Sword and Scale - Episode 109

Episode Date: March 4, 2018

A teenage girl is stalked by a homeless man and suddenly goes missing two weeks later.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences Listener discretion is advised And then those of you are like well, I'm not doing that to you. No, you're right. You're not you're turning a blind fucking eye You piece of shit go to hell go to hell go to hell go to hell Go, you hell! Go to hell, go to hell! Well, what a week. Just jam packed with kinkshaving. I gotta say, there are so many sensitive people out there, and you know, murder pods aren't for everyone. Especially this one. Sometimes though, a joke is just a joke.

So go ahead and join as many triads as you want. Nobody really cares. If you missed the fun, and don't know what we're talking about, join our Facebook, Twitter, and Insta for a recap of some very humorless people straining to find something to be offended at. But it's funny what happened because it really does go to show how seriously we can take ourselves and our particular causes. The story we're about to hear is very much about that. And about hubris, and arrogance, self-importance, and human nature, and how we can lash out at others when our pride is hurt. Oh, and this is a two-parter, so part two will be available one week after this episode

debuts on Patreon. And by the time it comes out on the regular feed, episode two will be available instantly at patreon.com slash sword and scale for just $5. So since we're doing two episodes and two weeks, we'll be skipping the next plus episode this week and it will instead debut on March 11th. Alright, stay tuned. This one is gonna be a roller coaster. On December 13th, 2017, a Facebook post appeared on the homepage of a 19-year-old girl from Billy Marie Bollinger. Hey y'all, I have a public announcement. There is a man, Sean Schwartz.

I met this man when I was young. I ran into him about two years ago. Long story short, I became friends with him. I helped him with rides and stuff. I moved to Virginia. He drove across country to see me. Slip behind my work for weeks. When I told him I didn't want to see him anymore, he sent me hundreds of texts and calls. He parked his car in front of my house blocking military highway for hours, laying on his horn. He was arrested. Since then, I've asked him to leave me alone, and he won't.

He sent emails for over a year, close to every day, harassing me, making numerous accounts until I block him again, threatening my family, telling me he'll kill himself in front of me, and sending my friends and family harassing messages as well. I'm sharing this because he's posting slander about me all over Facebook. So if you receive a message, I am sincerely sorry. Please ignore him. It only encourages him when he gets a response, much like a child. He's mentally ill and I'm trying to fix this. The Post also consisted of a screenshot.

The screenshot, also from Facebook, is that of a page from someone going by the name of Michelle Branick. The first post reads, Michelle Branick was live, Monday Monday December 11th 429pm. A still-from-this-live video shows a dishevelled, homeless-looking man with a long, grisly beard, slightly balding. He's looking away from the camera towards the floor. Behind him is what appears to be the interior of a shed or garage. There are all sorts of industrial tools and an old coffee maker precariously propped on some wrenches and other clutter.

The plywood covered wall behind him has even more tools hanging from it. The contents of this video are not available because a family member of Natalie Bollinger reported this profile to Facebook and it was deactivated as a fake account. But this man, Sean Schwartz, had his own personal Facebook, which he used quite often to stream Facebook live videos, videos like this one. Alright, for an of mine, I got a lot of stress. There's not much she can do. I hurt her and it makes her sad. So I was trying to let her know that I was going to get her off my Facebook and just

save her on my phone. But it seems instead of taking away her all my head into it because her kid's missing and I was freaking out. So hopefully if you all do any praying or any of that kind of stuff, whatever it is you do, pray for the missing children. That's it. That's the video. Bizarre, vague, ominous, not to mention posted on the same day that Natalie Bollinger goes missing. Of course Sean Schwartz is one of the first people to let the world know about it. Okay the room field police department just got a hold of me

Natalie Bollinger is missing. If you know her the the phone number with Roonfield Police Department is 303-464-5858. I'm going to post up some pictures here. Please help find her, please. I don't... please help. Natalie had gone missing on Thursday, December 28, 2017, shortly after speaking with a family member on the phone and around noon. After just a few hours, she was reported missing by her boyfriend, a man by the name of Joseph Marino.

This is unusual, because let's face it, adults can take off, disappear for a while, and be totally fine. Sometimes you need space, especially when you're in a relationship and living with someone. But something about this particular incident was different, something that made Joseph Marino decide to call police. Perhaps it's the fact that Natalie had left her phone back home. In this day and age, it's unusual for anyone to be away from their phone for more than a few minutes, especially a 19-year-old girl.

