Something Was Wrong - S18 Ep8: (7/7) [Audrey + Amy S. + Amy] There's Not a Single Human Immune to Being Manipulated

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

*Content Warning: fraud, still birth, infant loss, pregnancy loss, miscarriage, sexual assault, doula fraud, factitious disorder, false reporting, public mischief, grooming, scams. *Sources:Info on Pseudocyesis (sometimes also referred to as “hysterical pregnancy: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24255-pseudocyesis via Cleveland ClinicInfo on Factitious disorder (sometimes also referred to as “Munchausen syndrome”): https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/factitious-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20356028 via Mayo Clinic Info on Fetishism: https://www.britannica.com/science/fetishism-psychology via Britannica The Pregnancy Was the Con: How One Woman Allegedly Tricked Countless Doulas Into Helping Deliver a Fake Baby, Cosmopolitan, by Sarah Treleaven. Published September 13th 2023: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a44866427/kaitlyn-braun-doula-pregnancy-accused-fraud-harassment/Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips: somethingwaswrong.com/resources SWW Merch: merch.cameo.com/store/somethingwaswrong Follow Something Was Wrong on IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcastFollow Tiffany Reese on IG: instagram.com/lookiebooArtwork by the amazing Sara Stewart: @GreaterThanOkay - Instagram.com/greaterthanokay

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or wondering. The podcast and any linked materials should not be construed as medical advice, nor is any of the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. Thank you so much for listening. You think you know me, you don't know me well. My doula partner, she texted me back with the same concerns and was like, you've got to get out of there. You don't have to say anything. Just go. Just get out as fast as you can.

Protect yourself. So I got up and Caitlin heard me. I made some excuse and said that something's popped up at home and I have to go home right now. and I ran out of there. I don't think I've ever run out of a place so fast. She texted me afterwards. I'm sorry, did I do something wrong? And then she didn't text me after that.

I didn't block her. I didn't need to block her from social media because I don't have social media accounts for my dola work. I don't have business cards. I don't have a website. I don't have an Instagram. There's no Audrey the Dula Instagram for me. So she wasn't able to find me on social media like she had wanted.

That was actually a conversation that we had had because she had tried to look for me on Instagram and couldn't find me. I messaged Shauna right away. I was in such shock over what had happened. And I said, I think you and I had the same experience with Caitlin Braun. And I've messaged another doula who had also been posting online about this. They connected me with other doulas who she had done this to, and I spent the night processing what had happened and sharing what had happened. That was when I learned that she was actually a social worker.

She wasn't a social working student and that she had been living with her mom and that other doulas had been conned by her in person and the mother knew about it and the mother was there participating. All of the shocking information. And that was just the beginning. At the end of that night, I'm absolutely shook by what I had just gone through. I had no understanding of what I had just gone through and what I was about to go through because of it. There's two pieces to that shock. I went to sleep that night and I woke up the next morning. I couldn't believe this had happened to me.

It really felt like nothing was real. And I decided that I was definitely going to contact the Brantford police. because of things that have happened to me before, Caitlin, I was immediately concerned that Caitlin had filmed me, that there was a camera set up, this was being filmed or live streamed or somehow put online without my permission. I immediately spoke to the police

because I wanted to give a statement as fresh as possible. I drove two hours to Brantford, and I spent an evening there giving a statement to the detective that was in charge of her case. Again, because of doulas who came before me, they had already been at the police insisting that an investigation be opened. The officer took my statement and then said that they probably had enough to move forward with charges against her

and that he couldn't guarantee what would happen, but he said something would happen. He tried to reassure me that they were doing everything they could to stop her from victimizing more people. I spent the first couple of days after it had happened, connecting with other doulas that it had happened to, putting the pieces together as to who she was. I told a few people that were close to me when it happened.

I was trying to connect with my doula partner, trying to debrief with her, and I eventually stopped messaging her because the thought had occurred to me that maybe she was somehow, part of it. Here's Dula Amy S. That night, Audrey had messaged the Dula that had posted in the Facebook group. They added her to this Facebook chat.

Another Dula sent me a message and they were like, oh my God, Amy, I'm so sorry. I can't believe that she got you. And so they added me to the Facebook chat. Probably for like an hour, I was engaging in this conversation and sending messages and then it was like 1.30 in the morning when Audrey had sent me that text, I was already in bed. And I just remember rolling over and looking at my husband being like, this was all fucking fake. This whole thing, this whole person, none of this was real. And he was just like, what? What was your husband's response? He was like, I don't understand. Why would somebody do that? What do you mean it's not real? I would tell him things, you know, as things were happening after the situation with other doulas.

