Something Was Wrong - S9 Ep10: WCN Presents: [Danielle] SWW S9 Updates // Part 1

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

*Content warning: This episode includes discussion of fraud, cyber bullying, defamation, slander, harassment, cheating, adultery, assault, violence, neglect, emotional and physical violence, and firsthand audio of abusive language. Subscribe to What Came Next everywhere you get your podcasts! What happens after the experiences of true crime survivors have been shared with the world? Does the media truly capture all it entails to survive such tragedy in the public eye? What comes after the convictions are in, the cameras stop rolling, and the court of public opinion has spoken? Can sharing our stories lead to justice, and is there ever really justice?  These questions and many more are discussed on the new true crime docuseries podcast brought to you by Broken Cycle Media, What Came Next is co-created and produced by Something Was Wrong’s Tiffany Reese and host, award-winning writer, victim advocate and true crime survivor Amy B.Chesler.  On What Came Next, you’ll hear firsthand accounts from those impacted, with behind the scenes insights about what came next for survivors after their stories were shared with the world, and how the media impacts crime victims and their loved ones. Koa Johnson (Real Housewives of Salt Lake City), PJ Masten (Secrets of Playboy), Jacoba Ballard (Our Father), Ron Schnackenberg (Dirty Money), Charlotte Laws (Most Hated Man), Sarah Edmondson (NXIVM), Terra Newell (Dirty John), Collier Landry (A Murder in Mansfield), Elissa Wall (Keep Sweet, Pray, & Obey) and many more incredible survivors join host Amy Chelser as they discuss, What Came Next.  For free and confidential resources, please visit: somethingwaswrong.com/resources  S15 Artwork by the amazing Sara Stewart @GreaterThanOkay: Instagram.com/greaterthanokay

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Oh, hey, how's it going? Amazing. I just finished paying off all my debt with the help of the credit counseling society. Whoa, seriously? I could really use their help. It was easy. I called and spoke with

the credit counselor right away. They asked me about my debt, salary, and regular expenses, gave me a few options, and help me along the way. You had a ton of debt. And you're saying credit counseling society helped with all of it? Yep. And now I can sleep better at night. When debt's got you, you've got us. Give credit counseling society a call today. Visit no more debts.org. Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences as it discusses topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence. Content, warnings for each episode and confidential and free resources for survivors can be found in the episode notes. Some survivor names have been changed for anonymity purposes. pseudony are given to minors

in these stories for their privacy and protection. Testimony shared by guests on this show is their own and does not necessarily reflect the views of myself, broken cycle media, or Wondery. The podcast or any linked materials should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional expertise or treatment. All persons are considered innocent and less proven guilty in a court of law. Thank you so much for listening. Welcome to What Came Next Presents. Something was wrong updates. You think you know me, you don't know me well. My name is Amy B. Chessler. Welcome to What Came Next Presents on the Something Was Wrong feed. I am so excited to be here.

And I know that is a bit of a weird statement to make when we talk about stories, this challenging and or traumatic. But I'm excited because I have the honor of having both Tiffany Reese, the host of Something Was Wrong, as well as Danielle from Season 9 on this episode. Both of them not only are beautiful powerhouse, souls, but they're also friends of mine. We've developed this beautiful friendship, so it was natural for this to be our first episode update on what came next about a something was wrong guest.

Another reason why we decided to do this as the first update episode, season nine was pivotal for the show, something was wrong, it was pivotal for you. Tiffany, hearing your voice, speaking on the experience is important. Episode one and two came out, August 12, 2021. So we're only talking less than two years ago. It finished September 30th of 2021. Danielle's season, season nine, centered around her narrative, navigating a very difficult relationship

to a man named Artie. She eventually went on to co-parent with this man. There were struggles in the courtroom, out of the courtroom, with other women he was defrauding. We have a lot of updates. So much has happened, and we've had the process.