It could have been that, or perhaps it's the fact that Joseph's 9-millimeter Glock was missing. The crime scene right now here in Thornton is still active. Adam's County deputies are still here actively investigating and see what we do know is that they did find a body here. Now we cannot confirm whether or not that is Natalie Bollinger. Natalie Bollinger was reported missing Thursday at around noon. Yesterday a body was found here in Thornton. At first police were just calling it suspicious, but at around noon today, Adams

County says they are investigating the death as a homicide. Adams County investigators say they know the identity of the body but won't release who it is yet. Just to be clear, we do not know if this body found is Natalie Bollinger. We are making constant phone calls to investigators to find on any new information. Now they did release some new information just now saying they are still actively searching for Natalie Bollinger. That's Brunefield Police Department. Something else that's kind of strange happens now. Something that almost never happens in a murder case like this.

Following Natalie's death, police were reluctant to make any public statements of course. So far, the only information confirmed by investigators through a written press release was that Natalie had been missing. Police had also issued a follow-up written release, indicating that they were investigating whether or not a body found on a dairy farm in Adams County, Colorado could be positively identified as Natalie Bollinger. While officially Natalie was still considered missing and while this body lying in a field was still unidentified, Natalie's father Ted Bollinger announced on a local Denver

News Channel's Facebook page that Natalie's body had been found and encouraged people to donate to a GoFundMe account. The GoFundMe account was set up by a coworker of Ted's named Angie Darbin. Over the course of the next several days, six additional GoFundMe's were opened up on behalf of the murdered teen, leading to wild speculation online and rumors that suggested a monetary incentive for the murder. To make matters worse, the original GoFundMe's goal was $7,000 at first. A few days later, it was raised to $10,000, and then again to $20, which some spectators found quite a bit high. The timing of the requests for money,

the amount requested, and the number of seemingly unauthorized go-funmi pages devoted to the same task, asking for money after the death of a young girl, all sat a little off with the majority of the public. Not to mention that Ted Bolinger seemed to mention the fundraiser during every public statement he gave, starting with an hours of learning that his daughter was dead. Something didn't sit quite right, and this cocktail of strangeness led to rampant speculation online. By the time police held their first press conference, everyone had a theory. I'm Mike McIntosh from the Sheriff of Adams County. everyone had a theory. I'm Mike McIntosh from the Sheriff of Adams County.

As you know, on December 29th, we received a phone call and then a radio call to our deputies that there had been a body that had been found in the 1-1600 block of Riverdale Road. Deputies arrived on scene and observed a deceased female in her early 20s. We quickly began to work with the Brunfield Police Department on their connection with Natalie Bowling as their missing persons case.

Really, we kind of came through this through some of the sharing of social media and identifying marks investigators believe to be on the body of Natalie. There was there was enough even in that photograph of some tattoos that gave us some place to really start with where we might look to try to identify who the person was that we had in front of us when I got to try to identify who the person was, that we had in front of us. When I got to the investigation unit at about nine o'clock that night,

they had started tracking her name down, and all indications were that we were on the right track. By that point, the Brewfield Police Department, they sent their detectives over to the Sheriff's Office, and we started to follow up on any leads of anybody that may have known Natalie, or may have been involved, or maybe the last folks to even talk to Natalie. We've gone through numerous interviews. We went through numerous interviews that night,

well into Saturday morning, detectives were out over the weekend trying to follow up on any leads and any interviews. And at this very minute, we are still trying to follow up on any leads that may be out there that's going to lead us to the Natalie's killer. This press conference takes place January 3rd. At this point, it has been six days since Natalie was reported missing and five days since the body was discovered before police finally confirmed that the body is indeed Natalie. In that amount of time, almost a week, the amount of online chatter and speculation and accusation has snowballed

into an unstoppable force. One of the questions that's raised again and again is why it took so long to identify the body, which leads to even more speculation about the state of the body. Was it so mangled and dismembered that it was unidentifiable without genetic testing. But there are certain protocols when it comes to actually confirming the identity of somebody in a death investigation. That has to be done through the corner's office. So I apologize that it took us a while to get there, although we knew as investigators where we were headed

and what we needed to do in the investigation, the investigation continued on, even though we couldn't officially release the name. Obviously we had been in contact with Ted and other family members, the very early morning hours of Saturday. And so you probably saw maybe even a flurry of things going on in social media where Facebook gets to put out

that information before we can go through our official steps to make sure that we get it right and we do it by the numbers. But sometimes it looks a little bit weird when family members may be even confirming that we haven't come out and done that. So after the autopsy yesterday, that was the first opportunity that we really had that we could positively say that that was Natalie that we found on just off of Riverdale Road. So why would police notify the family that Natalie was dead before they were willing

to tell the public? One explanation may be that they wanted to use the news of Natalie's death to gauge the reaction of those they were talking to, those who had last seen her. If someone doesn't seem very surprised or overreacts, that's a sign that there may be something more about that person to investigate. I mean, we've seen this on law and order for years. So if that is the case, and the news of Natalie's death was a tool in solving her murder, then why would Natalie's father blurt out the fact that she was dead on a new station's Facebook

page, and in doing so possibly hinder the investigation. During the press conference, a statement by Ted Ballinger was read. It thanked law enforcement, talked about the family's grief and request for privacy, and mentioned that funeral arrangements had not yet been made, but again mentioned the go-funMe page. It's possible that Ted's actions in taking to social media immediately were just that of a grieving father desperately looking for some sort of solace. Someone who may not have been fully aware of the ramifications of his actions.

