Serialously with Annie Elise - 367: Nightmare Parents & Their Horrific Digital Footprint | DaddyOFive

Starting point is 00:00:00 The story of a family who may have taken their pursuit of social media fame and fortune too far. The parents behind the popular YouTube channel Daddy 05 say they thought they were playing innocent pranks on their children. I didn't do that! But instead, they're sparking outrage and accusations of abuse. This is what people want. They want to hurt us. You get a job! We're being savagely attacked. I got a prank for Cody.

Starting point is 00:00:23 One person wrote, this makes me shudder. Another called it mental abuse. I am personally concerned for these kids. It's just a prank. Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of serialously. Hey, everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of serialously with me, Annie Elise, here to break down another true crime case for you. And look, today's case is kind of a little bit different. It's like true crime, vlogger world adjacent, influencer, Ruby Frankie. I don't know. It kind of has a little mix of everything. And it was a request from a lot of you guys.

Starting point is 00:01:24 So when I started researching it and realizing how awful this was, I knew I wanted to jump on the mic and I wanted to talk with you guys about it. But I do want to give you a little bit of a heads up. Some of the media in today's episode may upset you. But it is important to shine a light on all of this and to give you the full picture. So we're going to just jump right in. The title of this video was Invisible Ink Prank, Epic Freak Out. So, of course, most people immediately clicked on it. Hey guys. So I got a prank for Cody.

Starting point is 00:02:04 I bought this here, Invisible Ink, and I'm going to squirt it all over his carpet and start flipping out. because you remember before guys, you've seen our videos, you know, he got ink all over our carpet. We actually had to pay someone to come clean it. So we're going to make him think that he did it again. And he's going to pull back because he really didn't do it. So we're going to see how this goes. Now already, any viewer with heart and conscience, in my opinion, would automatically be a little bit apprehensive. about this. Well, this prank ended up being anything but harmless. Heather herself had warned

Starting point is 00:02:49 that she was going to flip out on nine-year-old Cody, and that's exactly what she did. And this whole video, in my opinion, is painfully long. You were fucking up here, too. Yes, they did. They did it. Stop recording. You too did this. And it just keeps going. Both Heather and Mike Martin, the daddy behind Daddy of Five, continued screaming, yelling profanities, hitting walls, and keep in mind, this video was a little over six minutes long. The yelling started before we even got into minute one,

Starting point is 00:05:17 and it didn't let up until almost the very end of the video. So what those kids experienced that day for this, you know, prank was more like psychological warfare. It started with Cody, but it ended in almost every, kid just red in the face crying, pleading for their parents to calm down and listen to them. I'm trying to fucking camera. Invisible ink, it dries and comes out. Hey! Hey, hey, hey, baby can't be sitting down like that.

Starting point is 00:06:02 It'll come up! It's invisible ink, it goes away! Look, it go away when it dries? See, look, look, look over here. Going away. What? What? We got you both.

Starting point is 00:06:34 You were innocent bystander. Yeah. Now, to me, a prank is like, oh, got your nose or, like, you know, here's a nuggie or a wet willy or something like that. And the kid laughs about it. Maybe they're a little irritated, but they laugh. So if you're watching this episode on YouTube and you're seeing all these clips, I want you to think about it. No kid should be sitting on their bed with this blank expression just disassociating from the events that have just taken place. All in the name of pranking and getting views, I mean, it's despicable. And I'm not

Starting point is 00:07:07 alone in my feelings here, because once this video was uploaded, nobody could forget the faces of those kids in the room that day. It was the breaking point for all of the Daddy 05 viewers. And it really was the moment that made their once loyal fans take a step back and really consider the content that they were viewing. And like I said, today's case is one that is all too similar to some of the very rough topics that we've talked about before. Think Ruby Frankie 2.0. It's almost like, how far will some people go for views? And is there ever truly a time where as a parent, you just stand back and say, look, enough is enough. The money isn't worth it. But sadly, we're in the era of social media, and the era of family channels that truly do exploit their children for views at whatever cost.

Starting point is 00:07:52 Their mental, physical health, their safety online, their privacy, and so much more, it's just constantly on the line, sometimes even daily with these people. And the family we're talking about today was once a very popular family channel called Daddy O5. Daddy O5 was a YouTube channel that was started by Mike Martin, the dad of the group. And like a lot of social media accounts that eventually go rogue, it started off as a channel that, in theory, really shouldn't have been too bad. But as the subscribers rose to nearly 750,000, so did the need for the best, most jaw-dropping content. That's what took precedent over, you know, basic human decency.

