Something Was Wrong - S3 Ep5: She's a Lying Cheating Bitch

Episode Date: November 16, 2019

*Content Warning: death by suicide, gaslighting, domestic abuse, emotional and physical abuse, suicidal ideation, distressing themes. Music from Glad Rags album Wonder Under www.somethingwaswrong.com/resources

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debts.org. This podcast is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that could be triggering to some. Opinions expressed by guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of this podcast. I am not a therapist or a doctor. All resources, books, and sources mentioned on the podcast can be found linked in the episode notes. Please note, names have been changed in this story for anonymity purposes. If you or someone you love is being abused, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-723. If you or someone you love is struggling with a suicidal crisis or emotional distress, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24-7 at 1-800-273-8255. Please note, some of today's episode involves suicidal ideation or thoughts

of suicide. Please take care when listening. Thank you. I was here with my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law, Patty and Kurt showed up, and all they did was just sit on, they sat on the couch with her, And nobody said a word. Nobody said a word. And I remember sitting there and my poor mother-in-law was in shock. And she was saying, this is my fault. I gave him an ultimatum this morning. This is all my fault.

And Patty didn't say a word. The only words that did come out of her mouth were, oh, CJ, wow. Can I just say, your remodel looks so nice. you have such a nice home. And I said, oh, well, thanks, Patty. Although that doesn't seem really that important right now. It's just like, I just couldn't believe it. Like, this horrible thing happens and you're just,

and at the time I'm like, okay, maybe it's an awkward situation and you don't know what to say. But she seems so unfazed by what had actually happened. Like, you're really going to sit here and compliment me about how nice of a house I have. Did she cry? What world are you living in? Like, did she seem upset?

No, she was completely, she was just silent. And her husband at one point got up and said, okay, well, I'm, I'm going to go and get some pizzas. I'm going to go and get some pizzas, you know, because I'm sure he assumed, like, we'd be having family coming in and we should have food. And so he left. And Patty really didn't say anything. And I was so uncomfortable having her here because I thought, ugh, like she is so little of a little of a little. a friend to Victoria and this family, and they don't even realize it. I hated that she was here, you know, and I didn't even realize at the time how crappy of a friend she was. I just knew she

wasn't a good person to have around. Something was just wrong. I don't know me. I don't know me well. I don't know me. I don't know me. I don't know. I just, I felt something was so off. I'm not the only one that noticed it. Like, I'm sorry to keep bringing this up, but I can't say it enough. I have a husband that is fantastic, and he, like, tries to see the good in people as much as he can, you know, to a point where, like, it's kind of annoying because I can be a salty person. And I'm like, oh, come on. Just, like, say, like, they're being crappy. You don't have to make an excuse, you know? It's kind of funny. He just, he tries to see the good in everybody. Like, God love him for it. But even he saw that something was off.

I think it was, it wasn't that night, but it was the next night. Patty came over for a little bit, and it was, she was here during a moment where we as a family were here and like just got done with a really bad grieving session. Like, you know, my sister-in-law was bawling. I was bawling. It was just an extremely low moment of grieving at the time. And once we were done, it was like two minutes. later, you know, my husband and I had to, I think we had to run to the funeral home or something. We had to go do something. And we were going to leave Patty and my mother-in-law here to chat.

And after that terrible grieving session, when everything was so dark, all Patty could say was, oh, hey, I'm sorry, one second before you go, I just have to show you these pictures of my granddaughter, of my granddaughter. Look at her. Like, she had a granddaughter that was born, you know, a couple weeks prior to all this happening. and my husband looked at me like, what is she thinking? You know, we had left and Brad was like, you know, did you not find that weird? We had just, we were just having a total grieving session. And all of a sudden, Patty just as upbeat as ever, hey, I'm sorry, one minute,

I just have to show you these pictures before you guys go. Isn't she sweet? Blah, blah, blah. It was so inappropriate. And it's like, you hate to say it, but it's like, I don't care about your grandkid right now. I mean, as mean as that is, like, I don't care about that. And you shouldn't be bringing that up right now.

I think that she truly felt relieved. I think she felt relieved. I think she thought that all of her secrets were going to be buried with Ted. I think that she just felt relief that she about got away with it. And, like, I gave her assembly away. You know, we looked at the pictures. And I had actually said, I said, oh, like, that's so sweet. And I'm like, oh, and I said, what a, what a crappy time right now for you, too, because, like, you should be basking in the glory of your new granddaughter and this terrible circumstance happened.