A quick search online reveals quite a bit about this man. Turns out he's a barber, a barber with a bit of a checkered past. Ted is our fourth generation. My grandfather was the first registered barber in the state of Colorado. Your grandfather? My grandfather. And Ted is our fourth generation. This just didn't happen overnight.

I'm coming here. I'm 31. I've been coming here since I went to the Fragrance Community College, I'm Boulder at the Boatex Center when I was 15. I graduated and I have a license from the State of Colorado for going on 16 years now. That woman you hear is Ted's mother. The two had been interviewed by a local paper called The Daily Camera about their University of Colorado Buffs themed Barbershop.

I'm Ted Bolinger. It is my mother Mary Bolinger. We are here today because we are feeling like we're getting shummed by CU pretty much. We've had a partnership for the last 10 years and had no problems with university. We had a rally for Coach Mac and express that we would like to be our coach. Doing a week later, got a letter from the licensed department saying that we were losing our partnership with university. Contacted the university about it, said it had nothing to do with the rally that it had to do with royalties. But our royalties were set up through somebody totally different that was not at the university anymore. And they're pretty much calling us liars. And they now promised us to give us our partnership back twice. My mother won time and then myself also at the Del Ward Center.

And now they want to give us a new storefront, take Ralphie off, and put another buffalo here and give us how it's to change our name. So what they want to paint, they want to buy us out with lettering and we're not going to sit here and get bought out with lettering. We want our partnership back or we want they can buy out the whole barber shop, not just my stickers on my window. Apparently the Bollinger's had made a deal with the University to use their mascot, a buffalo named Ralphie in their storefront.

The deal had not been as lucrative for the university, however. So we ended into an agreement with the Bollinger's and the Buffs Barbers shop in 2005, and began executing on that agreement about a year later with them. And they're a valued local business. We recognize that. The issue for us is that over time we haven't had the relationship with them that we'd like. They haven't lived up to the terms of the agreement and so earlier this spring we served them noticed which was in the contract either side can cancel within 60 days and we did. We exercised our class to cancel the agreement over

the issue of unpaid royalties and over the issue of their generating new merchandise with CU branding on it when they expressly know that that's forbidden in the contract. So this is about living up to the terms of a contract for us. This is about protecting our brand. If we don't protect our brand with a small business, a large business, a corporation can come along and say, we're going to become buff industries incorporated or buff industries incorporated and we see that you haven't protected your brand with this little business so your brand is up for grabs. That brand belongs to the people of the state of Colorado and we

just can't allow that to happen. So we don't want this kind of confrontation with with a valued small business here in the community. And we've even reached out to them to help them change the look and feel of their store to still have a buffalo feel and look to it, but that would be compliant with our brand standards. They've agreed to that at several junctures and then each time they go back on it. So it's been a very frustrating situation for the university. So the volunteers were trying to make a buck or two from the university mascot. So what, right? Who cares?

What does that have to do with Natalie's death? But the thing is, in this day and age, the way social media has become so pervasive in our lives, and in some ways so perverse, this terrible tragedy, this murder was put on public display for the world to see, and along with it, every single player in this story, whether they were friends, family members, or strangers online who inserted themselves into the story were scrutinized to such a degree that frankly it could be classified as mental. You see, if you thought the story we were going to tell you was about Natalie's murder, you were wrong. The story we're going to tell you includes Natalie's murder, but it's

really about human behavior. It's about the psychology and interactions between strangers online. And how fucked up we as human beings can be. Craving attention, respect, righteousness, and dishing out some of the most vile and frankly dangerous behavior to protect our egos. This story isn't about Natalie, or her friends or her family. It's about everyone who flocked to this story, thinking they were smart enough to solve

a murder. The Hello. There's that voice. This is of course Trisha Griffith, proprietor of the website, Web Slooths. Well I purchased Web Slooths in 2004. It's a true crime discussion forum. And it was a snake pit. It was people attacking each other and threatening to sue, threatening to kill. Long story short, we banned a lot of people and then we tightened the rules and made it so people, if somebody was nasty to another poster, they were automatically kicked off. So, I have seen, I believe, the worst of the worst of what people can do when they're

hiding behind their computer screen and it gets really ugly. It's like this sense of safety because there's this perceived anonymity. Exactly right, and people do do that. But here's the scary thing, Mike. What people don't realize is you're really not anonymous. You think you are and maybe you're good enough to get on there and go through all types of IPs and mess up your IP address. But if the government wants to find you because you've done something illegal or you're threatening someone, they can do it. So nobody is anonymous anymore and that's what people need to realize.

