Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - Reddit's Most Disturbing Deceptions

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

What happens when the people closest to you have been lying from day one?Alexis Linkletter and Sabrina Deana-Roga react to four of Reddit's most disturbing deceptions. A woman discovers her boyfriend's online friend group may have been him the whole time. A boyfriend hides a device in his girlfriend's closet and plays dumb while it slowly drives her to paranoia. A woman realizes the new man she's dating may have targeted her to get closer to her famous ex-husband. And in a listener submission from our subreddit, a woman inherits her abusive grandfather's estate and uncovers documents that make her question how her mother really died. Alexis and Sabrina hear each other's stories for the first time as they dig into the lies, the red flags, and the updates that followed.Plus, Kaelyn Moore, host of Heart Starts Pounding and the Crime House original Clues, joins the conversation for the final story. Listen to Clues and Heart Starts Pounding wherever you get your podcasts.Content Warning: This episode discusses suicide, psychological manipulation, gaslighting, possible stalking, and obsessive behavior. If this is a sensitive topic for you, please proceed with care.For more, follow Crimes Of Reddit wherever you listen to podcasts: https://pod.link/1838511303If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Scams, Money, & Murder to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Scams, Money, & Murder is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Crime House 24/7, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories, and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Hi everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus, Conner's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What The Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What The Fact Pod. I was immediately horrified, quite literally shaking and crying as my wildest nightmare of someone planting a device in my room had literally come true. Oh my gosh. My immediate thought was, who would do something like this? What did I do to deserve this? I called my boyfriend immediately and he admitted he knew what it was. If you're loving crimes of Reddit, please follow, rate and review us wherever you listen. It helps us build this community and we love hearing.

from you. Get early access and ad-free listening. Subscribe to the Crime House Plus Community on Apple podcasts. You can also catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life. Hey everyone. Welcome back to Crimes of Reddit. Welcome back. I'm Sabrina Deanna Roga. I'm Alexis Linkletter. And we have a special guest who's joining us at the end of the episode. Caitlin Moore from Crime House's Clues. We're very excited to have her join us at the end of the episode. So stay tuned. that. And before recording, we were talking about how competitive we are and board games, and I need to know what games you don't get competitive with. I get very competitive with all of them. Scatigories, cards against humanity. Cards against humanity? Mario Kart, Mario Party. Have you played? Like, what about Wii? I've never played a Wii before.

Because I'm not a video game girl. I'm just really not. So I only play with my family, like when we're on a trip or something for the holidays. We like bust it out and have some drinkies in play. So are you a solitaire girl? Should that be your game? I don't play any. I stay away from them because it just ruins my day if I don't win. Note to self, don't play a game with Alexis. No.

Okay. What about you? You like to lose? I like to lose. I don't lose. Okay, well that's fair. I hate playing games with my brother because he's such an asshole, like when he's competitive and when he wins, I just were like, that's like me. That's why I read, like, I don't want

people to see me like that. Like, it's better, it's better that they don't. And remember me in like a fond light, you know. Fair. At least you know yourself. Yeah. But I love the we. Like I have one in my bedroom. In your bedroom? Because that's where my TV is. That's hilarious. And some days I'll wake up and that's the first thing I do. I play a game. Wee bowling. by yourself first thing in the morning. I highly recommend it. It's very fun. Like, you roll out of bed and that's what you do. I roll into a bowl.

That's so funny. Anyway, we have stories from Reddit. What is our theme today? Deception. Yeah. There's a lot of shocking stories in this one. Yeah. And I think it's so interesting because there are so many different ways to be deceived or to deceive someone. I mean, really, people can get very creative.

And this episode proves that they do, in fact, get creative when deceiving. And once again, the stories that I have picked, Alexis has not heard or has no idea what I've picked, so you'll be reacting blind. And then I don't know the stories you picked. So I'll be reacting blind to you. And I do know that we picked a story from our subreddit for the end of the episode that you'll be reading. So I don't know what it is. Can't wait. But until then, should we jump into the first deception story? Yeah, I think we should. Before we get into the first story, we do want to give a content warning.

There are mentions of psychological manipulation, gaslighting, possible stalking, and obsessive behavior in these stories. Okay. Okay. Let's buckle up. I don't want to read the title of this one because I want to let us... I don't want it to be ruined. Yeah, I don't... Yeah.

I want a nice little surprise factor. But it was posted in the Am I Overreacting subreddit? So a little before this guy and I started dating in 2022, I was added to my boyfriend who at the time was just a friend's three-person Instagram group chat with who he explained were some of his closest online friends. The two other accounts seemed like real people. They had real followers and comments on their posts and drastically different aesthetics and looks to them. Eventually, all of us made a Discord server for us to chat in, and that alone was convincing enough since multiple times we would all be active at the exact same time. We never voice chatted, but I didn't really use voice chat in my life, so I never thought twice about that. The group got really closer over the years, and as more and more time passed since I was first

added to the group chat, last month we decided to plan a research trip to Hawaii for August. We live on the east coast of the U.S. Like, we literally booked everything for this group. And so as context, they've never met in person. This would be the first time they're all together meeting and hanging out in real life. Do we know how old the O.P. is? This feels like a very youthful scenario. We don't have the exact age, but it does remind me of kind of like gamer community.

Yeah, yeah. Where people really do form friendships. online. Yeah. Okay, I love this, but they're taking it into the real world. Yes, taking it offline. Okay. So imagine my surprise when I'm over at my boyfriend's house tonight and his computer is open and I just want to log into my Google Docs when I accidentally stumble across, first of all, follower bot sites. And then I see him logged in in chatting with me as one of the other individuals from the group that I thought I had become close with. and I just got this sinking feeling. I didn't jump to the idea that these could be fake accounts. I was like, okay, maybe my boyfriend just has their login since they're all super close and is way too interested in their messages.

But then I noticed their only chats on their accounts were the group chats and our Discord server. But the real kicker was that the email address that was signed up under these accounts was his backup email with his full name. name. I quite literally snooped until he got out of the shower and caught me, which I'm not saying was right of me. Yes, it was. But I couldn't help myself. During my snooping, I gradually became devastatingly confident that he wasn't behind just one of the accounts, but both. I've never seen his face so red, and he just absolutely panicked and started shouting at me to get out of his business. I couldn't even form the right words to say to him, and in the end, I just walked out of his apartment

sobbing. This was very early in the morning, so I get it. But this screenshot is what he has to say, and I am starting to feel crazy. O.P. says, am I overreacting about my discovery? And this is the text message. O.P. text, boyfriend, saying, I just want to know why. When it finally came time for the Hawaii trip, how were you going to explain that? What were you thinking? Boyfriend responds, you know something I've noticed about you? You can never just be calm. There always has to be an issue. I know you were raised in a volatile environment and still have to relearn a lot about healthy relationship dynamics, but it's like you thrive on chaos only. And we were going to see wicked tonight, but I guess there that goes. How manipulative. So OP responds, you can't be

serious. I deserve answers. I'm honestly so creeped out. Basically half of my life for the last two years has been a complete and total lie and you were behind all of it. He responds. Okay, don't be dramatic. You know this isn't a big deal. You're just giddy to harp on this and make it a bigger issue. Way to completely deflect and gaslight and try to manipulate her and just completely not answer for the bizarreo. Yeah. Behavior two year long, charade.