He was like, wow, okay, it's really weird. I think his response, response was very similar to most strangers. So I looked at these conversations that were happening. And then I was just like, I need to close my eyes. I just need to disassociate from this whole situation. I'd need a minute without 50 people coming at me with other things about this person in this situation. The next morning, I got up and I went to work. And I emailed my therapist, who I'd been working with for a year and a half at this point in time. And I was just like, I know we have an appointment on Saturday. If you have anything sooner, I'd really appreciate you.

Like, everything's fine. I'm okay. There's just this really messed up situation. I feel like I need to talk about it when I had talked to my therapist on that Wednesday. So a couple days after all of this had happened, I explained the situation. And my experience with Caitlin was nowhere near as traumatic as other people's experiences. A lot of my trauma with the situation is more seeing other doula's being hurt, bringing another doula in and having that. that guilt, having somebody else traumatized by Caitlin, that's where a lot of my trauma and my grief

with the whole situation is. So I was just pissed off. I was angry. My therapist in that meeting was just like, all I hear from you is that you want to protect people. You want to protect other doulas. When all of this happened, one of the very first phone calls that I made was to the College of social workers to report her. I actually went to them versus the police because I figured that at least they would be able to not let her continue working with vulnerable people. And it sounds like people had already been working with the police since January. So the police were already aware of the situation. And the College of Social Work was as well because people had been complaining for months. I asked those questions, is there an investigation going? And of course,

I can't tell you that. She's still listed as a registered social work and they're like, we update it monthly. Keep your eye out, check back monthly. It's not like they can decide to take someone off. They couldn't tell me that they were doing an investigation, but it was being framed to me like they were aware of the situation and they were doing what they could within the institution and the policies and the rules that they had to follow, which at the time was infuriating and still is when you think about how long it would take for something to happen. That's a greater conversation when you talk about institutions. Even removing her and having her not registered, there's a lot of social workers from my understanding what people told me is

you can still be a social worker without being registered, but obviously if she has a criminal record, that's something else. I didn't have any contact or communication with Caitlin's mom at all. when Caitlin was in labor having contractions with me supporting her. She had told me her mom wasn't supportive. She wanted her to have an abortion. I did bring it up when she was struggling. At one point, she said, I really want my mom. And I was like, maybe your mom would change her mind and she would want to be here with you.

Like, why don't we call her? And it was an immediate like, we cannot call my mom. Then at the same time, you hear stories from the other doulas who spent four, five days in Caitlin's home. And Caitlin's mom was aware that Caitlin, was not actually pregnant, but faking that she was pregnant and pretending to be in labor, there was a car seat in the house. There were baby items in the house. She didn't not know about this. To just think about the fact that this person allowed this to happen to people, she allowed her daughter to intentionally cause trauma and harm to other human beings for no reason

is disgusting. I have children myself and I cannot even imagine doing that. If my kids do something wrong or they cause harm to somebody, I call them out, I make them apologize. How does a 24-year-old woman, her mother not even think about the impact that they're having on these people's lives? The fact that her mother has not been held accountable at all blows my mind. And thank you. There was another doula that spent five days at her home after this Airbnb incident with us. Her mom knew. There was one dula. She was like a mentor to a couple of the other doulas that were involved.

She spoke to her mom. She spoke to her psychiatrist. There were people that were very well aware of this situation and what was happening, nine months before she got arrested. Here's dula Audrey. I am so grateful for the other doulas who came before. for me who figured it out, who were trying to help, because I don't think I would have processed my trauma the same way. It would have taken me a lot longer. I was very paranoid for about the first week afterwards. Luckily, I was able to find a therapist almost immediately after I had

encountered Caitlin. Because of something that had happened to me in January, I had already been allowed funding through police victim services for a therapist. That therapist, she didn't mean to answer the phone because she had thought that I was somebody else calling. And that therapist said, I can't speak on the phone right now because my daughter is in labor. And I immediately went bananas because I thought, oh my God, it just felt like the whole world was somehow in on this con. I thought they were all trying to lure me in. And somehow this therapist was too. She was not, actually.