It kind of says something though about human behavior, doesn't it? The minute that we're kind of behind this cloak where we think nobody knows who we are, we can kind of get away with whatever we want. And we go straight to being really nasty to other people. It shows who you're true character because you can hide behind the cloak of the computer screen. And there is nobody watching you and you won't suffer any consequences unless, of course, somebody takes the time to try and find you. So, here you are. It's almost like you have a big, big stack of money in front of you. Nobody will see you steal it. Nobody will know, will you steal it or won't you? Will you

post in a decent human way or will you go right for the throat just because you can? Let's say a lot about a person. And there's also something strange about this particular genre in terms of true crime and murder and all these horrible human stories. And a lot of it involves a lot of crazy behavior and craziness seems to attract craziness. So a lot of these people that come in and are attracted by these subjects have some issues of their own sometimes.

Oh, issues is putting it very politely. They're flat out in Lala land on the moon. I mean, it's unbelievable. And they spend their life going to discussion forum, just to discussion forum, disrupting, saying they're crazy stuff. It's because what they do, I have a relative who that's all he does is he gets on the computer and he tries to destroy people. I've actually had to take a restraining order out against him because he's just been so nasty.

That's, he has a brain injury and this is what he does and nobody can stop him. It's funny how this whole thing is evolved too over time. It seems like at first you had a lot of centralized, private communities, message boards and forums and things like that, kind of like your forum web sleuths. And now, a lot of it is kind of moved on to Facebook where anyone can create a Facebook

group about any topic and become a mod of it. And they can invite other mods in, and there's no checks and balances on any of that. It's basically whoever wants to do whatever they want can do it. And that is frightening. To give people to say, well, that's free speech. Yes, it is. But again, you can't yell fire in a theater.

You shouldn't be able to get on there and have a discussion group about an innocent person who you believe committed a murder. You shouldn't be able to get on there and tear this person's life apart, but it happens all the time. And that's a lot of times where I see the big crazy conspiracy theories happening. People will come to web sleuth and say, well, I read this on Facebook and blah blah blah and it's just ridiculous. And that's what I see. It's within this popery of accusations,

unsubstantiated theories, and rampant speculation, that I met a guy by the name of Ryan Williams. Okay, I'm Ryan Williams. I'm a filmmaker from Los Angeles, California. Now, do you have any films we could see right now or are you an aspiring filmmaker? I'm actually like in the process, I've been working on a few screenplays and then we're about to start filming some concepts.

How did you get interested in this case, Ryan? So it's super weird. I was listening to episode 104, the Alice Ruggles case. And it was so weird because I was listening to it on the day that Natalie went missing. And I've never really dove into a case. And hearing out the story about Alice, I was like, man, this is intriguing. How did the police drop the ball on this kind of thing? So the next day I wake up, I just do my usual drinks and coffee,

scrolling through Facebook before get the writing, and I see a missing person's post. I'm thinking, I see tons of these all the time on Facebook. So I didn't really think anything of it. And then I keep scrolling, and then I see a screenshot of her Facebook post about this guy stalking her and I'm like, well, this is weird. I think this is what captured a lot of people's attention really early on, the fact that there's this missing

19 year old girl who was friends with a homeless, the shovel-looking guy, like, what is that about? Right, you know, I mean, I get like it's as human beings We're drawn to being nice to people. I mean well some of us you know not all of it I see it daily, you know I'll see a homeless male in the corner and you can hear You know random person yell at them, but for most of us like we want to be nice to people so You know especially at a young age. I mean you have a very different view of the world than I do

right I Try and focus on what can be good in the world compared to how bad it really is What is it that intrigued you specifically about this case and Sean Schwartz in particular what what is it about him that that people just found so intriguing? Well, I think it was, you know, I mean, you see this girl, she's missing two weeks prior, she's posting on Facebook about how she's been stalked in her rest as well as her family

by this guy. And then, you know, know two weeks later she's missing uh... his facebook goes quite for a facebook that's quite active with facebook live post as much as they you know she goes missing there's one post and it's almost twenty four hours after his normal post and it goes right back to hour by hour new videos are uploaded. And the videos are not all that benign. God damn it, help me die. You can buy new fucking searches. You throw all that cash

as you fucking usher. God doesn't need a fucking house, you fucking twit. God doesn't fucking need it. Donald Trump doesn't fucking need it. Bill fucking gates doesn't fucking need it. No matter how hard I work, I get treated like I'm the one who did all this horrible shit, all you fucking people. And then those of you are like, well I'm not doing that to you. No, you're right, you're not. You're turning a blind fucking eye. You piece of shit. Go to hell. Go to hell. Go to hell. You can help me die! You can help end this stuff! You don't want to do either! You son of a bitch! Three months prior to Natalie going missing. On September 10th, Sean Schwartz wrote on his Facebook page. Natalie, I wanted the best for you. Now all I want is for you to go through the hell I have lived. I want to blow my