Starting point is 00:08:35 And the Invisible Ink prank video instantly went viral among people who had never even heard of the Daddy O5 channel before. Comments were just pouring in about the kids' safety and well-being. And by the very next day, tons of other YouTube channels were re-uploading these videos. they were commenting on all of it, on the family dynamics, the channel as a whole, and this, of course, led to even more people being concerned about Cody and the other kids in the Martin household. And people weren't just saying that this prank was mean or uncalled for. Almost every commentator and viewer was calling it something much more serious, understandably, and calling it outright torment against these children. So who were these people behind this channel and what was really

Starting point is 00:09:17 going on behind the scenes here? Mike and Heather Martin, were a blended family living in Iamsville, Maryland. Mike had two children from his previous relationship, Emma, who was 11 years old during the 2017 controversy, and Cody, who was just nine years old. Heather had three kids from her previous relationship, Jake, who was 14, Ryan who was 12, and Alex, who was the same age as Cody, nine years old.

Starting point is 00:09:43 And Heather describes her story and meeting Mike as kind of going a little something like this. She got married to the father of her three boys, boys when she was just 18 years old. Pretty young. She had the three kids with him when she was 18, 21, and then 24 years old. Then, after 10 years of marriage, she filed for a divorce, claiming that she was unhappy and that by staying with him, she wasn't able to give her sons the life that she wanted them to have. So she filed for divorce in June of 2011, and then a few months later, she met Mike. Apparently, they were just head over heels for each other and, like, you know, you know how the

Starting point is 00:10:18 saying goes. The rest was history. Then in 2015, they created their YouTube channel. And the About Me section of that channel says, we as a family decided to make this YouTube channel just for fun. Emma. Happy birthday, Emma. So we're going to Wild Wings for Emma's birthday. Are you excited?

Starting point is 00:10:41 Are you super excited? Yes. Are you really excited? Are you really super excited? Are you sure? Yes. So like I said before, it started as something that, theoretically should have been harmless. It should have been just that for fun. But they very quickly

Starting point is 00:10:56 realized that their typical family vlogs weren't cutting it for people. People wanted more. Whether it was going out to eat for one of the kids' birthdays or going to the mall to pick out toys or do some Christmas shopping, the views just weren't as high on any of those calm everyday type of vlogs that they were posting. The videos were too clean, too calm. They didn't have that shock and wow factor, things that viewers kept wanting more and more of. And that's kind of a tricky issue on the internet, right? We see so many things day to day, whether it's in the vlogging world, the true crime world, reality TV world, to where we become desensitized in a way and it feels like people need to keep upping the ante. And not necessarily from a content creator perspective. I mean,

Starting point is 00:11:40 I guess, yes, looking at this, obviously, but even from a viewer, it's like what maybe felt like it would jolt you a little bit one day, maybe not so much and it's going to take more to, you know, strike a nerve. And that was the same for this family, this channel, and these viewers. And that's when they first started deciding to introduce the prank videos. It's cold and flu season. So if you are under the weather or you're just trying to be proactive about immune support year round, beekeepers naturals is a health and wellness company that is reinventing conventional products. They're doing this with clean. effective alternatives. Their throat spray delivers antioxidants like flavonoids and all of these other

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Starting point is 00:15:17 not a single one of them in my opinion. Each one was always done at the expense of one of their kids. Though, I will say little Cody seems to be the one who was picked on the most often. Cody brought me later to school and let the floor of paper on fire

Starting point is 00:15:31 and I'm a little bit concerned about this. What? Let me know when we'd be able to show. Cody! Cody! Get your ass in here right now! Yeah.

Starting point is 00:15:44 Get in here! Yeah. If your teacher just called, Why is your shirt on her? This is your teacher, you calling her a liar? I never took a lighter. What your teacher's saying you did? To school.

Starting point is 00:16:17 Why is the camera on? It's not. You were bad today. What did I do? You were bad today. Where did I do? You got expelled. For what?

Starting point is 00:16:28 For being bad and difficult all the time. Get out. Get out now. What are you talking about all the time? You're fighting with the teachers too much. You're not listening. You're arguing all the time. I didn't get expelled.

Starting point is 00:16:45 Yes. You did, Cody. Yes, you did. Are you being serious? Yes. There's no way. Cody, yes, you did. I told you.

