RedHanded - Episode 253 - Victoria Cilliers: Terminal Velocity

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Speeding towards the ground at over 60 miles per hour, former soldier and parachute instructor Victoria Cilliers was about to make history. She would be the first person in over a decade to experience a double parachute failure.  Miraculously, she survived the impact. But when Victoria’s equipment was examined, it became clear there was more to this “freak accident” than met the eye. There were gas leaks, gaslights and grounds to divorce. Click here to vote for RedHanded in the British Podcast Awards Listeners' Choice Award! >>>The “If RedHanded Wins the BPA Listeners' Choice Gold Award" Form<<< Become a patron: Patreon Order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Order on Wellesley Books Order on Amazon.com Order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Order on Amazon.co.uk Order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our website: Website Sources: Victoria's Book  https://www.britbox.co.uk/program/The_Parachute_Murder_Plot_55564  https://www.itv.com/news/2020-07-13/from-marriage-to-murder-plot-the-series-of-events-that-led-to-emile-cillers-ending-up-behind-bars  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOqJqZI4-fw  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9HZ7By9pgw See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome to Red Handed. Probably we're in July now? That feels where we are in the world. Correct. Hooray. Coming to you from the past. As you are listening to this, I will be at a wedding in Venice. It's my mum's wedding.

Why do I always, I'm just like, oh yeah, I'm just going to like a wedding. It's my mum. So I guess we are getting ahead of the game because I have to go and witness a second wedding I've witnessed this year. Oh. And considering I completely fucked up the first one. Hopefully. Now's your time to shine.

Now is my time to shine. Except it's all going to be in Italian. So hopefully someone will just idiot proof the whole situation for me, unlike last time. So, British Podcast Awards. Yes, please. Please give us your votes. We will do anything you ask us to do quite literally because in case you've missed the last two weeks we have created a delightful google forms document

for you to fill in with your choice of episode that you would like us to cover as a bonus episode for all red-handed listeners should we get gold and also the potential for some true spooky bitch mischief. Hijinks. Hijinks, shenanigans, kooky happenings, whatever you want. There, underneath the episode voting bit of the form, you will find a portion that would allow you to enter all sorts of dastardly, evil, wicked, maybe nice, I don't know, activities that you would like us to do if we win gold. I'm not going to give you any ideas.

No, we are quite literally laying down our lives at your feet. So if you want the show to continue, please don't kill us. But, you know, we'll go quite far to win this again. Last year, Hannah got a tattoo of a listener on her body. No face tattoos, no neck tattoos, no hand tattoos. Got a tattoo of a hand. She did get a tattoo of a listener on her body. No face tattoos, no neck tattoos, no hand tattoos. Got a tattoo of a hand. She did get a tattoo of a hand. Maybe not tattoos.

Think bigger than that. Think more original. We did that last year. Come up with something and we will do it. I will not shave my head. Oh, don't give that a chance. I also don't want to shave my head, please. But remember, don't just go and fill in the Google forms without voting and verifying your vote in your email.

Because then that thing that you've probably spent a long time thinking about making us do might not happen. Because we're only going to do the bonus episode and the miscellaneous activity of your choice if we get gold again this year. Because we got it last year, so there is no reason we cannot win again. Take home a second trophy and get me to the ceremony. That would be amazing. Okay, you've got your marching orders. Five months after giving birth, Victoria Silias found herself plummeting towards the ground at breakneck speed.

This was far from her first rodeo. She had been skydiving over 2,000 times. But this time, her parachutes inexplicably failed to open. The more she fought to get the backup chute to work, because they always give you two, the more she began to spin uncontrollably. Victoria was a bad bitch. She was an ex-soldier who'd served in Kosovo,

and she was an incredibly experienced parachute, not participant, instructor. So she definitely knew what she was doing. And I am not an incredibly experienced parachute participant. So I'm scared immediately as soon as we start this episode. This is also giving people ideas. Parachute artist. Yeah, we've really fucked this up.

Let's move on. So given that she was an experienced parachute artist, it's quite difficult to imagine just how Victoria managed to get to the point where she was free-falling through the air straight to the ground below. But this was no accident. And no matter how hard Victoria tried, nothing could stop the ground racing towards her. And this is the story of how one badass bitch got love-bombed into a dive-bomb.

Victoria was born in Edinburgh in 1975. Her brother arrived four years later, and from then on, she says in her book, they were the perfect nuclear family. Her mum was a nurse, and her dad was a programmer, and they gave her a stable and loving upbringing. They encouraged Victoria to pursue her passions and worked to provide her with everything that she needed. I always think Edinburgh is probably the perfect place to have a family. It's very beautiful. You can walk everywhere.

Great water. Excellent water, yeah. I will not stop talking about the Scottish water. This is probably TMI, but another round of BV over here. And I went to the doctor and I was like, listen, listen. I did everything you told me. I have got cotton pants, not trousers, Americans. I mean, knickers.

I have just used E45 wash. All of that is happening like you told me. So what's the deal? Yeah, you liar. Yeah, fucking hell. Outrageous. And he was like, to be honest, it could be yeah fucking hell outrageous and he was like to be honest it could be the hard water and i was like what what the hell am i supposed to do about that

get a fucking bottle of mineral water i used to wash my vagina with maybe there's like a brita filter in my bathroom i think you can get a filter in your shower head this is what i have heard but i've also been reading about it maybe people can give me some advice i know this is i love tangent but um this is where i go for my medical advice now i don't google it i talk about it on my podcast because i looked into like putting in a how much it costs like put in a whole water filtration system like where your literal pipe connects to the mains very expensive and seemingly doesn't actually work i have seen the ones where you just fit the head in like the shower head yeah i've seen those on tiktok do they work this is my question

i don't know the internet seems confused on the matter tiktok says that yes okay there's one particular one that has like that obviously not beads that's some sort of filtration system but like it looks like beads because obviously the other concern is the water pressure right but like apparently it's actually way better and it's like a whirlpool okay i'll get you one we'll try it out then we'll try them out we'll try it out and then we'll see if it works but anyway so yes i would happily move to the bottom great fantastic i think it is the only place in the uk that i would consider living other than london yeah i haven't been to edinburgh but it looks perfectly up my street.