Also, which is also very manipulative. Yeah. There's no version of pretending to be these friends that is okay. Well, maybe he was trying to manipulate her through those friends. Yes. Either to like, hey, like, so how serious is it? Like, maybe there was one of them, like, side texting her and being like, so what do you think? Like, are you mad at him?

Is it like to get information or like manipulate her in a talking shit and catch her? So there are a lot of people in the comments who are saying anytime you got in a fight, he could then sway your opinion by using these friends, making you believe you were confiding in someone else. Yeah, and then, like, then you're having three people distort your reality. So if you're upset about something that a normal person would agree that, like, that something was fucked up that happened, these three people being like an echo chamber, like, no, that's not a big deal. You're crazy.

That could be really, that could really warp your reality. And also, I just, I mean, I have so many questions because these accounts predate, like, they were friends when she was added to this group, which makes me think he had this plan to kind of use it to ingratiate her with him more. And then also the accounts existed for years prior. So who else has he done this to? I just think it's strange, like, lurker, like having a bunch of accounts to use for whatever you want, to like, especially this doesn't sound like a random burner account that you can use, you know, if you want to look at your enemy's stories or something. Yeah. It seems like they were developed, like, over time. And she described feeds that were active and friends and comments. Like, it seems like a lot of work. And what the hell was he planning to do when they were going to Hawaii? They were going to, like, be sick at the last, you know. Yeah, yeah. You hear about stuff like this where there's always something. It's so manipulative. They get very creative. Okay, so a lot of the comments are agreeing with us. One says, this is not okay. I'm blown away that this is actually real because what? How could someone do that to you? You're really? You're

partner of all people. And was he ever planning on telling you or just letting it right out? What does he gain from this? There are so many things running through my mind, but the most disgusting factor is how he responded to it. It's so manipulative, like he's deflecting instead of owning his own actions. I'm sorry you're going through that. And a lot of people were like, I don't understand what endgame is here. Someone was like, like, I'm imagining the night of your rehearsal dinner. Hey, babe, about my groomsmen, they were driving here and all died in a freak accident. Oh, well, show must go on. Literally. Yeah. And then yeah, someone was like the entire thing was carefully crafted, a plan to get her into a relationship with him in the first place. I have zero doubt that every

interaction that took place between her and the three different accounts he was running were geared around steering the two of them into a relationship and controlling original posters reality. It's a truly psychotic and diabolical level of manipulation. Also pathetic. So pathetic. Weird. And again, it's like this kind of obsessive behavior is so disturbing when it's focused on anything, really. You know, it's like someone who's willing to dedicate that much energy to doing something like this. Like, imagine what else you could do with that kind of time. And I can't really fathom that. Right.

It's hard enough being one person. It's like an individual. It is so hard to just like everyday tasks and. like maintaining relationships and friendships and businesses. I couldn't imagine doing that for three people. One Instagram account is so daunting. Yeah. Like, no, it's like such a pain to deal with.

Imagine, no. And unfortunately, we have no update. So we don't know. I hate that. What? Sounds like she was breaking up with them, though. Yeah. Like, she very clearly knows how fucked up it was.

Yeah. So I hope she left him in the dust. Yeah, I hope so too. But it does remind me of like, there were a couple seasons on something was wrong, that podcast that were very similar to this where someone created fake accounts or fake people and then manipulated the whole relationship through those fake people. It's insane. It's bizarre. Yeah. Wild.

Insane. You ready for story number two? I'm ready. You ready to dive in? Let's do it. A woman once survived a fall for more than two miles up because she crashed landed on a nest of furious fire ants. A 13th century pope once condemned black cats as the servants of Satan.

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odd places, peculiar events. When it comes to history, the truth, is always more unbelievable than you think. Follow the unbelievable on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. There's another theme emerging here with this episode. I wonder what that's going to be. Bad boyfriends? Okay. At the end, we'll discuss about whether there's a through line here or not. Yeah, I have a crazy story about deception. Ooh, let's save that for the end. Okay, I'll save it.

Actually, go for it. You want to hear it? Yeah. Okay. I'm like, I don't. something I can wait that long. So my dad cheated on my mom. Rood. Agreed. But he created a fake email pretending to be my mom and emailed his girlfriend, pretending to be my mom, saying, I totally understand why Derek can't be celebrating Christmas with his family this year. I hope you enjoy your trip. Why? Because he wanted his girlfriend to believe that it was okay. My mom knew they were in a relationship.

My mom printed this out and gave me that email. Why do you get it? Because I was the child that was an adult friend. You were the parentified child. Yes, I was. That's the correct term for it. Yeah. Well, that must have been strange.

But also, like, how much work? Honestly, just be honest and deal with the repercussions. And maybe don't have a secret affair. Yeah, don't do that. I'm sorry. Thank you. Oh, I think it's funny. hilarious. I'm coping with it through humor. We're all dealing with our childhood traumas in our own

ways. Listen, I've done a lot of therapy, and it doesn't, it's not as big of a wound anymore. I bet the ghosts help. The ghosts? Yeah. Yeah. Just being scared of just thinking about the ghost and stuff. Right. Disracting. Yeah. Okay. Are we ready for story number two? Yeah. Am I overreacting over this, air quotes, small prank. I, female 22, had been with my boyfriend, male 25, for a little over a year and a half. Recently, we've been running into hurdles because I've been feeling like he has been bothering, teasing, poking, biting me more than being serious and loving as a partner to. For context, I mean making weird noises all the time, or groping me randomly. even if I'm in the middle of a sentence and talking about something serious when I would prefer active listening.

Yeah, I know shit. Agreed. Loving touch. Unironic quality time. I can literally picture what she's talking about. Unironic. Right. Describing that's what she wants.

It's like, oh, everything's. That's like asking for the bare minimum. Yeah. Yeah. We had a huge conversation about this recently as I was on the brink of ending things with him, since the lack of warmth relative to his uns seriousness was making me feel empty. Since then, there has been a genuine effort and big improvement, and I was starting to feel very hopeful that this was something we could work through.