Starting point is 00:16:56 Get out! I told you that you could not behave that way in this neighborhood. I told you you couldn't be acting all stupid and stuff in this school. I told you that. There's no way you're being serious. I am being dead damn serious. Now I gotta find you a damn home tutor or something. And I'm gonna have to put you on one of those schools

Starting point is 00:17:20 for bad kids that live there. You remember I was telling you about that? The school said they can't deal with... They cannot suit your needs. No way. No way. I've never got expelled before. No way.

Starting point is 00:17:34 Well, you did now. And I told you. I told you a chef. shape up. I told you to shape up. There's no way I got this. I told, yes, you did. When mom gets home, she's gonna ream your ass out. Essentially, every prank video was just making Cody

Starting point is 00:17:51 or one of the other kids think that they were in trouble. Which again, that's not really a prank at all. And I think we can all agree on that, especially any of us who are parents here. Like making a child feel like they're in trouble and they've done something wrong, that isn't a prank. That is cruel.

Starting point is 00:18:06 And they have videos that, that were titled Cody Bad in School or Cody Ruin Family Night or Cody put up for adoption prank, using Cody for Target practice. They even had a video titled Cody holds Alex at gunpoint. I mean, these are not prank videos. These are isolating your one child and making them not only feel a certain way, but actively like smearing them online and making them the punching bag. It's awful. And I know that that title of the last video that I mentioned, it's pretty insane, but I will say it was a clickbait title completely. It was created to make viewers think that this poor kid was actually holding their sibling at gunpoint, but that's not

Starting point is 00:18:46 at all what happened. Again, not interesting or funny at all. Yet, it still got the viewers in. It got people clicking in, so apparently they did have the audience for these things. And it was an almost 30-minute-long video, just filming random stuff, nothing like super concrete. Mike also explained a point system that they started using with the kids. And then toward the end of the video, Mike and a few of the kids went outside to shoot what looks to be paintball guns, maybe BB guns, and I honestly don't even know because I wasn't able to get through the entire thing. It made me sick to my stomach. But all that to say, it certainly wasn't a real gun. It wasn't some sort of feud between the siblings. It was just this weird kid on kid clickbait. It was gross.

Starting point is 00:19:31 And it's insane what that poor little kid Cody was put through. Cody? I don't care about me. You want to care about me? You want to love me? So just go! Why is still here? Just go!

Starting point is 00:19:47 I do like you. I gotta get your help. I don't like you because you're bad. Exactly. But even though a lot of these videos were based around Cody, he wasn't the only one who dealt with these kinds of twisted pranks. None of these kids were safe from being, you know, the star of the show. It wasn't just Cody who got the prank treatment.

Starting point is 00:20:06 There are a... other videos that were titled, Emma Go Psycho, Mom Beats Jake with a Spoon, Alex was bad on the bus, and everything was just based on humiliation or psychologically upsetting these kids. Like the time when Mike ordered the kids burgers, picked his nose, put his disgusting ass boogers all over one of the burgers, and then gave them to the kids to eat, and told them that he did all of that to the burgers, too. I mean, it's just so disgusting. I also cannot unsee the part where he literally spit inside of the hamburger and then also rubbed it all over a public trash can.

Starting point is 00:20:44 We're going to order them all burgers. We're going to get all the kids burgers, but we're going to take one of the burgers and make it really, really nasty. I'm going to put boogers in it and put all kinds of nasty stuff on it or whatever. And I'm going to tell them that I did that to all the burgers. That's for Cody. Yeah. You're all picking your buggers.

Starting point is 00:21:39 Now very few videos on the channel were what could be considered as normal. I mean, they would sometimes occasionally upload a vlog for Christmas or a video about receiving fan mail. I mean, things like that. But for the most part, I would say that 95% of these videos involved something with shock value. A stunt, a prank, something. And to be 100% clear, it wasn't just emotional or psychological stuff that they had to go through. Some of it was physical. Again, all in the name of views. Now you gotta flip the bottle and land it. Now, if it lands, you're safe. Now, if it don't land,

Starting point is 00:22:23 the other person gets to slap you in the face. Wait, what? It's true. Oh, God, the firm... Oh! Be quiet. I can't hit her. You're sorry.

Starting point is 00:22:43 No! Get a turn! No! How is she going to swear? She don't count! She's your sister. She's not a girl. She can sweat me like a girl.