And her response was, yeah, well, my family really can't have any of the spotlight. As in, we stole her spotlight. Like, I have no words. I have no words. Looking back, she's a pretty evil broad. I mean, once the emotions kind of settled down in that day, she started to deflect things to her own family and how great, like, things were going on in her family, and she was kind of chipper about some things. And we were just kind of like, mm-hmm, great, like, you know, not being rude, we just, you know, I'm about to bury my dad in a pretty bad way. You know, and here she is out here and what she did, what she's trying to cover up. A lot of that is very foggy.

I remember Patty and Kurt getting there. I remember sitting on the couch, and there wasn't really tears. They weren't upset that this best friend of theirs was gone and took his life. Once my family got here, Patty and Kurt ran out of here, which I thought was really weird, and they were scarce the whole time. I'm like, where are you? you guys. And then Patty says to me, she's like, why don't you go with me to pick up the one triplet over at college? And you can sit and watch and play volleyball. I says, are you kidding me? You want me to see this boy that was my godson and act normal when he knows what's happened? I can't do that to him,

nor can I do it to myself. I says, besides, I have family in. It was like it was all about her. And I was so angry at her for that. I was like, how selfish are you? Ted passed away Wednesday. It wasn't until, I think, Friday that we went to the funeral home. And because I wanted him to have a fire department funeral and a military burial, I wanted him to have all of those things, because those are things that we did talk about. So everything was set for that Tuesday because then we were taking Ted up north to his family cemetery. So between Wednesday and Tuesday, I didn't see the O'Brien's hardly at all coming and going pretty much one or two days. I was told, being told, oh, your family's in, we're going to stay away. You need to take care of family business.

You need to take care of this or that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I thought it was weird. A day or two after my father-in-law died. I think it was the, maybe it was like the police station. Like somebody had his, somebody had my father-in-law's personal effects and we were able to pick them up. So my husband went to pick them up. He got his bag of stuff. He had like a wallet. You know, he had just like a pocket knife or whatever.

But his cell phone wasn't in there. Now, something that my father-in-law was kind of always grilled for was that his phone is always attached to his hand or his hip. So Brad came home from getting that stuff and didn't say anything to anybody. but once we had a moment in private, he's like, my, you know, my dad's phone wasn't with everything. And I'm like, really? And like, red flags just started going up. So we like kind of snuck away from the house and snuck away from the chaos. We didn't tell his mom where we were going, but we went over to the house and searched everything. Couldn't find a cell phone. And we're like, okay, he always has his phone. What's going on? So we just like went through everything. And finally, like I went through the garbage. I went through the outside garbage. And finally, my, my

My husband found it smashed a smithereens in the bottom of the basement garbage can. And he's like, what's going on? Like, we don't know something. He had a suspicion that something bigger was at play other than mental health. You know, something had happened, something triggered it for him to destroy his cell phone and hide it. Like, he took steps to try to get rid of some evidence of something terrible. The week had went on and that Sunday, Victoria said, you know, hey, if it's okay with you guys, I'd like to have Patty and their family over for brunch as well as the Johnsons because they were

their closest friends and she wanted them to play a part in the day of the funeral. Like she designated jobs for everybody. So Sunday came. They all came for brunch and I'm sitting there at the table and apparently, I guess my father-in-law had bought tickets for a penguin's hockey game that was, it was like within like the, that week he bought tickets. And he was going to take, he was going to take his daughter's husband, his grandson, and they were going to go with some of Patty and Kurt's kids.

And they were all going to go to this hockey game together. Anyway, I remember Patty sitting there at the table and all her kids were over, and they were all very upset. I mean, they were really close with my father-in-law. He, like, was a friend to them. He tried to be, like, a father. You know, they just were very close. And they loved Ted. So she was sitting there at the table saying, oh, you know, well, this, this, this penguin's game, this is going to be really, really hard for my boys. This is going to be so hard for my boys. They were so close to Ted. This is really going to hurt. And she's saying that right in front of my husband, right in front of Ted's son, who they were estranged for some time for no reason

that we knew of. And she knew that. And like she's kind of, I felt like she was just rubbing that in Ted's kids' faces. Like, oh, that this is just going to be so hard for her kids. It was all about how it's affecting her family and her children. And I got up and I walked away and I went into our master bathroom and I made a phone call. I called my husband's aunt and I said I'm really struggling. I have Patty here spewing this crap and I said this family doesn't realize she's not their friend. Like I don't know like I feel like I'm going insane. You know, this has to be hurting Brad. Like she's saying this right in front of him and just talking about how this is all affecting her family. and all I heard on the other line was,

don't make me get into this now. There's a reason for everything, but we need to get through this funeral first. And I'm like, what's going on? What is it? Like, obviously, you know something. What's happening? Oh, I heard on the other end was,