Fast forward a little. I am starting a new job as an educator, and while I am very excited about it, it is also a huge adjustment and has been really stressful. On top of that, for the past six days, I have been hearing this bizarre beeping noise coming from my closet that chirps once every like 20 to 40 minutes and it's driving me nuts. Oh my, that's like when your fire alarm or smoke detectors need battery change. I don't know how people leave them beeping. I don't either. Because it would drive me insane. Yeah. So I understand why this would be so bothersome. A hundred percent. Especially when they're like already stressed out and have a lot on their And like starting a job as an educator, which I presume to mean teacher. Early hours, early rise times.

Yeah. So OP continues. I couldn't figure out what it was. It was keeping me up and infiltrating my dreams, and it started to freak me out since nothing I own makes that sound. Nothing in the closet even had a battery in it. And from my overall stress and lack of good sleep, I was starting to grow paranoid that someone had planted a device in my room. So she's being driven, like, actively crazy by this.

Which, who wouldn't? Yeah. To add to this, I'm extremely private, and the only people who are regularly in my room are myself, and my boyfriend, when he visits. This led me to fearing that my boyfriend was secretly stalking me and had planted a mic or something in my room that was starting to make noise. Parentheses.

I had zero reason to believe this and had 100% trust in him, but was starting to go crazy. It even happened while talking with my therapist, and when I explained the mystery of its origins, she seemed equally concerned. Yeah. To make matters worse, the fridge at work is broken and peeps nine times every minute, so it started feeling. like this chirping was following me, compounding my general distress. Like, that would throw me into like a psychosis. I can physically feel the like frustration of that. Yeah. Makes your skin crawl. And the confusion. Yeah. You know, where it's like, is it me? Yeah. Like, am I carrying a magnetic field that's like triggering devices to beep? Yeah. You know?

Last night, after a stressful day and finding out some unrelated, unsettling news that is enough to emotionally affect me on its own, my sister heard the noise as a very. well, and we decided to tear my closet apart at 10 p.m., parentheses, when I had to wake up at 6, to figure out what had been plaguing me. After timing the beeps for an hour, it beeped in irregular intervals. We found this tiny Arduino board, deep in one of my boxes labeled, quote, annoying PCB as pictured. And OP says, Google it. Its literal sole purpose is to drive its victims insane. O.P. continues. I was immediately horrified, quite literally shaking and crying, as my wildest nightmare of someone planting a device in my room had literally come true. Oh my gosh.

My immediate thought was, who would do something like this? What did I do to deserve this? I called my boyfriend immediately, and he admitted he knew what it was. He admitted he knew what it was, but not that he did it. She says, I hung up and haven't spoken to him since. The reason I'm not sure if I'm overreacting is because, on the one hand, I understand how this might be funny. No. But to me, that doesn't matter given A, the fact that I have been feeling like he hasn't been generally serious with me to a problematic extent.

B, the fact that this has been plaguing me and disrupting my sleep literally the first week of my new job. And C, I have been complaining about it to him for days. Yeah, that's awful. And he played along being confused and concerned, repeatedly asking me, what does it sound like and even dismissing my genuine concern and paranoia saying maybe there's a little cricket in your room. It's psychotic. No, I was just going to say that psychotic behavior and it reminds me so much of the slug story we read a couple episodes back where the boyfriend was just pushing boundaries

and seeing how far he can get. Like this is an escalation from the behavior that we've gotten context from the OP. And he's pranking her at her expense and laughing at her expense and laughing at her behind her back basically. Well, and it's also a weird, like, Munchausen by proxy adjacent sort of behavior where he's feigning concern and, like, let me help you solve this problem. This is so horrible. Like, when he's creating the problem and then swooping in and trying to be, like, comforting to her, which is so disturbing. And just, like, to not give a shit when someone is starting a new job as a teacher, getting up at 6 a.m., watching how her mental health is deteriorating. She's literally, like, getting paranoid.

Yeah. There's no love there. That's psychotic. Yeah. Yeah. Also, he was also faking. She had this serious conversation with him about, hey, like, I'm not feeling heard. Like, you're not taking me seriously.

Then he feigned in proving. Because she's like, things were getting better. Like, he fixed it. When, meanwhile, he didn't. He's doing this. he's doing this because he's, that's where he's getting off now. I just imagine every time they had a conversation, he would hang up and just snicker and be so fucking proud of himself.

But why? Like, what is fun about that? I think he's just getting at a kick out of torturing someone. It's insane. So, O.P. continues. I just feel like this is on par with, like, glitter bombing. Like, something you do to someone you hate. I never heard that term glitter bombing.

It's like, because it creates a mess that never really goes away because it's impossible to clean up glitter. So it's like people were doing it. I remember like it's got to be like 12 years ago though. It was something that would circulate where you send somebody like a glitter bomb. Yeah. And that sounds awful. And then it's it's really a pain in the ass. Yeah, that sounds awful. Yeah. I feel like this is on par with glitter bombing like something you do to someone you hate, not the person who's supposed to be the love of your life. Yeah. It feels like psychological warfare. And between stretching this out for days and planting it in my room, this feels like a massive breach of trust. Yeah. I mean, understatement of the century. I haven't spoken to him at all, and he's been

texting me saying things like, it was just a prank and beep, beep, beep, with ellipsesies in between the two beep beeps. What pisses me off is that this person could go on and date someone else, and they're not going to change. They're going to, this is behavior. They're going to continue to repeat in relationships, and who knows what it escalates to. So he was also texting her. I miss you and please don't ignore me. O.P. continues. I am so against stonewalling, but I have literally nothing to say to him, and he hasn't apologized or shown remorse.

Continue that stonewalling girl. I don't feel ready to speak to him at all. Maybe it was a good prank with bad timing. No, it wasn't. No, no. And I can't help but feel like this is just setting us back again, and I'm genuinely shaken. I think it's good that it's setting you back.

It should set you back to the point where you break up with him. Yeah. Is that what everyone's saying in the comments? Let's get to them. She says, though, before we get to the comments, I honestly don't see a future at this point, and I'm not really sure what to do. So, yeah, I mean, the comments, I mean, what do you think they're all saying? That he's psycho and to break up with him?