Starting point is 00:22:52 You can smack her. Be easy. Go ahead. Oh, I'm out. Oh, God. Go ahead. Don't hit her heart. You're a rest of you. You're a juby. If you smack or I'm going to smack you.

Starting point is 00:23:03 You flinched, you fling. All right, go get, Ryan. Go get it, Ryan. No, no. All right, well, come on, yay! Just give her a little tap. This is just so disgusting, because not only are they promoting

Starting point is 00:23:55 kid-on-kid aggression, but also saying, it's okay, she doesn't count, she's your sister. Like, what are you even talking about? There was even a video where Mike pushed Cody into a bookcase, and it still is uploaded.

Starting point is 00:24:09 It is mind-boggling. And some of their other, you know, prank, and I say that very loosely, prank videos could have gone incredibly wrong in just a heartbeat. For example, there was a video that was titled, Daddy 05 pulls a gun on his son, prank goes wrong, which I can't even believe that that is an actual video title and no less that people are curious enough to click into that video and see what happens. It's sick. And in the video, it kind of is just like the title says. Heather makes her son dress up in this dark mask, then starts yelling and screaming like somebody broke into their home, which led Mike coming down the stairs with a gun in his hand.

Starting point is 00:24:50 Now, was this video staged? 100%. I would imagine, yes, Mike, I'm sure, knew exactly what was going to happen, and it was all part of the routine coming down the stairs with a weapon, all to create this, like, prank gone wrong moment. But still, even if it was staged, it's not funny at all. And on the off chance that it wasn't staged, that could have been deadly. Imagine not only what could have gone wrong, but think about like the PTSD that their son would have from that moment. It is so sick and twisted. Hey, everybody.

Starting point is 00:25:24 Daddy 5 is sleeping. Me, Jake, and Ryan. Since you guys hit like on that last video are going to show you what pranking Daddy 05 looks like. We're going to set the alarm off and what are you going to do? Say hurry up and turn it off turn it off. In a deep crazy voice? Yeah. Okay.

Starting point is 00:25:46 What are you gonna do? I'm gonna be waiting until it gets about like right here and then I'm gonna control the cannon. You gonna go grab the other camera? Mm-hmm. All right, are you all ready? Yeah. Hurry up, turn it on. Turn it on.

Starting point is 00:26:07 Turn it on. Babe! Shut up. It's Jake! It's Jake! It's Jake! There's a guy across the fucking street looking in the window right now. Because you got a gun!

Starting point is 00:26:47 No shit. Put the gun away. This motherfucker is over there looking in our house. Because you got a gun in her screaming like a fool. Somebody about to caught a guy. Stop doing this shit. Let's keep an assort. I think it was hilarious.

Starting point is 00:27:17 So these pranks really have never been harmless. They were dangerous from day one, causing chaos and a lot of teeth. tears. Most of the time, at least one kid was always crying in the videos. And Daddy 05, the account, they posted around 300 different videos in the span of just a few years, which to be honest, there are so many different videos that we could talk about, but those are just some of the more serious ones that I wanted to lay out for you as examples. So all of that to say, the problems hadn't just started the day they pranked Cody with this invisible ink. It had been going on for years at that point. Getting kids to take their vitamins should not feel like some sugar-loaded

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Starting point is 00:31:21 And one of their more notorious interviews was on the YouTube channel, Drama Alert, which, by the way, has millions of subscribers. But take a listen. are a little exaggerated and they are edited to make it look like it's a lot worse than it is. We're also a family, but I mean, we're also trying to make a YouTube channel. The videos, we're not fake, but some things are a little exaggerated. And the kids all, I mean, this was their idea to start with. So when the camera comes on, they go with it. And sometimes they'll tell us afterwards, we really didn't buy that.

Starting point is 00:32:03 We knew all along. And then other times, they're really pranks. I mean, it just, we never know what we're going to get. And it definitely appears that way that I didn't turn the camera off. But there's many incidents where the camera definitely was turned off. There is a lot that there's a lot of privacy. It doesn't really appear that way, but there is a lot of privacy. There's a lot of things that we keep to ourselves.

Starting point is 00:32:34 When a certain child has a boundary crossed and they do not want something posted, we don't post it. So they basically chalked everything up to editing. And look, I know they do that in reality TV. They say, oh, it was the producers. It was the edit. It was this. It was that. I got the villain edit.