She's a very lovely lady, and it just so happened that her daughter was in labor, and she accidentally answered the phone that day. The days and months afterwards were their own kind of trauma. I would learn almost every day some new thing about Caitlin. Here's Caitlin's ex-girlfriend, Amy W. The 22nd of February, I was not. napping, I have a bad habit of leaving my voicemail full, so no one could leave a voicemail. So then I got a text from the detective, basically saying, hi, this message is for Amy.

My name is. And then she tells me her name with the Bramford police, I need to speak with you. She just gives me her phone number, and she said I was unable to leave you a voicemail. My initial thought was Caitlin. I was like, is she okay? Does she pass away? That literally was my first thought. So I was like, oh my God, I feel even worse of a person if I left her there and something happened to her.

I called back and that is when I got the worst news. She basically said that Katelyn went into the police nation and said, I want to put it on the record. I don't want to press charges, but Amy sexually assaulted me twice on two days. on the day that she asked me to be her girlfriend of February, and two days prior, when I haven't seen her, she ended up going back to the police and saying, well, actually, it never happened the second time.

It happened the first time. I am sitting there completely shocked. I don't even know how to respond to this. I didn't even know what to say. I was so shocked. Am I hearing this person right? Here I am thinking that something bad happened to the person that I was supposedly dating.

and now this is what's going on. They didn't tell me anything, which is why I was like, what did I allegedly do to make her think that I did this? We had only once, and then the only other contact we had had was when I was with the Jula

and I was rubbing her hair and touching her art or her hand trying to be supportive. But that's the only physical touch I ever had with her. Even when we slept in the same bed that night, we were back to back. We weren't even close at all.

But the detective basically was saying we don't believe that that's what happened because this has happened before. They were like, we want to open a case of public mischief against her for wasting public resources and wasting our time, basically not telling the truth about you.

So I was under the impression that she was being investigated for this, but I had to wait because she went and got a kit done So I had to wait for those results. At first I was stunned, and then I called my mom first, didn't get a hold of her. So I called my other friend, and I was in tears. They were very supportive, but also in shock and disturbed.

I was really beside myself. I had to go into the police station twice to give them evidence. And I had one of my friends come with me to the police station to give my statement. And we found out that she could have been a witness because I was exchanging text messages with her during the time. We were in the Airbnb. So she could have been a witness to it. They wanted my phone. They asked Caitlin, do you have messages from Amy?

And she said she deleted everything. She told the police officer, I don't have anything from her. So luckily, I had text messages from us on my phone. I had to advocate for myself to the police. I was like, why aren't you adding my charge onto her because she still continued to call me? And they kept saying, well, we're waiting for the kit results. Over time, I kept checking in on the case.

I was able to have access to victim services to get follow-ups on the case. And the next day I got a call saying, the charges has been laid to her, we're going to go ahead and move forward with this case. I was like, I'm glad that. but they finally did it. That happened in March.

Here's Audrey. My boss was kind enough to let us use the agency space because it's the studio that they use. She was kind enough to let us use a space so that the doulas in my area could meet in person. I actually arranged a meeting and met a few of them in person. I'm so glad that I could do that. I know that people go through fraud.

They go through sexual assault. and they don't get to have the same connections that I got to have immediately after. I'm so grateful that that even happened. I really made my focus on connecting with people, but it took over my life because my life became all about protecting other dolas and other care workers from this ever happening to them. I put out posts, I kept an ear to the ground. I did actually manage to stop two brand new doulas in the London area from doing in-person support with her.

I remember messaging them back and forth. I found something on a doula forum that said something along the lines of, I'm a brand-new doula. I've just had this client contact me who is having a stillbirth. What resources are there available? I immediately private message them and said, is this person's name, Caitlin Rod? and I managed to intervene in that situation, at least save one person from going through what I had just gone through.

That high alert that I was on for weeks afterwards is its own sort of trauma because it's not as if it happened. And then I gave my police report and that she was arrested. I had personal knowledge that she was out there trying to find other doulas to scam. And she did manage to scam, at least two more that I know of. That was heartbreaking. Every time that that happened, every time we added a new person to the group, as for counting how many people that she had done this to,

that was so horrible. I honestly don't know how I got through all of that and still managed to be a mother, still managed to be going to college. It still seems so unreal to me now. Did that actually happen? Yeah, that actually happened. It's real life.