Yeah. Yeah, he doesn't like you. Yeah, so the top comment that's had 1.3,000 upvotes. Yep. Let me give you advice as someone who's been on the receiving end of this, someone who has your safety, mental health, and trust in one hand, and the ability to entertain themselves at that expense of another. It's almost verbatim what you were saying. And they choose the second one. They are letting you know where you stand in their life. You were clearly suffering

from this for multiple reasons, and he kept going. Yeah. It was entertaining to him to watch you be scared and confused. The fact that he's sending you beeping text messages and kicking a circle in the dirt going sorry while taking no accountability speaks volumes. Yep. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. When someone can't take accountability or refuses, like he doesn't think there's anything to take accountability for here. He thinks it's funny. No, he's, he's laughing. Yeah. And another person says, hon, this is psychopathic. Genuinely, he has no empathy for you. I'm speaking as someone who has insomnia, but intentionally messing with one's sleep should be an automatic deal breaker. That's 100% true. I'm, like, I've dated people where it's like, when they get up or when you're napping

and they, like, are intentionally inconsiderate, it's like, if I wake up before my husband, which never happens, he's up with, like, the son, I am so careful because I'm like, oh my God, he's sleeping, like, I won't even turn, like, I tiptoe and, like, bring my makeup outside to, like that's what considerate people do. You're not supposed to think it's funny to like force someone to wake up. And I've actually heard this about children who grew up not realizing that they grew up in abusive households. Parents who get mad when their children take naps or get mad on the weekends if they sleep in or like you were never allowed to just rest. You always had to be doing something or you were called lazy.

Like that's not healthy. Yeah. I've had this experience in relationships in the past where in it, I think a. borders a bit on like emotional abuse where I'd be woken up in the middle of the night to have a fight. And it was like disrupting my sleep. And it got to a point where I was like, I will sleep in a different room and lock the door because it is so invasive. Like sleep is such an important part of our lives. Like we need it. Yeah. That if someone's disrupting it continuously, even when you've set a boundary and they keep crossing it. And that's the other thing here is O.P.

kept trying to set boundaries. And he kept crossing the line, kept crossing the line. and was getting away with it. And I think it's really sad how, and I'm, like, I've done this in the past, too, how we as women just make excuses for someone because we feel bad for them. We maybe love their potential or love the idea or the fantasy that we have created in our head of what it could be. But the reality is this person does not care about you and is treating you horribly. Yeah, absolutely. And a couple more, I mean, one person said this. He was, quote, groping you while you were in the middle of a sentence. If your sister told you that or your mom told you that or your BFF mentioned this, that this is how her partner was treating her, what would you say to them? He is a sadistic bastard, leave him in the trash. And then another user, the internet loves to use the term gaslighting for any lie, which is incorrect, deliberately planting this device to annoy you and deprive you of sleep so you can't cognitively find. function well while actively encouraging your paranoia about someone having put a device in your home is actual gaslighting. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it is crazy abusive behavior. It's really insane. And it also is like, I'll take it a step further. I mean, trying to sabotage your first week on a job means he doesn't want you to have a job. Right. I mean, I feel like you could interpret this behavior in so many other ways. Yeah. Because I actually don't believe superficial behavior.

It's not superficial. The behavior itself, there's always stuff under it. Yeah. There's a lot of intention. Yeah. And it's like he would have known the implications, like what that could do to your first week. Like, people aren't stupid. People are always like, oh, well, they didn't think about that part.

I'm like, I don't believe that about anyone. Yeah. I believe people realize they think through these scenarios and they could have seen what could have happened. Well, even sometimes the lack of thought is malicious in itself too. Yeah. This is why, like, while I'm dating right now, I wish every person I went on a date with came with a resume. Yeah. Their previous dating history, the contact information for their past partners so that I can call for a reference.

Yeah. And then also just, like, what happened in that relationship? Well, it's why, like, Facebook groups popped up. Like, are we dating the same guy? There should be Yelp reviews for people. Yeah, but I could also see how that could get messy. But I think for women, I think it's completely fair because, like, safety's on the line. But then I could see men abusing that and leaving, you know, spiteful lies. That's true.

You have to take it all with a grain of salt. Unless you see it for yourself, you have to take it with a grain of salt. You're absolutely right. I believe her, though. I don't even see this from his own. But like now I feel bad for whoever dates him next. Same with the first story. Yeah, absolutely.

But these two deceptions are interesting because it's in a weird way like getting entertainment out of seeing someone, making a fool of someone. Yeah. In both of these scenarios. And it's really strange that these two people enjoy that. Yeah. Okay. Our next story has some similarities to this, but it also feels stalkery.

And it's kind of scary. Okay. Okay. Let's hear it. Hey, Ontario. Come on down to BetMGM Casino and see what our newest exclusive, the Price's Right Fortune Pick, has to offer. Don't miss out.

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And what about Unsolved Mysteries? The show that jumped started all of our love of true crime. I'm Ellen Marsh. And I'm Joey Taranto. And we host I Think Not, a true crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime campy TV shows all the way to Unsolved Mysteries. Baby, you will laugh, you will cry. You'll think about true crime in a whole new way, and you'll also ask yourself,

who gave these people mics? New episodes of I Think Not are released every Wednesday with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon. And every Monday you can listen to our True Crime Rundown, where we go over the top true crime headlines of the week. So come and join us wherever you listen to your podcast. This is called The Guy I'm Dating, a 36 male, has a shrine to my 37 female ex-husband in his house. Okay. was originally posted in 2019. O.P. says, I was married for seven years to a celebrity. I put it in quotes because while most of you have never heard of him, he is a list in the world of metal music.

If you're a metal head, you would 100% know who he is. He and I split amicably because he was always going on tour, which I used to love going with him, but the thrill of it wore off and I just found myself sick of traveling so much. Because of this, we grew apart, but we still keep in contact occasionally because despite the fact that our marriage didn't work, he's a really cool, nice person. Two weeks ago, I met a guy through a friend, and I immediately hit it off with him. We've been on three dates so far. The first two dates were drinks after work. He showed up in nice khakis and a button down both times. On our last date, I went to his house to watch a movie, literally watch a movie because we're taking the physical stuff slow. He has a nice house,

so I asked for a tour. And after he showed me the upstairs, he said, he said, he's a movie. He's said he had to show me his game room. We went down into a fully furnished basement with a pool table, a mini bar, and darts. But there was also something very weird down there. Apparently, my new man is really into metal music, which I would never have guessed based on how he dresses, which is why O.P. mentioned how he dressed up. His favorite artist of all time, You guessed it. My ex-husband. Mm-hmm.

He had framed posters of all of my ex's bands, autographed signature guitars, every record my ex-husband has ever released were all framed on the walls. He even had magazine articles about him and some of his bands framed. Every wall in this game room was covered with my ex's face and his signature guitars.

So I may have messed up here, but I kept my mouth shut and didn't say, anything. This guy knows I'm divorced, but he definitely doesn't know it's from his idol. Tonight, he and I are seeing each other for our fourth date, and I know I need to tell him, but how? I really like this guy, but I'm afraid if I tell him, he will freak out and run. What should I say? Where should I tell him? I just don't want to damage our relationship because I can really see it becoming something long term. I know I should have told him at his house when I saw all of that, but I was honestly in shock. Does anybody know how to approach this? I have thoughts. Same.