Starting point is 00:32:52 But they said that the videos had all been edited to exaggerate things. to make things look worse than they really were. And since they had been criticized for filming when their kids had clearly asked them not to, they said it just looked like the kids had no privacy, that they were only pretending not to follow their kids' wishes to be off camera. Which I have to say, to me, that is a very interesting take, because most people will edit things on social media to make themselves look better, not worse. But it appears that this was like their whole schick.

Starting point is 00:33:25 And I'm not really sure if they believed that. that people would believe these excuses and just kind of take them and be fine with it. But once they realized that people all over the country, even all over the world, were calling for CPS to get involved, that's when they started doing some major damage control. And that is also when they released their public apology. And it's not funny. Don't get me wrong. It's not funny at all. This is a very serious topic. But they kind of followed the very typical influencer apology video, just the whole setup to a They both dressed in, you know, their Sunday best, their perfect outfits, probably the best I've ever seen either one of them look. They were calm, collected. Their voices were very low, very calming, very even, which was a pretty crazy juxtaposition to how they usually acted in their other videos.

Starting point is 00:34:13 I mean, even their background of this video was set up to look professional. This is going to be a bit of a different video than we usually do. This has been the absolute worst week of our life. and we realize that we have made some terrible parenting decisions, and we just want to make things right. During this week, we've had a lot of time to stand back, to jump out of character, and to see what we've done, and to see how we've come across,

Starting point is 00:34:45 and I understand how everyone feels. I acknowledge, and I respect how everyone feels about this, I do agree that we put things on the internet that should not be there. We did things that we should not do. And as a mother over the last week, looking back at the videos and just thinking about things, if I didn't know the people and I saw some of those things, I would be thinking the same thing. I would be like, oh my God, those poor children. Once people started watching us and the kids got excited.

Starting point is 00:35:27 about it and they would try to see how many views they could get. And we feel like we went from something that wasn't so bad. And then we just kept going more and more for the shock factor versus reality and to see what could get more views. And they kind of feel like some of it's their fault. And it's not their fault. It's not. It's we're the parents and we should have made better decisions.

Starting point is 00:35:57 We could give them a whole lot more than we could give them before, and we just felt like we were doing the best thing that we could for them. We are now in family counseling because we need it not only to get through the media stuff, but we needed to come back together and have everybody, even the kids, to understand what we did wrong in all this. We just want to give our kids back some type of normalcy. We just want them to be able to go back to school and just live their lives. I just wanted to take care of everybody.

Starting point is 00:36:37 We just wanted you guys. We wanted them to be happy. We just wanted our kids to be happy and we went about it the wrong way. We're focused on making sure that our kids don't have to deal with so much backlash from our bad decisions. And we realize now what kind of a situation we put them in. And we're just really sorry to them. Now, this video was posted within a week of the Invisible Ink prank going live on their channel. So when I said that that video went viral, I truly meant it.

Starting point is 00:37:09 It was like an overnight thing. And the backlash was huge. But this apology video, it wasn't landing for anybody. It wasn't doing anything for anyone. Most people just felt like Mike and Heather were only sorry because they got caught up in the scandal of it all. and because they were losing subscribers and, of course, income because of it. And thankfully, this apology, if you can even call it that, it did not sway investigators and CPS from getting involved.

Starting point is 00:37:36 And sure enough, on April 28, 2017, Mike and Heather went on Good Morning America to continue their apology press tour. And in this segment, they also announced that the police had in fact gotten involved and launched an investigation. We love our kids. They're the most important thing in the world to us. And we made poor parenting choices by portraying ourselves this way, but we are not bad people.

Starting point is 00:38:04 I am ashamed. This just, it started out as family fun. It started with me and my kids. We were just, for them, it was just about making a video. They would get excited when they would get a lot of views. And, you know, it was more for shock value. you. The characters that you see on our YouTube channel is not a reflection of who we are. It's not. It's a character. It was a show. A bad show, but it was a show.

Starting point is 00:38:35 Is that a show that children should not be involved in? You say characters. What are we to believe was real and wasn't real in those videos? We did do pranks, but most of the time the kids knew about them, they were planned. Some stuff is real. Some stuff was acted out, scripted. You're not suggesting that your kids and the crying and the sobbing and that emotion we see was not real, are you? Not every single time. Some of it was acted.