Yes, no, I think you would very much enjoy it. But anyway, so yes, they had a grand old time living in Edinburgh, did Victoria, her brother, and her parents. But when she was 14, unfortunately, their family imploded with the news that Victoria's mum had bowel cancer. Rough way to go. Yeah. So despite trying various forms of therapy, her mum just wasn't improving. And soon her dad was planning

what he called their last ever family holiday. I just, that's... I know, I know, he's like got to prepare them, but like that's fucking, that's a rough title for that holiday. I don't know, I'm kind of here for it. You've got to prepare those children for what's coming. It's like that really famous poem that's fucking that's a rough title for that holiday i don't know i'm kind of here for it you got to prepare those children for what's coming it's like that really famous poem that's like oh like do not go to my grave and cry i am not there i did not die yes you did and we all

have to accept that and move on well it's a tough it's a tough topic it's much harder to talk about than it is to talk about my bv so let's just um move on i don't know obviously a death in the family is incredibly difficult it's a very personal thing for everybody to figure out how they want to deal with themselves and that's what victoria's dad decided to do so after an agonizing few years victoria and her family said goodbye to her mum a month before victoria's 16th birthday like anyone who's dealt with big life trauma victoria soon learned that while hiding from it may not be the best way to get over it, it definitely is the easiest. And it was in pursuit of distraction that Victoria found parachuting.

Her school put up posters for a charity parachute jump and it felt to Victoria like the perfect escape. She signed up to raise money for bowel cancer research, and the jump itself changed her life. She's written about how the anxiety and pressure of life seemed to get blasted away the moment she left the plane, and how several thousand feet above the world, all her problems seemed a very long way away. Four years later, looking for an escape from boring Glasgow, and those are Victoria's words, not ours.

No, fucking love it. Love it in Glasgow. I love Glasgow. I've only ever had a. No fucking love it love it Glasgow. I love Glasgow I've only ever had a good time when I've been in Glasgow but looking for an escape from her hometown because everyone thinks their hometown is boring as fuck so that's how she feels about Glasgow. Victoria ended up joining the army. The combination of stability and adventure seemed too good to her to pass up and what she did during her time in the army is something that we think has been absolutely glossed over or misinterpreted in all of the news stories about this case because this case was very, very widely reported on multiple documentaries.

People were mad for it. This bit is not usually very accurate because Victoria is often described as a, quote, physiotherapist working for the army, or as a medic for the army. But this doesn't really do justice to her role, because Victoria was an officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps. So in the army, you're a soldier first, and you're trade second, which meant that Victoria was a soldier before she was a physio. She carried a gun and got shot at just like everyone else. In 1999, Victoria was even deployed to Kosovo to work in a field hospital.

In her book, Victoria describes how, when they arrived in the abandoned building that they were using as a hospital, it had absolutely no running water, no electricity. It didn't even have glass in the windows. Now we don't have a huge amount of time to get into what exactly the war in Kosovo was about, but you will know if you know anything about it that it was an incredibly bloody one that lasted just over a year. It was basically fought between what was then the Republic of Yugoslavia, which is now Montenegro and Serbia, with or against an Albanian rebel group over the Kosovo region. NATO soon got involved and after a 78-day aerial bombing campaign,

the war ended with 5,000 soldiers killed in action and over 8,000 civilian lives lost. So yes, needless to say that Victoria was absolutely in the thick of an incredibly brutal war. Victoria was sent out as part of the NATO intervention and spent a lot of her time during the conflict travelling as part of an armed convoy. Victoria would leave the safety of the field hospital every day to treat soldiers and civilians, caught on both sides of the war-torn nation. In her book, Victoria talks about a young girl that she met towards the end of her tour. Both the girl and her sister had been shot in the arm and then forced to watch on as the rest of their family was executed in front of them.

It was down to Victoria to try and help the girls recover the use of their arms. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses,

hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met.

But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance,

but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy.

You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Victoria, like many before and since, struggled after returning home. She says it was always difficult listening to people's everyday problems and worries when she'd seen the horrors taking place just a few hours away by plane. She eventually found her escape in the same way that she did after her mum died, skydiving. Despite finding the sport difficult at first, skydiving quickly became an ever-present part of Victoria's life, especially after her first serious boyfriend proposed to her

and she got a major case for the ick. That's an unfortunate time to get it, isn't it? Yes, is there a worse time? Oh, at the altar. Yeah, at least she didn't spend the money. Throughout their engagement, Victoria began spending more and more time at the skydiving centre until eventually she called it off. Throughout their engagement, Victoria began spending more and more time at the skydiving centre,

until eventually she called it off. Not long after this, she moved on to her second serious relationship with a fellow soldier. They married in a small family ceremony during the four-day break that he had from a posting in Northern Ireland. However, the military lifestyle and constant threat of redeployment put an immediate pressure on this marriage. Unable to see each other during the week and busy during the weekends, it soon became clear that her new husband was slipping away. Soon Victoria noticed that he was spending more and more time on his phone, becoming increasingly secretive.