Are we sure he didn't know? Because if you met through a friend, are you sure he didn't know? Well, I think that's why it feels like he wouldn't know because a friend introduced them. Like, wouldn't that friend vouch for this person? But wouldn't that friend say her ex-husband is this famous metal singer? Sure. There's a lot of questions. Yeah. And that's what a lot of commenters are saying is like I find it very hard to believe he doesn't know. I don't believe he doesn't know. And I believe someone who is such a fan, nothing would be, if you're really obsessed, nothing would be better than being with his ex-wife. 100%. Because then it's like, ooh, if he, I'm like with his ex-wife. Like, yeah, I'm as good as him. Like, it's kind of putting

yourself trying to get yourself on like the same level. Like, and I think that's really weird. Yeah. Yeah. It's very like objectifying. for the O.P. Like, yeah, to him, if he knows, he's trying to get a trophy in some regard. Or even get close to her ex-husband and use her. And I'm also very glad that O.P. didn't confront him in that moment because someone like that is dangerous. Could have been weird, yeah. It could have been dangerous, like physically. You're alone in his house, in his basement. But also... You've only been on a couple days. You don't really know him. So if he did know, he was like getting off on this charade then because then like she's watching her squirm and not say anything. Yep.

We do have an update, but let's read a couple of the comments and O.P. did respond to a lot of them. I find it really hard to believe that he has a shrine of your ex-husband to the level you're describing but doesn't know who you are. Maybe I'm jaded, but it seems too coincidental and potentially unsafe for you. O.P. said a lot of people are saying this and now I am a little freaked out. I mean, he can Google my ex-husband and find out we were married. Now I'm scared he definitely did that. I'm going to ask my friend that introduced us if she told him. Then someone asked, have you ever been in photos with your ex-husband that this new guy might have seen?

I find it hard to believe that in this day and age that he wouldn't know who is who the former wife of his idol is. And OP said, this never dawned on me until I posted it, but there are pictures of my ex-husband and I all over the internet. I'm definitely now freaked out that he already knew. A little naive. I'm not victim blaming here, but like you didn't, this didn't occur to you as you're writing this Reddit pose.

I think again the excuses we make for people that we have interest in or, like it really sounds like the O.P, aside from this moment, saw a future with this guy. Okay. Like it was going well. Yeah.

After a lot of the comments, O.P. was like, I am going to break it off with this guy. I can't believe it didn't occur me that he already knew. So they're realizing. Again, glad that you went to Reddit. Someone did ask, it feels like he took you down to the room looking for a reaction to see how you'd react. But we do have an update. Okay. After getting a huge range of answers, some of which were very frightening, I decided to give this new guy the benefit of the doubt and go ahead with our

dinner date that night, our fourth date. I met him at the restaurant and we had some wine first. We were just talking and chatting, and I realized I had to bring up the ex-husband thing. So while we were both two glasses of wine in, I decided to just ask him flat out if he knew that I was previously married to his favorite musician. He nervously laughed and said, yes, I knew, but your friend didn't tell me I figured it out. He told me essentially that he found out through the grapevine and decided to start mingling with my friends so he could meet me. He told me that yes, at first it was just because I was married to his idol, but now he really is developing feelings for me. Even if that's true, red flag, don't be with this person. You know, though, it's like, I've heard stories like this about people like having a crush on someone they've never met and like getting into the same rooms and like somehow making it happen.

Like I've heard that. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm so on the fence about whether it's. that's dangerous or not. I would do that with Tom Felton. I would do that with Malfoy. If you heard a celebrity that you've liked and had a crush on and thought was hot, you heard he always went to one bar and you're like, I'm going to go or you heard like

your friend, you know, is one of his business partners in a restaurant or like hypothetically. Would it be weird for you to be like try to get in the same rooms? I don't know. It is kind of stalker-ish. Yes and no. But that's also the culture we've created around celebrities is people idolize them and that's why they are celebrities. If it's like, oh, you know, I wanted to, I want to marry. Like some people are like, that's what they want to do and they end up hanging out where they hang out. Maybe like want something different. I don't know. But that, but like is it creepy? I don't know. Yeah. Is it creepier than like finding out what someone likes and like trying to get them to like you to find commonalities? I mean, yes, I wouldn't do this. by the way.

Right. I just don't know what the line is to be like, yeah. I like, I want to marry someone who plays football and you just find out. You know, it's like, yeah.

Is it ambitious in manifesting or is it creepy? And I'm not dying on either hill. I don't know. Yeah. I think there's a fine line though. I do think this situation's creepy. Yeah. It's creepy because he didn't say anything.

Yeah. And he knew. That's where it went over the line. And then so we have more of an update where it just does show that this guy. Yeah. So OP says, I thought it was a little odd, but I felt fine with it until I remembered his man cave basement. I asked him if he knew I was married to his favorite musician and if so, why the fuck he would bring me down there to show me all the memorabilia. His response was also weird.

He said, I was trying to see if you would confess. I was like, confess to what? And he said to being married to my ex. I told him I thought it was pretty concerning that he tried to trick me into some weird confession and that I didn't think he and I to work out. He accepted it and didn't seem upset or anything. Dinner had already been served, so we started eating, and then he proceeded to bombard me with questions about my ex. When is he releasing new material? What's his favorite band? What does he do during the day of a show? Is he vegan? What's his mother's maiden name? Blah, blah, blah, blah. She said that she made up the last

question, but basically that was like the line of questioning. Finally, he could sense my discomfort, and we ended the dinner in parted ways. He said he would text me the next day, just as friends, which I said was okay. Well, his text the next day was him trying to get him and his friend's VIP passes to a show when my ex came to play near us. I did not respond and I blocked his number because he kept texting over and over begging me for the hookup to my ex. What a loser. It was desperate and weird. Anyway, I called my ex to warn him about this dude, even though he does seem mostly harmless, but I just was concerned.

This guy doesn't know where I live and I didn't get any psycho vibes. I really think he just wanted me as a trophy, as some user commented on my last post. Ew. Thanks, Reddit. Ew is right. Yeah. Ew, I have the ick. I think any type of obsession that goes to this extent is extreme.

Yeah. It's okay to be like, wow, I really love that actor, or I love the movies they're in and respect to their work and would, like, lose my cool if I met them because that you do idolize. them, but to like make your entire personality and life around them, I think that's where it gets dangerous and scary. 100%. And then also to like try to mess with somebody. Like, are you going to confess? I don't owe you a confession to any.

A confession? Like confessing as if you did something wrong or deceptive. Yeah. Which you're doing right now. And the fact that this is what like when he said it started out as a way to learn more about the X. he's like, but I'm starting to develop real feelings and then immediately turns it back to the ex-boyfriend or ex-husband. Yeah.

He only wants you for that. He sucks. Yeah, he sucks. Dump him. She did. Yeah, I feel like this episode should be dump him. Yep. See, am I fucked up that I'd be flattered?

Is that my toxic trade? I'd be like, aw. Yeah, that's a little fucked up. I would be like, get me the hell out of here right now. See, this is why? I'm like, is it? I'm like, oh. Good thing you're married in a healthy relationship.

I know, I know. Thank God. Would have been flailing out there still. Hi, I'm Connor Tomlinson. You might know me from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I have been waiting my whole life for a show like this one. And I'm Carter Roy. And this is What the Fact?

Every week, three facts, each one with a whole story behind it. The worst years anyone has ever lived through, the golden age of pirates, the movies that almost never got made, the discoveries that rewrote everything we thought we knew. Carter sets the scene? Connor brings the facts, the tangents, and the genuine belief that this is the most interesting subject in the world. It is, the wildest stuff is real, and the real stuff is wilder than you think. New episodes every Wednesday Follow What the Fact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music,

or subscribe on YouTube at What The Fact Pod. All right, we have one more story today and we teased it in the beginning, but we have a special guest here with us. Yay! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Hey! From Crime House's Clues and also Heart Starts Pounding. I came all the way from down the hall. Yeah. From like the two studios over. Truly right next door. All the way over. Yeah.

Thanks for being here. No, thanks for having me. I'm so excited. I did, was it this episode or last episode where I said, we saw Spongebob? You spotted. Oh my God, we saw Spongrob! Did we tell you? I was like, how does she know what's the voice of SpongeBob looks like? How do you know? How do you not know who Sponged Bob is? I honestly don't know his name, but I did say, like, we looked him up. We were walking. I don't get Starstruck. Here's the thing is, I say, I don't get Starstruck. There's like very few people I get Starstruck for it. But as we were at this restaurant, I see this man leaving and he's going like this. And so I look at him and he has colored classes on it. I'm like, that's SpongeBob. And I'm like, and I'm like, that SpongeBob. I saw the back of his head. And you saw the back of his head. Tom Kenny. Oh my God. Well, that's exciting. He's having a great time too. I love that yet. It's exactly how I would think Spongebob would be

in real life. It feels too perfect. I know. Yeah. So that was a good one. Because you're not in L.A. for very long. So it's like it's cool to have celebrity sightings. And Spongeb is like top of a list. Do you have anyone where you would be like, like, your breath would be taken away if you saw them in real life? Well, actually, the last story we read was all about like a guy who basically started to dating someone because he was obsessed with her ex-husband who was a musician. Yeah. And I did say, like, maybe the one person, well, there's a couple. Like, Killian Murphy, I would do anything to, like, get in a room with him.

You said that would be your hall pass if you were in a relationship. Yeah. Let's clarify. Yes. And then Tom Felton. But it's, like, the characters they play that I think I'm attracted to. Like, Malfoy was my first crush ever. And then I think Tommy Shelby from Piggy Blinders is so sexy.

Yeah, so, like, the bad. The bad guy. I've got a theme going on. Interesting. Who would you do for? Like freak out? I don't know. The hardest I ever freaked out was for when I saw a knee from catfish because I loved that show all in high school.

And all my friends were like, Kaylin. He's on an MTV show and I was like, I don't care. I texted my mom. I like snuck a picture. So it's people like that. I don't know. I'm trying to think of anyone who I would really be taken aback for. What about you?

Is there anyone that comes in mind? I don't think so because I thought I knew and then I saw them and I didn't really care. Who? Bill Murray. Oh. That's a cool one. Probably, I'd probably be excited to see Larry David. Yeah.

You know? Okay. Alexis, you have a story for us. Oh, yeah. I'm excited for this because normally it's like two gal pals gossiping. Mm-hmm. A third gal pal will only increase the fun. Extra.

Extra. And I got to say, this one, we're going to have to buckle up because there's a little bit of horror, just hang in there through the tough stuff, okay? And this came from our subreddit, right? It did. So it's like a listener. A listener, yeah. So this person submitted.

So as we give advice, we could be giving it to the person. Yeah, and like, it's an intense story. So we have some brave people posting in the subreddit, which I really commend. So shall I get started? Yeah, I'm ready. Okay. I inherited my abusive grandfather's estate and found evidence that made me question how my mother died. Oh, I know.

When I was 10, my mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the two of us moved in with her parents. She received radiation treatment and initially got better. But when I was around 13, she began slowly losing functioning. Eventually, she required full-time care, which my grandmother provided because she was a nurse. My mom died when I was 15. My grandmother explained that although the radiation had killed a tumor, it had also slowly damaged my mom's brain, until her body eventually shut down. That was the explanation I believed for the next 15 years.

Which I'm not a doctor, but I feel like that makes sense. Like radiation is really damaging to a body, right? Yeah. I can't even pretend to know what radiation even really does. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just, it kills bad cells and good cells. Yeah. You know? O.P. continues.

Some important context. My grandparents were horrible, abusive, and violent people. My grandfather was obsessed with me and abused me in essentially every way you can imagine. my gosh. I know. This was the hard stuff I was talking about. My grandmother allowed it because once I became his primary target, he stopped abusing her as much. I didn't tell my mom what was happening because she was dying. Also, if those are her parents, I'm sure she faced a lot of abuse growing up with them as her parents. Yes. Right. So I didn't tell my mom what was happening because she was dying. I didn't want to leave her and I was certain I wouldn't be believed anyway. Oh.

My grandfather also wasn't a frail old man. He was a former pilot who worked as an aviation inspector slash trainer for the FAA and was highly respected professionally. Outside of work, he taught martial arts and women's self-defense and wrote for martial arts magazines. Interesting. I mean, these are the types of people who it's so hard to believe when things like that come out because he's created this whole persona publicly. like I'm teaching women to protect themselves from bad guys. Like, I couldn't be a bad guy. Never. That's fucked up. Very. So he held black belts in multiple disciplines and remained remarkably dangerous into old age.

About two months before he died from dementia in 92. He kicked an aide. I hate that he lived that long. I know. They always do. Being mean makes you live longer. They're cockroaches refusing to die. Yeah.

He kicked an aide at his care facility into a wall hard enough to send her to the hospital. Basically, picture an elder. Chuck Norris, except terrifying. I'm so sorry to our listener that you had to live with this movie. Yeah. Harrowing. Yeah. Harrowing. So sad. My mom died in 2001 while I was away on a church trip. I continued living with my grandparents until 2004 when I was 18 and ran away after my grandfather tried to beat me to death. Just a few months before I graduated from high school.

Jeez. Very, very hard to read. I cut contact with them after that. Although mutual acquaintances occasionally told me major updates, like when my grandmother died in 2014 and when my grandfather was eventually placed in dementia care. Then in 2016, my grandfather died. As his only living relative, I inherited his estate. That meant returning to the house where I'd grown up and going through decades' worth of papers and files that he kept.

And that's where things got weird. I was going to say the first time I read this like, good, at least you got something. You know, like after all that nightmare shit putting up with this monster. But it's got to be hard going back and then having to go through everything. Well, and having to be the only living relative

and then you have to deal with like their stuff. Yeah, it's a lot. I know, it's so tangled. The first disturbing thing I found was a poem he'd written to his first wife who had died in 1944. In it, he apologized for what he'd done to her and wrote that he already had enough deaths on his hands

to send him to hell. What? What? I know. Wait, and he was sorry. His background is as a pilot. Yeah. Okay. So, not even like a military death. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was trying to think. Like, oh, was he in war? And World War II maybe? But no, he was a pilot. And also he's apologizing in this note. And yet he went on to abuse so many other people. Like, he's not actually sorry. He wrote this letter in 1944. Yeah, he's not actually sorry. And I hope that's where he is, by the way. Jeez. Naturally, I started. I found her death certificate on ancestry. Her cause of death was listed as undetermined accident or suicide after she had supposedly fallen from a moving vehicle on a highway. Because that happens a lot. That's the chosen identity of suicide. Falling out of a moving car. You pushed her up. Yeah. Of course. If you're driving the car yourself, you can't fall out of it, really. No. Anyways. It sounds like they didn't really investigate. Yeah, right. It was the 40s,

I guess. That poem was stored with letters and poems he'd written to me before and after I escaped. They were essentially love letters. And I don't mean loving letters from a grandfather to his granddaughter. I mean the kind someone writes to a person they're romantically obsessed with. Given how he treated me growing up, that part unfortunately wasn't surprising. What I found next was. I discovered a letter my grandfather had written to a friend stating that my mother had died on a different date than the date listed on her death certificate. The date he gave was the day I left for that church trip. And I remembered that day. I'd gone to my mother's room to say goodbye. My grandparents were coming out of her room and stopped me. They told me she was sleeping,

not to disturb her, and that I'd see her when I came home. That's also really manipulative and mean to not allow her to say goodbye to her mom. Yeah. Before she was leaving for an extended trip. Like in case something happened before she was gone. But also indicates foul play. Yeah. Yeah.

Nearby, I found a copy of paperwork showing that my grandfather had refused an autopsy for my mother. Then I found correspondence with an attorney. The attorney's response said that he could not advise my grandfather regarding his questions about the different burdens of proof for an accidental death versus a homicide, that he He was uncomfortable with my grandfather's line of questioning and that my grandfather should seek other counsel. Okay. So he was asking about like the specifics of, yeah, homicide versus an accidental death. And also like probably a little bit of like how to protect himself. Yeah, he was looking for like cover my ass situation.

Yeah. Also, that's not really what lawyers are supposed to do. Like I think people oftentimes don't realize lawyers can also just be like, I feel uncomfortable with this. Like you can't use me as your lawyer anymore. Could that lawyer then go to law enforcement and be like this? Because he wasn't on, he wasn't his client. But it was hypothetical questions, you know? Like, yeah. It would be, I don't know, it would be a gray area. Yeah, I'm curious. It would be a gray area for sure. It depends on if, if they had an appointment and they were sitting in an office, I don't think he can. I think immediately that like expectation of privacy is happening. Like, I think that's what happens during. consultations. Like, I don't... Even if they're not paid.

I don't even know if they're not paid. Yeah, I think so. I'll ask. I'll report back. My mom's lawyer. At this point, I was understandably thinking what the actual fuck. But there was more. I found a document supposedly signed by my mother, giving my grandfather custody of me, dated back to 1996 when she was first diagnosed with cancer. I also found a request for my birth certificate on which my grandfather had forged my father's signature. My dad wasn't involved in my life at the time, and he died when I was 17 anyway. Then I found a passport application in my name, also containing what appeared to be my father's forged signature. I've never had a passport.

I've never left the country. The passport paperwork was dated just days before my mother's death. What was he planning? Something scary. Yeah, take off to another country. Yeah, I mean, based on what she's seeded so far about, like, the romantic obsession and the abuse, she's. alluded to, it's almost like he was going to take her and run to another country that, like, was more lax about who knows. That's terrifying. You know, it's really crazy. So near it was a printed email exchange in which my grandfather asked a friend for recommendations for good, remote places in Mexico to go camping because he wanted to take me on a trip. My grandfather had in fact taken me on several horrific road trips when I was a child and teenager. I mean, Okay, this is all so horrible, but what an idiot this person, this man is, for just leaving all of this evidence behind?

So many emails were sent. Was he an idiot, though? Because he died and nothing bad happened to him. No, I know. That's true. It's more just like people this evil are so brazen that people almost sometimes can't catch on because they do it so confidently. Yeah, I think about that a lot. It's like, it's almost like the criminals that do get caught are doing it because they're like anxious and like they're not.

And, like, they're not, these people are like sociopaths. Yeah. He for sure is, yeah. Like, steady hand, which is terrifying. Jeez. So apparently his passport attempts weren't successful. Wait, it was a printed email exchange. So he's also printing out his emails.

Really not hiding things. Yeah. So, like, very old man. It is very old man. Like, way to print out your suspicious correspondence. That's something like my dad would do. Like, oh, I send an email about that. Let me go into my filing cabinet and find the email.

It's like, instead of deleting the email, you print it out. and put it, like, out in the open. Insane. Apparently, his passport attempts weren't successful because I found multiple complaint letters he subsequently sent about my applications continuing to be denied. Those complaints continued until late 2003. I turned 18 in December. Then I found another paper trail.

Like, I can't believe there's more. Right. Like, this is one of the most insane stories I've ever heard. It's also so traumatic for our listener and the original poster to have to, like, go through this. through all of this and cope with it. Yeah. And it's so meaningful to share this because, like,

there are a lot of people in really abusive, dysfunctional families, and, like, people should know they're not alone. Even when it's this bad. I agree. It's, like, so helpful to share things like this. From May of 2004, to write around when I escaped through 2010, my grandfather wrote monthly checks to a company that I have, eventually discovered was a private investigation agency. I can't prove what they were doing for him,

but considering the timing and his obsession with me, I have a pretty good guess. Then came the discovery that bothered me perhaps more than anything else. When I was 15, less than a month after my mom died, my grandfather had taken out a $100,000 life insurance policy on me, naming himself as the beneficiary. On the paperwork explaining the coverage, the accidental death and dismemberment provision was circled. This is what I still don't understand because this comes up in so many stories how people are able to take out life insurance policies on someone else without them knowing. Or without getting a signature with like or in a copy with the ID.

Yeah. Yeah. The person needing to show up being like, I'm okay with this. Like that is such a red flag. I wonder if there's people who work at those agencies, like the life insurance agents who are like, oh, yes, another like man is on his fourth wife asking for another life insurance policy. If you just see this stuff. It's literally probably because insurance companies lobby the government to try to prevent them from needing documents notarized because they want money. Like honestly, insurance companies are so powerful.

Because it's like you need a notary to notarize documents to do fucking anything. Yeah. Yeah. Like you think life insurance. To my own damn car that I paid for with my money. Right. It's like you need me to notarize everything except for if someone wants to take a policy out on me without we knowing. Yeah, literally.

Lobbyists. This wasn't a man who needed $100,000 to bury me. He earned a six-figure salary, owned his home outright by then, and had always had substantial money. I also found receipts showing my mother's funeral had cost roughly $16,000, and he'd never taken out a similar policy on her. Eventually, I called my older half-sister on my father's side and told her what I'd found. That's when my sister dropped another bombshell. Apparently, my father's family had suspected four years that my grandparents might have poisoned my mother. What?

They believe my mother had started improving enough that she was making plans for us to move away from my grandparents. Given my grandparents' money and standing in the community, my father's family believed that attempting to fight them for custody of me would probably fail and might actually put me in greater danger. Insane. This is just like one thing. Blow after blow. Yeah. Yeah. Geez.

Nobody had ever told me this. They offered to help me pursue having my mother's body exhumed. zoomed and tested, but 15 years had passed. Both of my grandparents were dead. Ultimately, I decided not to do it. So I'll probably never know exactly what happened. Everything I found is circumstantial. And I want to be very clear about that. I cannot prove that either of my grandparents murdered anyone. But after seeing those documents, combined with what I personally experienced growing up, I've developed some deeply unsettling theories. I believe my grandfather may have killed his first wife. I suspect one or both of my grandparents may have caused my mother's death, timing it for when I left on my church trip so that I wouldn't be there.

And I believe my grandfather at least contemplated killing me years before he ultimately tried to beat me to death in 2004. Maybe that's why he wanted to take her to Mexico. Yeah. Citizens arrest is still a thing, right? Yeah, you can sit in arrest. Can we do like crimes of Reddit arrest? Yes. And if this, I know he's deceased now.

But we can still hold him accountable. Yeah, we talked about citizens arrest on an episode of Clues, actually. It was the Maitrice Richardson case because someone tried to citizens arrest her in the middle of a mental health crisis. And for whatever reason, and maybe I'm misremembering it, it, like, fast-tracks the process once the police get there because they've already, like, been citizens arrested. So they, like, have to book and process the person. They can't just, like, sit and talk and figure it out, yeah. So. Why are there not more citizens arrest?

I'm not using my free will. No, seriously. Yeah. Yeah. Is there a lot of dicks out there? I know. I was like, you just get out of your car during like a road racing. And just hold their arm.

I'm placing you under a citizen's arrest. Oh my God. Imagine. Wait, I want to start citizens arresting people all the time now. I wish someone citizens arrested and really arrested him when he kicked the aid into the wall at the nursing hall. But I feel like there were other times that he could have gone to jail. It happens all the time with dementia patients. I was just going to say that's the hard thing.

Like at assisted living homes, there's a lot of. violence and I say that because there's confusion and there's, geez. So OP continues, I have no idea why those passport applications kept getting denied, but sometimes I think whoever kept denying them may have unknowingly saved my life. Yeah. Perhaps this is evidence of a higher power. The combination of the forged signatures, the attempts to get me a passport, his search for remote camping locations in Mexico.

And the life insurance policy makes me wonder whether I was eventually supposed to have some terrible accident. And the private investigator payments make me believe he continued keeping tabs on me for years after I escaped, probably because he's like, I want to cash in that life insurance. Yeah, yeah. Jeez. I think God he got old, because, like, a lot of murderous, violent people just get too old to do stuff. Yeah. And they age out of it. Crazy.

My best guess is that I got older and became harder to control. His obsession with me collided with the possibility that I might expose him. Maybe he couldn't tolerate the idea of me getting away from him. Maybe he was afraid I'd tell someone. Maybe it was some horrible combination of both. I'll never know. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. You should write a book.

Yeah. You are the bravest, most incredible person. I could read your writing about this forever. Wow. You survived. It's incredible. You truly survived. Yeah.

It's incredible. Yeah. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I've obviously been through a shit time. of therapy since then. I now work primarily as a crisis counselor, which is perhaps the strangest epilogue to all of this. What I love that. I know. You turn suffering into meaning. Yeah. Yeah. And help others with what you've learned. I spend so much of my life trying to help other people survive. Wow. Which is amazing. There's multiple things that we can talk about here, but one,

thank you for sharing your story with us and being so vulnerable and open. And one thing that I really loved is I went to our subreddit to look at how people were responding. I mean, there's one comment right now saying, thank you for sharing your story. I'm so sorry for all the trauma and awful things you've been through. I hope you can find ways to heal and move forward. And considering Reddit can be a pretty dark place. Yeah. I was just so glad to see that our subreddit is full of really like beautiful, empathetic, supportive comments. Yeah. I want to say too how incredible it is that your work as a crisis counselor because like hearing about other people's trauma is re-triggering. Like you are in like the therapy you did and the work you've done must have been so helpful

because like hearing about other people's pain reminds you of your pain. And then you end up carrying their pain too when you're like a very empathetic person. What do they call that? It's like the secondary trauma. It's like what healthcare workers get sometimes. If you're like just dealing with so many people going through traumatic events, you like kind of take that on. Take that on. You can become traumatized yourself. Yeah. And it's like the kind of strength like I could only dream of having, you know, because I don't think I could ever hack something like that. And the fact that you're doing that is just like. Yeah. Incredible. Well, let's bring back citizens arrest. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And keep sharing your stories with us.

Thank you for sharing your stories with us. And yeah, this was a while. episode. Thanks for having me on. Thank you for joining. That was so much. This was a great one to have you on for, though, because this is such a multifaceted story. Yeah. It like needed another set of eyes. Yeah, and I love hearing from the community too. We needed more as the court. We needed, we needed you for this. Me and Sabrina would have been like, yeah. Well, how do we deal with me? Yeah. Because this is, you know, this is some heavy stuff. And O.P. One more time. Thank you so much for your candor and your honesty and like vulnerability. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And thank you, Kailin, for joining. Thank you for having me.

And we're going to go record our episode together. Of clues. Hell yeah. So tune into that too. Thank you everyone for joining us here at Crimes of Reddit, a Crimehouse Original. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at Crime House. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Crimes of Reddit, wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe on YouTube.

Your feedback truly makes a difference. And Alexis and I will be. back next Tuesday, pulling at more Reddit threads. So we'll see you then. Bye. Bye. If you're looking for your next podcast, check out What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Follow What The Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What The Fact Pod.