privilege of learning about it as it's gone, but you have it. I'm super excited to be doing this with you. So much has gone on since the podcast aired. Other things have gone on while the podcast was being produced that we couldn't actually say. So we want to set the record straight on a few things. I'm just so excited about this. Like you said, it's obviously tough to talk about, but I also know how much the three of us have discussed doing this finally. And, giving Danielle the space to clarify on a lot of things, share these ridiculous, wild occurrences that have continued to happen with this monster of a human being. The listeners ask for it constantly. They're like, we're going to need a Danielle and Kenji update stat. It was a very pivotal season for

the show. The first day, I saw Danielle's submission. I think we'd talk about this on the season, but I was just kept saying fake British accent over and over and over to myself because it was the first time I had ever heard of that. I think Danielle and I spoke within a day or two. I was like, holy shit, what is the story? I knew in my heart of heart of hearts how I felt with every season that I've done. I had that feeling where I was like, this is it. This is the next story. I was just like, I fucking promise you, we're going to tell this story because I felt so strongly about it. It was one of those instinctual things as a creator where I was like, this is really important. And these victims deserve justice. Putting this out there is going to

help keep people safe because I know there's more victims out there. So I'm thankful that we're finally able to do it. We get to start bringing these kinds of episodes to the listeners. And if you guys are into these types of episodes, please go subscribe to what came next because going forward, they may not be on this feed. They may be exclusively on the what came next feed. So if you are into update episodes, and I know 99% of you voted yes on update episodes on my Instagram stories poll, go subscribe to what came next. You'll not only get to hear. update episodes like this, but you'll also get to hear Amy's other incredible episodes with people in docu-series shows who are sharing through their own lens. What came next for them after

sharing their stories with the world. I reached out to you, Tiffany, because I'd been a listener for a bit. I knew my story would be in good hands with you. There's been others who have wanted to share my story, and I've said no, because I knew that they wouldn't take the same care. At the end of the day, I know that something was wrong is about you being a documentarian and not an entertainer. So I knew you were going to be really careful and not try to make it entertainment value, but share the story the way that it should be. Quite honestly, this is my story. This is Kenji's story. This isn't Darcy's story. This isn't all of Ardi's victim's stories. I think one of the things that really annoyed me was how many comments you got, Tiffany,

about Darcy, the negativity that you got in terms of the accusations that Darcy was a victim and you didn't interview her that this was unfair to Darcy. I want to address that because people don't realize that six months within me finding everything out. This was live and unfolding as we were speaking. I want to say on record that Tiffany did ask Kenji and I, if you should reach out to Darcy and we both emphatically told you no. And part of that was that, again, this is barely six months after. There were things still happening. Ultimately, what we knew at that time was that Darcy was taking any little bit of information she could figure out from Kenji or me and she was feeding it back to Artie. I wanted to get the message out,

but I also had to keep me and my daughter safe and Kenji. She was still actively speaking with him, probably dating him. I just want to say thank you so much, Danielle, for saying that. I'm literally sitting here tearing up. When the survivors have had my back in these kinds of situations, it really means a lot that you would put that out there. My ethics and how I treat people is the most important thing to me in this work. So when that was criticized, that felt like a different level of pain for me.

The thing is, this involves Kenji's children, whom Kenji does anything and everything for, Danielle, I think you'll agree, to do the best by his children and has fought so hard to keep them safe. This person, while they were a victim, they can also be a cheater and a liar and put their kids through absolute hell and not protect them from someone that they know bites over and over and over again. When you turn that corner, you're now part of the problem. I agree. I think she's both a victim and an abuser, but despite the fact that she was a victim, she was actively feeding him information, actively working with Artie. My goal, as well as Kenji, was the safety of our children. We could not have any information being released prior to the podcast coming out. I was hoping he would never find out, to be quite honest.

But somehow that didn't happen. It was interesting. I think there were like points sometimes where we really got that point across. At the end of the day, this is about outing the behaviors of individuals and the hopes that more and more women will start to see these patterns as they're happening, not later when they're looking for ways to heal. I mean, that would be the ideal situation for me. Women who are listening to your podcasts will now be out in the dating world,

fully informed, and maybe they can spot it before it starts happening. My goal was to take the shame out of it. I was highly educated, successful, and it wasn't supposed to happen to me. Hearing Kenji tell his perspective, however, was really interesting to see how the stories overlapped and unfolded together. Even though I knew a lot, I didn't know everything. So it was really interesting to hear Kenji's take on everything. I knew when I put into message Tiffany for this season,

I actually talked to Kenji about the whole podcast. I said, if she wants to do my season, I know she's going to want to talk to you. Would you talk to her? And he's like, yeah, fuck it, why not? You and I thought that was a huge part of the story, but also it was a great way to show that men can be victims too. I think that was his goal too.