head off in front of you. So close you can feel the warm spatter of my blood on your face. I want you to feel every bit of my pain because you gave it to me and didn't care. You should not have pretended to care. I hate all of you. I hate you. I hate you because I am still alive. I hate you because I am still punished. I hate you because I am still punished. I hate you because you think that your pretty words are gonna stop this. I hate you because you're excuses that you're not doing it to me. You're not here to do anything about it either. You're not trying to do anything about it either. It doesn't make any difference. Now, fucking does it. Your pretty fucking words don't mean shit to me.

This panic attack does not stop. It is nonstop. It does not stop. There is no end to it. It does not end at any one time. There is no one time that it even starts to stop. Now I'm trying to explain to you fuckers. My friends, no you're not.

I need help. You have help. I have punishment. I'm tired of being punished God damn it. I'm tired of people's pretty words on Facebook. I need actual help. Clearly a very disturbed and very angry man. A man who seemed to blame all of his problems on others and

was quick to fly off the handle. Every goddamn one of you, every goddamn one of you, I hate texting. People take it wrong and then they fucking do evil shit. I've lived the whole life of your evil shit in your goddamn excuses. Seriously, unless you fucking do something! You! But you're not gonna do anything. You're not gonna do a goddamn thing. You're fucking complacent. You got every goddamn thing you ever want! But you want more because you're fucking greedy! I don't have any of it! Could this homeless man, who Natalie took a restraining order against, have simply lost

it, and killed Natalie in a fit of rage? I hate you, I hate you, I hate all of you, I hate every one of you, I hope you all die! The things that you allow, because they're not happening to you, the things you pretend to give a shit, but don't do a goddamn thing about. The people that you fucking punish, the don't fucking deserve it, and you won't stop. You have a family there who cares about you

and prevents you from having to go through this shit. I don't have one. You won't be one. I will never have one. I need more than printing fucking words. You bitches of shit. I need this to end. I need my life to be over. How did you come to interview Sean? So, you know, I really wanted to gain his perspective on everything. So, I tried looking at, I mean, initially I was like, oh man, it's got this hatch to be the guy who, you know, had something to do with her disappearance with her murder.

And I wanted to come at it with a non-biased judge. I just wanted to hear his side of the story. I wanted to see what he thought, you know, without any outside interference, without hearing what this person said about him, I just wanted to hear from him his story along this journey. I mean, it looks bad. So tell me how you and Natalie met. There was a girl named Maddie, and Maddie was from a home where she got beat up a lot. So she used to hang out on the bricks at Pro Street Mall and also down at the library with all the drug use and stuff like that.

And there was a couple of twins that came down that was Natalie and Alicia. I guess they were like 13 or 14 at the time. Oh yeah, by the way. To further add to the weirdness, Natalie has a twin sister named Alicia. Um, most, like, if you're under age, if you're not 18 or 12, that's what I tell everybody. Right. So like, not 18. Most of what I do is try to get you to get away from the drug dealers and a lot of the thing is when you got like, especially the real pretty ones, you know, as soon as they start showing up, then you got 10 high school suitors who all show up and they got all their adrenaline and all that going and it usually ends up as a fight. There's also the turnouts which I found out later through a letter that Natalie had sent

me when she actually came back into my life. But yeah, I met her when she was 13. I found out she was selling drugs for her dad and uh... among other things. I can actually... well I don't have my computer, the cops still have it, but I could probably send you the emailing specific. The email that Sean Schwartz mentions is one of the things that he published after Natalie went missing.

According to him, this is from Natalie, dated July 30, 2016. Okay, so I guess I'll start from the beginning. So my mum left when Alicia and I were three. She was 19 and married to my father. He was cheating and beating her. My dad told her that he was going to kill her if she didn't leave. So she left us as well and moved to Rhode Island. My dad was in and out of jail, and somehow my mom heard he was facing prison time. Alicia and I were eight at the time. My dad was in the run, and my mom shows up. I knew who she was, but I was told awful things about her my whole life, that she burnt

me with sigs, etc. But part of me knew no one it was true. I was being raised by rich wolves. My mom fought for us for months. She got custody because we were being raised by awful humans. I was happy to leave, but I didn't know this woman I was calling mom. I had her brother I'd never met and I hated him. My mom left our family and started a new one But he was a baby, so I didn't hate him for long. My dad moved to Rhode Island running. We went back and forth between them for years My mom would lose us for having dangerous men around. Then we'd go back to my dad until he'd start doing drugs again My dad got custody of us. He wasn't allowed to drink because he becomes demonic, but he's my dad, so of course he did. He was having an affair at the time, and I was

woken up my screams from my stepmother, Shelley. They had had two children by this time. He had been drinking and was trying to kill Shelley. He was hitting her face on the curb repeatedly until she wasn't moving. There was much more, but yeah, so my mom got custody for a long time. Then she married this very abusive man. He got to the point where the judge said he wasn't allowed near of us children, but he scared my mom so she still let him live with us. Meanwhile my dad moved back to Colorado. He came and proved he was there and took Alicia and I. Shortly after, had a selling drugs for him at 13-14. He was hitting us and doing drugs with us while being a little too friendly.