Starting point is 00:39:12 Some of it was. Stop, can you stop? The Martins claim some of their kids' emotions are exaggerated, all for the sake of making more dramatic videos and getting more views. Reporters actually went to their house and even talked with some of the kids who really stood up for their parents, claiming that these pranks and the constant creation of new videos, that it was all rooted in their ideas, that they wanted it. It wasn't their parents, which maybe that's true, but also, based on my coverage of cases

Starting point is 00:39:42 and situations, I know that kids, especially young kids, more times than not, will defend and cover for their parents because they feel the loving. and loyalty for them. So listen and let me know what you think. We'd be like, Dad, when are we making the next video? You know, when are we going to make the next video? It was just something that I really look forward to. Now keep in mind, like I mentioned earlier, Mike and Heather's family was a blended family. So imagine Mike's ex and Heather's ex seeing these videos online of their children. Their children going through this and being shown off and exploited in this way. And they had both come out and spoken out on this

Starting point is 00:40:20 and they are not happy. Emma and Cody's biological mother, Rose, stepped in after seeing that bookcase video, and she immediately began fighting for custody of her two kids, temporary custody at first, and then hopefully permanent. I'm glad I was not in the same room as Mike and Heather at the time. They did that to my children. It was very painful. I cried.

Starting point is 00:40:42 I had an anxiety attack the same day. Rose was very concerned for her kid's well-being, like any loving parent would be. However, once she got involved, unfortunately, things got even messier. It got to the point where Mike and Heather posted a public video of Cody and Emma both in tears having a full-on meltdown stating that they didn't want to be with Rose. It also included Mike and Heather basically reiterating that their videos, they were all meant for fun. They were staged. They were certain things had just been exaggerated. It wasn't anything overly serious.

Starting point is 00:41:14 So in reality, it was everybody else's fault for creating. the problems. I told you a hundred times that you all did not really know us. And I said a million times that all this is doing more harm than good. All this is doing more harm to good. I mean, the videos look like they're dramatic and look crazy and stuff like that. They're edited videos. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:41:41 They're edited videos. I mean, damn it. It's YouTube. And now people are trying to destroy my family. I don't fucking care about YouTube anymore. I don't fucking care if people hate me or judge me. I don't fucking care about the YouTube revenue and on that shit. I don't fucking care.

Starting point is 00:42:04 I don't fucking care. Our videos are not fake. Some things are exaggerating. You all are real? It's real. We put YouTube We put videos on

Starting point is 00:42:19 YouTube for fun videos we do with our kids We taught him to believe in himself That he could be anything he wants to be He's creative Clearly Because people think they know What they're talking about

Starting point is 00:42:37 They gotta cause all this extra drama Well we will fight We will We will fight because they will not go back Where they were from Now, on top of all of that, they also made some really intense claims about what life for Cody and Emma had been like when they were in Rose's custody. Now, I want to give a very huge disclaimer here. Everything that they said was alleged, as far as I can tell. None of it was ever proven. But I also can't sit here today and say that no mistreatment occurred when they were with Rose because I wasn't there. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:43:10 However, despite that argument, the courts felt that Rose was the safer place for them. and she was granted emergency custody. Rose went on to say in an interview with NBC News that Cody later confided in her that the reason he didn't want to go with her was because Mike and Heather had told him that Rose threw him and Emma away like they were garbage. Also that Rose didn't love them anymore. Which you have to remember, Cody was nine. Emma was 11.

Starting point is 00:43:37 They were both incredibly young, super impressionable, probably believing that these two parents were telling them the truth. They thought of their parents as their protection. They took their word for it. So for these two kids, nine and 11 years old, to hear, oh yeah, your mom, she didn't want you. She threw you away like garbage. She didn't even love you. She doesn't even love you now anymore. That is so evil. And honestly, who really knows what was said in that house or what they had experienced in the past with Rose? We don't know. But all we do know is the court did their due diligence and they felt like it was a safer place for Rose to be with the kids than Heather and Mike. Rose, just interrupt me anytime you want, okay? I think the update is. Emma and Cody are with me. I have emergency custody.

Starting point is 00:44:26 They're doing good. They're getting back to their playful selves. And I think on Friday, about the same time that Mike and Heather were on USA today with whatever spin on the issue at the moment, we were before the court and obtained emergency custody of the kids so that they'd be safe. Yes. And I think that the Frederick County Sheriff's Department, who deserve a kudos, assisted you in retrieving them, right? Yes, they did a great job. They helped my kids and got them back safely to me. And the Frederick County Circuit Court passed an emergency order.