Just help identify those red flags and also be an advocate. A victim is a victim. It doesn't matter if you are young or old or male or female, hetero or by or whatever you identify as. You're still a victim and nothing else matters. The key, I think, to erring out the dirty law, is to help people identify the behaviors. While we're on the topic of Kenji, Kenji is very intelligent.

He's so respectful. He's so gentle. He's so sweet. He's one of my favorite people I've ever gotten the opportunity to work with. And what I loved about him is that he showed up with like a 75-page document to discuss. Still, to this day, never seen a more detailed timeline of events because he had already been cataloging everything because of all the concerns with neglect of the children being exposed to this abusive monster.

When you listen to the season, he's very factual. And like you said, there was so much that I didn't know until we went through the whole timeline. And we spent 15 hours together going through everything. And towards the end, I'm like, hey, do you ever consider that you're a victim in this? And he's like, never really thought about it. He wasn't actively coming to the show to try and harm her in any way. I feel like he was honestly very respectful in all of my exchanges.

and also genuinely gave his best effort to help save Danielle's life. And that has continued to pay itself forward. Those male allies are so, so, so important. I felt like this is so important to include him too, because this is what we need from you men. When we're in these situations, we need you as allies too. It can't just be women looking out for other women. When it came out, there were a lot of good reactions.

The things that really made my heart full were the messages just about people having been in similar situations and feeling like they're not alone. That was really the goal of me doing that season. I tell Tiffany all the time, every new season I hear, I feel like there's a piece of my story in every single one of those stories. There's something that weaves through all of our stories. There's something that binds us all. So obviously those messages really made me feel good about sharing my story. I had to hide off social media. And that was really to just protect me from, I think the internet trolls is what we're going to call them. That's the other thing that people don't understand. It's not like we can just sift through when we look through the reviews or comments.

We can't just be like, oh, abusers to the side. We don't know who's talking to us and they're using all these screen names and stuff. We're potentially leaving a window open to allow our abuser to continue to communicate with us. And, you know, I'm not interested in that. And neither were you. I just felt really protective of you and Kenji. There was so much going on and I didn't have full control of everything that was going on. It was chaos, honestly. To your point, he actually did pretend to be a woman who wanted to get Artie. I had gotten a confidential message through the website when it was still up.

There was a woman who said that she thought she had seen him in the city and she wanted to help me to get to the bottom of this. She would meet up with me there and I figured out after a couple of messages, it was actually Artie. So we don't know who's on the other end of these screen names. Of course, there's random hurtful stuff. Like, I can't stand the sound of Danielle's voice, which, to be fair, I can't stand the sound of my own voice either. I don't think anybody loves to hear their recorded voice. While we're here, people who took the time out of their precious day to leave comments

about Danielle's voice because she has a regional accent, which I'm from California. I didn't even notice that Daniel had a regional accent because people from California sound like that, especially Southern California, but you guys, you can just literally press 1x and speed up somebody's delivery if you don't like their voice. You can problem solve. You could turn it off. You could do anything except point out something that's rude and hurtful. I welcome you to just be a kinder human being. It's also like able-less because how people talk, the tone of their voice, and et cetera, it depends on a lot of different factors. So maybe consider that before you leave hurtful comments about people's appearance or their voice or things they can't

control about themselves. That reminds me of one of the troll internet questions. There was one moment that was actually a redeeming internet moment and somebody had said something like, how can she say she's a badass if she let this happen? I was like, okay, that's exactly why I did the podcast. Thanks for completely missing the point. But somebody else on the internet dumped in and said, well, I think it's very much in line with the fact that you can see yourself one way, but then do something different that doesn't fall in line with how you see yourself. She, I think, had given an example about being a therapist, but choosing the wrong men. Obviously, she knows better, and yet she still does this.

And this original person actually came back and said, huh, I never thought of it that way. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this never happens on the internet. Wow, that's like a unicorn internet moment, which we love to see. Even so, badasses get victimized. You are still a badass and being a victim isn't not badassery. We are not responsible for the things that are done to us without our permission, period. So obviously the goal here is to provide updates. A lot has happened since we recorded the podcast.

