Love Trapped - The Welfare Check Body Cams | BONUS

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Before we get to episode 10, there’s some important context about Laura and her family’s interactions with Scottsdale Police. At the end of 2023, the police were dispatched to Laura’s family home for at least 4 different welfare checks, most of which were likely initiated by online users who had been following her court cases. Two of those welfare checks were recorded on officer bodycams. In this bonus episode, we’re playing those recordings.    For exclusive content, follow us on Instagram @glasspodcasts. If you would like to reach out to the Loved Trapped team or have a similar story to share, email us at [e-mail]. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the, Cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be... Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Ellen's, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. The lesbian, Michael Maranini. My mind was blown.

I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast playing along is back with more of my favorite musicians. Check out my newest episode with Josh Grobin. You related to the Phantom at that point.

Yeah, I was definitely the phantom in that. That's so funny. Share each day with me each night, each morning. Listen to Nora Jones is playing along on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Stephanie. Back with another bonus episode. Before we get to episode 10, I want to explain a bit about Laura and her mom's interaction with the Scottsdale Police. In November and December of 2023, the police were dispatched to Laura's house for a welfare check on her, at least four separate times.

Two of them were recorded on officer body cams and have been made public. Today, we're going to play you those recordings. You'll get to hear from Laura's mom, Jan Black, and from Laura herself. They tell the police their side of the story. We lightly edited them to cut out dead air or repeated information, but we've left these mostly intact, so you can hear the whole interaction. We're starting with the welfare check on December 12th, 2023.

Laura's mom, Jan, is the one who answers the door. And just a heads up, you'll hear the officer's phone buzzing from time to time. Yeah, is somebody called in a welfare check about her? Yes. Yeah, it's a friend from New York. I don't know if you know who that might be. No, what I do know is that she is the target of an online harassment campaign that has been going on for months.

Okay. And one of the things that they wanted to do, it was started by a disgruntled ex-boyfriend of hers. And he started posting all of this crazy stuff about her on Reddit, stuff that is unbelievable. Right. And so he has encouraged people to do, to call in the Scottsdale Police Department and ask for a welfare job.

Okay. This is like the third one in a week. Okay. And I had contacted the... I mean, she called in and talked to the Scottsdale Police Department as well and said, you know, we don't want your resources. This is ridiculous. It's a prank thing.

But I'm happy to go get her. She was taking an aunt. This has been... devastating beyond belief. Is she asleep now? She's taking a nap, but I can wake her up. I don't think that would be necessary. Well, it's okay.

Well, so I don't, for some reason, it wasn't in our notes for your address. I'm going to put comments in there that says this is an ongoing prank. Right. They still may send. We have to understand, because if we don't, if it's not us on,

or it's not the same dispatchers, they still might just send on it. Uh-huh. But I would work on trying to contact Reddit and let them know. She has contacted them. They will not take it down. They will not take it down. And this guy, he's created different fake accounts.

He, I mean, it's... He's going to great lengths. Have you looked into an adjunction against harassment? She has against him. This is part of his... Part of his thing, she's had this against him for two years. This is an old ex-boyfriend then. Yeah.

Oh, wow. It's an old ex-boyfriend. And she had the injunction against harassment against him. I mean, he's really another friend of ours who is an FBI profiler had looked at, you know, what this guy is all about. And she said he's the kind of a person who is not. not going to stop unless he thinks he's got a win. Okay. And he had said to her, he texted her, I will destroy your life, I will destroy your reputation.

And that was two years ago. And he's just, he's just continued this. Is he local here? Yeah, he's local. What's his name? He's local. His name is Greg for last week. But he could have called from a fake number, or like I say, he's tried to start stuff online. she had she contacted the scoutsdale police department with a lot of instances of these and they sent it to the prosecutor's office and the prosecutor's office said that they didn't think they could get a conviction on it they said there was a lot of stuff but they didn't know that they if they would be able to get a conviction on it so i think that one of his motives is to try to make it so that when her order against him comes up for renewal next year that he can say, well, look, you know, she's, you know, she's crazy.

You know, look at all this stuff that he's posted online about her. Yeah. Well, and then, especially for her, document it, get copies of it, so then she can go right back to the judge and be like, this is what's going on. Right. And he's contacted a podcaster who has also been doing just relentless posts about her. That's so strange. I know.