CJ, please don't make me say anything. I can't do this right now. And I said, just tell me, is there a snake in my house right now? And there was kind of just silence on the other end, and I heard, please don't make me get into this. in that moment I knew something's going on. It was a very cold breakfast.

They weren't sad. It was the night before the viewing, and I was sitting in bed, and my husband's aunt came into my room and sat down at the edge of my bed and basically just started striking up this conversation about what may have happened, and I'm like, nothing makes sense.

What's going on here? And all she told me was Patty is a lying, cheating bitch. And I'm like, okay. And she said, no, do you understand what I'm saying here? She was a lying, cheating bitch. And I'm like, okay, got it. And that was it for the night. So the viewing was Monday and the funeral was Tuesday.

The viewing was hours and hours and hours. hours. It was a full honor, party department honored viewing. He was guarded the whole time. So there was changing the guards going on and there was like an hour to two hour wait for people to come in. And the Johnsons and the O'Brien did not show up until the evening and were in and out and didn't even stay. And I thought that was very odd. At the viewing, especially, they were very distant. Kurt didn't even shave. Like he looked like he had like a five o'clock shower.

You looked like crap. Just things were weird. Nothing was adding up. I mean, especially to be best friends of my parents for 25 years of their life for crying out loud or whatever. This is pretty weird. And even in the line,

what would you call that line at the casket? I guess it was, you know, myself, my mom, my wife, and my sister. And that woman came up to, you know, Patty came up, and I knew enough to that she probably was dishonest and deceptive. And I actually even looked away. I didn't even, she's standing right in front of me to give me a hug. And I looked away and I thought, I don't even know enough.

All I know is she possibly might have something to do with this. So I just looked at her, gave her a quick hug. I said, thanks. My husband and I knew during the viewing services that something was off. And it's funny, too, you know, Patty and her family showed up. so late to the viewing. They're supposed to be best friends like family and they showed up so late, so half-assed. And a lot of people noticed that. But I stepped back because honestly, I thought I could have killed her. So I kind of made myself like go to the back of the room

whenever I saw her come in. She didn't seek me out. She didn't look my direction. She didn't want anything to do. I think she, I'm positive. She had to have known that I knew something at that time. That's the other thing, too, during planning that funeral, Patty was trying to control my mother-in-law and how, and what pictures she would put up. Like, my mother-in-law really wanted to put up a 25-year anniversary, like, poster that my sister-in-law had made and it had a whole bunch of signatures on it from people that came to their 25th anniversary party. And Patty was like, no, I don't think you should put that up. It's inappropriate.

I don't think that's appropriate to put up. And I didn't hear that. She told my mother-in-law that separately away from us. So we're planning, you know, this funeral and we're printing out pictures and stuff to set up in the funeral home. And Victoria made this comment in front of my sister-in-law and I. And she's like, oh, you know, Patty doesn't think I should put that. up. She said it wouldn't be appropriate. And I snapped because at that point, like, I knew something

was just off. And I said, what the hell does she care what you put up? Like, who is she to say that? So she was still, even after this, trying to control what my mother-in-law was doing and what, you know, whenever it wasn't her place, it was insane. The day of the funeral, I actually saved spots for them because I didn't want them not to be close because we were such close friends and they did not show up until the funeral just about started. Patty and Kurt didn't even sit together. They sat on opposite ends of the pews from each other and I thought that was really weird. So we went through the funeral and I stood behind the curse until everybody else was ready to go. I didn't want to leave him alone. And I felt like it was like a movie, like I wasn't really there. It didn't feel real.

I just stood there and watched and looked at this casket thinking this can't be real. This can't be Ted. Brad came over and helped me to the vehicle and the fire tricks proceeded or went in front and then Ted's truck went in and then the hearse and then we were right beside. hearse then drove out of the city. I still feels like a dream. Then we got up north and had the military funeral, a military burial I should say, in a blizzard. And again, very surreal. It felt like something right out of a movie, you know, to be handed that plague off of your husband's casket. And when we buried my dad, um, city fire department, the city fire department, the city put a big procession on through the, you know, leaving the city, you know, to go bury my dad.

And where we buried my dad is back up with my family, where they're all from. My dad's from the same place. My mom's from the same place. You know, they went to school together and stuff. And so it's a couple hours away where all my family, extended family's from. And the O'Brien's didn't even go. I didn't even go. And even people outside of the sphere was just like, oh, that's weird.

my mother-in-law again you know not realizing exactly what had been transpiring and what happened had kind of put patty and mrs johnson you know her two closest friends in charge of getting the flowers out of the funeral home and i because she had said to me can they just like take them back to the house can they you know they'll take care of that and i'm like sure, no problem. I ran to my best friend and my mom and said, I can't tell you what's going on right now because I don't really know the full story, but something's fishy and Patty is not to be in our home. Can you guys please take care of the flowers? Like, don't let her touch a thing. Don't let her step foot in my house. Don't let her step foot in Victoria's house. You know, don't, don't ask for any help.

Like she's not to have any part in this. And they're like, yep, got it. No problem. So they pretty bounced her out after the funeral was over and we left. And then that night, we get back to my brothers. And my children are there. We're down in their den. And my brother proceeds to say, he's like, I have some money to tell you. And it's not good.

And I said, okay. And he says, I am very sorry to have to be the one to tell. tell you this. He said, Ted and Patty have been having an affair for 12 years. And I said, what? And he's like, he said, I'm not kidding. He said, Ted and Patty, I've been having an affair for 12 years. And he said, how do you know this? And he said, him and his wife have known about it the whole time. And he said, they made us believe that you were crazy. And I said, if you believed it, you believed your friend over your sister with you.

The night we buried my dad is when we were told everything. We sat down about 9 o'clock at night after we buried dad. It was in the dead of winter. It was March, but up here, it's winter, you know. There was a crazy snowstorm where we buried dad. It got like 18 inches of snow. And we started talking at 9. at night and we didn't stop until 4 a.m.

This wasn't a week, it wasn't a month, it wasn't even a year. It was years worth. I mean, it was over a decade worth. So you can start piecing things together. You can start piecing how she wanted dad to start pulling away from, pulling away from me, she pulled away from my mom. She actually, at the end, my dad started pulling away from my sister. You know, that was like, you know, my sister has kids.

Those were his grandkids. You know, he started even pulling away from her a little bit. So I was to say, like, surprised that he had an affair, no, surprised at the absolute magnitude of everything else. Like, aside from the affair, just everything else, every tangled web. You know, it's like, you could just picture this incredible tangled web or, like, one of those old, you know, one of those movies that has, like, a police map and there's red strings and going from this place to this place. that's what it was. It was like, this makes sense now. That makes sense now. No wonder he did that. No wonder they did that. No wonder he was so whatever, you know, or it made a lot of sense afterwards. I don't know. Like, it's really hard for someone on the outside looking in and be like, how did you not

see that? You know what I mean? It's just like, for so long, though, it didn't make sense. You know what I mean? It's just like, but afterwards, yeah, it's like, yeah, it makes total sense. And even my wife's pretty, you know, pretty savvy. I mean, she even said, she's like, you know, how did we miss this, Brad? How How did we miss this? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I just assumed my dad was in a funk and he was being a jerk and doing this, that, and the other. Just assume he took people for their word.

And they were always close with the O'Brien. So that whole aspect, it's not like it was like a newfound relationship and things just escalated quickly. They were always close. We always were. So in that aspect, you have to kind of look at it as like, well, that wasn't anything out of the ordinary for them being close. Ridiculously close? Yeah, it was ridiculously close. Tiffany, we deliberated for seven hours was putting pieces of this and putting it in place and pieces of that and putting it in place.

That's, I'll say, all right, you said this. No, you said I said that. I said, no, I didn't say that. And it was such a vicious web of what those two did and lied about and concocted. And it was so unbelievable. the lies in the seat. And as my brother is telling me this, I grabbed my phone and I was going to call Patty and my daughter took it away from me. And my brother said, wanted to know, he says, do you at any point think that this could have been anything other than Ted actually committing suicide?

And I says, no, that it was. And I said, what do you think? He's like, I don't know. He says, I just can't believe that Ted would do anything like this. And I says, well, you can't believe a lot of things Ted has done and said. You didn't live with him every day. My brother's wife notified the police of what we had found out the next day. And the police had told us that they will investigate it. That next day, we called the same guy I met at the intersection when I got the call from my mom.

and I kind of followed him all the way to my parents' house. It was him. He was the investigating detective. He had called Patty into questioning. And I've known this investigator for a lot of years, even before I was on the fire department. You know, I just knew him from other jobs I worked. And I just, you know, it's a tight-knit community, so to speak,

even if I wasn't in it. And my dad was, I knew all those guys and, you know, a lot of the cops and stuff like that. He's like, she is a liar, but she's good at it. Incredible liar. He's like, I even told her that. I told her she's good. She's real good.

And he's like, this is no 16-year-old making this stuff up. She's got her stuff. She's pretty good. And he was catching her in lies, you know, but according to him, you know, they were, she was doing a relatively decent job at it. But she did admit it? I said, listen, did she admit to a sexual, physical relationship? He said, yes.

He literally just got it out of her in questioning at the police department. So it's like, well, what more do you need? He said, listen, I'm putting this in the police report. You know, this is all going on a police report. So it's like, well, what more do you want? You know what I mean? She admitted it, so. The city detective, his recommendation was to send out, like, an email or a text message

as just like a verbal statement of you're no longer to have contact with this family. And I think the people that were included on that were Patty, her husband, my mother-in-law and my husband Brad. So that text message was sent. It was obviously delivered to, like I said, both Patty and her husband saying, like, you're not to have any contact.

Don't show up at the house. Like, if you do, you know, further action will be taken. But that is what the detective had recommended. Um, since then, like,

you know, we removed her. We blocked her from all forms of social media, Pinterest, email, like text messaging, everything. If I were to get a letter in my mailbox from her, I would never open it. I would never give her the pleasure of getting a word in. We notified the police of what we had found out, and the

police had told us that they will investigate it, and the police were involved for many weeks, and did investigate her, and she was brought in a questioning twice, and fully admitted to the affair. and we tried to get the phone records and it has all the phone records except for the last two phone calls. And they were, from what Verizon told me, was they were a corporate line that can be secured.

And Patty worked at a bank. There was the two phone calls that Ted made or he didn't made, he received, were from the same number. One was when he was putting groceries away at his mother's and it was a brief call. And my mother-in-law thought it was me because it was so brief. Ted had said to the person on the phone, I'm putting my groceries away at mom and dads, we'll call you back and hung up. And then I think it was within 20 seconds. Another phone call came in

and that lasted a minute or so. So whatever was said, we believe between Patty and Ted is what triggered Ted to do what he did. And that was to take his life. And we asked the Verizon people, and basically we couldn't get that protected server without a warrant. And he's like, yeah, like a school or a bank or whatever. And Patty worked at one of those places,

you know what I mean? That would have a protected server and we're like, kind of makes sense. Do we know that for a fact? No, we don't. That's why he smashed it. He didn't want any evidence or whatever. That's one thing in my life I can say I'm decent at. I can read people like a book. Man, I'm telling you, she went right past my radar. But I knew she wasn't a good person. I knew that there was something off about her. I knew something was wrong there. I knew she wasn't a person that could be trusted. Like, after

I grew up and matured and realized, okay, she's not the best person. She's not a person that I want to be around or be friends with. Like, I knew that, but I didn't know how deep this went. Next time And do you think you know me You don't know me well at all And do you think one of those people That she was sleeping with Besides Ted was Mr. Johnson?

Oh yeah, without a doubt I called Kurt Says can you come to the house? We've got to talk. Man to man, we're going to, I'm going to invite him into my home I'm going to tell him what his wife is Something was wrong, is written? recorded, edited, and produced by me, Tiffany Reese.

Music on the show by the band, Gladrags. You can find them on iTunes, band camp, all over the place. They're also on Instagram, so check them out. I'd like to thank the Bishop family for being so vulnerable and brave. If you want to hang out some more, you can add me on Instagram. I am at Looky Boo. L-O-O-K-I-E-B-O-O. We also have a hashtag, something was wrong, pod on Instagram.

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