We were quite convinced When I say we, I'm referring to the group of doulas that she victimized and abused. A lot of us were concerned that her behavior would escalate to kidnapping someone's baby. Before she was arrested, when we found out that she had been getting various nanny jobs and had even advertised herself on some nanny website, trying to find work as a nanny for specifically newborns. That was terrifying. She had ads. under her name, Caitlin Braun, her real name, she wasn't even using a fake one.

It's a website where parents go to search for a nanny. She had ads up there that she had a degree in social work, but most of her experience was with children and that she was looking to find a job as a nanny to a newborn because she felt like that was her area of expertise. She studied this stuff. In fact, she got honors in her social work degree. The College of Social Workers of Ontario, you can look people up. That was how I found out that she achieved honors.

So the fact that she's a social worker and she did so well in that program, she absolutely studied how to groom people. So when she was messaging me saying, oh, I might be naked when you come in or discussing with me how many naked bodies I've seen in my profession, she was grooming me. And I had no idea. She seemed to have a dark sense of humor. And I thought at the time that that was just a coping mechanism.

But the way that she was trying to get me to laugh with her, I thought she was trying to build trust between us. I do believe that her motivation is sexual based on my experiences and what I saw and heard from her. I also believe that she gains something like entertainment from conning people. Maybe that's the factitious disorder. I don't have a full understanding of it that way. I really feel like it's a layered motivation at this point. I do believe that she gains some sort of self-esteem from conning people. Like, I'm so good at lying to people and they believe me.

I'll never fully understand her motivations. And I think I've come to terms with that. At first, as I was telling the story, I think I touched really hard on the trauma of not being able to understand why a person would do something like that. But I've come to terms with that since then. I may never find out. I may never fully understand. And you know what?

Maybe that's okay because maybe I won't understand because I'm not a sociopath and I don't think like that. I can only guess at her motivations. Maybe that's a good thing. I think it's a good reminder that it doesn't really matter what motivated her. What matters is the harm that was caused and the impact that it made on so, so many people. Here's Dula, Amy S. Every day there were just more doulas being added to this group. She was just picking up steam and it was like she would end with one doula

and she was again working with another one. What really pissed me off was one of the doulas local to me who had actually suffered her own loss recently within the six months. Caitlin had targeted her and hurt her and when I saw her get added to this group, I just got pissed off. My therapist was actually the only. one that suggested that I make a video. I sat down at my kitchen table and I just talked for like seven minutes. I didn't even know that you could make TikTok videos that long. I didn't name Caitlin.

I said, this is a situation that's happening. Doolas are being targeted. If you think that this person has reached out to you, please feel free to send me a message. I will tell you who it is or reach out to another doula that you trust and see if they've had experience with this person. I posted that on the Thursday, just on TikTok, because I didn't know how to take a seven-minute video and pose it to Instagram because I'm not tech savvy. So it was the next day on the Friday. I figured out how to cut the video into sections and post it to Instagram and Facebook. My video was the first one posted, and within an hour of posting it to Instagram, I had Nodula reach out to me asking if I could call her because she thinks that she's with this person right now.

She didn't say Caitlin because I didn't say Caitlin's name. She didn't know who it was. I was like, absolutely, give me your number. I'll call you right now. So I call her and she's explaining the situation. She's like, we're walking on a mall. We're at the Starbucks. Caitlin got a call from the Brantford police.

They were like, your name's come up in an investigation and we need you to come in on Monday. And then Caitlin had made a comment to her, like, that's really weird. My name came up in an investigation. This doula, I think she had actually seen the video the day before, like on the Thursday, maybe, but didn't put it together until she was in the situation. And I'm like, her name is Caitlin Braun. And she's like, oh, my God, this person's name is Caitlin Brown. And I send her a picture of what Caitlin looks like. And she instantly just starts bawling her eyes out.

She's in over her head. And she's like, Amy, I drove her here. She doesn't have a ride. Like, what do I do? and she was sitting in her car crying and I said, you leave. And she's like, well, her bag is here. Her bag is in my car. I said, you don't owe her anything.

Look at what she's done to you. I guarantee you if you look in her bag. All you're going to find is a change of clothes. None of the items she's told you she has are in there. And that was true. She's like, where do I go? And I was like, drive to the nearest police station. You can give them her staff.

You can tell them what's happening. I didn't think that she would ever get arrested or we put in jail or anything like that. When I posted the TikTok video, I honestly just wanted to protect Dula. That was the only reason that I did it. As the stool was driving to the police station, I actually three-way called in the police officer that was running the case. And this was my very first time talking to him or the police about the situation at all.