Well, what happened, what prompted a lot of this stuff is, My daughter became pregnant by the guy who was the bachelor last year. And she became pregnant by him in May. And then he was acting like, oh, you're not really pregnant. Or if you are pregnant, it's not mine. And then other times he was saying to us like, oh, but he wanted to be involved in the pregnancy and all this kind of stuff. So anyhow, when this ex-boyfriend found out about her. pregnancy with this guy, then it

sent him into kind of an overdrive thing, and then he reached out to him, and it's like, my daughter finally did a big post on Medium the other day, explaining, you know, just the toll that all of this has taken on her and how it's

just, it's just crazy beyond the leaf. I think there's probably somebody, our neighbor babysits dogs. Oh, okay. So I think this is like pickup. Oh, okay. It's more like, uh. I know, I know. I'm always kind of like that, too. Get online. I also try to get online.

You can contact Google at different places and have her information removed from online, like house, phone number, things like that. Work on doing that, too. Try to get as much information as you can offline. I know it's hard. We have to do it, and that's exactly how they tell us to do it. And there's ways to, like, whitepages.com, and you can go on, there's a link it says, remove my information.

And you can go on that, have her start doing all that information too. And then I get that they're coming to the house, but see what you can do to block that information. Right, right, right. Well, I just feel, I feel really awful for you guys because, you know, this is, it's a waste of, it's a waste of resources and it's obviously, you know, prank stuff. Do you know what phone number had contacted? It's a four-on-five area code. It's out of New York. 415 is San Francisco.

Because we're from San Francisco. Our number is in 4-1. The 4-151, the person that called us gave us that phone number. Contact her. So whoever called doesn't have her current. It's getting old information online. Okay. Do you have, do you, because I just like this.

Give me a second. I'll walk out and go grab it. Oh, that would be great. Do you know how to spell Greg's last name? Is it G-I-L-L-E? Has he been harassing her by stopping by? the house at all, anything like that? He has

gone into her email. They dated very briefly, and she became pregnant by him. Okay. And he was very, shall we say, violent

in his effort to get her to have an abortion. So she filed an abortion coercion case against him. Okay. Which really ticked him off. Yeah. She didn't ask for any money for her. she asked for a charitable donation for abortion coercion.

Did you get it? Yeah, it's for... It doesn't have to my name. I'm going to actually give them a call to follow up with them. Okay. What is Greg Drive, do you know? I don't. I don't.

She didn't. He's made lies. I mean, absolutely, he's made crazy things. He's posted online stuff saying that he went to high school, which he never did. I mean, he's posted on these fake accounts, saying that he knew her in high school and that she was pregnant by a developmentally disabled kid, the father of somebody else, the principal, the school principal, I mean, things that are so unbelievably outrageous. I mean, it's just like it's to really, I think, try to discredit her again so that when her order against him comes up, that it's that it's.

It'll look like, oh, wow, you look at this stuff online, man, you know. So there is a current order of protection against him? Yes, yes, there is. Was that filed through Scottsdale or County? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

And I mean, and the guy is unhinged. I mean, I had no. Sounds like. I had no clue when, you know, I had said to her, when she wanted to file this abortion coercion case in the first place, I said, you know what, just let's leave in dogs well, I'd just be done with him and everything like that. She was like, no, I feel really strongly about what he did and the way he did it to me. And so, you know, she went ahead with it.

And as I say, it just started this torrent of... Yeah. Yeah, really, really bad stuff. But anyway, I appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. I'll definitely look into trying to get any information you can removed online. because they had your name too. They did. What did they have?

Elizabeth. Okay, that's my, yeah, that's my given name. Jan is my nickname. Robert? Who? What was the one? I took a picture of it. Oh, okay. They had your husband's name too.

Okay, Ron. Ron. Ron. Okay. So, I would definitely try to see whatever you can move from online. Yeah. They've been trying to post on our social media stuff. They've posted on her social media stuff.

they've, and this guy, as I say, when she was going out with him, he said, like, you know, well, I'm really suspicious of people. So, you know, would you give me your passwords? Because I wouldn't want to think, you know, I want everything to be, you know, to, I want to trust each other. So he, she gave it, she was like, oh, okay, sure, no problem. So he's gone in to her emails from years and years ago and doctored emails and sent them

as though they were from her he's doctored letterhead he did come here one time when she was dating him and the first thing he said is he said

hey I need your parents Wi-Fi information he was out here and he said I need their Wi-Fi what's their password and stuff like that so he's been

doing a yeah if Later when you speak to Laura, like I said, I don't necessarily want to wake her up. But if she wants to speak with someone from the police department about everything that's been going on lately, because you said it's been like the third time in about the last week or so. Right. And she had talked with Detective Reedy, I think, had, he had come up with, he had sent the stuff and forwarded it to the prosecutors.