Starting point is 00:45:15 Um, yes, it did. I think the kids are sort of in a, in a, in a deprogramming sort of mode at the moment. Is that right? Uh, yes, sir. Now get this. Instead of putting the freaking camera down for a second and actually trying to better themselves and like be decent humans and good parents, like they claimed that they were doing on a multitude of different media interviews, Heather and Mike just kept making videos, business as,

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Starting point is 00:46:40 Your body does so much for you. So let's do something for it. That's D-O-S-E-D-A-I-L-Y-C-O-S-A-E for 35% off your first month subscription. So after Mike and Heather lost custody of Mike's two children, Emma and Cody, they made a video of the two of them telling Heather's oldest son about it. Weird. What's wrong? Where? Police came and they took Emma and Co. Where are they taking them to Rose?

Starting point is 00:47:32 They can't do that. They're doing it. Again, nobody told them to pick up a camera. Nobody told them to prank their kids in cruel ways. And the fact that they just continued posting very vulnerable moments of their kids' lives, even after they were clearly in trouble for it, it's just baffling to me. It's like there are no boundaries at all. There is no North Star in any of this to where they even have a clue of how to go the right way.

Starting point is 00:48:02 and proceed. And as far as Heather's reaction in that video goes, I mean, she knew that the camera was on. She and Mike had already admitted that everything in their videos was exaggerated, staged, even everyone's emotions. So I guess with that and with that past admission, I'm having a really difficult time believing that these tears are anything but crocodile tears. So after losing custody and continuing to post these ridiculous videos, Mike and Heather finally gave up on clearing their names. It seemed like they were just literally hanging on to their fame and their notoriety by a thread hoping that maybe one day everybody would just forget about what they had done and what had happened and things would just go back to normal. That was their hope. But they likely knew that things

Starting point is 00:48:46 were going south through views, exposure, income, all the different ways you could, you know, measure that. So they finally made the decision to delete all of their videos. However, as I know, you know, many of us know, the internet is forever. And you can still find a number of their videos re-uploaded online. So deleting these videos, it isn't going to save Mike and Heather. Now as for the other three kids, the ones that Heather shared with her ex, it appears that they stayed in Mike and Heather's custody. I did see one source tossing around online rumors that they were possibly removed from the home too, but I couldn't find anything credible to back that up. And finally, after a few months of investigating, Mike and Heather were each charged with two misdemeanor counts of child

Starting point is 00:49:33 neglect against Emma and Cody. An investigator said that they believed that they had enough evidence to show that Mike and Heather had caused mental injury to them, which instead of fighting in court, Mike and Heather both entered Alford pleas, which essentially meant that they weren't pleading guilty or admitting to anything, but they were accepting that there was in fact enough evidence against them for a conviction. Now, with those charges, they could have faced up to five years in prison per count, so 10 years in total. But guess what? They were only given five years of supervised probation. And during that probation period, they had to follow a few different specific rules. The main ones being that they weren't allowed to have any contact with Cody or Emma unless it was

Starting point is 00:50:17 court approved. They also weren't allowed to film any videos or post them online, which it's important to mention, they didn't even follow those rules. Rose and her attorney had to reach out to the courts because Mike and Heather had created an alternate YouTube account called Mommy 05 this time, how original, and they had posted old archived videos of Emma and Cody on that account, which you've got to be really freaking dumb to do that. You clearly took an Alford plea because you knew that there was enough evidence to, you know, convict you of those charges, but now you're going to have the balls to re-upload those videos and, like, you're not reading, the room and realizing those videos were bad, it's awful. But what's even more awful is,

Starting point is 00:50:59 shockingly, after not even following their probation, they still managed to get their sentence reduced to something called probation before judgment, which basically, some first-time offenders can get this instead of getting a more formal conviction as long as they follow a probation-like set of rules. So when I looked this up, it said that it was usually given to first-time offenders of quote, minor crimes, which I personally wouldn't think that what they did was a minor crime. That's just me, I guess, though. But the other thing with all of this is that they didn't follow their probation before this. So now giving them essentially more probation makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

Starting point is 00:51:39 But again, I'm not in the court system. That's just me. They still weren't allowed to have contact with the kids if it wasn't court approved, but they were allowed to request that their neglect charges be expunged after three years. which is just such an injustice, in my opinion. And it also has to make you wonder, why were Emma and Cody the primary targets? They did this against all of their kids,