And I said, this is ridiculous. This is bullshit. She's literally driving away from her at this moment. Like, it is clearly still happening. I was angry. I got off the three-way call and let them talk so she could tell him what was going on. I just sat there, the thinking. about if I hadn't have posted that video, who knows what could have happened with this

doula. Something that we had been able to do helped somebody else. Instantly, the other doulas started going on TikTok, sharing their stories, and it blew up. It went viral. Everybody was like, tell us these stories. Like, I'm down this rabbit hole. I never really shared my story of my experience with Caitlin on TikTok. The majority of my vision of my videos were just protecting people. A lot of the doulas who are sharing their stories were getting messages from people being like, I can't believe you would do this. I would make a video back being like, if you're not involved in this situation, you don't get a say.

If you're her friend or her family and you want to stick up for her, do it somewhere else. Because as doulas, as individuals that have been impacted by her, we don't care to hear it. So I kept my TikTok videos to protecting the doulas. I had so many people reach out. I had family members of hers reach out that weren't in contact with her talking about how she's always been like this. I spoke to an aunt on her dad's side. I'm sure if you've chatted with other people

that you've heard the allegations that she accuse her father of sexually assaulting her. Her dad has passed away. She had accused him while he was going through chemo. Just horrible, awful things. This aunt confirmed all of the those things to me. The doulas, we were worried that she was going to try to flee Ontario and go out east

because she had told one of the doulas that her grandma lived out on the East Coast and she was going to go and stay with her. This aunt, I had told her this because they live out on the East Coast. And she was like, absolutely not. My mother would never let her stay here with her. That's not going to happen. People that she had worked with, parents of kids that she had accused of doing awful things to her, the mom of the accused.

boy that Caitlin said had done something to her sexually, and it was obviously fake. They couldn't find anything on videos and all of those things, but just imagine an 11-year-old boy having a 24-year-old woman accuse him of doing these horrible things. It's just so sickening. And then as an indigenous person, to see that she's targeting indigenous people, my blood boils when I think about it, she just really hurt so many innocent people. I started getting all of these messages from people being like, she is who you're saying that she is. I think a parent had reached out and had said she saw her on a nanny site. And then whoever the Dula was that they had reached out to asked for the screenshot.

We were just like, email them, let them know what's going on. And they got back to the Dula really, really fast. They were like, thank you so much. We've deactivated her account. You really appreciate you bringing this forward. So people were taking it seriously. I had so many family members, so many friends, old coworkers, all of these people came to me and trauma dump their stories on me.

It was a little bit difficult, not going to lie. Having people trauma dump when you're going through this experience yourself is a lot. So the amount of support that all of the duels were getting outweighed the negative a lot. Most of the negatives were people being like, well, why didn't you? you check the heart rate or why didn't you check her cervix? So it was people just really not even understanding who and what a doula is or what they do. I've definitely heard of birth fetishes. I've definitely over the years received many messages. They're typically pretty easy to spot when people started talking about the Caitlin Braun situation and it was getting associated

with birth fetishes. People were like, that's happened to me or other doulas are like, I didn't fall for that. A lot of the criticism that we got was from other birth workers, to be completely honest, which is extremely disheartening, especially when they don't know the entirety of the situation. They don't know specifics to each person's experience. I still stand by posting the videos and I don't regret posting the videos because I know that me being vocal and advocating for the Dula community and sharing my voice stopped this to an extent. Somebody, somebody might have had an experience with her and went on living their life and they were fine until they saw these videos and realized what had happened to them and now they have trauma from it.

There's still a lot of guilt with that. She was arrested on the Monday and we know over the weekend that she was still reaching out to Doolahs. We had Dula's messaging us because they'd seen the videos and they knew what was going on and they're like, hey, she just reached out to me. Hey, I just got a message from her. It was crazy. And then all of a sudden, the Monday she's been arrested and we're like, what? I was a shock more than anything. I didn't expect that she would get arrested or charged, let alone that there would be an issue in cosmopolitan about it,

that we would be on the news, that you could Google her name or our name, and we would pop up, that we'd be talking on podcasts about this terrible, awful traumatic situation that we've been in. None of those things were on any of our minds when we chose to speak up and stop her. When you think about sharing traumatic experiences so often, people aren't believed and were gaslit.