But the prosecutors just said that they're, you know, they'd have to be assured of getting a conviction. out to have her reach out to Detective Reedy again and let him know what's going on with this now that may be able to kind of help maybe refile the judges I think what his thing was

that it would be difficult for him to be able to prove, you know, she was suspicious of all this stuff. Yeah. But I mean we pretty, you know, there's nobody else who would have the motive to do this. Yeah. It is difficult to prove. It's proven, yeah. It's a proving because he goes under

things. Like I say, he obviously, you know, doctor, did they say what their concern was when they called? Suicidal comments. Okay, well, because she had, when she posted this thing on Medium, she, she had written in there that it, that this unrelenting, this has gone on for months, that this had made her feel borderline suicidal. Okay. So, you know, but she, she, she said the borderline suicidal. borderline suicidal thing, but that's not, you know, it's not the case. Right, right. It's like she had said to me, like, oh my God, how much more of this can I take? Does she have any friends in New York? My daughter lives in New York. My other daughter lives in New York, but she's well aware of what's going on. And she would contact you directly. Oh, of course, of course. And Laura talks to her like

two hours a day that they're on the phone. And I was just with my daughter in there, like, five minutes before you guys rang. And the reason I, she lives in the Casita, and the reason I left was because she said, hey, I'm just, I'm spent from all this. I just want to close my eyes for a little bit. When did she pose that? When did she post the medium thing?

Yesterday? Yesterday? No, it was before, yeah. I mean, it was on there yesterday, but I want to say it was maybe, today's Tuesday, maybe Friday night or Saturday. Okay. That kind of goes with the timeline.

I'm going to give this to you. Not that you guys are in crisis, but they might be able to kind of help, just give her someone else to talk to. They have resources that we don't even know exist. Oh, really? Reach out. They might be able to help you put you guys in a good direction. Okay, okay.

And also reach out to the detective for you again and see if there's something else. Yeah, let him know what's been happening. Yeah. That way he's kind of, surprised of it too so it might it might be able to help kind of open a different door a different direction but reach out to him again okay these guys have a lot of a lot of resources that we don't even know exist okay so give them a call okay yeah it can't hurt because no i mean because like she had said

she had tried to be anonymous with this whole thing initially with the the pregnancy with the bachelor guy and then and then people were saying well wait you can or this guy was starting the conversation that way you can Google the case and then her name comes up and it's Laura Owens and she's a podcast. She and I do a podcast. And we've done it for, I guess it's 2017 and iTunes named us one of the top 25 most downloaded new podcasts in 2018.

So we've had success with it. But I mean this is just, you know, she really had wanted to stay under the radar on this and then she finally decided like, hey, you know, this guy is controlling the narrative and I have to speak out. I have to explain what's been going on because otherwise she was feeling like she was getting no support from anybody because she didn't really want to go tell her friends and everything like that that this was all going on.

So it's just, it's a nightmare. But I really appreciate you guys. No problem. Yeah, we'll put comments in there so they know. Okay. Officer Granik was the guy who contacted her the other night. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So we'll put comments in there with the address, and then it'll come up in the history. I'll go back and read through the comments. So we'll try to do that to kind of help you guys out a little bit. Okay. Yeah. No, I really appreciate it. Anything.

No problem. Hey, wait, I've got something to you guys. Hang on a little bit. At the end of the video, Jan hands a candy bar to one of the officers. He takes it and thanks, Jan. I hope this is a bribe. Well, thank you. I want to go to chocolate.

Thank you. Thank you. Another welfare check happened a week earlier on December 4th, 20203. And this time, Laura joins the conversation. All right. Are you looking for Laura? Laura's my daughter. Okay.

She's here? Yeah. She called the FBI. And the FBI called us to come check and make sure she's okay. Oh, well, did it was... She was reporting something to him, but she was upset and sounded like she made some statements. They just wanted to make sure she's okay. Oh, was this a long time?

No, this was supposedly this morning. Okay, hang on a second. Can I just make sure I could see her car? They said she's back here, but she was going to come out. Where's your police car? Huh? Over there. The police car.

We've had some really strange things. Where's your police car? There's two of them sitting right here. Okay, okay, okay, all right. Well, come on here. But she lives in the back, in the little cassita? Yeah, she lives in the casita. Okay.

Yeah, and sit down. Hi, goppy, it's okay. Yeah, she's had some real issues with an ex-boyfriend who, it is the most complicated bizarre story ever. but, Well, our, the only reason we're here is she evidently gave the FBI

talk to them. They just wanted us to swing by to make sure she's okay. Okay. That's all we need. Hang on one second. Let me just go gather then. Hang on.