So my sister told on him, this was while I knew you at the park. We were put into foster care. My mom had moved to Virginia to get away from her husband, and we were in and out of foster homes. I hadn't spoken with her in a year or so before I asked her to come get me. They were gonna hold me in a group home until I was 21

because I wouldn't stop getting high. We moved to Virginia, and I think you know the rest. But that's most my story. Keep in mind that there's no proof that this email was actually written by Natalie. Sean Schwartz, the man claiming that it was, could of course have an ulterior motive. But the distinct style of writing along with the various typos and poor grammar suggests that it was probably written by someone who isn't quite as articulate as Sean is in many of his videos or online rantings.

It suggests someone who's possibly had a spotty early education due to a pretty tough life. If this email is genuine, then it would explain how a young 13 or 14 year old girl would come to be friends with a 43 year old homeless man, someone who's not being parented very well, and spends much of her life on the streets around drugs and drug users. There were also other indications that perhaps there was actually something to this story, due to Ted Bolinger's previous criminal history. A quick online search reveals a two-year prison sentence served by a Ted G. Bollinger from Jefferson County, Colorado, with a release

date of September 16, 2017, just months before Natalie's death. I was doing my patrols in the morning because I usually try to wake everybody up before the cops get there to give them tickets. And Natalie and Alicia were in sleeping bags with a guy named Emory and another guy named Arturo. I let them know that they needed to go home. That was actually the last time I saw Natalie and Alicia before I think they were like 17, almost 18 when I saw him up on the pro street and then when I was going to go kill myself with the bike it in. That was when Natalie showed up and gave me a hug and told me she missed me and told her she couldn't hang out with me because if she was an 18 she was 12 and she pulled out her ID and showed me she was 18 so that was actually her and Maddie were the only two friends that I had at that point I hurt my back

and that was a really tough situation I lost everything I earned again it wasn't fun. Much like in his videos Sean's telling of the story is erratic. He jumps around from one time period to another without explaining any context. Ryan tries to get him to answer why he drove across the country to stalk Natalie. So is this happening in Colorado? Is this before she moves to Virginia? This is before she moves to Virginia. Okay. And then so she moves to Virginia. This is before she moved to Virginia. Okay. And then so she

moves to Virginia. She was what whatever she said. She said something like you you just showed up. How did that play out? She actually invited me. She told me that she wanted to kill herself and then she ran her car into a tree. And after that I was like, what the fuck? I don't have anything going on. Everything sucks. Everybody's mean to me. You know, I'll just go to see Miss Natalie in Virginia like she asked me to.

So I was in a road when I found out my friend Jamie needed help moving because she just got in the help beaten out of her by her ex-boyfriend. So I went up there instead and then I turned around and went back to Virginia. But that's all that's all stuff that I have on I've had like six different phones so like trying to find all this stuff is just a big giant pain in the ass and I have to do it all myself through a panic attack right which shuts me down. How did things in Virginia go for you. Um, they went pretty crafty. Um, my friend Mikey Witcher and Amy Witcher, they were gonna help hook me up with the job.

There was another guy who was a friend of a friend and I was supposed to be doing like flood damage clean up while I was there. But he got arrested before I got there and my friend, Mahalia, she was supposed to meet me in Richmond and hooked me up with the heart community there. But she actually, while I was driving to Virginia, she got on an airplane and went to Boulder. But yeah, basically my whole safety network was gone. And all I had left was Natalie and Alicia. And then like, it was all in texting after my birthday and it was always a phone that was broken. It was Natalie's old phone. So I was trying to text and everything that I'm trying to text is coming out as something that

wasn't saved because I was arguing with the race just asshole and Montana so then everything that I tight came out wrong and me and Natalie talked about how you know texting sucks and we'll talk in person and that way it doesn't get overwhelming well that didn't end up happening what ended up happening as I had a severe panic attack over. Basically, I heard little brothers and keep my sister safe on my birthday. It was supposed to just be me and Natalie having a picnic, you know, because I don't do well and it's multiple people. And every time that I was hanging out with her, her sister did all the talking. Or we were spending all of our time talking about her sister and Natalie just had to look on her face like, God I wish she was my turn to speak already.