And that had happened to so many doulas the year before when people were going to the police and all of this was happening. And that was the reason that I didn't go to them at the beginning. What could I possibly share with the police that would be any different? That was why I took to social media. The power of social media just blows my mind. I'm still shocked. She's been in jail since she was arrested. That to me is mind-blowing.

I thought that she would have been in there for a day or two, maybe a week. Here's Dula Audrey. I don't know the details of how they arrested her exactly or what happened that way, but I knew the day that it had happened. I was at school. I'm training to be a welder right now. So I was in my school welding booth and I feel the buzz of my phone and I looked at it and there's news of her having been arrested. It is hitting the news cycle and I was just in tears because of the relief that I was feeling.

I knew it wasn't over over, but it was something. I think the gravity of having had a whole month of my life byjacked by this absurd. with trying to stop her, trying to warn people, trying to tell them about this danger, and still trying to process what had happened to me at the same time. It hit me all at once. I'm standing there in this welding booth with my welding helmet up and I'm crying into a handkerchief. It was a relief, and it was also grieving at the same time. That was when I was able to start grieving what had happened to me.

I'm so lucky that I got to do that so quickly. after this incident and happened. Without having known other victims, without them having done the same work trying to protect other doulas, I would have just been sitting at home wondering what the hell happened to me and trying to process that by myself.

I can't imagine having to have to do that by myself. I hope that she will see some real jail time There's no precedent for this. This story is so wild. What's happened is so wild. There's nothing else really to compare it to. And I think that our court system is probably going to take a mental health stance on it. They're likely to push her to get some help.

She'd probably be put on probation and watched closely for a while for as long as they can. But the thing is, if a man were luring PSWs into Airbnbs to do personal care on them because they wanted to hire private PSWs, that is the thing that happens. And then let's say this person didn't have cancer or wasn't sick. And they just manipulated that PSW into being sexually assaulted. I think that the police would have jumped on that a lot harder and a lot faster. Here's Caitlin's ex-girlfriend Amy W. Because I wasn't working. I was doing interviews.

I was on an interview for most of the day. And then I was on my way to leave. And my friend had Snapchat in me. She saw her Reddit page and she saw TikTok so she was sending me. And I was in the car having a panic attack. Like, what the hell is happening? And then I started to see the videos. And immediately I just felt so many emotions.

I was sick to my stomach. I was like, I need to get home. I feel like I'm going to pass out. I was so distraught. And then I came home. I went down to rabbit hole. I watched all the videos. I can't remember the exact date that I saw the videos,

but it had to have been on or around March 14th because I believe that's when the videos started coming out. And then I got in contact with the doula that I was with. When we first initially talked, she seemed a little... hesitant to talk to me. She seemed like she didn't really want to get into it. I ended up talking to a different doula and she said there's a group. They were group chatting and then she reached out again and she's like, I thought you were involved too. We both said, I thought you were part of it because it just seems so calculated in the grand scheme of things we realized, no, you're not involved. In a way,

it was kind of like we were both in it going through it. That's kind of when I decided, to share my story on TikTok. The detective saw the video, and she said without saying that you can't post because there's a ban, but I posted it before the ban. But then she said, there is a ban in place, so we need to take it down and you're still being investigated.

And then I took it down. I haven't really been on social media about it since. I know some people have said, I feel bad about how she must be feeling in jail. I also felt guilty after because when I was listening to the videos on TikTok, I kind of pieced together what happened after I had left. And she put the next person through hell and treated them like garbage essentially and had them so convinced of her story.

She could keep up with her lives. It was like a mind map for her, like a game or something. I tried to read some articles about what professionals are saying. it's almost sociopathic, psychopathic type behavior. Here's Audrey. After the TikToks came out and after the news broke, there were more doulas who came out and said, I had strange interactions with this person.

This sounds like what I went through in November, and then we could piece together some kind of a timeline. What's really disturbing is that I found out that she had been contacting doulas while she was still active. conning me while I was still there. That's why she was on her phone. She was planning her next con. I was speaking with the other doulas who had gone through this, which was immensely helpful. Because I can't imagine having to process this without them or having to start from scratch. Like some of them did. Like, Shauna's story, it really gets me. And of all the people who had their

TikToks blow up, I'm so glad it was hers. She's so deserved that after months and months of trying to process what had happened to her, after hearing Dula after Dula being victimized again by the same person who victimized her. I wasn't going to invest all my time in this case and I was just going to leave it alone because I knew that she had a lot of charges against her. So I would just continue on about my life and then I would check in to the victim services here and there. when I was living in Ontario, they were concerned that she would try and find me or something.