Starting point is 00:52:03 but was it because they were Heather's kids? And we've seen that in other cases, right? Where unfortunately a child ends up being killed by one of the spouses. But like, if it's a blended family, we've seen that where sometimes it's the one parent's set of children who are isolated and targeted more than the others. So is that what was happening here? And she was rolling along with it because Mike didn't want to do like the harsher stuff to his kids. I don't know. But what I do know is that now all these years later, Mike and Heather are still posting online,

Starting point is 00:52:38 more specifically on TikTok. Now they don't have anywhere near the following that they once had. And some of their TikToks are just random things and some are attempts to clear their names. But they still are posting. And I tried to find the Mommy 05 YouTube, but I couldn't find it. So I'm assuming that maybe YouTube eventually took that account down, along with the daddy 05 one. I don't know. But in May of 2025, Heather posted a TikTok with the entire family in it. Emma, Cody, even Rose.

Starting point is 00:53:06 And she put the caption, so yeah, dot dot, dot. Like Cody said, fuck off. You all have turned our lives upside down for eight years and it's time we take our power back. We've healed, we've grown, and we're ready to move on. when the internet thinks they know more about your life than you do. What's up, everybody? So, come here, boys. Get in here, get in here, get in here.

Starting point is 00:53:32 Oh, you know what? Hmm. Come here. Come here. Come on, Emma. Hi. Come here, Rose. Come on.

Starting point is 00:53:41 Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Get in here. Come on. Mom's in the front. We just want you all to.

Starting point is 00:53:50 I don't know. How do you've got something to say? Leave a saloon. It's all done. It's washed. Everybody's good. There might be kids watching. Just don't worry how you feel.

Starting point is 00:54:06 Fuck off? It's all done. It's all done. So, like he does that, fuck off. There you go. There you go. So I don't know.

Starting point is 00:54:17 I guess that seems to be the ending of their story. of their story from their perspective. I guess everyone is just back together and, I don't know, functioning as one big family unit. But it still doesn't change what happened. Mike and Heather were still charged with child neglect. They still faced a ton of backlash for the horrific things that they did online against their own children. And it makes you ask the question, what about all of these kids who grow up with a camera shoved in their face? They aren't old enough yet to realize the magnitude of what happened to them and the childhood that was stripped away from them. All they see at that age is, oh, yeah, you want a brand new car? Let me shove this camera in your face.

Starting point is 00:54:54 That's how we're going to get it, honey. You want a brand new dollhouse. Here's how we're going to get it. And of course, as a child, you're not thinking of the harm that it's doing. You're like, yeah, I want my dollhouse. Yeah, I want a new car. This and that. And it's like, it's your job as the parent to be the responsible adult and be able to decipher right from wrong. And to me, they just look like a bunch of sleazy, skeezy opportunist, truly. And unfortunately, cases like this, one and even more well-known ones like Ruby Frankie, they're not going to be the last time that we hear about all of the disturbing things that are being done off camera. I mean, if they are willing to publicize how bad these things were on camera, I can only imagine what was happening

Starting point is 00:55:35 when the camera wasn't rolling, when the record button wasn't on. So I don't know. It's just, it's wild to think about. And honestly, the only silver lining in all of this is that it allowed people to step in sooner. So I don't know. Did you see all of this as it was going down? I can't believe this wasn't on my radar sooner, but it definitely is given Ruby Frankie vibes. So I hope that these kids, even though it seems like they're all a big happy family now, I'm sure as they get older and realize things, they'll look back and I would imagine they will harbor some resentment. I think it would be hard not to, but I'm just hoping that they heal from this because no kid should ever have to go through any this and be, you know, served up on a silver platter online in such a disparaging way. I mean,

Starting point is 00:56:21 let me go back and read you again some of these titles here, and like, which is just so sick. But we have Cody bad in school, Cody ruined family night. Cody put up for adoption. It's like, Cody was nine years old. How sick are you? It's, I could go on and on. It just makes me freaking enraged. So I know this one was a little bit different than some of the cases we traditionally cover, but equally important, especially given, you know, the influencer culture that's out there, vlogging culture, and just how dangerous it really can become and what a slippery slope it is when people get greedy. So thank you guys so much for tuning in, and I will be back with you again with another case soon. Until the next one. Be nice. Don't kill people.

Starting point is 00:57:06 And keep your kids off your vlogs, you weirdos. All right. Bye.

Serialously with Annie Elise - 367: Nightmare Parents & Their Horrific Digital Footprint | DaddyOFive

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