After sneaking a peek at his texts, it became clear that he was talking to another woman about eating pancakes and staring at the stars i no wonder you didn't get the it with this one victoria jesus fucking christ oh mate no no no what what i thought if you had an affair it was all about like the sex the sexy stuff well maybe it's a code oh right maybe the stars are her boobs and maybe the pancakes are something else this began a cycle of vict Victoria's husband being deployed, cheating on her while he was out, and then Victoria doing anything she could to keep their marriage together. She even ended up leaving her job in the army for a similar one in the Ministry of Defence, in the hope that a more stable position would make their marriage easier.

But in the end, it just wasn't to be, and Victoria packed her bags and left while her husband was out on another deployment. Away from her cheating ex-husband and able to put more time back into her skydiving and her work, Victoria soon started living her best life again. She had a packed social life, plenty of work satisfaction, and a hobby that she absolutely loved. All she needed to complete the picture was a new relationship.

Enter Emile. Victoria met Emile in 2009 when he came into her clinic for a skiing injury. He was a 29-year-old South African who was working as a physical training instructor in the Royal Artillery. In order to pursue any kind of career in physical training, Emil needed a lengthy stint in rehabilitation. But he wasn't put off. And Victoria admired the ambition

of someone who could take such a big physical knock, like the one that Emil had taken during his skiing accident, and still be determined to be the fittest of the fit. And he wasn't just fit, he was fit. At least according to Victoria. He he wasn't just fit. He was fit. At least according to Victoria.

He's not really my type. I just looked it up. Can confirm. No, thank you. No, no. Looks like a chemistry teacher. Yeah. I think I was picturing him differently in my head from the memories I had of this case

when it originally was like breaking in the headlines. But yeah, like I can see why she's attracted to him, but not my type. But Emil, whether we think he was a, you know, had the face going on or whatever, he was in great shape. And as far as Victoria was concerned, this plus his striking blue eyes and the fact that he was generally very charming all did it for her. And after months of working together while Emile was in rehab, they began to develop quite the spark.

And it wasn't long before Victoria had transferred his care over to a colleague and things went from physio to physical. Let's get physical. So after just a few dates, the pair were practically inseparable. They spent almost every night back at Victoria's place and every weekend together at the Parachute Club. Emile showered Victoria with the attention and quality time that she'd been lacking in her previous relationship. Sounds like a love bomb to me. And in classic love bomb style, within weeks of dating, Emile professed his love for Victoria. And soon, the pair were essentially living together.

This whirlwind romance and passion came with a new kind of intimacy from Emile. He was soon confiding large chunks of personal information to Victoria. More love-bombing red flags? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never told anyone this, but, uh... There's just something about you that I can trust. I can really just open up to you. I was going to save this for the end of the video, but I'm just going to say it now.

So you're familiar with the term hot girl summer. Hot girl summer is over. This summer is plot girl summer. Oh, I thought it was feral girl summer. No, plot girl summer. Do it for the plot. Do it for the side plot. The subplot, just do it.

Got it. I've been living my life like that for 10 years, though. I was plot girl. I was plot girl i was plot girl decade i just side quest all of my dates were side quests yeah no well then we were talking about that with dad it's not it's not a bad date it's a side quest exactly exactly ladies gentlemen everyone if you go on a bad date don't worry about it it's just a plot it's a side quest don't worry about it so So Victoria was far from having a plot girl summer.

She was learning all sorts of things about her new boyfriend. He told her that he had two children and still spoke to their mother, Carly. According to Emile, he and Carly had just been hooking up when Carly got pregnant and the pair had decided it would be best if they just got married so Emile could stay in the UK. Emile also told Victoria how his ex was work shy lazy had never really gone back to work since she had their first child another red flag if he's slagging off his ex um probably don't get too heavily involved because one day that's going to be you my friend yeah he also told victoria that he never really loved carly and they only had another child so their first kid would have a sibling.

That seems like an unusual... Well, it's kind of like, what's that horrible book? Oh, My Sister's Keeper. Do you know what I mean? Here's a friend we made for you. Yeah, right. I mean... And if you ever need an organ, she's got loads. Yeah, she's got plenty of orgs. He said about his ex that he felt duty-bound to get her pregnant again.

And to be fair, by this stage in the game, there have been quite a few red flags that Victoria has overlooked. She has, but also we've all been there. Yes, we have. We've all been love-bombed and we've all overlooked the red flags that come with a love bomber. Exactly. Because the only reason they do love bombing is because it works. Oh, yeah.

And the only reason they do love bombing also is because they've got loads of shit to hide. The kind of people that love bomb, this isn't just my opinion. This is like just facts, right? The kind of people that love bomb, they're doing it because they're abusive. They're doing it because in some way they want to control you. It's a very abusive thing. It's a very power manipulation control thing and it is actually I was watching an interview with a psychiatrist who was talking about it people who love bomb also tend to score much more highly on narcissistic traits it is not a thing that just innocently

happens love bombing is very intentional and Emile is the fucking king of it exactly because there's a constant affection towards victoria was completely intoxicating it was really hard for her to focus on the negatives when there were just so many positives coming in all at once and she's had a rough time the first big bump in their relationship came the first time that victoria met the ex carly the pair met so that emil's ex could feel comfortable letting the kids stay at Victoria's house. That bit wasn't the bump. Yeah, that's fair enough.