I got a job interview in April and then I moved at the end of May. So I completely changed my life up and left. I told the detective, I'm leaving. She said, okay, well, let me know your number if it changes or whatever. So I did, I reached out a few times, no response. And then I went to email her

and it said the detective is not available until September of 2024. So I was like, well then, who am I supposed to talk to about this? I was in contact with victim services, and they were giving me updates about the case. I called the police station in Bramford, and I was like, what's going on? I haven't gotten an update about anything.

And they're like, well, your case has been closed. They didn't even bother to tell me anything, which is fine. I don't know how the police system works, but it just kind of felt like why are you calling? I don't think I'm going to be able to have any more access because I don't know if they're aware that my cases drop. Because they classified me as the victim of her,

I was able to have access to those court dates. I could watch it online, but I just chose not to because it was always pushed back. Do you mind telling me to your knowledge when the last time she was seen before a judge? I think it was September 5th or 6th. I hope she does get maximum penalty, but it hasn't been discussed with me

how many years that'll look like. I am hoping that she's in a psychiatric care or put in some kind of program. She's a danger to the public. The reason why I felt like I wanted to share my story was because I feel like it's a part of my healing journey. I still have PTSD. episodes. It doesn't happen so frequently, but it happens out of nowhere. So I definitely

feel like I'm not over it 100%. I think most shocking is realizing that it was all a lie and trying to wrap my head around that. How can someone make something up so devastating? You question your morals, you question your beliefs and who you are. And I think that was the hardest part. I was so hard on myself and I felt so guilty and this was all a lie. It just makes you question yourself completely. And I think even when I was accused of something I didn't do, it was like a ricochet effect. It just one bad thing after another. It's scary to think that this is someone that I thought that I could trust because I did develop some type of feelings for this person. I think that's what was the scary part is because I don't get too involved. I'm kind of a closed-off person. Physical

touch is not my love language. I'm very like, don't touch me. I'm not that kind of person. I don't insert myself on people. That was the shock part because I've been through trauma. I've been through stuff like that. To be accused of something that's so disgusting and out of character, it was awful. I don't even know how someone can say that about someone. So the fact that I finally opened up to someone and it turns out to be a monster, you kind of question yourself and who you are as a person again. It's devastating, honestly. I replayed every scenario where I'm like, that was a red flag, that was a red flag.

But again, you want to believe that someone is being honest with you, especially in that kind of situation. I really appreciate you being willing to share your story and to speak out, especially given the nuances of what you're sharing here, what do you hope that listeners will gain by hearing your story and the other victims of Caitlin's stories? You don't realize it could happen to you. There's a lot of regret. I wish I never met this person. I know it's not my fault because I know that I tried to see the best in her, but at the same time, she had everyone fooled. Even my friends were starting to be like, you should continue to help her.

You don't know what she's going through right now. I think trust your gut is what I've learned and ask questions. That's something that I honestly wish I did is ask way more questions than I could have maybe found more gaps in her story. What I've taken away from that is if someone's going to open up their life to you, you have a right to ask them questions. I think another thing, too, is to spread awareness about online dating and just to be careful about who you trust. and how much you let people know about who you are because you never know who you're talking to. I learned a lot about myself through this situation and going forward. It's kind of made it hard for me to trust people,

but at the same time, it's taught me how to trust my gut and listen to the signs. Thank you again so, so much for all of your time and energy. I'm incredibly sorry for everything that you experienced, and I am so, so glad that the police were on your side and were able to see through the accusations and see the whole picture when this took place. Thank you. Here's Audrey. I'm hoping that anyone listening will remember that human beings aren't lie detectors.