And I think the big thing that we wanted to really identify is there was a lot of drama that was happening that we couldn't actually talk about on the podcast. They didn't feel like it was worth the risk in their eyes. Tiffany, you and I feel strongly that people should know. I really wanted to set the record straight. It winds up coming out in subsequent updates. The day that, I met Darcy when she was sitting there in my parents' backyard with Kenji. From my perspective, I'm listening to this woman who's like, we've been dating for eight months, we've been living together. I'm processing all of this. They're also telling me about the private investigators report

about the other woman he married and got pregnant. So now this is the second person he has had a child with. during the time that I was with him. I do want to take a minute here and really heavily stress that there is absolutely zero shame about any of what she was dealing with from the pregnancy. Nobody should be shaming her about this. One of the things that we wanted to add in is that after this podcast had been released, it's on the internet, that there's a baby registry for her and Kenji.

And it actually was not Kenji's baby. It was Artie's baby. It had auto-populated somehow. But I think she actually wanted people to believe it was Kenji's. I think probably deep down somewhere, I know that there were multiple occasions that she had tried to see if she could repair things with Kenji. The other thing I want to talk about is the fact that just before I went to do my restraining order, she had asked Kenji, if I would talk to her that she was done with him. She wanted to pursue her restraining order. And of course, I agreed. And we talked for like two hours.

She definitely told me a lot about what was going on. I told her some of the suspicions I had, such as wondering if my engagement ring was really a wedding ring. She had said she suspected the same thing and that she had gotten him drunk so she could ask him and he had admitted to it. I don't know if that's true, to be quite honest. It's hard to decipher what is fact and fiction out of her mouth. The only thing I actually do believe that she ever says is the assaults.

But we did talk for two hours. At the end, it was really weird. I thought this Spidey Sense thing where she's like, Artie says this and this about you. Is that true? Because if it is, that's really cool. Like, no judgment. And I'm like, how would you believe anything that comes out of his mouth? I think that she was really susceptible to his lies. And that was just one indication. That's why I immediately was on alert. Like, why would she even say that? And then only to find out literally a day or two later that she had run and basically shared our entire conversation with Artie. I might make a

comment to Kenji. I think I had said to Kenji one time, why does she think that Arty is suddenly going to be father of the year with her? I said, he can't even be bothered to send his daughter a birthday card or something. He didn't care. He did not try to see her. So Kenji and I were talking about this and I think he got upset with Darcy one day. Like, why do you think that Artie is going to care? He won't even send a birthday card because we just talked about that. And then I would get an email in my inbox from Artie talking all kinds of crap, being like, I didn't give a birthday present because I knew you would just throw it away.

Some random excuse. It got to the point where I actually sent to Kenji. I'm like, bro, you cannot say anything. to Darcy at all. I know that seems so innocent. I would never have been like, oh, what are you feeding to Darcy from that conversation? It was just an example of how a seemingly innocuous conversation could then get him riled up. And she would run and tell Artie literally everything. And then I would get all these crazy emails. Moving along, she did wind up having a baby in 2021 with him when the podcast came out.

I think actually the hardest thing was that, one, we know that Darcy immediately told Artie about the podcast. And two, we know that she went on Facebook, joined a group, and outed herself and her real name. It was a Facebook group that's not officially associated with something was wrong. So I actually sent in one of my friends to see what she was saying. So she joined this group and realized that Darcy was saying all kinds of stuff. She was making stuff up. Darcy's actually going back and forth with my friend and she's getting worked up.

And the next thing I know, she says, Danielle's this, this, and this. And it was the same bullshit lie that she had tried to say that already said about me. Immediately my friend's texting me like, girl, this is what she just said. I'm like, oh my God. So my friend Jumson, that's really what I was most upset about, the fact that she was actively trying to make me out to be something.

I wasn't even the one arguing with her and suddenly she was going to throw out some lies that already said, let's talk a little more about what came next. There's a little bit of an overlap. Some of this leading up to the actual updates, but it wasn't even covered on the podcast. You guys are not even ready. No one is prepared. Amy, no one.