That's fair enough. The bump came when Carly revealed to Victoria that Emile did not just have one family. He had an other family in South Africa. Oh, God. Not what she was expecting. And she confronted Emile about the whole thing. And he said that he'd just been so desperate to tell her about his first girlfriend Nicolene and their child but he'd been so terrified of destroying their new relationship that he decided to keep it a secret. Run. Emile told Victoria that

he and Nicolene had split when he was still in South Africa but she'd come over to the UK so he could be closer to his child but he also said that after Nicolene moved to the UK, they had a huge falling out and she wouldn't let him see the kid anymore. Victoria, invested in her relationship with Emil, decided to believe his side of the story, despite the fact that bits of it didn't really add up. E.g., why would Nicolene come all the way to the UK so that Emil could be near the kid and then

not let him see the kid that doesn't really seem to make sense well no you're right it doesn't and also again i get it victoria is too close to it she's probably also like i'm investing a lot in this relationship do i really want to start again we We've all been there. I have definitely been there. But again, red flags here, red flags galore, is that both of his past relationships, he's got excuses for why they didn't work out. And none of those excuses are to do with him. Carly's work shy and Nicolene, well, she's just a big old bitch. So, dear listener, if you are thinking that this whole Nicolene not letting Emile see his kid sounds a bit suspicious and probably isn't true, well, you would be right. So for a second, we're going to play a game of Behind the Narcissist's Curtain, which is a whole new segment we could add into almost every episode of Red Handed. What do we all think really happened, given what we already know

about Emile just from this short interlude into this episode already. Any ideas? Well, if you said, he never actually split up with Nicolene, he just came over to the UK and started a whole new family without telling her it was over, well then you would be right, because that is exactly what happened. In fact, Emile met Nicolene when she was just 13 years old and he was 16. Nicolene got pregnant when she was 16, and a few months after their first child was born, Emile left to come over to the UK for work experience. Of course, what he actually did was to marry another woman, Carly, have two children and join the army.

Even when Emile was eventually caught out by Nicoline, he actually managed to convince her that he and Carly had divorced. And believing him, Nicolene stayed in the relationship. She even moved over to the UK to be closer to him. I think, again, you are seeing a pattern here of a man who can convince people that he has love-bombed and manipulated into almost any fucking nonsense. And that also feeds into his ego because then he thinks he can just do more and more outrageous things. So Emil effectively then lived a double life with Nicolene and Carly both in the

UK, both looking after his various children. Until of course, both women eventually found out and confronted him together. Fucking hell man. That's some fucking John Takamashi Dai kind of shit. Just like, what is the point? What's the point? Why are you bothering? Like, wouldn't it just be easier to not do this? I mean, I get it. He's just like a fucking crazy narcissist who wants his cake and his cow and his milky cake and everything.

But it just seems like a lot of effort, doesn't it? And it really does bring me back to the OG not in this economy quote all the way back from the Ariel Castro episode. Two families. I think I was talking about this the other day about like people's ability to like be overstretched. And like I have some friends who cannot stand being overstretched and they will actively make sure it doesn't happen. I'm not like that. Like I thrive on being overstretched. But I think with someone like Emil, he doesn't know how to not.

He doesn't know how to stand still. That's true. That's true. No, that's a very good point. Because I too am that way. It's not even that I thrive when I'm stretched. It's that if I'm not stretched, I become mush. I feel myself start to just disintegrate.

Yeah. When I was working on reception at the Actors Centre, I could like feel my brain melt. Yeah. My brain that I would have been 30,000 pounds worth of fucking death. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, absolutely not. So no, okay, maybe that does explain it. And yeah, if we are saying that he's a narcissist and possibly,

you know, we're not mental health experts, we're not diagnosing him, but you will go on to see possibly some very psychopathic traits involved with this man. Psychopaths obviously famously get incredibly bored very very easily so maybe this is just part of the thrill. So getting back to the confrontation despite everything that happened despite his two wives Carly and Nicolene both coming out interrogating him about this all of this he still managed to convince Carly to stay with him for another three years after being caught in a massive fucking giant web of lies. I was trying to think of a giant spider and I couldn't think of one. What's a bird catcher? A bird catcher spider. Oh, actually, maybe are they the ones that don't

build nests? Oh, don't build webs. I thought you were just going to come up with the name of a spider that you once knew being like, oh, well, Pete, the massive spider that was in my bathroom. So I was just trying to think of fictional spiders. And then I was trying to think of the one that's in Lord of the Rings that definitely does have a name and is huge. And does webs. Does the one in Charlotte's web. Charlotte? I quit.

As I said that, I was like, stop talking. I actually think the bird catcher might be the one spider that doesn't build webs as well anyway let's just build houses out with the bones of its prey yeah it just like it i think it's the one that like digs a hole okay and then puts like you can't see what i'm gesturing listeners but builds a little trap door over the top of it yeah i think i know what you mean yeah and then it hides in there. And then when a bird's walking along, it terrifyingly leaps out, grabs the bird and pulls it into its hole. This might all be entirely fictional,

but I'm pretty sure this is true. Anyway, anyway, let's just say that spider is Emil and these birds are Nicolene and Carly because I refuse to back down. But he's also got a web of lies. So coming back to Victoria, victim number three to Emil. All she knew is that Emil had a second family

from his time back in South Africa. She had absolutely no idea about the lies, or the double crossing, everything else that was wrapped up in her. So, she made the decision to forgive him for not telling her, and they vowed to be more honest with each other from then on.