Hi there. Did you contact the FBI this morning? Cybercrimes unit. Yeah. Did you talk to somebody or? No. Nobody contacted me. I, like, just submitted it,

like, an hour ago. If it's the same thing, she helped me with the the report requested. So the information we got was that you submitted something to the FBI.

It didn't say whether you talked to somebody on the phone or electronically made an online complaint. Yeah. It said something you said was borderline

suicidal. Right. That was from the guy that that was also from So the FBI called us to come and check on you

to make sure you're okay and your experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that was like from Were you talking about whatever you said? Were you talking about yourself?

Yeah, but it was like from a couple months ago. She was saying she's been targeted. She's had a horrible situation with cyber harassment. From an ex-boyfriend and from another guy who's obsessed with her. Yeah. And she had 50 videos of me on YouTube. So, yeah. She has simply asked him to stop.

She's filed a cease and desist, asking him to stop. and they're not they haven't stopped and so she thought that you know it needs to go to some kind of cyber crimes unit and she had said in there that the harassment

I can say it I had told the guy specifically that like creating these daily videos about me had made me feel borderline suicidal I was like last month I messaged him and he continued to make videos about me but I'm fine and this guy has made like 40

It's 50. 50. Yeah, I mean, it's just... It's insane. Somebody at the upbred actually saw your complaint today. Right. And saw that where it's like these videos making you're going to decide on. They're like, oh, we better call Scottsdale and make sure you're not actually going to hurt yourself.

Right. No. And you're not. No. No. No. Okay. No.

I'm good. No. Yeah. Unless you could get the guy to stop. But I mean, it's been... It's been horrific. Absolutely. Well, it sounds like somebody at the FBI got your plane, so hopefully they do something.

Yeah, that's what I'm helping. Then mom, you're aware of everything going on, right? So you're here. Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything that's going on. No, it's been, it's been three months.

And if you do start feeling like you can always call us because we can get you help too. Oh, no, I really appreciate that. I mean, what would be great is just for the guy to stop. It's just very scary. But it's just that he's just really tried to incite. like, online hatred of her

and he was she has protective orders against two prior boyfriends and one of them is a real is a real

stalker kind of a nut and has done every he he swore that he was going to ruin

her life and he was able to hack it to her computer he had her passwords he had

all this kind of stuff And it's just, he did contact with this YouTube guy, and he's just tried to do, you know, just to ruin her to come up with all these fake stories, this craziness, and posted online about her. And so, so, you know, she was finally thinking, like, if a cease and assist didn't work, and she's trying to get a temporary restraining order against this guy. He lives in LA. First Amendment. Yeah, and that's what makes it tough as different states.

Right, right. And that's why I figured I had to contact. And he's claiming he's got a right to post up, but he doesn't have a right to post lies. But anyway, but so Laura was saying, well, maybe, you know, he has violated these cyberstocking and cyber crime stuff. This guy posted a map of...

To my house. I have another house, so he posted a map. Yeah, we have a... Yeah, it's like... be. He posted a thing showing how to get to our house with pictures of the house. I mean, he had that on his computer

up in the background when he was posting one of these the other day. So, Laura was thinking, you know, maybe if we contacted a cybercrime, a cyber-stalking unit, that maybe that... Yeah, I mean, people have said, like, they hope I'm an organ donor because then something good would

come from my pathetic existence. Like, I'm a waste of skin. Like, they've been because they're... They're very mean. So I'm just hoping to solve this guy and, you know. Yeah, we just, you know, because it's like where do we, where do we even turn? If they won't respect the court system and, you know, they've just tried to do everything to hurt us. To hurt, you know, the family, too.

I mean, they've, it's just, it's just been an absolute nightmare. As long as you're okay. That's why we're here to make sure. Really appreciate that. Okay. Good luck with everything. Like, said, someone at the FBI. I really have, hey, people don't know this guy.

Well, yeah, we have you. Thank you so much for listening. Stay tuned for new episodes and bonus content on the love trapped feed. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

When a group of women discover they've all dated the same. same prolific con artist. They take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that, trust your girlfriends.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test once. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern.

Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian, Michael Mancini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the I-Heart Radio,

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast playing along is back with more of my favorite musicians. Check out my newest episode with Josh Grobin. You related to the Phantom at that point. Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that. That's so funny. Share each day with me each night, each morning. Listen to Nora Jones is playing along on the I-Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.