So I'm a birthday, I figured I'd see how she was doing and let her know it was going on with me because my head was not in a good place by that point. All my safety network was gone and I had a bad bad, but I tried to go to work anyway. And this is a few days before my birthday. And I'd been basically cleaning up a bunch of waterlogged clothes in a savorous type of store over in North Carolina, North Carolina. I also had my friend Moose, I was supposed to meet when I got there, but he was in jail as well. So I was trying to get a holdover and I was trying to message, of course I'm having a

panic attack. I don't know how many messages I sent. They said I sent over a hundred of them, which I believe. I totally believe. It didn't start off that way. At first it was like just a few texts. And, you know, because it was just basic communication. But then they weren't getting back to me. And I was having a real bad panic attack about that. And Natalie said she would speak to me and I explained to her, but she already knew from Boulder that I got off the burgers and that you know if you don't talk

to me one on one I probably don't know what the hell is going on and also on the phone it's you know really shitty thing for me to try to communicate and then it was compounded by the fact that it's a broken phone to it sends stuff whenever it wants, like even mid-typing, and then it wants to change words on me because it's got the word prediction, and I'm too stupid to turn this stuff off, and the reason that I got the phone is because, at least you really wanted me to have it,

and so she told me that she would show me how to use it, if I got it turned over to the cricket. So I did, and the phone that she would show me how to use it if I got it turned over to the cricket So I did and the phone that she gave me was Natalie's old phone, which was Broken to shit and then 10 minutes after giving me the phone she quit her job and So I didn't actually get to see them until my birthday and then my birthday I spent the whole day and And then, uh, my birthday I spent the whole day in, uh, the McDonald's parking lot, because I didn't have very much gas left, and I really, you know, I needed to be able to at least get to labor at either the next day to go to work,

even though I really wasn't the shape to do it. And then, uh, I don't know, that was, that was my birthday, but they, they were both active, really weird. Like, basically, basically you know our time and gotten cut short because her mom found her heroin and that was literally the last time that I saw Natalie. Next, Sean Schwartz explains how he ended up with a restraining order against him. everything wrong the only way to try to do anything about it was to talk to her in person right so I went to her house to talk to her about four or five days after my birthday you know I drove their talk to her and I had a programed into the phone to help me find the destination and it you know not sleeping for

five days fucks with your head so as I drove past your house I said to make a U-turn, and I was like, oh shit, I'm a mix of my turn. So I cranked on the wheel to the left and realized I was pointing right at her house, and that's the reason that it told me to make a U-turn. So I'm scared to chill, listen, I'm staring at her house. And I hear a car honk, like loud.

It's just going past me and I realized that I was in the middle of traffic and I couldn't get my car to move and I couldn't get my head to work and my limbs didn't want to work and like all I could do was lay on the horn. So I pulled up my arms and I put my one hand on top of the other so I could push some pressure on it and I pushed down the horn so the traffic drives and by I wouldn't slam into it. And then I just held onto it. Sean was sitting in this car in the middle of the street, dangerously blocking oncoming traffic. By his own account, his own mind went into panic mode and he was

unable to take any action at that point other than to, as he says, lay on the horn continuously. So, our mom came out of the house and she said, I'm going to call the police. I think that's what she said. It was mouthed at me. And I was so thankful, like, I need, I need to help. I was stuck in the middle of the interstate. My head wasn't working right.

I hadn't slept and I found out I was severely dehydrated. So the cops showed up and they told me that they weren't gonna arrest me and told me all of my stuff was gonna be safe and that they were gonna help me. Instead they towed my car and broke it in a few places and then dropped me off at the hospital where they gave me a whole bunch of fluids and then from the hospital, the hospital, their health for the homeless was to give me a piece of paper that tells me where the homeless services are like 8 to 15 miles away. At this point I no longer have a car and they just dropped me off in the middle of Virginia with no support and no safety network and no car and Literally, you know, I've got people that I went there to see treating me like I'm some sort of super psychostero-killer rapist

So I left. It's obvious that no matter what you think of him this person has a lot of problems what you think of him. This person has a lot of problems. It's clearly a sign of something being severely broken in our society. We're not interested in getting help for people like this. Sean didn't get help. He got a car with which he had the potential to cause a serious accident. When he had a panic attack, lost control and was no longer able to function, as he was blocking on coming traffic on a major street. He got a smartphone to send hundreds of unanswered texts to an 18 or 19 year old girl who apparently just wanted to be left alone. He got free internet access to post hundreds of angry, ranting videos, blaming everyone and everything around him for all of his own actions and circumstances.

He didn't get help. Instead, he got the tools to harass. I removed four people from my Facebook this morning for reciprocating a rape society. You know, I find it insulting when someone tells me it's not about pretty and they're happy because they chose it has nothing to do with what they're given. And I take a look and you've got a bunch of free shit for being pretty. You're in a good mood. 10,000 people have posted on your Facebook in the last week about how pretty you are. Literally you're pretty, you're cute, you're so hot, your fake is fuck.

You are fake as fuck. You eat that shit up. I ditched you because you're fucking pretty. Not just pretty, but violently pretty. When I say violently pretty, I mean that you are seriously one of those shitty excuses for a human being that will go out of your way to pretend somebody's intent is something that other than it is because of their looks and then send people after them. Well, it's okay because you didn't send them after them. No, you knew that they would though.

You knew that these guys would go be a piece of shit over you having a bad opinion because you're fucking pretty. Yes, I fucking ditched you stupid cunt. You're a piece of shit. You reciprocate a rate of fucking society. And the fact that you pretend that's not what you're doing makes you as guilty as the fucking rapist you pretty bitch. Not about pretty, it's not about money. Donald Trump meanwhile is president of the United States and he bought his fucking wives you say it's not a rape society this man brags about grabbing women by the pussy talks about fucking his own daughter

you sick shits who voted for this fucker the Christian community the largest contributor was the Christian community. Am I allowed to fault you for this? No, it's not your fault you only had a choice between him and Hillary. Actually it is, because you're a bitch and lay down and take it, because it's not fucking happening to you. Sure you're getting fucked, but you're fucking rewarded too. They give you just enough to keep you going.

I don't get nothing. Nothing. Yeah, you under a reciprocated, pretty society. You are the rape society. If you are pretty, you are wrong because you are pretty. Plain and simple. Cut in fucking dry. If you say it's not about pretty, I will cut you off. Things had been brewing for a while. The reason she was finally able to get the protection order or whatever it was against the restraining order is because I let her know that like seriously people have been treating me like I'm a rapist in a chime over over a year. You either need to come clean or I'm going to expose the people who actually did those

things. So it typed me, the letter is about a year old, but she had typed me a letter telling me about growing up and how she was, when she was younger, when she first met me, that she was slinging drugs for her dad and he was not keeping his hands to himself and, you know, things of that nature. So I That was about three weeks ago. I posted it up on Ted Ballinger's Facebook But the thing is I mean Ted Ballinger that That email that I had Natalie Rope Natalie Rope's whole thing and it's on her email

like it's from her email it came from her email it's it came from Natalie so like I hadn't slept in a few days and people were asking me and I was like hey you need to come clean so Sean gets the idea to post on Natalie's father's Facebook shortly after that Natalie contacts him and tell some show meet him at you need to come clean. So Sean gets the idea to post on Natalie's father's Facebook. Shortly after that, Natalie contacts him and tells him she'll meet him at Starbucks. That's when Natalie got ahold of me. She hadn't gotten ahold of me in quite a while.

But she got ahold of me to tell me that she wanted to meet me at Starbucks. So that's when I did everything I could walk that hundred blocks to get somewhere where I could get a ride to Boulder so I could go to the Starbucks. But Natalie wasn't planning on meeting him at all, and he kind of suspected that. On December 16th shortly before walking the hundred blocks to meter, as he says, he posts the following. I would say there is a 1% chance it's asshole looking for a fight. 2% chance Natalie shows.

47% chance nobody shows. And 50% chance of cops show up instead. I'm scared shitless of Natalie. But I can stand between an armed idiot and a stranger, no problem. I hope for the best, but I'm fairly certain I am the only honest person left on earth. Well, it looks like I got to be right again. Natalie did not only not fill up. I got my restraining order. As a result, I am pretty sure that our business is concluded and I no longer have to deal with those.

However, this is very important now, I have my restraining order. The following day, Sean would post this on his wall. I am not bothered by a restraining order. I'm bothered by the acceptability of victimizing those with assburgers. I am bothered by the sexist nature of this harassment. I am bothered by the fact that nobody of this harassment. I am bothered by the fact that nobody gives a shit, because I am not pretty. I am bothered by the fact that this shit has been happening for over a year, and I am bothered because now there will be no end to my panic attacks.

I don't want another year of this. Unfortunately, autism doesn't just magic itself away, and the shit that triggers me continues to do so until resolved. So as much as I am not willing to harm Natalie, she is willing to harm me. She isn't willing to call the dogs off, and I'm tired of being surrounded by immoral pieces of shit who are too busy chasing pretty to have any morality. Yet, if you are pretty, you are somehow absolved of this. No. I just want it to end. I deserve it to end.

That does it for this week. Thank you for joining us. If you don't want massive spoilers, basically just don't go online until the next episode. Just take a week off because it's really gonna ruin the rest of the story for you. But also remember you can go on patreon.com slash sword and scale right now and get part two available instantly. Along with 22 episodes of Sword and Scale Plus, which is available there exclusively. It's only five bucks and it really helps support the show. So until next time, you know, I'm gonna leave the joke out this time. Just stay

safe. Oh you