About a year later, Emil proposed while on holiday in South Africa. Within the blink of an eye, Victoria had gone from single Pringle to engaged. Then, just as quickly, they were expecting their first child. All the while, another side of Emile had started to show. Not often, but enough. And this, again, is the problem with love bombing. because these people can't maintain it indefinitely because it's fake and it's so over the top it's not genuine it's impossible to maintain that level of like affection attention everything so their true colors will

eventually start to show and the first time emil's other side really sort of bothered victoria was after she miscarried 12 weeks into her first pregnancy did you know that i think it's it's either like 32 it might even be 30 if you're pregnant after you're 30 it is a geriatric pregnancy that is the medical term after 30 fuck you that's that's outrageous geats who's her baby's due in august she's like borderline geriatric pregnancy because she's 30 that's a rent oh no 35 apparently it's older than i was like thank fuck that's outrageous okay older than 35 you're a geriatric um pregnancy that's can you just pick another word well i also feel like that's obviously quite an antiquated like

my mum had my brother at 41 20 years ago so. So like, you know, I think maybe the language hasn't moved on. Yeah. Anyway, so yes, Victoria had a miscarriage 12 weeks into her pregnancy. But because it was still considered to be quite early in her pregnancy, Victoria took the brave decision to let the embryo leave her body naturally. And as difficult as this entire scenario would have been, it didn't seem to bother Emile much. He still insisted that Victoria come on a lad's trip to watch the cricket, driving them to London just hours after Victoria had started to bleed. I mean, again, here you go. This is when you're starting to see it.

This is the kind of man that Emile is, if everything else wasn't incredibly obvious already. And a way that Emil had managed to mildly convince Victoria to go along with this is that he promised her they would be staying in a nice hotel. But when they arrived in London, it turned out that this hotel was actually a communal hostel with nothing but roll mats and sleeping bags. Can you imagine just having had a miscarriage and then being forced to sleep in a fucking hostel and then go watch a game of cricket? No. I hate cricket.

I love cricket. Still, no thanks. A hostel. I know. Yeah. Yeah. And, fucking hell, when Victoria rightly voices her issues with this trip emil just refused to leave

saying that he couldn't bail on his mates and he forced victoria to make the hours long drive home alone while she was still bleeding from the miscarriage i mean you can just imagine how that conversation goes down she's like i really don't want to stay here i'm in so much pain this is horrendous i'm incredibly traumatized by what's happened I need you to be there for me he's like well I can't really leave my mates but if you want to go here are the keys oh fucking hell it really just does make you sick but despite all of this they went ahead with the wedding it was a lavish fairy tale ceremony in South Africa the location and style of the wedding weren't really Victoria's first choice but at the time it felt like it was the best day of her life.

And eight months later, Victoria gave birth to their first child, a girl they called April. However, under the surface, another Emil-shaped problem was beginning to rear its head. Debt. Classic. Absolutely fucking classic with this kind of like personality profile. I would be shocked if debt weren't involved. Victoria had already paid off a big chunk of Emile's debt when they first moved in together. He blamed it all on his ex-wife Carly. What a surprise. And he said it was because she refused to work so he'd taken out loans to make ends meet. But after April was born, Victoria started to notice bigger, bigger chunks of money leaving their account. At first, she put it all up to

extra spending on their newborn. After all, it was their joint account and Emil had been buying all of their new baby things. But things became a bit hard to rationalise when Victoria found an online shopping order in a name that she didn't recognise. And then she found an overdraft, and even a loan. Victoria suspected that the money was going on Emile's expensive hobbies, which were climbing, cricket, photography, they are not cheap things to be doing. But every time she brought up his spending, he put the blame on her for not trusting him, and giving her excuses about work, not paying or a problem at the bank. With a new baby to look after, it was easier to just push the money problems aside and just focus on the good things, their perfect little family.

In 2013, Emil brought up the idea of moving house so that they could have another baby. Despite struggling to get a mortgage because of their low credit score, the promise of a new home and a fresh start was enough to keep Victoria's mind away from Emile's shortcomings. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators

uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983,

there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. When Victoria eventually became pregnant again, the couple fell into another family bubble for a short time.

But the bubble burst a lot quicker than it had with baby April. And Emil seemed over it before the pregnancy had even really begun. Emil's lack of interest seemed to mark a definite change in their relationship. He was becoming more and more distant by the day and during her second pregnancy Victoria got a call from the mother of their 16 year old babysitter. Assuming it was more money problems she expected to hear that the young girl hadn't been paid or something like that but the truth was a lot more concerning. I feel like we could do another peek behind the narcissist's curtain at this point because would everybody like to hazard a guess as to what the

16-year-old babysitter's mother is calling Victoria Silius about, if it's not money? Sesame Street. Unless they had a very special episode about what I'm about to tell you about. Which one would hope. Which one would hope. No, it is not. Because the truth was that Emile had been sending the young girl inappropriate messages, asking if she had a boyfriend and telling her that she looked good that night.

The girl's mum even had the screenshots to prove it because obviously Emile would just fucking delete all the texts. So when Victoria challenged Emile, she was once again met with rage. And this, again, we've talked about this so many times, abuser's classic tactic. When you confront them with a valid concern, grievance, issue, they fly off the handle. Because it's to train you into not bringing things up again. Because you'll be too scared to incur their wrath.

So Emile flew off the handle, accusing Victoria of having trust issues and blaming it on her last husband for cheating on her. Even when she showed him the screenshots, Emile was adamant that he must have been hacked. Oh, for God's sake. I know. Fuck you. It's not quite as bad as there was a problem at the bank.