When we started recording, he had filed for full custody, physical and legal custody of our daughter. Of course, he claimed I was crazy, claimed I was just trying to get back at him for cheating on me. It was just so funny because honestly, the cheating was the least of me. my concern. It was poignant here because I did not file for custody. And the reason I held off on doing that was because the custody hearing would be in front of the exact same judge that denied my restraining order. I did not want to risk her giving him any type of custody. I live in a very liberal state, and while it has many benefits, they can often do co-custody, co-parenting stuff, even when they shouldn't. And because my restraining order was denied and I had no physical abuse,

I was concerned that they would not believe that I had the right to full custody. I believed that they would try to give him some visitation, and I was not going to have that. Obviously, I had a lot of safety concerns. I think the court systems, they act after the fact. They're not very preemptive. I felt like they would probably be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead, do the shared visitation. There's no evidence of physical abuse. He's only, like, vaguely threatened to abduct her. It's not a big deal. but her safety was a real, real concern for me. The fact that nobody could track him down and the fact that he had lied about his documentation,

if he got her hands on her, I was 100% sure I'd never see her again. That's why I held off on filing for custody. The thing with custody is you actually have to officially serve somebody. He wasn't officially serving me yet. He hadn't done that. I forget how he kept doing. He kept sending paperwork,

but it wasn't an official serve. At one point, he actually showed up to my parents' house. They saw him waiting in a car down the street. And when he figured that out that they had seen him, he raced over, pulled into the driveway behind them because they were driving back from somewhere when they saw him. He like raced up behind them. My dad gets out. My stepmom and her elderly mom are trying to get out and get into the house quickly, not knowing what in the hell is about to happen. And my dad just stands there. He gets out and walks up my parents' driveway and throws this paperwork at my dad, which my dad just lets fall to the ground. I think my dad was definitely trying to rattle him. He gets back in his car

and speeds off, but proceeds to file a restraining order against my father saying he has video proof that my dad threatened to beat him up. Then Mother's Day of 2021, I came home and I found, found the paperwork shoved in my door. Again, he'd still not officially served me, was not going to these court hearings. But if you don't serve somebody, they just keep getting continued. At this point, I was really annoyed because I was asking my lawyer, how many times does a case get continued before the judge just dismisses it? It wasn't getting dismissed. He would just show up and it was like, nope, I haven't served her yet. So they'd set another date. So I come home, there's paperwork in the door.

This one really rattled me because this is the first time it had been at my apartment. I had just started dating this guy who had previously been a social worker. And he got a little real with me and helped me realize that I really needed to just face Artie. So I went to my lawyer and I told her, look, I'm done hiding from the judge. I really need to risk this for my daughter. There's nothing I can do. I just have to go through it. There is another courthouse in L.A. County where you can file custody cases.

And so we had decided that our strategy was to file there, because if I could officially serve him, maybe the case would be heard in that court instead of where I'm at. So we did all of that. We were going through the paperwork for that. So we were waiting on seeing about this filing. Then in September of 2021, I was actually in Palm Springs for a girls' retreat with some friends. It's a Saturday and Fords me a recording. Please note that the following content includes Artie's voice and may be disturbing to the listener.

Threatening me. threatening Kenji. It was a little jarring to hear that, to hear these direct threats. I was pretty shaken up about it. I played it for some of the girls that were there, and we were all very concerned. I think I immediately sent it to Tiffany as well.

She was also concerned. It made me literally physically ill. I can't even imagine how it must have been for you to have to digest that when you've already been through so much with that person. You can hear in that recording, The way he talks, it's so fucked up and it must have been so scary to hear. It felt like listening to Pure Evil. So here I am the next morning.

I'm just packing up. Had it planned to leave for another hour or so. Call to check into my daughter with my parents. My stepmom answers. I call her on video call so I could see her face and I could also hear in her voice. Immediately when she said hello, I could hear that something was very, very wrong. She's like, I just called 911. My sister was coming to take over to watch my daughter because they thought my dad was having a heart attack.

I obviously immediately take off within the next five minutes. I'm driving back and I call up this guy that I had been dating off and on. He's the guy that kind of helps me get going on the custody stuff. I'd actually called things off a few weeks prior to that. but we were still friends and I really needed a distraction in two and a half hour ride back. We're talking and just calmed me down. At that time, I actually didn't even officially know if my dad had had a heart attack. We just knew he had all the symptoms and was being rushed to the hospital.

I start to talk to him about other things and I start telling him about the voicemail. I'm like, hey, I've already gotten all these women's opinions. What is your opinion as a male? What do you think I should do with this? he told me, well, I really think that you need to stop everything that you're doing. The podcast, the book, etc. I told him about my desire to write the book. I went, first, the podcast is out already.

So that's really a moot point now. I said, but secondly, what is wrong with wanting to help other women, even if I risk angering him? At that point, he says to me, well, is it helping other women? or are you just trying to get attention? You know, that expression seeing red, that was really where I was at in that moment. But I managed to stay calm.

