving forward in this I'm sorry. I'm starting. Here's the truth. I. That whole first part where we're dealing with the harassment and everything. Is so terrible. Is so terrible.

I was like, boom, boom, boom. Let's get through it. I fucking hate this. And now. Yeah. We're going to taste some justice. Okay. And so I'm relaxing a little bit.

All right. I don't mind telling you. Oh, what's this? I would like to put on some lip gloss. Oh, for fuck's sake. The people want me looking good, Brandy, on this podcast. What kind of lip gloss you got there? I, um, okay. I bought this from Costco.

Of course. The lid popped off. I was going to say, it looks weird. So you just have, I'm going to guess, like a gold cap that went over that little nubby part. And one time it just fell off. You just went too hard. I went too hard on my lip gloss. And yeah, it's called Real Her, which I had never heard of that brand.

Not heard of it since. No. Probably no longer a thing. But I'm going to use it until it's done. Okay. Do you do that? Yeah. You probably go bad before you use it up.

Go bad? Yes, ma'am. What do you think? You think germs aren't fucking getting in there every time you use it? Not on my mouth. You just touch it directly to your lips. Well, how quickly are you throwing out lip products? I mean, I'm not throwing them out as often as I should.

So you're part of the problem. That's exactly. Yes, I'm what they call a hypocrite. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, how long? I think they're only good for like a year. You don't throw them out after a year.

I probably don't use them again after a year. And I throw it out like five years later when it's in the back of my drawer. Yeah, me too. Okay. Okay. You know what I was just thinking about the other day? What? You know what I was just thinking about the other day?

What? When I got my makeup done for my wedding, which was nearly 10 years ago, the makeup artist gave me like a little nub to use for the rest of the day. Don't judge me. You still have it? You still have it? I still have it. You still use it? No, because it's very special.

So I was like, I'll only use this on special occasions. And the other day I was sitting there thinking, like, I probably can't use it. Like, I should have just used it. Because now it's not good. Don't give me that face. You know, sometimes when I get vulnerable and I say these things to you, your eyes become little black holes. You're like a little

rat pulling my things away. What? You're a little rat? Little rats take little bits of string and shit into their nest. That's you. I might need this someday. Look at this beautiful string. That is me.

That's enough. My goodness. Yes. Oh my goodness. Anyhow, I guess I'll get back to this case after I was just called a sexy little rat. The sexiest little rat. Your little rat has, okay, big gold hoops, curly red hair. That sounds like a hideous rat. No, super.

It's just got big lashes. Okay. red hair. That sounds like a hideous rat. No. Super. It's just got big lashes. Okay. Very cute. Very cute. Very sassy rat. Uh-huh. With quite a little nasty collection.

Mm-hmm. I'm picturing you animated, by the way. Of course. Okay. Of course. Okay. And just poppin' lips

with lip gloss on them. Uh-huh. Yeah. Is the lip gloss old? I'll never tell. Yes. Everyone knows. I'll never tell because I don't have to.

So this case went in front of Judge, oh, that's what I was trying to say. Judge John Shabazz. Shabazz? Shabazz. S-H-A-B-A-Z. I'm probably Shabazz, but I like Shabazz. He sounds like a really cool, just casual dude. You ready for just a casual story about him?

Sure. Well, one time a guy had a heart attack in the judge's courtroom, and the judge was like, all right, can we get him out of here and keep this moving? Yikes. That sounds terrifying. So he would be the one overseeing this case. Great. And in October of 1995, the judge sided with the school district.

Throw it out. The judge sided with the school district. Throw it out. He was like, yep, there's no evidence here that suggests that Jamie was treated differently because of his sex. Case dismissed. Fucking what? The funny thing about that is the judge didn't even address the issue of whether Jamie had been treated differently because he was gay? Don't ask, don't rule.

And so are you OK, ma'am? You look like you've frozen in time. I feel like I've frozen in time. Holy shit. OK, so now they're going to appeal. They're going to take it all the way to the Supreme Court. Well, don't skip any steps now. We're at the district court level, ma'am. To the appellate court.

The appellate court's going to be like, actually we think it's just fine too. No problems here. And so then they have to go to the state Supreme Court. Oh no, they already filed in federal. So they get to go all the way to the top. It goes all the way to the top! Boy. That was amazing to watch you get some stuff wrong and ping pong back to some stuff that was right. But overall, be wrong.

How's it feel? Okay. I wouldn't know. So Jamie decided to appeal, and for the appeal, he got new attorneys. This time he went through Lambda Legal. Lambda Legal is the oldest and largest national legal organization whose mission is to achieve full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people. Oh, God, I'm nothing like you. You can just take one big breath and read a whole page.

Just take one big breath and read a whole page. And everyone living with HIV through impact litigation, education, and public policy work. And I am not reading that directly from a website. I have it tattooed on my tit. Including the bit about how I had to stop for a breath. Your tits are big. Exactly. That's how you know I'm not lying about it. That's right. So in March of 1996, attorneys Patricia Logue and David Buckle took the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Court. Wait, is it Circuit? I don't know. It's fine. Is it fine?

Yeah. So you'd call it court city and not circuit city? That'd be so fucking confusing. The words aren't interchangeable, ma'am. How dare you? Anyway, what'd the appellate court say? Well, hang on. First they have to argue in front of a three-judge panel.

A three-panel judge. That's right. of a three-judge panel. Okay, a three-panel judge. That's right. Patricia detailed the abuse that Jamie suffered, and she talked about examples of how students were disciplined for other less serious infractions. She said,

We're talking about four years of abuse, daily abuse, clearly escalating in severity with the ages of the abusers. Then, okay, are we ready for the dramatic moment? She pointed over at the defendant's table and she said, the abuse occurred on their school grounds and on their watch. They had the power to stop it, but those bitches never did. Last part, I added. Okay.

But in fairness, I know what she was thinking. She was for sure thinking that. So her argument was simple it's unconstitutional to deny protection to someone just because they're gay yes yes the school district's attorney tim mianachek what he had to say well first of all can you imagine you're hearing all this abuse and you're like, oh, God, I've got to defend these people. So he had to be like, oh, my, that abuse sure is bad. We can all agree on that, right? We don't like that.

But, hey, hey, hey, don't do this, baby. Don't blame the administrators for the actions of a few students. Blame the students. Blame this kid for being so gay. Also, the Constitution doesn't protect gay people. We've been over this. What? Think about the consequences of your actions. If you overturn this decision, it'll mean that anyone who ever gets called a name

could sue the school and it would bankrupt like every school district ever. Is that what you want? Bankrupt schools? I mean, if it keeps kids from getting abused, maybe. Also, no, it's not going to be everyone who gets called a name gets to sue the... Come on, man. Also, why do you have to make it so creepy and sexual? Am I right?

Ultimately, the three-judge panel unanimously agreed that the district court judge had erred. Good. That is surprising. Okay, great. So now he's going to send it back down to the district court and they're going to be like, just fucking kidding. The appellate court got it wrong. We still hate you because you're gay.

And he said that with a cat. While stroking his cat. So I was right. And people were like, he's not supposed to touch that cat. We knew this could happen. It was a slippery slope just letting the cat in here. Brandy tried to warn us.

I did. So this was huge. They had applied the equal protection clause to sexual orientation in schools. That had never happened before. That is huge. In their opinion, they wrote, and I love this, we are unable to garner any rational basis for permitting one student to assault another based on the victim's sexual orientation.

Fucking yes! Exactly! Yeah. In other words, discrimination based on sexual orientation is wrong. Now, why don't we take this thing to trial and figure out if that's what happened. And then they all did this dance. Great. And legal. I'm sorry. Lambda legal.

I'm sorry. Lambda legal. You know what they did? They were like, OK, yes, let's do that. But just one second. While we hire this really big deal hotshot lawyer from Chicago who's really good at litigating cases. Okay, who is this? By the way, litigating is all one word. You don't have to pause.

Is this someone we know? I mean, do you know David Springer? Not personally, no. Okay, so he was, like I said, really big deal lawyer. And he agreed to take this case partly because he was HIV positive and he'd spent most of his career advocating for corporations. Wow. And so this opportunity to lobby on behalf of this young gay kid was very appealing. Even though we all know that corporations are people too, so I don't get it.

So Jamie's legal team prepared for trial, and they were a little nervous because the jury pool would be coming from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Uh-huh. Is that how you say it? Eau Claire, which is not a booming metropolis. So in an effort to get the... Is this E-A-U? Yeah, it sure is. Eau Claire.

Eau Claire. How do we get the best jury out of you? They decided that their tactic would be to ask each juror two questions. What are the two questions? Number one, are you gay? Uh-huh. Number two, do you know someone, literally anyone, who is gay? Uh-huh.

And wow, oh wee, they wound up with a jury of seven people and four, count them, four of those people knew a gay person. Wow. To them, that was a really good victory. What? Okay. No, I mean, like, you know. I mean, it's something. Yeah.

By the way, if you're wondering why there were only seven jurors, please remember that this is federal court. And in federal court, we refer to seven jurors as a federal court's dozen. Hold for laughter. Stupid. Nobody calls it that. Hold for applause. Continue on. I have to hold for laughter.

Otherwise, they will miss this part of the story. Some people, that was so sophisticated, they didn't quite get it at first. Yeah, right. It's a real Dixon cider moment. All right, calm down. The trial only lasted two days. That was a disgusting joke you made. And I was so classy that I didn't get it for many, many days after. In his opening arguments, Jamie's attorney argued that the school administrators had failed Jamie.

Every time they failed to stop the harassment, the harassment got worse. But the school district's attorney, Tim Janicek, said in his opening remarks that all the school administrators were very good people. They all worked very hard. They had a lot of students to care for. And frankly, they didn't even remember Jamie. Uh-huh. So they certainly didn't remember that he was gay. Okay.

They also didn't remember Jamie's parents. They were so busy being good administrators that they oopsies forgot about the kid who was urinated on in their school and kicked so violently that he had to have exploratory surgery and who met with them many times to discuss the abuse. Yeah. Didn't recall. Yeah. That's. Slipped their minds. Yeah, great.

Okay. That's legit, the argument they went with? Can you believe that? No. I don't remember this kid? Yeah. Well, my God, who do you remember? Yeah, no kidding.

If you don't remember that. One of the first witnesses was Jamie's mom, Carol. She testified about the meetings she had with school administrators. But did those really take place? Who knows, right? She talked about the meeting with middle school principal Mary Podlesny, who told her that if Jamie was going to act so openly gay, he had to expect that kind of stuff to happen. One very big moment in this trial was when one of Jamie's abusers was called to the stand. It was Roy Grandy.

And he was actually in prison at the time. Oh, yeah. For assault. So he testified in his orange jumpsuit. And he had nothing to hide because he wasn't the one in trouble. Yeah, he's not on trial. So he talked at length and in detail about what he and his friends put Jamie through.

He talked about how he'd been disciplined by school administrators for other things he did, but that he was never suspended or even criticized for physically and verbally attacking Jamie. Okay, that's kind of nuts. Not that that's what happened because we already knew that that's what happened. But that he's on the stand. Oh, it's wild.

Yeah. Talking about the abuse he inflicted. And I mean, I'm glad he did. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But holy shit. Then Roy's mom testified.

Mary Jane Grandy essentially backed up everything that Carol had said. Right? I know. You know, she'd been in that same meeting with the middle school principal, and she was like, yeah, Mary Podlesny said that Jamie was being bullied because he was going around expressing his sexual preference.

Jamie took the stand and told the jury everything he'd gone through. The high school guidance counselor, Lynn Hansen, testified that Jamie had come to her multiple times to talk about the harassment. And she said she'd gone to Principal William Davis and Assistant Principal Thomas Blauert with her concerns. She told them what was happening. And they didn't do anything. And then the school administrators were called to the stand. This part actually is sad and, like, super weird because they all had amnesia.

Oh, that is. What were the chances? Yeah. Were they all thrown from the same horse? Were they all three riding one horse together? That's the most likely scenario. So they get up there. They're like, Jamie, who?

Huh? Meetings with parents? I don't recall. Yeah, so if you're a jury member, what are you thinking right now? They're lying Yeah Yeah Literally the bully's like

The bully admits it Here's what I did The parent of the bully admits it Right Says they sat in these meetings with the administration And then the administration gets up and Oh, I don't recall I think this is such a weird tactic With the administration. And then the administration gets up. Oh, I don't recall.

I think this is such a weird tactic. I completely agree. It is so entirely unbelievable. All three of you have the exact same story. Yeah. That you don't remember this very memorable kid? Yeah. Mm-mm.

No, the jury's not going to believe it. I mean, I hope the jury doesn't believe it anyway. One other thing. So the book I read went into this. I thought this was super weird. The defense's main case was basically like, hey, these are good administrators. They're hard workers, which is like, well, that's OK. That's not really what this is about. So then Jamie's legal team was like, OK, we'll prove that they're not.

And so one of the things they did to prove that they weren't was they showed that they all like kept records of student for, like, way long after when you should keep them. You're supposed to destroy them, I guess, after the student leaves the school. There was some – again, I don't understand why this was the case. But they said that Tom Blauert, like, had a bunch of those old records at his house. Well, that just sounds weird and creepy. And his vacation house. And I guess he'd used some of the records like to. As kindling?

For his sauna. Isn't that weird? That's so fucking weird. And very troublesome. Well, see, I don't know. Part of me is like... Reduce, reuse, recycle, my man. Well, honestly... Honestly, that's part of what I'm thinking.

Part of me is almost like, I don't know. Maybe you use the other side of that. Have you tried it as toilet paper? No. They use the local toilet paper. That's right. Wipe locally. But do you think...

I usually wipe locally. I'm not doing a general wipe usually. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not doing a general wipe usually yeah do you think there could be like nefarious reasons why you'd keep those records at your home probably not right I don't think so it's kind of creepy look at my disciplinary records

you think Tom goes into the sauna and reads some of the records? Maybe. Maybe. So at the end of the second day, the judge told the jury that they needed to determine whether the defendants had intentionally discriminated against Jamie because of his sex and sexual orientation. Yes. How about you let them decide? Okay, great.

I'm giving my opinion. Which is good because you really held back this whole time. I was like, is Brandy on the fence about this? I'm sorry for showing my ugly bra strap. I apologize. What bra is this? It's an ugly one. Oh, okay.

You know. Like a nude color? Racist. It's not racist. It's like dirty white person colors. Oh my gosh. It is. You saw that strap. I didn't really see it, so it's fine.

But you want to see it. You can confirm that you want to see it. That's what I'm saying. I'm dying because I didn't see it. You can confirm that you want to see it. That's what I'm saying. I'm dying because I didn't see it. So they went into deliberation and they finished deliberating in less than four hours. So that was a lot faster than everyone expected. And Jamie's lawyer, David, turned to him and he was like, OK, this is either really good or really bad. Yeah.

Juries don't make quick decisions unless it's unanimous. And it turned out to be pretty damn good. The jury found unanimously that Mary Podlesny, William Davis and Tom Blauert had all intentionally discriminated against Jamie. Jamie and his parents were overjoyed. Yeah. And then came the fun part. So the jury made the first decision, and the next day they were scheduled to meet again to discuss damages. The funny thing was that the school district had been so confident that they'd win this case that they'd never really considered damages.

Well, they'd never considered settling with Jamie because they were so certain. I mean, you think about all that they got away with. Yeah. Yeah, they were so certain. I mean, you think about all that they got away with. Yeah. Yeah, they were very confident. But Jamie had been open to settling. And frankly, he'd been open to some very low ball offers. Before this thing went to trial, he was like super jazzed about the idea of 50 grand. Oh, gosh, that's not enough, Jamie. No, you had surgery, my dude. You still have medical problems. But that night, the school district's legal team and Jamie's legal team went back and forth, and they agreed to a settlement.

How much? How much was it? I'm sorry. I had to burp. That was a real cliffhanger, and now I'm talking about it, and you're looking at me like, bitch, if you don't give me. Tell me how much. $900,000 plus $62,000 in medical expenses. OK. Yeah.

I like it. It was a huge victory for gay rights. Yeah. The gay kid who had been bullied relentlessly had taken his administrators to court and had been awarded almost a million fucking dollars. Suck on that. Yeah. The media was all over the case, and the school district did not enjoy it. No, I bet they didn't.

District officials would not talk about the punishments for the administrators, but an article for the L.A. Times said that Mary Podlesny was suspended without pay for a week. Yeah, that'll teach her. Yeah. William Davis got a verbal reprimand. Oh, boy. I bet he's still hurting from that. He probably can't sit straight. And, you know, they went to Tom's sauna, knock, knock on the door, and they were like, you're suspended without pay for two weeks. Like, you're suspended without pay for two weeks. Okay. The guidance counselor, Lynn Hansen, she was the one who stood up for Jamie at trial,

and she was forced to move out of her house after she received a bunch of threatening phone calls. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, you should be punished for trying to protect a kid. Yeah. Following the verdict, Ashland School Board president bill leakey told the media there's a pulitzer prize for whoever tells the other side of the story what the fuck is the other side sir are you guys allowed to be this like allowed to let this jesus i can't i'm so

upset i can't even talk you allowed this kid to be abused in school. Mm-hmm. He begged for help. This is like my favorite thing. When it usually happens in small communities, they've treated somebody a certain way. And all of a sudden, the rest of the nation finds out what's happening. They're like, holy shit, you guys are terrible. And they really think that the problem is their side of the story hasn't gotten out.

Yeah. Like, no, dude. The problem is you fucked up here. Yeah. You did something terrible. Terrible. You did something terrible. He also told the reporter for the L.A. Times that they had corrected the system that had, you know, enabled so much harassment. And so the reporter asked how they had corrected the system.

What changes did you make? Bill couldn't think of any examples at the moment. Get back to you. Great. OK. So that's the story. I did some digging into what Jamie has been up to since the verdict. And I am devastated to report that in an interview in 1997, Jamie said that he's a Republican and he's opposed to abortion. I'm like 100 percent certain that that has changed. I hope so. But I read that.

I was like, oh, my God. No, Jamie. I've done more digging on him. I am like, yeah, he he was just a young, dumb kid. And no one can blame a young, dumb kid for voting Republican. Right. Or can we? Don't do it.

Oh, boy. We're going to get more hate for that. Oh, God. Oh, God. Anyway, my name's Brandy. Hey. He did an interview with Lavender Magazine in 2018, and he talked about how he's lived in kind of the Twin Cities area since he was 17. And he met his husband, Beau, on a dating site. And they're a very handsome couple. And they

adopted two brothers, Brandon and Juan. And a year later, someone, I assume, like through the official channels was like, hey, would you guys be interested in adopting their two older brothers, AJ and Val? And they said yes. We have all four boys? Yeah. Oh, I love that. So Jamie is called Dad.

Bo is called Poppy. So they have like this beautiful family and they're raising their boys. And now Jamie is a National Safe Schools advocate and a public speaker. He's a great public speaker. He has a bunch of YouTube clubs. And his cover photo on Facebook is him and his beautiful family riding bikes together. Love it. And I love him. Yeah.

And I love the guidance counselors. And I love Jamie's family. And I love his legal team. And everyone else in the story can eat my ass. And I just got out of a sauna, so you're going to hate it. And that's the end. Oh, my gosh. That was infuriating. Yeah.

So tell us your story. I will tell you about a home invasion. All right. Oh, my gosh. I talked for two hours. Yes, you did. It's a good story. It's a good case.

Boy, oh, boy. All right. Shout outs to Richard in Balls for recommending this case. Thank you, Richard. An episode of 48 Hours that I read but did not watch. Weirdo. An episode of Snapped and an episode of

Forensic Files. Did you watch Snapped? I watched both Snapped and Forensic Files, yes. Why are you making that face? Why would anyone choose to watch Snapped and not watch 48 Hours? Well, because there wasn't a transcript

of Snapped available, and so but there was a 48 Hours, so Alright, took the easy way out, did you? Okay, okay. Was it Erin Moriarty reporting? No, it was not. It was somebody else.

That's fine. It's an older episode. It was not a name I was somebody else. That's fine. It's an older episode. It was not a name I was familiar with. Hold on. Bill Lagatuda. Beautifully said. Do you know that person? No, I don't.

Okay. L-A-G-A-T-T-U-T-A. Oh, I do know. No, I do not. Please continue. J-A-T-T-U-T-A. Oh, I do know. No, I do not.

Please continue. Things were good at the little house on Dorset Street in Napa, California. It was home to three women in their mid-20s. I actually think they were all 26 years old, but one article cited them as one of them being 27. Well, which one is it, Brandi? I think they're all 26. Okay. One of them being 27. But well, which one is it?

I think they're all 26. OK. Anyway, it was home to three women in their mid 20s. Lauren Manza was a volleyball coach at a local community college. And Adrian and Sonia was an engineer for the Napa Sanitation Department. And they were the first two to move into the little house on Dorset Street. Lauren roomed downstairs while Adrian took one of the upstairs bedrooms. Adrian had been drawn to this rental house because her friend, her best friend and co-worker, Lily Prudhomme, Prudhomme, Prudhomme, lived right down the street. In a prude home. Maybe. The house on Dorset Street served Lauren

and Adrian really well. And in June of 2004, they were given an opportunity to bring in a third roommate. Leslie Maraza. Nope. Les me... I'm just making names up. Adele Dezeem. I went full John Travolta

You did And it was beautiful Will you now become a Scientologist? Absolutely not I apologize They brought in a third roommate Leslie Mazzara Are you sure?

I'm positive Okay I actually think this is really cute Like how Lauren and Adrian met initially So Lauren and Adrian met like in a volleyball class At the local community college And like Adrian was just trying to be friendly to Lauren And she was like Yeah do you know blah blah blah

Do you know anybody in Napa Do you have any like friends in Napa And Lauren was like annoyed that she kept asking these questions She's like I don't have any friends in Napa And Adrian's like now that she kept asking these questions. She's like, I don't have any friends in Napa. And Adrienne's like, now you do. Oh, that is sweet. And that's how they became friends. And then they met Leslie

Mazara together. Leslie was a transplant to the region from South Carolina. She'd been a beauty queen in South Carolina. Oh, shit. Yeah. She was beautiful and bubbly and popular, but after a breakup, she decided she needed a change of scenery. Blonde?

No, she had dark hair. Oh, my. All three of the roommates were brunettes. Three 26-year-old brunettes lived in this house. Sounds like a sitcom. It does. Except we know it's not because you're telling it. That's right.

Anyway, continue. Anyway, so she went through a breakup and decided she needed a change of scenery. At that time, her mother, Kathy Harrington, was attending seminary school in Berkeley. And she suggested that the area might just be the change that Leslie needed. And so Leslie moved to Napa. She began. Are you OK? I don't know.

Are you trying to speed because I took so long with my story? No. Do you have a need for speed? I don't. So Leslie moved to Napa. She began rooming with Adrian and Lauren. She took a room upstairs across from Adrian. And she got herself a job as a greeter at Francis Ford Coppola's winery in Napa.

Oh, well, she was very beautiful. Exactly. Exactly. Leslie loved Napa, and she thrived in the wine industry. Yeah, I can believe it. Her bubbly personality was perfect for the tasting rooms. And she very quickly decided that she wanted to make a career out of the wine industry. Yeah. I mean, those pageant women, like they, they're well poised. I feel like you can talk to just about anybody. Yeah.

I mean, that'd be. She like literally like visited the winery and got offered a job on the spot. Well, that's just called being hot. I mean, yeah. But yes, that's wonderful. Yes. So Leslie, Adrian, and Lauren settled into roommate life pretty easily. All three got along really well.

And whenever there was an issue, they were kind of able to talk through it and come to a solution that everyone could get behind. There was an incident once towards the end of October where one of the women brought home a date like really late at night and the other two roommates were awoken by some scandalous noises coming from their bedroom. And this was apparently the first time that any of the roommates had brought someone of the opposite sex home to spend the night. And the next day, the three women discussed it and came to the conclusion that, like, yeah, of course, these are

three young single women. They're going to be bringing people home, but, like, maybe be a little more courteous about it. Yeah. Yeah. That was October. I'm a little surprised they were so scandalized. I am, too. They're 26 years old.

But maybe, I mean, the little house must have been really a rocking. Maybe it was a rocking. So that was October 28, 2004. Three nights later, it's Halloween night. The three roommates handed out candy. They oohed and aahed over the cute little kids in their costumes. And then they all went to bed. And they were asleep by 11 o'clock. Leslie and Adrian were in their upstairs bedrooms and Lauren was downstairs.

Okay, I will say, I looked, I found the address of this house. I tried to find a floor plan of it. All the articles just say downstairs. I don't know if that's like main floor or basement. Probably main floor. Probably. But I'm not positive. Anyway.

Because there are certain areas of the country where you really don't see basements much. I wonder if California is one of those areas. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know much about the architecture in Napa. It's a big blind spot for me. I know about all the other areas in California, but not that one. So Lauren was sleeping in her downstairs bedroom when the security light tripped outside. So it was like behind the garage and it shined like directly into her bedroom.

And it was like 1.30 or 2 in the morning when the light tripped on. Her dog slept with her and her dog gave like this little like warning bark. And so she like looked around and noticed that the light was on and thought that maybe Adrienne had a cat that was like an indoor outdoor cat. And so she's like, oh, the cat probably tripped it. It's also Halloween. Exactly. People are out. Exactly.

So she like shushed her dog and then she kind of fell back asleep. But as she was like dozing back off, she heard someone coming in the house. And then she heard them climbing the stairs. And immediately she thought like, oh, it's somebody's boyfriend coming over. Like, hopefully this isn't a whole thing again. Oh, my God. Whatever. But she didn't want to like be rude about it. boyfriend coming over like yeah hopefully this isn't a whole thing again oh my god whatever um but she didn't want to like be rude about it and so she just like shushed her dog again and stayed in her room and again she kind of drifted off to sleep and then she was awoken by a horrible sound

it was a blood curdling scream. She said she could hear Adrian and she kept screaming oh my god, please help. Please help. Lauren opened the door to her bedroom and walked out into like the main part of the house but she was terrified. She could hear

screaming. She could hear a commotion upstairs. She listened. She stood kind of frozen in her doorway to her bedroom. And then she heard the intruder start to come down the stairs. Oh, fuck. She said he was just flying down the stairs, breaking stuff as he came around. And Lauren freaked out and she ran out of the house. But she was so panicked that she didn't really think about her exit strategy. And she ran out the back door into a yard that was surrounded by a six-foot privacy fence. Yeah.

She essentially trapped herself. Yeah. In the backyard. And so she hid in the darkness of the backyard and listened. And she heard this intruder come down and mess with the blinds in the front of the house, like in the kitchen. And she could tell that this intruder had left through the kitchen window. That's terrifying. Oh, my gosh.

It's terrifying. that's terrifying oh my gosh it's terrifying the house got quiet and all lauren could hear was adrian upstairs crying for help lauren wasn't positive that this person was gone she'd heard a mess with the blinds and the window but she didn't know for sure that they weren't in the house and so she went back into the house grabbed the phone to try and call 911, but the line was dead. And so she went upstairs to see if she could help her roommates. And she was met with a horrible scene.

Leslie's bedroom was the first one you came to at the top of the stairs and she could see in it and the entire bedroom floor was covered in blood. Leslie was face down in a pile of clothes with stab wounds all over her body and her arms. Oh my God. Oh my God. Adrian was just a few feet away. She was kind of like crouching behind a bed. It seems that maybe she'd run to Leslie's room when she'd heard the intruder. And so I believe they were in the same room.

Adrian was alive, but barely. She had been stabbed multiple times and she was bleeding to death. Yeah. Yeah. Lauren went back downstairs. She slipped on the stairs because her bare feet were covered in blood. Of course. She grabbed her cell phone and she called 911. As she did so, she left the house not knowing if this intruder was still there. She ran to her car. As she did so, she left the house not knowing if this intruder was still there. She ran to her car. As she did, she like dropped the 911 call. And so she had to call them back and get them to the address. And then she drove away because she was terrified.

Was she involved in some way? No, she was not. Okay. No. No, she was not. Okay. No. By the time police arrived at the home on Dorset Street, both Leslie and Adrian were dead.

News of what had happened at this house spread very quickly. There hadn't been a homicide in Napa in like two years. This is really just like one of those places where stuff like this doesn't happen. Well, and it's so odd because what's the motive? Yeah. So when Adrienne's best friend Lily found out that Adrienne had been killed, she assumed that it had been an accident. And she was shocked when she learned

that she'd actually been murdered. Adrienne actually had, like, survived a really bad car accident when she was younger, like, 10 years earlier. Like, literally, the car had rolled and her head had hit the pavement through an open window. Yeah, she'd survived for, like, 10 years to be murdered in this horrible, senseless way. Adrian's mom was in Australia when this happened, and she got a call half a world away saying that her daughter had been brutally murdered. a world away saying that her daughter had been brutally murdered.

Leslie's mother, Kathy, at this time was working as a minister of some kind in Michigan. Okay, I read this whole thing about how she found out. So she got a call. So she's in Michigan. She gets a call from her sister who saw on the news that there was a murder at a house on Dorset Street. And so she calls her sister Kathy and is like, oh my gosh, I just heard this thing. Like, I know that's where Leslie lives. And so Kathy was like, okay, I'll call the police. And so she called the Napa Sheriff's Department and they're like,

oh, we've been waiting for your call. Is that how death notifications happen? I, yeah, I don't know. Had they not made any efforts to find... I don't know. I had, like, some idea in my head that, like, when someone is killed and then identified, like, they figure out where that person's next of kin are and, like, the police, wherever they are,

go to their door and knock on the door and tell them. Is that not... Did I make that up? Is that just how it happens in the movies maybe? I mean, I guess I've always hoped that's what would happen. Yeah, I just assumed I guess that's what happened. But that's not what happened here. So Kathy calls the Napa Police Department.

They're like, oh, we've been waiting for your call. Yes, your daughter's been murdered. Oh. They told Kathy that they believed that Leslie had been the target that night. She'd been killed very brutally and she'd been killed first. And that maybe Adrian had only been killed because she'd come to Leslie's aid. Right. Kathy had a really hard time dealing with that information.

Sure. Like she just couldn't imagine somebody wanting her daughter dead. Mm-hmm. Lots of people who knew Leslie, like, seemed to think that this was likely the situation. Leslie had dated a lot since she'd moved to Napa.

She was clearly someone who was, like, ready to settle down and, like, have a serious partner and move forward with her future. And so she dated a lot. And a bunch of people described her as an unintentional heartbreaker. Men would just like completely fall in love with her. And she didn't always feel the same way.

Okay. And so that's kind of where the police started looking at people Leslie had dated. They talked to the most. She was like kind of dating like two men at the same time at this time. And they talked about them. They got DNA samples. So at some point, the intruder had injured themselves. Well, they had been injured.

Adrian fought like hell. And at some point, the murderer had been cut and had left blood at the scene. And they left blood in that kitchen window that they exited through. And so they thought,

OK, we've got some DNA here. So we're just going to start taking DNA samples from anyone and everyone that we talk about or that we, you know, that comes across our investigation here. Lauren wasn't able to give them any kind of description. It was a man, she believed, and that was about it. It had been dark. She'd been terrified.

Yeah. And so, yeah, they start looking at people who Leslie had maybe dated and stuff like that. There was a college boyfriend that she dated, like, and he bought her a car and then they'd broken up. And this guy, this boyfriend, Brian, after they'd broken up, he'd built a web page as a tribute to Leslie. Oh, my. Mm-hmm. What do you mean? I don't really know.

That's kind of all the details I have, but it seemed pretty odd to them, so they reached out to that guy. And he was cleared pretty quickly. He offered up a DNA sample. It couldn't have been him. Whatever. Then there was this other guy that Leslie had been dating like right before she moved to Napa. Like this was the breakup that led to her moving to Napa.

Uh huh. His name was William Youngblood Jr. He was a lawyer. He and Leslie had been living together before she moved to Napa. And they had had a pretty serious relationship. Her best friend's name was Amy. And she said that, like, yeah, she thought that she could marry this guy. He went by Lee.

That was his middle name because he's a junior. So he went by his middle name. And she had always told her friends, like, I think I could marry Lee. But she was really uncomfortable with his family. Why? Because his dad, William Youngblood Sr., would just, like, call Leslie all the time. Why? Even when he knew that his son, like, just to talk to her.

In fact, on Halloween night, he'd called Leslie twice. That's weird. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so the police thought. That's weird. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so the police thought this was super weird. They're like, is this guy obsessed with her? So they actually flew out to South Carolina and interviewed this guy. And he was like, absolutely not.

I had nothing to do with this. This is just really unfortunate timing. Honestly, I shouldn't have been calling her. But I just, you know, I did, but I had nothing to do with her death and his DNA cleared him. So she was just surrounded by weirdos. Yeah.

Huh? Yeah. I think when her friends described her as an unintentional heartbreaker, like men just were obsessed with her. unintentional heartbreaker. Like men just were obsessed with her. Yeah. So with these, like these men that she'd actually had relationships with not panning out, they started talking to all of these people in Napa that she'd been like going on, she'd like gone on blind dates with several guys in the months leading up to this. And so they just start like tracking them down, taking DNA samples, all of this stuff.

And they ended up talking to more than a thousand people. Wow. They took more than 200 DNA samples. Wow. Yeah. And none of them panned out? None of them panned out. None of them matched the DNA found at the crime scene. So then they're like, maybe we've got this wrong.

Maybe Leslie wasn't the target. Maybe it was Adrian the whole time. No. And so they look into this guy named Christian Lee, who, according to Lily, Adrian's best friend, was Adrian's kind of on-again, off-again boyfriend. They were together, but they break up a lot. And the relationship was just not good. Adrian would come to work a lot crying and say she'd gotten in a fight with this guy the day before. Like, it was bad. Lily said that the only side she ever saw of Christian was the negative side.

She didn't like him. And so police are like, okay, let's go talk to this guy. So they go and they, like, pound on Christian's door and he lets him in. And they're like, he's got a knife in his bedroom and they like they take his sheets they take all of this stuff from his house as evidence and they're like all right tell us about your relationship with Adrian and he was like I mean we argued we had our problems but like I've literally never touched a woman in my life in anger. That's something I would just never do that.

Yeah. And he offered up a DNA sample. And he was cleared. Was not him. Months passed. This case was going him. Months passed. This case was going nowhere. Leslie's mother, Kathy, said that she just, like, would just wake up with these images of Leslie being murdered.

Yeah. She started going to grief counseling. She said her grief counselor told her that, you know, this is kind of a normal grief process. She said, Leslie died once, but you keep reliving it over and over. her grief counselor told her that you know this is kind of a normal grief process she said leslie died once but you keep reliving it over and over and kathy thought that like this would just if they couldn't solve this this was just going to continue forever not knowing what had happened not knowing why it had happened not having someone to blame for this horrible thing that had happened to her daughter.

And Adrian's mother, Arlene, was just completely distraught over this, too. She actually drove Adrian's car after Adrian died. She said it made her feel close to Adrian. She said she kept her radio presets the same, and whenever she would listen to music, it made her feel like she was listening with Adrian. Gosh. But this investigation moved forward at a snail's pace. Like I said, they talked to 1,000 people. They took 200 DNA samples, and it led nowhere.

In the meantime, life continued on. Adrienne's best friend, Lily, married her longtime boyfriend, Eric Koppel, a couple of months after Adrienne was murdered. They invited Adrienne's mother, Arlene, to do a reading at the wedding in Adrienne's memory. Adrienne was supposed to be a bridesmaid in the wedding. Arlene said it was such an honor to be included in that special day. They even played like a special song, a Maroon 5 song, She Will Be Loved, which I think they said was Adrian's favorite song. They played that in her memory at the wedding. But that investigation had stalled. There was no DNA matches coming back.

was no DNA matches coming back. And there had been one other clue that the police had found at the scene that they hadn't released to the public because they thought it might come in handy down the road. They had picked up three cigarette butts from the scene, two in front of the house, one behind the house. They believed that whoever this intruder was had lied in wait, one behind the house. They believed that whoever this intruder was had lied in wait, basically. Sure. Like walked around the house smoking cigarettes, waiting for the perfect time to go in. But these cigarettes were kind of unique. They were camel Turkish gold cigarettes. They'd only been on the market for like two months at the time of the murder. And so they were rare enough that they thought someone might know that someone smokes that particular cigarette. But they had sent these cigarette butts that they'd collected off for DNA testing to see if they could pull a DNA sample

from them. But that had taken months. It was pretty new DNA technology. It's 2004. And so I guess by this time it's probably 2005. But months and months go by. Finally, they get the DNA test back on the cigarette butts and they were able to pull a DNA sample from it. Again, they didn't have a match, but it did match the blood that was left at the scene. So we know that our killer smoked these Turkish gold cigarettes. Right. How common is it for someone to switch up their cigarette brand? I have no idea. I don't know either. Because I don't know, I guess my first thought when you said it was kind of new to the market was like, well, is this something somebody tried one time?

Yeah, I don't know. Well, I mean, obviously you do because you know this whole story. I mean, I know the story, but I don't know the answer to what you're asking. So they finally decide they're going to release this tidbit to the public and say, we believe that the killer smokes camel Turkish gold cigarettes. And they thought this might be the key. Someone might know something. Someone could come forward. It doesn't seem like much. It worked. Are you kidding me?

Well, tell the damn story. In September of 2005, 11 months after the murders, just five days after making the information about the cigarettes public, the investigators got a surprise visit at the police department. information about the cigarettes had been made public. Eric Koppel, Adrian's best friend's husband, had sent his family members suicide notes. And they had managed to get to him in time to talk himself, like talk him down from dying by suicide and talking him into turning himself into the police. Eric Koppel came into the police department that September day to confess to the murders of Adrian and Leslie. Eric Koppel had been on the list of potential suspects just because he was part of their inner circle.

Right. He was on the list of people basically to exclude through DNA sampling. Uh-huh. Somehow they'd never gotten a DNA sample from him. Oh, he managed to. They called him and asked him to come in, give a statement, give a DNA sample, and he'd never come. Yeah.

And they'd never followed up on it. He'd just kind of fallen through the cracks. Eric was accompanied that day at the police department by his wife, Lily Koppel, Adrian's best friend. Are you shitting me? No. So she already knew everything and she was. The police do not think that she knew.

In fact, she did an interview with 48 Hours while this investigation was going on. And she's like, you know, I just I just have to think that someone out there knows something. Someone's friend, someone's family member is acting weird. You've got to see it. You need to say something. Well, but is it your husband who's acting weird? I mean, it ended up being her husband who was acting weird. But, like, the investigators truly believe that she did not know that he had done this.

Okay, but I'm talking about when they walk into the police station. She knows. She knows then, yes. He had confessed to her at that point, yes. Yeah, at that point yeah yeah yes at that point he had confessed yes he says we're going for ice cream no no she knew what they were there to do station all right she knew what they were there to do good okay gosh that must have been horrible for her can you fucking imagine i can't imagine if norman murdered, I'd be very upset with him. Thank you.

I would give him a talking to. So Eric told the police what happened that Halloween night, kind of. Kind of. So, interestingly enough, November 1st, Lily and Eric were actually supposed to get married that day. But Lily had postponed the wedding because she and Eric were fighting a ton because she thought he was drinking too much. And so she'd postponed the wedding. They were supposed to get married in Hawaii. And Adrian would have been there with them.

Like, when Lily didn't know who had murdered Adrienne and Leslie, she was like, if we would have just gone through with the wedding, she would have been in Hawaii. She wouldn't have even been there. Oh, yeah. You would think that. Yeah. Oh, my God. So, yeah. So they should have been in Hawaii getting married.

But Lily had been like, I'm not marrying you like this. You got to get your shit together. He was drinking a ton. And she was like, you need to get it together or we're not getting married. Right. And so that Halloween night in 2004, Eric got super drunk. And Lily got pissed. So pissed that she refused to spend the night with him in their house.

She left and went to her parents' house. refused to spend the night with him in their house. She left and went to her parents' house. And Eric said he felt like maybe his relationship with Lily was like slipping away. And so he found himself alone that night on what was supposed to have been his wedding day. And he said his memory of what happened next was sketchy. He said that he had some memory of leaving his house and taking a knife with him. He said that he didn't know how he ended up at Adrian and Leslie and Lauren's house. He remembered smoking cigarettes outside the house and he remembered climbing in the window

but said he didn't remember anything else. He wouldn't admit that he knew what he had done and he said that he knew he was responsible for what happened inside the house but that he'd kept his eyes closed the entire time. Okay, dude. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Investigators asked him what he had done with the evidence, what he'd done with his bloody clothing. He said he went home and he started a fire in his fire pit and he burned his clothes and shoes. He said he didn't know what he'd done with the murder weapon. It's never been found. And he never really offered up a motive. Um, the kind of accepted motive here is that he believed that Adrian was the one that was, like, fueling the thoughts that Lily was having about postponing their wedding or calling it off altogether. And so that really he'd gone there that night to kill Adrian, but he'd gotten to Leslie's room first.

Or maybe he went to the wrong room. Possibly. Possibly. And that it's believed that he likely didn't know that Lauren was there. Because he had his eyes closed. Yeah. What a ridiculous. Yeah.

What you felt your way through the house. You felt your way through brutally murdering these women. I don't fucking think so, dude. Initially, Eric Koppel was arrested. He was charged with the murder of adrian and leslie and the state was going to seek the death penalty but both adrian and leslie's mother didn't want the death penalty neither of them really believed in the death penalty and they really liked the idea of eric spending the rest of his life behind bars thinking about what he did to their daughters.

And so they asked if it was possible to offer him a deal and avoid a very public trial. And so the prosecution did just that. They approached Eric with a deal. They would take the death penalty off the table. He'd have to plead guilty to murder and he would get life in prison without the possibility of parole. And he would have to waive his right to an appeal. And he took the deal. And he took the deal. At his sentencing the following January, Arlene delivered a victim impact statement. It was like her first chance to confront Eric.

This was someone who was a friend, like she believed was a friend of her daughter. She had done a reading at his wedding. Yeah. She said, Eric, you knew Adrian. You know me. And Eric, I know you. You are a man who violently stabbed to death the best friend of the woman you love. That is not love, Eric. You cannot love Lily and bring a knife into Adrian's home and stab her again and again and again and again and again and again and again and yet again. Each time she said again, she slammed her hand down on like the podium that she was standing at. And she said it for each time he stabbed Adrian.

Yeah. She recounted that Adrian had never in her life worn a turtleneck, but that she'd had to have been buried in one to cover the wounds to her body. Yeah. to cover the wounds to her body. Leslie's mother also gave a victim impact statement. I could not find a sampling of it anywhere. I know it was 13 pages long. And I imagine it was very impactful as well.

I did read some writings that she's done and she speaks very well. She's a minister. Yeah. Yeah. Interestingly, Lily was given special permission to speak at the sentencing as well on her husband's behalf. Isn't that usually how it works? Maybe. I don't know.

She's speaking for the defendant. I thought that that happened quite commonly. I don't know. I think – well, now I'm speaking out of turn here maybe. But I thought that you – that family members of the defendant or whoever could speak up. It's not done very often. I was going to say I don't know that I've ever heard of it done quite like this. But, yeah, so she spoke and she said, I wish with all of my heart that these events had been avoided. And then she turned and spoke directly to her husband and said, Eric, there is nothing you could do to make me love you any less.

Whoa. These words are just as true. These words are just as true today as they were the day I married you. Holy shit. Yeah. Arlene, Adrian's mother, said she was shocked and stunned by this statement. No kidding. Yeah.

You weren't even that sure you wanted to marry him and now you're like all in? Uh-huh. After you know he's a murderer? Yeah. Yeah. And he murdered your best friend. He's not just a murderer. He brutally murdered your best friend.

So did you read any interviews with her? Like, did she? She did. Like I said, I read a little snippet that she did with 48 Hours. I tried to find her some. I did some digging. It seems that they stayed married for a while after this. And then even they did eventually get divorced, but she kept his last name for quite some time.

But it appears that now she is going by her maiden name. I don't even know what to say. I don't either. Can you imagine? No. No, no, no, no, no. No, I cannot. No.

That's bizarre. Uh-huh. uh-huh uh-huh and then finally it was eric's turn to give his statement he said i am a broken man a man splintered by penetrating awareness of my own potential for wickedness. While I cannot fathom the full extent of the anguish that I have caused, I recognize that my sinful deeds have inflicted terrific agony on a number of people. The words evade me to articulate the depths of my sorrow. What did this guy do for a living? I don't, I'm not sure. I know that he has zero criminal record prior to this, not even a traffic infraction.

Like nothing. Some friends like in the friend group said that he was super quiet, that like whenever he and Lily were at an event, like a social event. He seemed very kind of reserved and that Lily did all of the talking for the couple. Okay. I think it's a weird statement. Yeah, no, it's a very weird statement. Yeah. Sounds like he wrote it with a thesaurus right next to him i would agree super weird word choices yeah it doesn't sound natural and that's that's why i'm just curious about like yeah was this his usual manner of speaking or was he trying to i'm not sure he finished by saying i was afraid my relationship with Lily, the singular ray of light in my black world, was in peril of collapsing.

Okay, you fucking weirdo. Yeah, it's really weird. So that's kind of why it's the accepted theory that like he thought Adrian was kind of poisoning Lily towards him. And that's the motive here. Well, Lily was his one ray of light in his black, black world. Singular ray of light. Yeah. Well, I did say one, but you're right.

Singular is more flowery. This is the weirdest fucking statement. It sounds like it was written by ath grader for the middle school literary magazine yeah this will sound just so much if I use these big flowery words it's going to sound so much meaning

behind it yeah so following his statement Eric Koppel was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Why does your face look like that? I don't know. This is just bizarre. Okay. Continue. Kathy Harrington said of losing her daughter Leslie, Yeah. Kathy, though, also refuses to dwell on her grief. She said, Leslie's life speaks for itself. Her 26 years were full and rich and productive, and she was a gift. I'm so grateful that I got to be her mom and that she brightened our lives.

I miss her a lot. Arlene, Adrienne's mother, also just really clings to the memories of her daughter. She said that she often feels so close to Adrian that she feels like she's walking with her, standing right by her. She said, I sometimes expect to see her walking in the door. I see her face clearly beside me and then I understand just what a loss is. And that's the story of a home invasion. You have covered two very strange stories in a row now. Yes.

Ones where I just don't. The amount of brutality in these murders. Yeah. Yes. With like little to no motive. Exactly. Just completely senseless. Why do you have to be like this? This is Richard and Ball's fault.

You know, you can always ignore richard and balls it did in all fairness seem very much like a brandy case and so she also wrote me a little poem about it when she suggested it in the discord did she call you her singular ray of light no that's too bad oh my lord yeah should we take yeah let's take some questions from the discord let's bring it back up here how do you get into the Discord, Brandi? To get in the Discord, all you have to do is join our Patreon at the $5 level or higher. And then when we record, we ask for questions in the Discord and we select a few to answer. Dry these bugs once to know. Kristen, what is your ideal amount of pets you'd own if you could, and what pets would you have?

Funny you should ask. Picture it. Twas two nights ago, Norman and I went out for Chinese takeout. We were driving back to the house. I was quite hungry. What did you order? Broccoli beef. Oh, okay.

And hot and sour soup. Oh, okay. If you must know. Yeah. I like to know. And we were driving down the road and a little black and white puppy ran across the road in front of us. white puppy ran across the road in front of us. And so, oh my gosh, we stopped the car, tried to get the puppy. It was a whole thing. The puppy was scared, ran off into the woods. We spent probably 20 minutes looking for it. Then the next day, Norman went back. Then the next day, I went back to that same area with the dogs.

Anyway, so when Brandy came over today, I was like, well, we almost got a new puppy this week. And Norman was like, we did not. But I know. Yeah, if you would have gotten that puppy, that puppy would have been your new puppy. Absolutely. 100%. Now, logically, Norman and I have had this discussion. Two cats, two dogs. That is enough.

You're at max capacity. But. If you're saving a little lost puppy, I mean, yeah, what's one more? I mean, it's a lot more. But, like, I don't know. I wouldn't go to the shelter right now to look for puppies. But if one goes right in front of my car yeah I mean it's practically like begging yeah knocking at your

front door I was begging oh my gosh you want that little puppy so bad and I was so sad because I was like dude you don't understand what a loser I am. You definitely want to be my dog. Okay, so that puppy did wander up to somebody else's house that night. And it's now curled up in a cute little dog bed. That's what I'm hoping. In front of a nice fireplace. Yeah, because like. Dreaming its little puppy dreams.

Probably kicking its little leg while it's doing that little yip, yip, yip thing in its sleep. Oh my gosh, I hope so. Yeah. Yeah, because surely somebody found that puppy. Yeah. The thing that freaked me. And named it Shirley. The thing that freaked me out was that it ran across the street.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Of course. And it didn't have any condoms on it. What? The fuck's that mean? It's just completely unprotected. Jesus!

My favorite was that sometimes you tuned me out. And you had kind of tuned me out at that point. I hadn't! I knew exactly what you were saying. I was just trying to find the next question. Jeez. Ooh, Kristen's Hot Tub asks, any concerts coming up

that you're looking forward to? We haven't even discussed this yet. Ben Folds is coming in August. Do you want to go? Sure. Okay, let's go. You know, Shania's coming. I don't want to go to that. You don't want to go to Shania Twain? Not really. Whose bed have your boots been under?

You know who loves Shania Twain, though? Post Malone. And I love Post Malone. So I think I'd maybe get there. I'm not that excited to go to Shania Twain. I'm sorry. You're not invited. Okay, great.

I said that just to be nice, but I didn't want you to go with me. You want me to come? Yeah, so don't even worry about it. Oh, it's fine. Everything is fine. What's new, Kristen? Why haven't you tried third love? Okay, here's the real story.

I don't know that Kristen will tell you this, but the real story is that Kristen was holding out for a sponsorship. Yeah. Yeah, I want a sponsorship. Yes. Okay, if we haven't gotten a fucking O'Walla sponsorship at this point, I don't think we're getting a third love sponsorship. I know, but I mean. Maybe if you get one and then you start talking on the podcast about how great your third

love bra is. No, I don't advertise for free. I'm nothing like you. No, I do think it would be quite the thing. What if Third Law cupped these titties perfectly? Third Love. What do I call it? Third Love.

See, they're not going to want me because I can't even say the company name right. It is a tough one. Anyway, my co-host knows me too well i was holding out for a sponsorship i've also been holding out for like invisalign because you know smile direct used to do podcast advertisements i've not heard them anymore i think bite is the new one I think bite is the new one. Bite. I've got a crooked lower tooth section.

You want to give us a nibble? Is that their slogan? Oh, okay. I will take this question from Richard Inballs because she suggested this case for this episode. So this is my thank you. I thought of this question while I was high. Okay. Have you ever considered bleeping your ex's name out of earlier episodes? I think it would be funny as fuck and mysterious.

That's actually hilarious. I think it's a great idea as long as I don't have to do any work. That seems like a lot of unnecessary work. No, and I kind of like that people can see my, as much as I don't like that I, the mentions of him

in the early episodes, like, I like that you see, people went on a journey with me. They did go on a journey with you. Yeah. Yeah.

You started as a naive guy. I did. Boy, fucking did I. You were married to the best man in the world. Listen, Lord, you don't know what you don't know. I'll tell you that. Oh, my.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. Jisaki. Jisaki. I'm going to go with Jisaki. Okay. The Olympics talk reminded me that I struggle to keep my cool every day at work when an all around

gold medal gymnast walks by her kids attend my preschool and I just want a fangirl every time I see her. Brandy would you go nuts? Abso-fucking-lutely I would I would not be able to play it cool you really wouldn't? I wouldn't and she'd take her kids

out of that school. She'd be like, you know, this is not worth it. This woman asked me to do a fucking back spring every time I'm in here. I think you'd really

just be like, too excited to see her every day. I'd just like stare at her and smile yeah how you doing? hi um so to get to the classroom

you're gonna it's kind of weird the floor's lava okay so you're gonna have to do um okay cartwheel round off uh three back handsprings I'm asking all the parents to do this, so don't worry about it. Okay, this is such a weird question, but I absolutely do. EliseMegan13 says, do you have a favorite stove burner? Absolutely.

Yeah, front right. Front left. That's because you're left-handed. This is a thing. Everyone has a favorite stove burner. Yeah, I'm sure they do. I didn't even know I had a thing until I – I didn't even know I had a favorite until I read that question. Yeah.

Always front left. Yeah, front right for me. Okay. Very good. Oh, no. What's wrong? The gaming historian's mistress has a question. Okay.

All right, ho. How are Kristen's tits? She's keeping tabs on you. Yeah, she hopes to hear bad news. Yeah, she hopes to hear bad news. If you're asking whether I found a bra that fits, the answer is no. But don't make that face like you're the one having to hold these tits up every day. No, I... My promise to the world and to my hooters. Is that you get a new bra this week?

All right, calm down. I really hate bra shopping. I know. But you need properly supported tits. Yeah, yeah. All right, I'll do it Thursday. Tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow.

Okay. All right. Will I? Will you? Maybe just do the thing my mom said. Do you want to tell what? Oh, okay. So my mom listened to the episode where Kristen was talking about measuring your tits. And my mom was like, you did it wrong.

And then she gave a very detailed description of how you're supposed to do it to account for gravity, which the way most people do it does not account for gravity. And so my mom says it's foolproof, works every time. And she says you don't need to get fitted. You just have to do it this way and your bra will fit perfectly. Okay. I listened to your mom about the best top coat for my nails. I know. Changed your life. Yeah. If she's got any more advice, please send it over. Oh, old and decrepit 25 year old asks Brandy, what would you do if someone told you they'd prefer not to talk during their haircut and then put in headphones and started listening to a podcast? Would you say anything?

Yeah, I should say, bitch. No, I'd say absolutely no problem. I'll just let you know if I have any questions. That's not true. That is true. That's exactly what I would say. I can tell you're asking that question because you're anxious. And the truth is that Brandy would flip out.

Chris is so mean. No, I think that's wonderful. If you have social anxiety, if small talk is not your thing, absolutely. Tell your stylist, hey, I'm just going to put this AirPod in. I'm going to listen to a podcast. I'm not a big chatter. You know, I think that's 100 percent fine. I would also argue that most hairstylists would be able to pick up on that about you without that even needing to happen. Right. Hairstylists are trained to ask a couple of open ended questions at the beginning and get a feel for how much conversation their client wants to have. Mm-hmm.

So. And, Brandi, you always start with what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you. That's right. I just request trauma dumps right at the get-go. And some people get uncomfortable. Yeah. How weird for them. No, when I get my lashes done, that's what I do. Yeah. You get uncomfortable. How weird. For them.

No, when I get my lashes done, that's what I do. Yeah. I say, hey, you know, yeah, my lashes were great. I'd like to do the same thing. Do you mind if I put this AirPod in and listen to a podcast? And the lady always calls you a bitch. That's right. She says, yeah, bitch, whatever.

Fuck, I guess. I'll just talk to my fucking self. No, I think. Yeah. No, I think that's completely acceptable. You're fine. Oh, okay. When two become one, ask, do you have a favorite number?

I noticed you both use 12 a lot. Is that your favorite? It's not. Do we use 12 a lot? I do use 12 a lot. Yeah. Maybe it is my favorite. I do like it.

Okay. My favorite number is 22. I do like it. Okay. My favorite number is 22. I also like 27. Is there a reason? No, 22 was like my number in sports always growing up. I like that it's a double number. 27, I feel like, is my go-to number when I'm just like needing to fill a number into a space. How often does that happen? You know, like when you're telling a story and you're trying to exaggerate.

Oh, I see. Yeah. I see. Jesus. I don't know. The way you said fill a number into a space, I was... Yeah. We're not like filling out forms with random 20 seconds.

That's where my mind went. And I thought, how often are you filling out a form and they're like, you know, just any number will do. Insert any number here. We would like it to be your actual phone number, but if it's just a series of numbers, that's also fine. What are you laughing about? I'm asking about a question that I noticed you chose not to ask. What's the question? It's from Richard and Balls.

And it's, would you kick a dog in the face to end world hunger, Brandy? And people are responding, she's already done that for free. Which is true. Where were you when Brandy kicked Winston McCorgie in the face? Yes. If it could end world hunger, I would do it very gently and then I would apologize to the dog afterwards. So I would hope that they would forgive me much like Winston did. That's really scary because then that would be really establishing a pattern.

Okay. Okay. really scary because then that would be really establishing a pattern okay your damn skips wants to know when are we gonna get i'm a kristin and i'm a brandy t-shirts never never i'm not strong enough to handle that i guarantee you the brandy shirts would like sell out more absolutely not and i'm the one who has to fulfill the merch. So there'd be like a complimentary tear for me. With every Brandy t-shirt. And who knows, maybe I fart in the bag before I seal it.

You would. I would not. These Brandy shirts smell like shit. You deserve it. These Brandy shirts smell like shit. You deserve it. Somebody orders a Kristen shirt and I just stick a couple extra dollar bills in there. Trash Panda Supreme asks, Brandy, have you ever seen The Chase?

Yes, I fucking love it. I would love to be on it. The next question is, how well do you think you would do? My fear, because I do amazing when I play it at home. Like, I blow Jackson's mind when we're playing it. He's like, how do you know that? How do you know that? It's a trivia show.

It's The Chase. Okay, sorry. I got excited. You did get excited. I love it. Anyway, it's like three contestants go against an expert trivia person. Yeah. And like you all have to win the final round to get any money. Okay.

Okay. Anyway, I do really great at it when I play at home. My fear is that in the hot lights of a TV studio that I just freeze up and I look like an idiot. I don't know how I'd do under pressure. But you know how you do under pressure usually, right? Yeah, I generally perform well under pressure, but... Why not give it a try? Oh, scary.

I would love to go on a game show. Have you ever tried? That's my dream, to go on a game show. Have you ever tried? No, I took the Jeopardy test like one time. Keep taking it. No nuts. I mean, now I really feel that like my brain as it is right now is probably like in peak trivia form.

It's just like downhill from here. That's a very brandy thought. And so now is probably the time. And here's my prediction. What? You're not going to try. And then a year from now, you'll be like, well, I should have. I should have done it a year ago when mine is not as good.

My reaction times are slower. You're absolutely right, Kristen. Here, here, smack me in the face. Watch, I won't be able to block it in time. No, you should totally try. I think you'd do great. And even if you didn't do great, like, it'd be a cool experience. I mean, it'd be a cool experience.

Literally ask me, like, who sings Brandy, You're a Fine Girl? And I can't come up with the answer. It's looking glass, just to prove everybody that I know it. And I can't come up with the answer. It's looking glass just to prove everybody that I know it. First of all, I don't think like the general public would know how outrageous it was that you didn't know that. You're right. So it really wouldn't be that bad. Is what I'm trying to say to you.

Happily Ann says, hi, guys. I'm new here, but I've listened to 150 plus episodes already. Since when? I don't know. I laugh so hard I cry almost every episode. My first question is for Brandy. Last year, I got my hair dyed like a forest green ombre, and I love it. But as I've washed it, it has faded, and some of the green has turned into an electric blue color.

How? Why? Because blue is a contributing pigment to green. That's why. Alright. That's the science. And she is a scientist, everyone. And on that note, I think we should answer

not answer, we should read some Supreme Court inductions. Supreme Court inductions! Kristen, tell the people how to get inducted into the Supreme Court Inductions. Supreme Court Inductions! Kristen, tell the people how to get inducted into the Supreme Court while I get to the right spot on this page. I am also not on the right spot. Hold on

to your hat. What episode is this? It's 234. Oh, 234. No, 244. Alright, 244. Then I'm in the right spot. I'm not. Now you tell them. Alright, everybody. Here's what you do. You. Oh, $2.34. No, $2.44. All right, $2.44. Then I'm in the right spot. I'm not. Now you tell them. All right, everybody.

Here's what you do. You go on to our Patreon. You sign up at the $7 level or higher. Why do you sound like a televangelist right now? I was hoping to be more effective. I was hoping that they would be lulled into pulling out their credit cards. Reach into your pockets, deep inside your pockets, and donate to the show.

Is that what you're doing? I don't buy what you're selling. See, you're like at a tent somewhere trying to be big time. You're in a megachurch? I'm in the megachurch right now. You're Joel Osteen right now? I sure am. You fucking

wish. Now let me sucker these people into giving us money. Join our Patreon right this moment. If you do, it'll save a child. Specifically Brandy's child. Yeah, it'll save her child. Specifically Brandy's child.

Yeah, it'll save her from not getting chicken nuggets. That's right. You heard that right. If you don't sign up for the Patreon, Brandy's baby goes hungry. Oh my gosh, this is ridiculous. Do you want that on your hands?

It'll be on your hands. She's not doing fine. She's hungry right now. She would love a chicken nugget, but we have no chicken nuggets. And so the people who have supported London were reading their names and their first celebrity crushes. Berlin Lada. Sean from Boy Meets World. Amy Garney.

River Phoenix in Stand By Me. Angela Sermons. Rider Strong. Who is Sean from Boy Meets World? Oh, I thought that sounded like a porn star. Okay. No, that's Ride Her Strong. Ha ha ha!

Hey! Hold on! Oh, boy! Miranda Delahoy. Jonathan Brandis in Sequest. Kellen. Young Gregory Peck. Oh, like Atticus Finch situation?

How old is he? Would he be considered young there? I don't know that he was super young there. All right. All right. Jesse. The fox from Robin Hood. Is he a celebrity?

No. Carrie Elwes, circa princess bride. Carrie Elwes. As you wish. Oh. Also, he played Robin Hood in Robin Hood Men in Tights. You got a thing for Robin Hoods. Honey, I think you just like the uniform.

Megan Asbell. Michael Varden, a.k.a. The Teacher and Drew Varden. Yeah, he's the teacher in Never Been Kissed. That movie is fucked up from here to Sunday, Megan. How dare you? Watch that movie again, Telby. You still like that movie? I didn't say she liked the movie.

She thought Michael Vartan was hot. Megan, I get it. Megan, what was your favorite part? When the teacher kissed what he thought was a high school student? Was that your favorite part? Logan Branch. Chuck Norris. Cubby.

Andy Griffith. These are some wild answers today. Annie Lee. Ben Adams from the British boy band A1. A boy band I don't know. I'm not familiar. Morgan Hoy. Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

Jennifer Gessel. Chris Farley. Mary Poulos. The Prince from The Little Mermaid. Oh, he was quite fetching. Stephanie Nettles. Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block. Christina Bell JTT

Ann Cooley Kirk Cameron When he was Mike Seaver Before he was Besties with Jesus I love that Chell Wainscott Avril Lavigne Davina

Boys to Men Dot dot dot, dot. All four of them. Welcome to the Supreme Court! Thank you, everyone, for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Patreon.

I'm getting stuck. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and then head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review. Then be sure to join us next week. When we will be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff then regurgitate it all back up in my

very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. I got my info from the documentary Bullied, a student, a school, and a case that made history. The book, From the Closet to the Courtroom,

Five LGBT Rights Lawsuits That Have Changed Our Nation by Carlos Ball, and The Court Record. I got my info from an episode of 48 Hours, an episode of Snapped, an episode of Snapped about a man. I didn't think that men were capable of snapping. I didn't know that they did any episodes on men on Snapped. An episode of Forensic Files, Men were capable of snapping. I didn't know that they did any episodes on men on Snap.

An episode of Forensic Files, an article for Medium by Laurie Johnston and ABC News. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.