Yeah. But it's such a ridiculous excuse. Maybe it was that banking problem and that's what I got hacked by. Yeah, the great banking problem of whenever year this is. Excellent. So now heavily pregnant

and desperate to believe her husband wasn't a wrong-un, Victoria went along with it. As their relationship worsened, so did Emile's spending habits. Now there was money disappearing from Victoria's saving account in bigger and bigger chunks.

And on top of this, there were emails from other women and local sex clubs. If you're looking for a laugh, which I certainly am, there is nothing quite as funny as now royal correspondent Fiona Bruce

being taken to a glory hole as a part of the ITV documentary on this case. That is quite outstanding. She is the royal correspondent, isn't she? I don't know. I mean, if you don't live in the UK, there is very little chance that you know who Fiona Bruce is. But Fiona Bruce is like a, she's like an instantly recognisable top level journalist in this country. And she used to do Antiques Roadshow and apparently it was very difficult to work with.

Oh, and did you know that she, I just Googled Fiona Bruce. She was the first ever female newsreader on the BBC. So there you go. To Crime Watch. I think that's probably what people know her for the most. Just looking very serious. And she started off as a researcher on Panorama.

So she's like top tier. She's in this documentary though, just hanging out near a glory hole. Towards the end of Victoria's pregnancy, things reached a tipping point after Emil started taking a series of what he called work trips abroad. You're in the army, mate.

He can't say work experience anymore though. Emil emailed Victoria saying, talking to you over email is a lot easier Because you get too emotional when I talk to your face I'm not sure how I feel about the marriage A breakup email Oh it gets worse A breakup email that he sent to her

From his telephone As they were sat next to each other on the sofa No Did it even have the thing at the bottom being like Sent from my iPhone Please excuse any typos this was sent from my iphone jesus christ this fucking piece of shit it's terrible it's just awful so a tired and downtrodden victoria went along with the email conversation for a bit before calling an end to all of that nonsense after a brief actual conversation with

their mouths on the sofa emil made it clear that he was moving back into the army barracks, but that he'd be around to support the new baby. Oh yeah, I'm sure you'll be a great support with a new baby. Yeah, dumping your wife by email when she's pregnant with your fucking son. I don't think so, my friend. And he's already got three kids. A few months later, their second baby was born and they called him Ben. Oh sorry, he's already got four kids.

True to his word, Emil did stick around to be with the baby, but had absolutely no interest in Victoria whatsoever. And then, once Victoria and Ben had recovered from a mildly complicated birth and they went home, Emil started to show the first signs of interest in their relationship that he had for a really long time. He insisted that Victoria and Ben come home as soon as possible so they could be a family. But once they were home,

Emile suddenly announced that he needed to sleep at the army barracks that night because he had an early start. And Victoria and the kids were home alone. Victoria woke up the next morning to the smell of gas coming from the kitchen. She rushed around the kitchen to find the source of the smell. Panicking at the idea that her house was filling up with flammable gas, Victoria searched desperately for the source.

Eventually, she managed to find the valve that shut off the gas for the whole house, and she could relax for a moment. But she still couldn't work out exactly where the gas was coming from. Until, that is, she noticed that just above the small lever was a small piece of piping covered in crusted blood. She turned the gas back on and instantly it rushed out of the blood-stained pipe. Clearly, someone had hurt themselves while loosening it. This fucking lazy prick, sorry, spoilers,

couldn't even be bothered to clean the blood off of the pipe that he had hurt himself on. What a fucking twat. And Victoria, as she saw this, noticed that there was also blood in the kitchen, suggesting that someone had injured their hand and then wiped it on the surfaces, and then not wiped the surfaces down. So after shutting off the gas, Victoria texted Emil to ask if he had fiddled around with any of the gas piping. He said he hadn't, and asked if the stove was working. Victoria said that she wasn't about to find out, as it would blow the house skywards.

Imagine your wife, mother of your two children, being like, the house is full of gas, and the first thing you say is start a fire. It's like, oh, I don't know, don't know, it wasn't me, but maybe you just want to check if the stove's working? Maybe just start an open flame in that kitchen? So once the pipe was fixed, Victoria jokingly asked Emil if he'd been trying to kill her. But it was met with the same overreaction

that had come every time she'd asked about their money. And then, out of nowhere, Emile suggested that he and Victoria do a parachute jump together. This guy is like some sort of cartoon villain. He really is. Yeah. Parachuting, unsurprisingly, considering the two children she's just pushed out, hadn't really been a part of Victoria's life for over a year. but the jump centre was one of the places the pair had originally bonded.

They did loads of jumps together and they either went to go and pack people's parachutes for money when cash was a bit tight. So they'd spent a lot of time doing parachuting and parachute surrounding activities and Victoria now just a few weeks past giving birth to Ben was just excited that Emile wanted to do anything together at all. True to his old form, Emil organised everything, sweeping up Victoria into the excitement of the jump. However, a few days before they were set to go, he gave Victoria some bad news. He said that he'd been unable to organise childcare for the day of the jump. But he said that he was excited to watch her

go alone and that it would be a nice family day out. As the day loomed ever closer, Victoria started to feel less and less excited about the prospect of falling from an aircraft on her own, but, spurred on by Emile's excitement, she pushed ahead. And when the day of the jump rolled round, the weather was terrible. The family just spent the whole day at the flight centre. However, against his usual grumpy and selfish behaviour, Emil didn't seem that bothered about waiting around. He seemed genuinely excited to see Victoria take the leap. Eventually, the day was called off altogether, but Emile convinced Victoria to go back the following day. When they arrived the next morning, the weather looked just as grim.