And I was like, anybody who would ever think that I would ever do something like this for attention clearly doesn't know me at all. Like, I've never, ever tried to contact him. I've never responded to one of his emails. I've never responded to one of his threats. I was like, if I really wanted to do this for attention, I'd be talking about it all over social media, responding and stirring up the drama. And not once have I ever done that.

I basically hung up on him at that point and blocked him. I want to talk about this a little bit just because I think this is also part of the healing process. What happens next is not just what happened with Artie or Darcy. What happens next is also just how you move on with your life too. So this was the tail end of me dating for like a year and a half of just trying to find love again. I was faced with the fact that this person might not be abusive per se, but this is all the red flags that we talk about looking for. The reason why I had called things off three weeks earlier is because I knew that I wanted to find my person.

I had hired a dating coach two weeks prior to that. and she was starting to help me see all these little manipulations. Red flags don't have to be abuse. Red flags can be these manipulations. Little shit that all adds up in the end to a real shitty dating experience. I think as somebody who likes to give people the benefit of the doubt, I think that's common theme with victims, right? Like we tend to see the good in others.

We like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I think it takes us a little longer to see the flags. So I hired a dating coach who was like, girl, this is a red flag. That's why I was starting to make cuts. I was like, no, I'm done. I do believe that God has a way of helping you manifest things. And so this conversation, I think, was a manifestation of him being like, no, this door needs to be slammed shut immediately in order to make room for something new. I do have a belief that sometimes when one door closes, it's to make room for something better.

I was serious about healing, doing the work, and moving forward. I did not want to wind up in another shitty relationship. If I'm being honest in my evaluation of things, Arne was the worst of them, but he was not the only bad one. He was the most abusive and the most egregiously abhorrent person, but I don't think I really had many healthy relationships prior to him either. And so I was really determined to put in the work that it took to get the relationship that I wanted. At one point, I took two months off of dating just to date myself.

Every Friday, I took myself on a date, whether I was ordering my favorite restaurant or watching a movie or singing karaoke by myself or just taking a long hot bath and reading. And then I would journal. It's a really great journal that I used. It actually helps you like really focus on what you're looking for in somebody. not just physical attributes, how you want to feel when you're with that person. What are your deal breakers and what do you want to say yes to? And what do you bring to the table as well? And so I worked on all of those things.

By the time I got my dating coach, I was crystal clear. I knew what I wanted and I knew what I brought to the table. I was also clear that I was ready to do the work. Part of the reason why I ended things with this guy was because he kept telling me, you're not ready. It's too soon. I know you think you're over it, but you're not. I would be like, I understand where you're coming from.

If I had been in love with somebody and I was just divorcing after eight years, you might actually be right. But I was in a loveless relationship, an abusive one where I was looking for a way out for years. So by the time I got out, I was ready to move forward. And I had actually already started doing some of the internal self-love work. I knew instinctively that the next step of healing the trauma was to actually do it in a relationship. Anything that was going to bubble up was going to happen while in a relationship.

Like you can't hear relationship stuff by yourself. You have to heal it through going through another relationship. I'd already hired this dating coach and she gave me all this advice. We redid my profile and did all this stuff. And I've been chatting with this guy. He seemed really smart. and down to Earth. We'd been talking for a couple weeks,

and then over that weekend, we were supposed to meet up, but obviously that got pushed out a little bit. We did wind up having our first date soon after that. He was really, really incredible. I felt from the beginning that we were just in sync from the start. There was no guessing. You know that mismatch of somebody who wants something serious?

I'd been always afraid to tell people I wanted something serious, And I'd just been like, yeah, let's just see where it goes. That's kind of the line you have to do to not quote unquote scare somebody off, right? It's like, I'm going on there for a relationship, but I can't tell people I want a relationship because every time I tell people I want a relationship, they think I want to like jump into it today. Honestly, I tell people the first date. I'm like, look, I'm looking for something serious if you're not goodbye. My thing is in relationships, there's compatibility with personalities and then there's

compatibility with timing and where you're at in life. and both need to be on par to have a healthy relationship. So I literally go, tell me about your favorite things. And then also tell me what you want. Also, can I get a copy of your background check? I'd also like to have three personal references. If you could also provide their contact information, your DNA, as well as proof of income address and social security number. That would be fantastic.

I remember having conversations with Danielle. And she'd be like, what do you think about that? Obviously, we got so close through recording the season. together. And I love Danielle and I'm invested in her as a person. And she'd be like, well, he said this. And I'd be like, absolutely fucking not. Return to send her. But then when she met her now, boyfriend, it was completely different. It's so fantastic to get to see these women that I work with, get to find their partner and get the respect and love and care that they always have deserved. There is nothing cooler to me than getting updates from survivors. I think I was still trying to figure out

how to talk about my abuse. But to your point, when I met my now boyfriend, we were just in sync from the beginning. I think on date three, he asked me, what are you looking for? And I was like, I'm just going to do it. I was like, I want somebody who will help me raise my daughter. Like, I just threw everything out there. I was just holding my breath for that response. And it was like, cool. That's what I want to. That was the universe rewarding you for your honesty and authenticity. I fucking love that. I feel like there's times where it's hard for me. I often think about why was it hard for me to advocate for myself and what I wanted?

I had a really brilliant therapist who said everything is habitual. If you're not used to doing that and employing it, it's going to feel very uncomfortable. This is why predators prey on young women because they have the least experience. And that's why young women high school through college age are abused at the highest rate. And that's why sexual assault happened to women. the highest at that time in their lives. Because predators know that women, they don't have enough life experience. Society treats women like such shit and then wonders why we don't have a self-esteem to stand up for ourselves and allow people to treat us like shit. When we're literally

conditioned from birth to accept less, we straight up didn't have bank accounts and able to get credit cards until the 70s. There is a reason why coercive control is a thing in our society. It influences every facet of our society and our relationships. Some of this is very much societal. Yep. Again, part of the healing is processing why certain things happened. So getting back to the update, just to like tie things up in terms of what was going on in 2021. The next thing in the custody process happens at the end of 2021, we did go to court.

I had actually successfully served him because this judge allowed me to, I had to hire a private investigator to track him down to serve him. We could not locate an address for him or the woman he was seeing. The only reason we even knew about her name was because Kenji had run the plates. So we tried tracking both of these people down and could not find a single address. ultimately I was allowed to serve him by publication. You actually put a publication in the newspaper. But just for safety sake, my lawyer had sent him the paperwork via email.

He did show up to this court date, but he claims that he's not using the other email anymore. And so he didn't know about it until literally the night before. I think at the court he said he didn't know about it, to which I'm like, how is he on this call? Because it's remote now. He gets on the Zoom. You're supposed to show your face when you do remote,

but he would never show his face. And again, he just kept jumping in trying to say, I'm not giving my private information because she's released my name and address out there, which is so not true. I was very careful not to release any private information. Everything is only court records. Essentially, we're in a custody campaign.

you have to do mediation first. So she's asking if we've done mediation, to which he claims no. And she just says, well, we're going to have to continue this. You need to do the mediation. Because I wasn't served on his case, we find out literally a couple weeks later, the judge from my restraining order,

he tells her about this other case. And so she combines the cases and makes hers the lead case. So despite all of the effort, To get it out of that courtroom, it winds up with her again. We did try to get it moved. The judge who decides whether or not it's allowed to be moved is the same judge. Ultimately, we had to go in front of this judge again. And I did get in front of her in the fall.

I asked for a full mental evaluation, and she agreed. I asked for the full mental evaluation of both parties. So there's a mini version where it's a one. one-day assessment where like a third party will interview both parents. You can't just ask for one. They'll interview both parents and the child and then give a little stipulation. The full-blown version of it, they will go to the houses, they will evaluate the environments. A full-on psychologist comes to court and actually reports on what she thinks. So this is a lot more expensive. I knew this going in. I don't think he knew that, but he asked for it.

And so she agreed to a full-blown evaluation because both parties wanted it. He requested that I be the one responsible for paying for it. And she said, no, you're going to split it. We left to go take care of that. Within days, my lawyer had reached out to the person that does these evaluations, and I think it was something like $7,000 total. so it would have been 3,500 each. Once he finds out it's 3,500, he loses his shit and refuses to do anything.

Now, it's the end of 2021, and we have to wait to go back to court on this. So there's no resolution. So now we go into 2022. I feel like in terms of everything that's happened, like the most crazy stuff that developed since the podcast happened last year, starting in 2022. The truth is truly stranger than fiction. This story was already so wild,

and then it just gets even more what the fuck. Like, what are the odds? That's next time on What Came Next Presents, Something Was Wrong, updates. 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.