I am not unfamiliar with conmen. I come from a family of criminals. You know, I love my family. family. I should preface that. I love my family, but I'm also the first person in my immediate family who graduated high school and who has not been charged with a crime. I have not been to jail. My parents can't say the same. My siblings can't say the same. So I am very familiar. I grew up in a world where that was normal. They weren't necessarily conning people like Caitlin is in that kind of harmful way. But I am not immune to the fact that illegal things happen. So the idea of

having been conned so deeply, knowing what I know, having the experiences in life that I have experienced, it really taught me in particular that there is not a single human being who is immune to being manipulated. Human beings are also so creative and so imaginative. We can't tell when a person is lying to us. There's no body language analyst out there that is ever 100% on figuring out when someone's lying. What I want people to take away is that if you have been through some kind of a fraud, if someone has manipulated you into believing something ridiculous, you're not alone. And my story might be particularly wild in that regard, but it happens. It happens in an everyday sort of way. We hear about seniors,

being scammed through phone calls. You think who would do that, right? Everybody is just a little bit vulnerable to being scammed like that. I don't know what's scary to think about, but it does happen. It can happen. I'm so grateful and comforted to hear the way the duolas have been able to come together and support one another and have become your own community and support system, which again really speaks to the empathetic people that Caitlin targeted. The types of people that she targeted

were highly empathetic people for a reason. And it's really sad to think that somebody used this gift for this kind of purpose is, I don't know, it just adds another layer of the manipulation. Here's Dula Amy S. I've had this conversation so many times. I have gone through, an immense amount of trauma, but I'm not out here hurting other people and causing other people trauma. And if I did, I would be held accountable. I think for so long she wasn't, but she's not an idiot. She went to school. She got a degree. She was working as a registered social worker. She worked within the system. She knew how to play the system. She knew what to say and what to do and what to not say and what not to do.

And of course, there is going to be some mental health aspect to all of this, but the majority of people that are alive have some kind of mental health issue that they're working through. That doesn't excuse them from anything, and it's not an excuse in this situation. A lot of people are like, she's mentally ill. She has mental health issues. Of course she does, but that's not the end-all be-all of this whole situation. There is so much more to it.

I've been asked, does her serving jail time seem like justice to you? And I struggle with answering that because I don't necessarily think that her being in a prison cell does anything. The doulas, the friends, the family members, the people that have been impacted, that she has traumatized her. Being in jail doesn't really do anything for us. Like, yes, we don't have to worry about her doing it to other people, but at the same time, they can't keep her there forever. So like what happens when she gets out? My mind goes when I think about the situation. And that's part of the reason why I continue to speak up about it so that people are still hearing about it.

So when she does get out, that hopefully things will be different. There are so many other doulas that have stories. We've all had these conversations that most people will never know. They won't get brought up in any kind of criminal thing because they won't tell the police about it. and that's their right. They don't need to. The majority of people didn't go to police about this. They haven't shared their stories with the public. It's a very small group of us that spoke out. The reason that I spoke out was because I didn't want anyone else to get hurt. I never in my wildest imagination would have thought anything that's happened in the last six, seven months would happen.

I just honestly hope that people have compassion and understanding for people in general when they're going through a situation that you may not have been through yourself or that you may not understand and that people take the time to educate themselves and ask thoughtful questions when they are presented with something like that. Like the people who were respectful in asking questions when all of this was happening versus the people that were victim blaming us or gaslighting our experiences. This is not something anybody was trained for or taught in any kind of Dula training or mentoring experience. This is really new, unturned territory. There was a huge divide in the Dula community because of this. Even within the group of Doolahs that have been impacted by Caitlin, we've had our own issues about speaking out or not speaking out, sharing stories,

not sharing stories. It's not one-sided. Not everybody agrees, and I don't think that we ever all will agree or be on the same page. We all just need to respect each other and find what works for us. And again, that's why the majority of the Duelas stories won't be out there. People have chosen to keep them to themselves, and that's their right. When we hold space for that and we know their stories, but we're not going to share them because they're not our stories to tell them. But the terrible, awful stories that people have heard, there's worse stories.

There's worse things that Caitlin's done, but chances are nobody will ever know about them. So many doulas will continue to move through the trauma and the grief, and that looks different for every single one of us. And there's no timelines on dealing with those things or what that looks like for us. Next time, on something was wrong. She's getting into Uber and she says, oh, by the way, there's a different car. And I'm like, that's a weird thing. So now I'm on extra alert. So at 617, I said, are you okay?

No response. At 626, I started to say, I said, I'm worried. Are you okay? Please text me back. We're just at the bar and they're drinking and the ladies are sitting there. Like, well, where's your friend? I got this text. I'm getting a little worried.

Now all the women are like, oh, oh, something's wrong. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends. Something Was Wrong is a broken cycle media production, created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at Something Was Wrong podcast. Our theme song was composed by Gladrags.

Check out their album, Wonder Under. Thank you so much.