But eventually, at 4pm on Sunday the 5th of April 2015, Victoria jumped into the Sky Taxi and headed off into the clouds. She had by now gone off the idea, and the bad weather certainly wasn't helping. In fact, the weather was so dreadful that they were doing a much lower jump than usual, giving Victoria less time in freefall, which is obviously the fun bit. She generally felt her days of parachuting were behind her. But a few minutes later, standing in the plane, she held her breath, told herself to just get it over with,

and threw herself out of the door. For the first few seconds of the plane, she held her breath, told herself to just get it over with, and threw herself out of the door. For the first few seconds of the jump, Victoria actually began to enjoy the free fall. But a few seconds later, after she pulled the toggle to deploy her main chute, something she had done literally hundreds of times before, disaster struck.

Victoria was expecting to feel the reassuring yank of the parachute slowing her down, but she didn't feel anything at all. That just makes me feel sick. Please don't make me go skydiving. Hannah, we'll have to, literally, you will have to shove me out of the plane. Yeah. And I'll cry. Yeah.

But then you will have done it. Then I will have done it. Looking up, Victoria saw that her parachute was completely tangled and it wasn't doing anything to slow down her fall. But it was going to take a little bit more than that to throw off Super Soldier Victoria. There's no way you get to several thousand jumps, become an instructor and still don't know how to deal with a faulty parachute. So Victoria went through the motions that had been burned into her brain in training. But no matter how ready she was, a certain panic inevitably began to set in. Oh, it's just this bit just makes me feel so, so sick.

And remember, Victoria is combat ready. She's been in Kosovo. She knows how to work under pressure. And she's fucking panicking because nothing she's doing is working. She kicked herself in a circle trying to untangle her lines, but it was just getting her nowhere. Despite doing her best to fix her chute, Victoria just wasn't slowing down. With little time to spare and the ground rushing ever closer, she made the decision to cut away her main chute and deploy her reserve. So again she waited for the reassuring yank of safety.

And again it didn't come. This time she looked up to see that the chute wasn't just tangled, it hadn't properly deployed at all. As she started to try and fix her reserve chute, she knew her time was running out. The ground sped towards her and she heard a loud metallic thud and the lights went out. But miraculously, Victoria Silius survived. She woke up in hospital with a broken pelvis, a damaged bladder. This woman's just given birth also. Most of the ribs on her right side were smashed to pieces and she also had a collapsed lung jesus christ and this is the thing it's like immediately this is just horrifying because

okay maybe i don't even know what the probability or the chances of one of your parachutes not working but the fact that your actual main parachute and your reserve are not working and not even just not like tangled up and so like user error, just not deploying a tool. The likelihood of that must be astronomically small. I mean, one would hope otherwise no one would do it. Yeah. And I'm also telling myself that just in case this is something I'm forced to do, which I don't want to. Well, keep talking about it then. In fact, this awful, awful, not even accident, very deliberate thing

would have been the end for Victoria if it weren't for these three factors. One, she was a very competent parachuter and had made some progress in slowing her fall by tugging on her steering lines to open her chute as best she could. She managed to slow herself down to about 60 miles an hour. She was a slight person and was in good shape, meaning that she was slightly better equipped for a fall. She also landed into a freshly ploughed muddy field that went some way to cushioning her landing.

But despite the horror of the fall, Victoria woke up to the same old indifferent Emil. Throughout the agonising rehabilitation progress, Emil tended to the kids, along with Victoria's parents, but he spent most of his time away from the hospital and Victoria. When she eventually made it back home to the children, he seemed to find it more of an inconvenience than a happy family reunion. And it wasn't long before Victoria had a visit from the British Parachute Association. They came over to the house to talk about the cause of the incident.

A close examination of Victoria's chute from the day of the accident, not an accident, it appeared that two vital pieces of the parachute were missing when she dumped from the plane. That was the reason that her chutes, both of them, didn't deploy properly. The news shook Victoria, and a few days later she got a call from the same team,

asking if they should refer it all to the police. Yes. Yes, you should. So four days after Victoria was first released from the hospital, Emil Silius was arrested on suspicion of murder for tampering with Victoria's parachute. An investigation was launched, and it was revealed that Emil had been having multiple affairs. His main focus had been on a new woman called Steph Goller.

He told the police that he'd been planning on starting a new life with her. A new life, another new fucking life, Emil. New life number five. Fucking hell. It's just like, oh, well, my house is just a mess. I'll just move. I'll just move, fuck this. It was also revealed that on the day of the gas leak, as well as exchanging 380 texts with Steph Goller, he also had time to arrange a hook-up with his ex-wife Carly. After being

released on bail, Emil was re-arrested in September 2015 for tampering with the gas. During the police investigation, Emil admitted that heed in September 2015 for tampering with the gas. During the police investigation, Emil admitted that he had been planning on leaving Victoria for his new girlfriend, this Steph Goller person who just so happened to be Austrian. And he'd met her during one of his many work trips. During his several police interviews, Emil gave the impression of confessing everything. But he never owned up to tampering with the gas or the parachute. He talked about Steph, his plans to abandon Victoria, his spending habits and his many affairs. But he was careful never to admit any harm to Victoria. Again, this

is very, very classic. This is a classic manipulation tactic is just own up to or share enough like bad stuff about yourself or like confess to enough things that make you feel like the other person's like well if he's confessing to all that surely he'd just tell us if he'd done the rest of it this is such a like a i don't want to say genius because it's not but it's such a manipulation tactic yeah it's a textbook in fact during the police interviews the only time that emile showed any emotion at all was when he was accused of the murder. And when he talked about his new life, his fifth new life, with staff. Over the next two years, Wiltshire Police painstakingly put together a case against Emile Silias.

Once the case went to court in October 2017, the jury heard how Emil had an unstoppable spending problem. They also heard that after his release on bail, he'd been given a small insurance payout to cover the costs of not being able to return to the family home. He spent that money on video games, a PlayStation and an iPhone. The jury also heard about Steph Goller. He told Steph that Victoria was pregnant with another man's child and that he had the DNA evidence to prove it. On top of all of this the jury were shown his texts to Steph Goller including I love you's from the day of the jump and another one saying from April onwards I can do random and spontaneous because my wife will be dead. God I fucking hate him. So it's pretty damning evidence but the most damning of all was irrefutable proof that Emil had taken Victoria's parachute awayning evidence. But the most damning of all was irrefutable proof

that Emil had taken Victoria's parachute away to the toilets on the day of the jump. He was the only one to touch it before she hit the ground. Why would there be a system in which you are allowed to remove the parachute from the parachute room? Because he works there as a parachute stuffer. Yes. Nobody's watching him. That's true. So maybe it seems very obvious to us what happened,

because we know exactly what happened. But despite all of the evidence we have just told you, for some reason, the jury struggled to find a verdict. Honestly, I'm lost. I'm lost about how the jury couldn't figure this one out. Possibly it's because, even after two years since the fall, Victoria was still wrapped up in the lies. Exhausted, manipulated and ground down to a fraction of her previous self, she was torn into by the defence. She said she didn't really know

how long Emile had been in the toilets with her parachute. Even worse, Victoria told the jury that she hadn't been truthful in her original statements, saying, quote, I just wanted to get my own back to a certain extent. Victoria! I know, don't say that. So after seven weeks, the jury was discharged for failing to reach a verdict. It seemed that the madness of Emile Silias had reached them too. Several jury members were discharged for stress-related illnesses

and others were accused of bullying. I can 100% say that. The bullying. Jury service was absolutely nothing like I thought it would be. It was the most boring two weeks of my life. But some of the stuff people say, obviously I'm not allowed to talk about it, but like I can understand it just takes one fucking stick in the mud man that just like won't change their mind for any reason and then you're there for fucking hours luckily everyone i was doing it with didn't want to be there so it was fine so after the jury was discharged this gave victoria four months of relief before a retrial in may 2018 this time the jury was actually taken to a parachuting center and given a full lecture on how the shoot worked and the unbelievable odds of a double shoot failure the British Parachuting Association conducted inquiry as well into the incident which revealed that over the two

million parachute jumps that took place in the UK between 2005 and 2015, there was zero incidence of a double chute failure. So that are some pretty thin odds, I would say. So on top of that, the company that made Victoria's reserve chute had never had an incident involving a faulty chute in its entire operating history. In addition to all of this evidence about the parachutes, there was more of a focus put in the retrial on Emile's text conversation with Steph Goller, where he promised to be more free in April. What was going to change in April? Well, his wife was going to be dead, because he would have murdered her. It was also revealed that Victoria's death would have set Emile up with a £120,000 life insurance payment,

more than enough to cover his debts. However, it wasn't just Emil who was under scrutiny. Victoria was still coming to terms with Emil's abusive behaviour, and she had become a pawn for both sides of the courtroom. Her witness testimony didn't definitively help the defence or the prosecution. She took the stand effectively friendless and was interrogated intensely by both sides. Eventually, after the lengthy retrial, weeks of being dragged by the courts and the press, Victoria watched on as Emil Silias was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was given a minimum term of 18 years.

Even when he was convicted, Victoria wasn't sure if Emile was guilty. But as she said in her book, I Survived, by that stage, she didn't really care. We don't know whether Emile ever loved Victoria or any of the five women he started new lives with. But what we can say is that Emile's focus and obsession with passionate, fatuous love without any real focus on true intimacy, coupled with his habit of forming intense commitments that he was incapable of following through on, are all pretty symptomatic of narcissistic personality disorder. So for a while after he was sentenced,

Emile tried to keep in contact with Victoria from prison. He sent her constant letters and even phone calls. But for the first time in their relationship, his spell over Victoria was broken. She says that she didn't feel any satisfaction in effectively ghosting Emile. But she said she had to, so that she could come to terms

with what eventually became the title of her book, which is, quote, I fell in love with a charming man and he tried to kill me. Victoria filed for divorce in December 2018 and even had the bravery to take part in a charity parachute jump. Oh my god I would never ever just be like take the money. Fuck it out. But she did it to raise money for the air ambulance service that saved her life. She says she doesn't know if she'll ever jump again. But for now, she's focused on creating a happy life for her two children, April and Ben. There you have it. Fucking hell.

Victoria Sillier's parachute extraordinaire. The best to ever do it. And her piece of shit husband. Truly. And honestly, if you think back to that day when the double shoot failure if the weather had been better she probably would have died because they were only flying closer to the ground because the weather was so bad so there you go that is that case it is an incredibly famous case i'd be shocked if people especially in the uk hadn't heard of it but you go. So make sure you give us a vote. British Podcast Awards, there'll be a link underneath the episode.

Or you can go to britishpodcastawards.com forward slash vote if you prefer to do it that way. And just remember to verify it in your email. Otherwise, the vote will not count. And it will make us very, very sad. Have lovely days. Drink some water. Take an antihistamine. Fucking pollen counts through the fucking roof.

And, you know, lie down if you need to absolutely and if you're like while I'm lying down I'd like to listen to my extra red handed you can head on over to patreon.com

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bye there or here or somewhere else for something else next time goodbye bye Thank you. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people

only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what you said. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus.