We're All Insane - Trafficked By Her Husband

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Alexandra shares her experiences as a military ex-wife and trafficking survivor. She details red flags from early on in the relationship & the escalation of DV, how the military protects abusers, and how her ex-husband began to traffic her. Alexandra also shares how her experiences left her with lifelong injuries and how she began to seek justice against her abuser. Alexandra: https://www.instagram.com/alexandramoon_11/ https://www.tiktok.com/@alexandramoon_11 If you have a unique story you'd like to share on the show, please email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, it's me Devorah. I just dropped an all new bonus episode inside my new subscription channel, We're All Insane Plus. This week's bonus episode is called My Brain was slipping into my spine. Listen now by subscribing to We're All Insane Plus inside your Spotify or Apple Podcasts app or go to we're all insane.com. Hi, I'm Alexandra Moon and I'm a military ex-wife and trafficking survivor. So I don't exactly know where to start this story because it's a bit of a story of my entire life. So I grew up in a military family, divorced military family, where my father was a major in the Green Beret Special Forces. So I grew up a little unusually, not your typical childhood. He was retired but very freshly out of theater.

And he was raising me for the most part alone after he. him and my mom separated when I was three. And growing up with an ex-military man in the late 90s in Wyoming, let me tell you that's a trip. Is it? It is an incredible trip. My parents, before I was born, decided to buy a bar, restaurant, hotel, bed and breakfast, and gymnasium in Wyoming, right at the foot of the mountains.

Like all separate things? It was like pretty much a resort. Okay, wow. Yeah. Sounds like somewhere I need to go. You know, it's a really cool, beautiful area. I think the town literally has 52 people still. Wow.

Yeah, like it was very, very small, small, small mountain town. The reason why we were able to have the business, there's just so much hunting, snowboarding, all of the outdoor sports. So there was really nothing in little encampment Riverside where the bear trap is, but everybody would come there for, you know, different. seasons. And growing up there, our house, our apartment was attached to the bar and restaurant. So you would be in the bar and restaurant. You'd walk down the hallway to go to the bathrooms. There was the door to our literal house. Growing up as a little kid, because my dad would be working, bartending or cooking,

I would just be chilling in the back alone, a lot. And sometimes a wandering person or a drunk would just open the wrong door. And there'd be little Alexandra sitting on the couch. I'd be like, oh, bathrooms are the next door. So, you know, growing up that way with somebody that was freshly out of the military who had their own emotional issues, I wasn't, I was kind of a feral child. You know, I spent a lot of time alone. Yeah, it was just a really interesting way to grow up.

and it kind of started some, I don't want to say weaknesses as a human, but weaknesses as a child that is growing up into a world where they weren't always necessarily taken care of or shown correct, healthy relationships. Relationships, mannerisms, like the whole box. So, you know, fast forward, my dad ends up remarrying a woman significantly younger than him, 22 years younger. And we moved back to North Dakota where he's from.

And, you know, again, just kind of a tumultuous living situation with my dad and stepmom. Stepmom was horrible. My dad is just kind of emotionally abusive, just not the greatest person, just think pretty far, far, right ex-military a little over the top. Kind of scary. Yeah. Just like controlling. Yeah. So, so, so controlling. And these are the things that kind of led me into my early teenage years and my young adult years, thinking that a lot of these things were normal. So my mom was in the picture and she's a wonderful, wonderful woman. But she unfortunately didn't have full custody of me. My dad somehow managed that in Wyoming. in the 90s, which is incredible. But yeah, I had, how do I say this? I was so horribly angry and bullied in a high school that I just wanted to be done with it.

I wanted to be out. I had a lot of really hard time with mental health issues as a young child, as a teenager. There was a lot of some bad things that happened to me in Wyoming when I was a kid surrounding childhood sexual. abuse, not by the, of course, my hands of my father, but when you have a bar literally attached to your house and you have multiple people working for the business, whether it's a bartender, a dishwasher, housekeeping, things can go wrong. So when I became a teenager, I was very, very angry. Rightly so. Very bullied, hated North Dakota, hated my stepmom, hated all of it. Finally, was able to convince my father to let me move to Colorado with my mom, my junior year of high

school. Going from North Dakota, where I was number 15 in the entire class, to going to Castle Rock, Colorado, where there was over 700 kids in my class, was a culture shock. Yeah, I'm sure. But it was absolutely amazing, because I got to live with my mom for the first time really ever in my life. I wasn't on the farm anymore. The farm in North Dakota was 25 miles out. outside of town. I literally had to milk the cow every morning. We fed chickens. I had to like muck coops, which means just shoveling all the shit out of it. You know, I was the eldest by a good bit, so I was just the manual labor. So being able to come live with my mom where she had like a microwave and video games and we lived in town and I didn't have to milk the cow. Holy shit.

A lot better. Oh my God. So much better. You know, my mom was a single mom at the time she had just gotten divorced from my brother and sister's father. And she's an incredible woman. When I first moved in with her, she was working three jobs as a single mom, trying to just pay the bills for all three of us kids. And then she ended up going back to school for psychology. And she got her master's degree and is currently a substance abuse psychologist for the prison systems. Wow. Yeah, she's an amazing lady. So it was really nice being able to live my mom for a while and have like a normal like life child I wouldn't say childhood because I was a teenager at that point like 16 thought I knew everything was ready to graduate and be an adult but in

hindsight like having my mom there who would just make me breakfast in the morning yeah huge you know I didn't have any of those things you think like when you're a little kid and you're growing up like getting made breakfast for you know like all those things that didn't happen in North Dakota or in Wyoming with my dad. Like her as a parent was just more present than your dad was. You know, present, but also just like my father's just, we're all insane, but man, he's insane. Yeah. Yeah, I remember being a very, very small child, like four years old, four or five years old,

I'd fallen off the tire swing and knocked the air out of myself, you know, and that hurts. That's scary. You can't breathe as a kid. And I was freaking out and everything. And I vividly remember my dad was like, I told me this whole big. story about Native Americans and how they never cry out in pain and they could fall off a cliff and they'd never scream out to give away their position. So he started and it feels more like brainwashing now that I look back at it as an adult, but he had conditioned me that I wasn't allowed to cry if I was

hurt. Right. You know, warriors don't cry out in pain. I'm a four-year-old little girl. I need a dad. I don't need to be the next green beret. Right. You know, so being with somebody that was just more of a parent was really great. And it was, it was great. I was going to Douglas County. I was a junior in high school. And that, around my birthday, I started doing mixed martial arts. I got into a local gym that did Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai.

And I freaking loved it. I was there every day for multiple classes that they were finally like, okay, kid. Too much. No, they're like, since you're here so much, if you start, cleaning the mats at the end of the night will take 25% off of your, you know, your dues. And I was like, oh, fuck yeah. I'm going to join another five class. Total rocky moment, right?

I'm like, yes, I will clean every inch of this gym. Just let me train and like learn how to choke people out. It was great. So I continued training and I was getting really good at it. I was almost to my blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, really good at Muay Thai. And I even progressed to the point where I was teaching or helping teach the kids' classes and then assisting in the adult classes. I fucking loved it.

I actually was even looking at getting into my first MMA cage fight. Like I had been training. I had everything. I'd been like ready to go. And, you know, at that point, I'm technically a coach for our academy in walks Ian Newland. So I am a 16-year-old junior in high school, right? I am child, but just like most young women, teenage women, if a guy gives you attention, whether they're a few years older than you or maybe quite a few years older than you,

it makes you feel special. You know, when you haven't been given attention by anybody, let alone somebody in your own age group, having like an adult give you attention, it makes you feel like all Twitter-pated. So I was starting to see this man Ian more often in the academy. Like he started coming more and more frequently. And when you're training Brazilian jiu-jitsu, you know, you have like a lesson for that class, whether it's rear naked choke or arm bar. The coach does the demonstration.

You know, you do all the warm up and then you usually group up and you practice. And then you do sparring or open mat. So it's a very physical wrestling. very close bodies, you know? And it started that Ian and I just were rolling partners a lot. So we are like literally sitting on each other, choking each other out. Like looking at it in hindsight as a grown woman at almost 30, thinking about like a literal high schooler,

like rolling with grown adults that honestly gives me the ick now. I'm like, why did anybody allow that? Oh, because I was the only. female in the academy and there were a bunch of dudes. Yeah. So I was, you know, going to high school. I would come and train at night. I'd train on the weekends.

And I started talking to Ian Moore. I started rolling and training with Ian Moore. And then my junior year ended. I went up to North Dakota for the summer for a little bit. I just see my dad and all that. And I came back right before my senior year of high school. And Ian and I started really, really talking. pretty much like dating and I was just over the moon you know this grown adult who was

ex-military bronze star purple heart like highly decorated veteran you know too it hurts me to say this now but I found him very attractive back then you know he was older muscular tattooed and I was just like on top of the world because for me growing up the way I did with my dad and stepmom, they had a 22 year age gap and they got married like right around the time my stepmom was 18 and my dad was 40. So all those normal alarm bells that should have been going off in like any normal person's head weren't going off. They just weren't there. They just they weren't there because that was normal. That's how I grew up with that large, large age gap. I mean, I was, seven and my stepmom was 18 when she married my dad.

Yeah. We have barely 10 years between us, which is weird. So I came back to Colorado after visiting my dad for the summer in North Dakota and Ian and I were talking and talking and talking and that's when things, and mind you, I am a minor. I am like not 18, I'm still a legal child. he starts enacting a sexual relationship. And I can even remember it, and I hate this, because I was not a popular person in high school.

I was significantly heavier than I am now. Like if you look at pictures of myself from 15, 16, it looks like I kind of ate myself. I had never really had boyfriends, had never been asked out on dates. So I was just, you know, like, oh my gosh, somebody likes me. Not seeing all the ick that was there. And I was a couple weeks into my senior year, my mom and the academy both finally caught on. Some of my colleagues and peer coaches saw Ian and I out somewhere.

And they threw a fucking fit about it. Rightly so, because at the time, he was 15 years my senior. So he's in his 30s. I'm literally a child in high school. Right. You're still 16 at this point. Right. I'm 17 now.

Yep. So over the winter, I had turned 17. So I'm 17-year-old senior. I will be turning 18 in January. Like, what was that like, you know, nine months from then? So, yeah, I mean, I guess. So you kind of kept it from like your parents that you were seeing him. Oh, fuck, yeah. Oh, God, no.

Yeah, totally quiet. I mean, I knew enough, like, I didn't have the ick factor, but I just knew due to the age gap, my mom wouldn't be happy. Okay. So, yeah, no, I was definitely going behind her back. I would, like, and he knew about, like, Ian knew about all of it. He knew that I wasn't telling my parents. He knew that I was sneaking around to see him.

He knew that I would be, like, ditching high school class to go meet him and have sexual relations. He's a 30-year-old man, you know? And, like, it's hard now 10 years later because it's just like, oh, honey, like looking back on my younger self, like I'm just like, oh my God, no, no, no, no, no. You know? So I don't remember exactly where we were in Castle Rock, but one of my coaches saw us through a big fit, rightfully so, called my mom, let her know, like pretty much said that one of us

wasn't allowed to be at the academy anymore. Like it was a big deal. And for me, that was like my home. I was damn near there more than I was at home. spent well over a year training almost every single day, multiple classes a day. I was supposed to be having a cage fight, you know, that coming winter. So it was like absolutely devastating. So not only did like the can of worms get blown open at the academy, but then the one coach called my mom and let her know, again, rightfully fucking so. So my mom freaks out and it's like this whole huge throwdown. And my

mom's in the right. Like, I feel so bad for this woman because she was in the right every moment of this. And I was a 17-year-old, dumb-ass teenager who thought I knew everything, who thought I was an adult, who thought he was a good guy, who thought, thought, thought, thought, thought, thought. Well, my mom, being correct, was like, Alexandra, what man in their right mind, who was in their 30s wants to have anything to do with a high school child? Yeah. And of course, I was like, no, you don't understand. We're in love.

Yeah. You know, the just horrific trope of all of that. So what ended happening, and this is just all so messed up. So around that time of everything getting blown open, because I'm living with my mom over here. Yeah. But we still got my dad and his whole messed upness over here. And he's just like the devil's advocate. He knows about Ian now.

He thinks it's great because he's a wounded warrior. and he's highly decorated and it's just like him and Heather, right? So my dad's not even like hitting any alarm bells. He's hitting hard go. He's like, yeah, no, this is fine. Right. So I end up. Which is also probably why part of you, like, thought it was fine also because that's what

he showed you. And then even then continue to like, oh, yeah, this is totally, yeah. You know, so I literally have one of my parents being like, oh, it's okay that this 30-year-old gross man has interest in my high school. school teenage daughter? What? So around the time everything blows up, there happens to be a family wedding up in Cheyenne, Wyoming on my dad and stepmom's side. So I end up going out there for the wedding and Ian comes with separately, my mom doesn't know this, but my dad knows this. So he can meet Ian in person. So he's actively lying to my mom, allowing me to come, you know, what is that maybe like a three-hour

drive from Castle Rock to Cheyenne just over the border, or border, excuse me, for this wedding. My dad is hard playing devil's advocate. Like, he's not even devil's advocate. He's like devil's driver. Yeah. So we go to this wedding where Ian is invited. He's like my date to the wedding. He's meeting all my stepmom's side family.

He's met my dad. Like, we sat down and had like, oh, God, I think it was like lunch at Denny's. and then he lets Ian drive me home. Like from Cheyenne lets him drive me home. Well, my mom was none the wiser of any of this. She thought I was just going to a wedding for my dad's and stepmom's side. No fucking idea. Somehow, and I honestly don't even remember how if she saw Ian drop me off or she finally just got it out of me,

but she figured out that Ian went to the wedding, met my dad. Dad was cool with all of it, drove me back, like, pretty much lying to her about everything. So, of course, she, like, flip shit. Flip shit on me. Flip shit on my dad. Pretty much like, what the fuck, Rockney? Like, what are you doing? So that gave me my little out.

Ian at the time, because, like, all of this is blowing up, right? My mom's freaking out. The academy's freaking out. So at this point, were you still able, like, were you still training? Or, like, which one of you left? We both ended up just leaving. Okay. So everything was just kind of done with that.

Yep. So for love, I decided to leave the academy so I could still continue to be with Ian. And then during all of this after the wedding, he's like, hey, you know, I have a great idea. Why don't you just drop out of high school and move in with your dad and get your GED? So that way the moment you turn 18, we can just run off and get married and live happily ever after. So that was his idea. Yeah. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's an amazing idea.

You can just come in, sweep me off my feet, and we'll ride off into the sunset. And, you know, I let my dad know this plan. He's like, oh, yeah, that's perfect. Your stepmom was homeschooled and only got her GED. That's totally fine. Just come up here, move here. It'll all be great. Just, just, just, eh, pause.

Just pause for it. So, and I feel like, to this. day, I feel so fucking bad about this. And I don't know how I'm ever going to like repay my mom for what I did to her. Like the week of her birthday in September, I pretty much tell her, hey, fuck you. I'm dropping out of high school. And I'm moving back to North Dakota. And like, I still can't believe I did that to my mom. What did she say? She was absolutely fucking devastated. And she, I don't even know honestly, because now I am a mom. I have a kiddo in elementary school.

So like the horror has just compounded because now I am mom. And the idea of Ana doing that when all I've been trying to do is help her stay away from a very dangerous situation. Oof. Yeah. Oof. So, you know, my mom is absolutely devastated. She is heartbroken.

But at this point, she knows if she keeps trying to battle me, if she keeps trying to keep me safe, essentially. I'm just running further and further away. So, you know, that was all pretty traumatic just in its own ways. So I don't remember exactly like how like her response was when I told her. I just remember being very emotional and her being very upset and me pretty much being like, yeah, I'm leaving this weekend. And I still can't believe I did that to her. And you just got up and left. Yeah, I packed all my stuff and I lied to her. And I lied to her. and told her that one of my uncles on my stepmom's side who lived in Cheyenne was going to be driving me up there when in reality it was Ian.

And, you know, when Ian and I did get all of my stuff and start driving up to North Dakota, we stopped in like Buffalo, Wyoming and we got a bunch of liquor. And mind you, I'm still 17. I've just dropped out of high school to be. And he was living. Colorado too, right? So he just was fine with picking up and moving. Yeah. So he had, and this is just where the story gets even deeper and ickier. So he had been married for 10 years to a woman that he went through his entire pretty much military active duty career with. He had gotten wounded in Iraq in a

really terrible way. And that's how he was retired from the military wounded warrior. He was atrociously abusive to his first wife, pretty much the entire relationship, really, really, really bad stuff. And he finally was arrested at one point. And when he was in jail for a couple days for domestic violence, his ex-wife packed up everything, the two kids, and literally fled to get away from him. So when that all happened and like his ex-wife or wife at the time fled. He had been in prison for a while, or not prison, excuse me, he had been in jail for a couple days. He came back to their farm at the time, kind of way out east in the Elizabeth Kiowa area of Colorado. And, you know, this is all hearsay for me, because this was like pre-Alex,

but, you know, he just let the ranch go, ended up getting foreclosed. He had a shit ton of debt, had a few different vehicles get, like, repossessed. So he didn't have, he had just lost, like, his house to foreclosure had been living in this little shitty rental kind of on the outskirts of Castle Rock. And that's like where I would ditch class and go have sexual relations with him at this shitty little rental place he had. So he pretty much was just like, okay, I'll just stop paying you know, my monthly dues. And there was nothing holding him back. Yep. He ended up getting a job in the oil fields down in North Dakota. So I, um, well, backtrack when I was trying what I was going to say. And this is just like the icky thing.

You know, I'm a 17 year old minor just dropped out of high school to be with this 30 year old man. He's driving me from Colorado back to North Dakota. We stop in Wyoming and like Buffalo, Wyoming to get a hotel. And he gets all sorts of liquor, you know, gets me real drunk, starts introducing me to pornography and stuff, which I'm pretty pretty, pretty sure. Don't quote me on this. I'm pretty sure showing pornography to a minor is a federal offense. any state that you were at. I was looking at her to see if she knew. So, you know, there's like, and that's where some of, like, the depravity, the sexual

depravity started. So he just, like, in this hotel room, he just started chilling you porn and, like, well, you know, and it's, this is where it gets kind of, like, that slippery slope. Okay. So I'm a minor. I should not be looking at porn. As an adult, he should not be showing me porn. So that's just wrong.

Yeah. baseline. But me as a person, me as a child then, I had never had much sexual relations. I'd not had boyfriend. I'd never had the opportunity to have any sexual freedom. Let me pause you really fast. Yeah. Because, and I'm only saying that, and I could, I could be totally wrong, but I just want to say this person to person. None of this is your fault. Like even regardless of like how you were raised and all that. Like, even if you just look at it from a person, a relationship perspective, like no matter what age you are, when you're infatuated with someone and you really, really love someone, no matter what they introduce you to. I mean, unless it's

like something like so far-fetched, like it's like you're going to be open to it. It's natural. So it's like even if, you know, like, yes, absolutely, it was, he shouldn't have been doing it. You know, there's so many, so many aspects to it. But I want you to know that like, because I know, like, obviously you can look back and be like, you know, this I should have or I should known and this, this, that and the other. But I think that there's so many people that experience, like, when they look back, they're like, that might have been something I should have picked up on. But in the moment, you really don't. You know what I mean? And it's one of those things that it's sick looking back on it now. But it's like, you know, in that moment when somebody wants to

experiment or open you up to things, you're kind of like, and especially being like young, naive and in love, you're like, yeah, like why not? You know what I mean? The first time when you're 18 and you finally get to go into like a sex shop. Yeah. You know, regardless. It's the curiosity. Yeah. You're curious. It's exciting. You've never been allowed to do these things before. Like so I was like, whoa, yeah. You know, like we can do this and we can look at that. It was like the proverbial, because, you know, I, since the moment I was 15, I was ready to be 18. I was just, I had been forced to be, I was never allowed to be a child. My childhood, my innocence was taken away. So I was just so ready to be an adult. Yeah. Even though I wasn't ready to be an adult. Right. So yeah, no, that none of that,

and looking back on that, thank you. Like, I know none of that is my fault. But at the same time, like, when somebody can use a young, a teenager's innocence, like, it just hurts. Like, do you think that he was showing you that as a form of like experimentation sexually or more so to like teach you things both both okay both i think because i was excited he was like oh let's see where this goes okay but at the same time if you are a grown person attracted to a minor you're probably not thinking in healthy safe ways to introduce a very young quote-unquote adult to these things like as somebody now who's almost 30 who understands the kink world and, you know, all of the good things that come with that, as long as you feel safe and you and your partner are both consenting.

Yeah. Like there's a lot of really fun things you can have. But if you have somebody holding that power who is pushing you into deeper, darker things that you don't even understand yet, that's when that world can get a little scary. Absolutely. I agree with that. So, you know, it started, you know, in the hotel room looking, you know, because when I was a high schooler, I think I looked at pornography, maybe once or twice. But honestly, I never liked it. Yeah. It was gross. All the sounds like weirded me out. I never even had any interest in that. Like, honestly, the weirdest thing I probably ever did was just look at some weird anime. Like that, that was my little nice safety wheelhouse. I was happy with that to this. day, I still don't enjoy pornography. I have some pretty severe PTSD around some of that now. But I think as a person, had Ian Newellyn never walked into my life, I just never would have been the person that necessarily liked that. Like, to each their own, there's other things that I like as far as like the kink world goes. But I don't know. Just watching somebody else do things

was just never for me. No, it's not. It's weird. But so, you know, that door got opened way too early, not okay, when I was young, before I was 18. So we get to North Dakota. And it's so funny because my dad's been allowing this the whole time. But he is a Godstanding, fearing Christian. And we're not having any sex until we're married because that's how he knows I've been raised. Like eyebrow raised. Like you have a literal grown-ass man trying to pursue your minor child.

Right. You think he's just, okay. Yeah. So, you know, it's like this weird, like he was allowing all this my dad. But at the same time, like when Ian was working in the oil fields and he'd be like on for two weeks, off for a week, he'd come stay with us. And he'd come stay in like the basement where my bedroom was. But then I'd have to go sleep upstairs with my little brother in his bunk bed. So you're like allowing these things. You're allowing a grown ass man in.

But then you're being like, oh, we're Christian, all of this. Right. To remain like good in a way. It's so weird because the whole time, like, if you're a competent adult, you should know the whole time, like a grown-ass man's only around for one thing. Did they have a good relationship? You know, I think it was just, you know how, or maybe you know how, I just I've grown up in the military community so much. If you're a veteran, you see a veteran, you're veterans.

Okay. Yeah. You know, it was like, they had something to bond over in a way. Yes. Okay. Yep. And then, you know, of course my dad being, he was a major in the Green Bray Special Forces. So he was, you know, higher up.

He saw my, the fruit salad, as they call it, all of the different badges and awards on Ian's uniform. And, you know, he does have a purple heart. He has a bronze star for valor. He saw active combat and was actually saved by a Medal of Honor recipient, Ross McGinnis, who unfortunately passed. passed away during the incident that wounded him and all the other men. So there's just a lot of pomp and circumstance. And that's one of the things that has been so hard about talking out about this.

And even getting out of the abuse when I was in the marriage, he was a wounded warrior. He is a wounded warrior. He's highly decorated. He's all these things, all this charisma. But it's just fake. It's a mask. Yeah. But when nobody sees what's going on behind the door and all they see is this highly decorated military hero, why would they believe me?

And that's been iterated honestly in the judicial system. He has gotten off free three different times now with three different women for domestic violence arrest because he has a good military record. doesn't matter that he's now been arrested multiple times for the same offense he's got a good military record and that's the thing that honestly you know brought me to talking to you to posting on instagram and on tic talk i am now as a 28 year old woman looking at getting a hysterectomy in january and a full reconstruction because of the horrible things he did to me i will never have any more children, I will have to live with these injuries for the rest of my life. Even after this surgery, I will probably have to get additional surgeries every 10 to 15 years to keep my

insights from falling out. Yeah. I have our child, which I am very happy has nothing to do with legally he doesn't have any of his parental rights. But I have an entire human that I've been raising since I was also a 19-year-old child. Yeah. And he's off completely scotch-free. he's living his life he's going to military events and meeting five star retired generals and none of that is okay right you know i don't believe that somebody that is a representation of the military whether you're a wounded warrior active duty should be at these type of events and be so apportionally put up when they have just a just a laundry list of some pretty horrific offenses.

So basically, so you're back with your dad and he's there with you. And you were 18 at this point? Nope. Nope. Still 17. Still 17. Still 17. Still a minor.

Okay. And this is when, like when he's in the oil field and I'm at home, he starts really, really pushing me to send porn back and forth to each other. And this is like the very first semblance of me feeling like not good about it. Okay. So this was like the first thing that started getting weird in the relationship. Yeah. Yeah, because I wasn't into it. Yeah. I didn't like the pornography. Right. But he would be, you know, up in Williston or whatever, you know, we'd be talking on the phone late at night. Because, you know, typical young love high schooler, like we're talking every night. We're talking for hours. I'm texting him all day long. You know,

he would get, I didn't know at the time because he was like, oh, no, I'm not drinking. I'm not drinking. Because he's always had a problem with drinking. And he was supposed to be being sober. He wasn't being sober up there. So he would get drunk and he'd message me. He'd be like, oh, you know, look at these videos. I sent you in your email. Tell me what you think, what you like about and which one's your favorite. And they'd be like, okay, watch like two or three videos and then send them to me.

And then he'd be like, oh, look this up and look that up. And like pretty much just like... Like planting things. But like coaching me along the way, not even just planting, but pretty much like, here, do this. Right. Look at that. And it was, you know, like when you're in a new relationship and you don't want to like upset your partner, it was partially that because like he's a grown man. We've been doing these things. Like how do I tell him I'm not starting to feel comfortable with this? So there was starting to be like some of that. And I think I even kind of verbalized not liking it. So he'd like kind of like cool down for a little bit. But then we would have like a weekend where he'd be in North Dakota. And we'd tell my dad, oh, we're just going to go to him. movie and have dinner.

Well, he'd actually go get a hotel room and buy liquor and we'd like do all courts of crazy shit and have sexual relations in a hotel room in Fargo under the guise that we were just going to dinner. You know, that's what we were telling my parents at the time. And it's just so gross because I am a minor actively lying this whole time. I don't know better. I am still a minor child. But yet this grown-ass 30-year-old man is just like facilitating all of it, like this grand master plan.

And, you know, there is, so let's see, I moved in September. So we had October, November, December that I lived with my dad. And then I turned 18 in January. Literally the weekend after I turned 18, we got all of my stuff packed up. We put my car on a dolly and we drove back up to Colorado. I'm Anna Garcia, host of True Crime News, the podcast. Every week, we bring you in-depth coverage on cases making headlines, as well as those that go under the radar. Tune in for murders that defy explanation, mystery seeking exploration, and shocking secrets that will leave you breathless.

Each week, we honor the victims by going beyond the salacious in our search for justice. Crime never stops, and neither do we. Listen to True Crime News available now wherever you get your podcasts. So you and him moved back to Colorado together? Yep. And you were going to get your GED at this point? I'd already gotten my GED. Already got it?

Okay. Which, I mean, I'm just so, that's one of those things that I will always probably be upset with myself that I did. I never, I didn't have a good high school experience. And I didn't even get to graduate. I didn't get to walk. I didn't get any of those things that most young people get. You know, when I was younger, not attractive. Like, I didn't get asked to homecoming.

I didn't get asked to prom. I didn't have boyfriends or, you know, high school dates. And I didn't even get to walk. I was just robbed of so much of it. And then essentially robbed of my entire young adulthood as well. Because, you know, the moment I turned 18 and married him, I was actively living a life like I was a 30-plus-year-old woman. because he was in his 30s. All of his friends were in his 30s.

You know, I did everything in my power to not act like a brand new 18-year-old that I was. And when we moved back from North Dakota to Colorado, that's when stuff got really, really bad. And that's when he started doing what I call the pornathons. And this is where things really started, like those light bulbs started clicking, but it was already almost too late. Yeah. He would, and I don't even know how, and he's not a normal human. So like, I pressed at that, like, I don't know how a normal human does this, but he's not normal. He would get belligerently drunk, like, where he'd have me go shot for shot with him.

And in the beginning, he wasn't, like, really coercive and abusive about it. It was like, oh, yeah, we're having fun. We're going to drink, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, yeah, we're having fun. We're going to drink, blah, blah, blah. but when I started to not want to drink heavily a whole ass bottle every night, that's where the subliminal mind games came in. That's where the coercion came in.

That's where he would get really angry. And I'd be more afraid of his anger than just getting fucked up. I'd be like, okay, you know, I'd rather not poke the bear. I'll just keep taking shots with you. And that is the same way it started kind of convolutingly crashing down. with a lot of the pornography. He'd be drinking belligerently, shot for shot for shot, while actively forcing me to watch pornography with him.

I kid you not for literal hours. Hours. And if I wanted to go to bed, if I didn't want to do it anymore, you know, at first it was, oh, don't go to bed, this, that, and another. But it'd get more mean. It get more aggressive, more abusive to the point where I remember one, time I was, you know, we're fucking drunk. I don't want to be doing this anymore. I'm finally like, I'm done. I'm going to bed. And he got real angry at me and he like followed me to the bedroom

and he wouldn't let me go to sleep. He'd be like flipping the lights on at me. And that's where stuff started to finally become more coercive and more abusive. And that was before we even got married. Wow. So and again, you're like, I'm, I'm just taken aback, right? So I'm like, okay, well, X, Y, Z, I'm explaining it off, I'm justifying it, I'm literally a brand new 18 year old child still with a 30 year old man who's acting fucking crazy now. So he ends up leaving to go to the oil fields for like two weeks, leaves me completely alone. I just went from living with my parents to moving in with him. Like they didn't even let me stay home alone at night.

Yeah. And now I'm just completely alone in a new town. actually weren't even in town. We were outside of town living on a cattle ranch. So like no matter how drunk he got and how loud and crazy he got, we were in the fucking middle of nowhere. Yeah, no one would hear. Oh, God, no.

No. So he ended up leaving. I was like, okay, well, I'll get the house all put together. I ended up unpacking pretty much his entire life because I didn't have my own furniture. All of the stuff that we got out of his storage was from his last marriage. So I was unpacking his ex-wife's clothes. I was unpacking, like, pictures of his family, of his children. Like, you know how most people will keep, like, Valentine's Day cards and sweet sentimental

things from, like, their partner? Like, I found a whole box of that from his ex-wife. And I'm just, like, left with all this stuff in a house by myself trying to put together, like, a quote-unquote home. And he didn't, at this point, he had no relationship with the other kids, right? No, no. So that has been very, very tumultuous between the kids he had with his first marriage. And that was the crazy thing. Like after we did get married that following summer, his kids came out to stay with us for a couple weeks. And I was barely, I was 19 and his daughter turned 12 while we were there. And her birthday, like she's the same age as my little sister. like their birthdays within a week of each other. So I had a stepchild.

Yeah. And I love her to death. I still, like, she is an amazing human, but being so young. Yeah. And having, like, a whole ass stepchild that was six years younger than me? Right. That just sounds weird. It's crazy.

So when he came back from the oil fields, he, I say proposed, but it was like such a non-perpose. proposal proposed, like he proposed to me. And then literally two days later, we got married by the church we were going to. Oh, yeah. And I forgot to mention this whole time when I first met Ian, he was a youth group pastor, working with kids my age being their youth group pastor. Yeah, we were going to church. We were going to church this whole time at this one church in Kiowa. And like, they ended up marrying me. Like literally we went to the church. I didn't even have a dress. I just had like a white top. He was of course in his military greens because like even though military greens got discontinued and now all military personnel wear like the blues, he still

wears his greens to fucking everything. And you're not supposed to wear your active duty like uniform. Uniform when you're not active duty anymore. So he shouldn't have even been wearing it all the time. He still wears it all the time and is fucking hilarious. It sounds like he just like this whole thing, it's just like a facade, like it's a shell, an external shell, that he just puts on all of these, like, perfect acts to look like he's one way when he's really nothing like that. He will literally introduce himself, hi, I'm Ian Newellyn, I'm a wounded warrior. Like, I'm in contact with his other survivors, and we've talked a little bit. And we even joke about it because that's like his whole thing. He's a wounded warrior. He's a

hero. He's military. And like, literally, I'm Ian Newellin. I'm a wounded warrior. Like, and he just plays the system so hard. Like he already gets over $3,000 a month from his retirement for serving and getting blown up. But every single opportunity he can get a free something, a free trip, a free anything. Hi, I'm Ian Newland. I'm a wounded warrior. Like the amount of trips and shit this man has been on is ridiculous.

Like he just goes to all the different nonprofits and milks them and milks them and milks them. And it's just honestly sickening. And he's been doing it now for 15 years, you know. So I digress. He ends up proposing to me. And two days later we get quote unquote married, you know, at the church. And it's like the pastor, the pastor's son and his wife are like our witnesses. All of that now just seems so ick.

I'm just all wrong. Yeah. And then it was absolutely. horrible. So, you know, we get married. And I'm like, oh my gosh, we're married. I'm his wife. He's my husband. Like, in my little child brain, I'm like all the fantasies, all the love, the happy ending. Oh, boy, did it come crashing down that night. So not only did we not come home and have a beautiful, you know, like sexual encounter like I'd imagined for my wedding night. We got fucked up and had another pornathon. And then by the time he finally did want me, his brand new life, you know, we had

sexual relations for a minute. And then he flipped me over and sodomized me and called me his little boy on my fucking wedding night, quote-unquote wedding night. Jesus. And then he left, I want to say not even two days later, to be gone for another two to three weeks. Do you think that like after, like literally, as soon as you got me, married. It was kind of like. Masked off. Right.

I was going to say that's what it seems like. Yeah. And I remember. Like that was his goal in a way. Yeah. And I remember because after that happened and he, you know, said what he said. Like it was like something out of a movie. He literally just rolled over and passed out.

And I remember just being horrified. Just like crying and crying and crying. Right. Like not even being able to like comprehend what it just happened to me because it was just so wildly wrong. Or even, too, I feel like the confusion of like, who is this person? You know, that I just married, right? Yeah.

And, you know, with some of the pornathons and kind of the aggressiveness, the mask had been slipping. But it was like literally the night that we got. And I say quote unquote married because after he was finally removed three years later, I found out he was never fully divorced from his first wife when he married me. So we didn't even have a divorce. We had an invalidity of marriage. Yeah. So that's why I say quote unquote because like it wasn't even legally binding.

Yeah. And I stayed so long in this relationship because I grew up very, very Christian. I grew up that you serve your husband. Divorce is a sin and God sees all sin the same. So the way I was brought up, divorcing your husband in the eyes of the Lord is just as bad as fucking murdering someone. And that was too much for my little brain and my little heart. Because not only did I pick a monster and now it was just absolutely horrified, like, whoa my God, what have I done?

But now I'm married to him. I'm religiously bound to him by my faith, thinking that I'm literally going to go to like hell or disgrace God by leaving an abusive marriage. And like, I didn't because I thought we were married. And that's, you know, he would weaponize the church and he would weaponize our religion. And he'd, oh, yeah, he'd like, oh, blah, blah, blah. Like, we'll go to church. We'll go to Christian counseling, all this stuff.

Like, you know, keep putting in my brain the Christian, Christian, Christian, it's a sin. You know, God will hate you. But then completely acting like very much not a godly husband or godly man. but there was just such a dissonance there. You just like you can't even like for a normal young, young person. I was still 18. I was a baby, you know. I see my siblings now who are 20, 22, almost 18 and I'm like, Jesus Christ, your babies.

So it just, it was just so, it was like so well thought out on his end. Right. You know, and that's, he is a predator in the truest sense. And people like him who have a patterning like that. And unfortunately, people that are like pedo-proverted or narcissistic, they have very, very similar ways of going about things. And it's, they're like sharks in the water. Was there anything?

Like, you know, you'll have women that are like, I have such bad taste in men. I can't pick them. I always pick the worst men. And we get that like pushed into our brain. It's our fault that we picked these bad men. Why can't I find a good relationship? Honey, there's sharks in the water.

They're looking for that blood. They're looking for a bad upbraining. They're looking for a young, vulnerable child, who doesn't have good family relations, who is so like starving for love and affection they'll bite that hook. You know, that is exactly what that kind of person looks for. They are a shark in water.

So he left for two days? Two or three weeks. Okay. Because he was in the oil fields. Yeah. And I remember, and it's so sad now because I know why I was so depressed because of what he did to me. Right.

But those two or three weeks, I was so depressed. And I couldn't figure out why. And I remember, like, because we would go to Lifetime Fitness, up in Parker. We worked out all the time. That was like our big thing we lifted like every day. He was really, really into lifting and physical fitness.

And I remember just like not being able to hold my shit together. Like one time I got to the car and I called him and I just started like hysterically crying. And I didn't know why. And now in hindsight it was because I had just been abused and traumatized. Like there was part of my young, still child brain because I mean I wasn't even like at that point in time had I still been in like not dropped out I still would have been in high school yeah I was still technically a high schooler like my brain couldn't handle what I'd been through so I had a lot of like emotional issues that two or three weeks that he was gone but when he came back we were leaving for a cruise to like Jamaica and the Bahamas for our honeymoon so it was like oh forget about all this horrible thing that just happened.

We're going on a cruise. We're going to go see different countries. It's our honeymoon. So, like, I think for protection, like psychological protection, there was part of me that just kind of, I wasn't getting out. I was already married to him. I had moved. My mom wasn't, like, for a while, my mom wasn't talking to me.

There was a good six months where she just, we didn't talk. It was just, I hurt her. Like, I fucked up. mom like I can't like it almost makes me want to cry I can't believe I fucking did that to her when she was literally the only person trying to keep me from that man yeah so I wasn't going to be like hey mom you're right you know at that point I wasn't even able to probably put those thoughts together yeah but like and it all happened so fast so fast you know like from September to January I mean gosh it was just September it feels like a

few weeks ago and it's going to be January for us before we know it. And even in general, like within the relationship, I feel like things took such a turn so fast. You know, it's like at that point, what else can you really think of? It's, I don't think at that point you're going to be looking back thinking, oh, like this, this, you know what I mean? Everything that led up to it, you're just going to be very in the moment. It's almost uncomprehensible for like a normal person and a normal brain. Yeah. You know, and that's some of the solace I get. Like, I will never be able to understand why some of these happened because I'm not sick, because I am, maybe not completely normal, but I'm almost there.

You know, I'm pretty, pretty okay. And, you know, if I ever start to understand why he did these things, that's probably not good because that means I finally lost it. Yeah. So, you know, we, he gets back. We end up going on our cruise. So, you know, honestly, you know, and this is my trauma brain. You know, you compartmentalize.

so you can survive. There were definitely parts of the honeymoon that sucked. We fought a lot. And I remember being upset because it felt like all we were doing was arguing. And I think part of that was, you know, due to what had happened to me on our wedding night. Like, I wasn't psychologically or cognitively there yet, but there was still a little bit of, like, the fuck in the back of my head. Because, you know, to be somebody in high school that wants to, like, get into mixed

martial arts and like punch and choke people out. Like I'm not usually a pushover. Like I've always been pretty freaking feisty and scrappy. So I think there was like that dissonance of there was the scrappy me. But then there was this such a fragile brand new adult that just got crushed that it kind of took the wind out of me for him. Because like, you know, you think like if somebody did something horrible to you or in the moment like you're getting attacked like oh yeah i totally fight back but until that happens until it's somebody that you love who you literally just married like you don't know how you're going to react or how you're going to be able to even handle that so i think like it just to have somebody i love to do something so horrible to me it just completely

took the wind out of me like just sucker punch to the soul right so i'm still just like trying to suck in air, like in the back of my brain. I'm just still trying to suck in air. Like, what the fuck just happened? But, you know, it's so, because again, we were drinking so much, that first year of our marriage until I got pregnant. We were just drinking so fucking much. And was the pornathon still happening? Thankfully, no, because on the cruise ship, you had to pay like a ridiculous amount of money for Wi-Fi. Yeah. So that was not happening there. You got a break from that. But kind of.

So one of the clubs, when we were drunk, he talked to me into kissing another woman. And that just seems so wrong on my honeymoon now. So that was just like one little compartment that was compartmentalized. When we got to Jamaica, we decided that we wanted to get some ecstasy. I've never done drugs before. He was like, oh, yeah, we should try to do this. And I'm sure I was like, oh, yeah, 100%. you're my husband. Let's do fun shit. So we got to Jamaica and we did some things,

but then we like took a taxi to this super sketchy place and like bought drugs from people. It was so sketchy, so, so, so fucking sketchy. And then we ended up tripping Molly in the itty-bitty little tiny cruise ship room, like when we were going from Jamaica to like stir up K Bahamas or something. So, you know, again, in the moment, it was like, oh, this is fun, this is exciting. But like, dear God, you took a brand new baby and your new wife to the middle of, like, downtown Jamaica, Ochos Rios. Like, we could have gotten kidnapped.

We could have gotten killed. Like, it was so sketchy. Like, the dude that was like, like, oh, I'll be right back. Stay in the van. Like, just so sketchy. It's like, wow, no, none of those were like good. Yeah, or normal. Why would you do that?

It's like that TikTok audio, why did you do that? I don't know. Yep. So, you know, it was like, but then because we took fucking street drugs, I got a horrendous kidney infection. So I ended up getting like really, really sick because. Still on the honeymoon? Yep. Still on the honeymoon.

We finally were done with the cruise, landed back in Florida. And he was so bad with money. and he was so bad at just adulting. We had missed our flight or something had happened and we had to stay with his mom in Florida for like a week until we got our next flight. But during that time, because his truck was still in North Dakota,

it got like repossessed. So like his truck was getting repossessed and all of his stuff was in it. We were like stranded in Florida with no money until he got paid again so we could get plane tickets out back to like Colorado. So that was just like, a couple weeks of just chaos and a lot of drinking and it was just like such a blur.

But we finally, you know, get back to Colorado after the quote-unquote honeymoon. And I don't remember if he did one more stint up in the oil fields or if that was it. But pretty much after the honeymoon, that's where he was back at the house full time with me. And the thing is, with Ian, he doesn't have to work because he doesn't have to work because he's, He's medically retired and gets quite a bit of money every month. So I wasn't really, like, allowed to have a job because it started, it's like where all of the little claws of control started, like, really getting in. So we were together 24-7.

Neither of us worked because he had his disability. So we would, like, wake up. We'd go to the gym. We'd work out for a couple hours. we'd come home and then usually start getting belligerently drunk. Like, and it's so hard to kind of pick it apart because it was like just the same day, like Groundhog's day over and over and over and over. And I remember at one point like not wanting to drink anymore, not wanting to do this or anything.

And it really like one big like pinpoint in the timeline, we had one of his or his military buddies over because he still had a whole bunch of guys in Colorado that he knew that he served with or just knew through the military all that. And, you know, they'd come over. We'd get super drunk. We'd play strip poker. We'd go shooting. Like all of this crazy stuff. But I remember one time one of his buddies over was over Lesko. And we were drinking and doing all this stuff. And I wanted to be done for the night. And again, like super drunk. So I don't remember this like 100% clear. And it was again, another one of those times where I just was trying to go to bed. And he wouldn't let me go to bed. And he was being really aggressive and really mean. And I remember he grabbed me by my shirt and he

like ripped. I was like a tank top. He like ripped my tank top. And I don't know how it ended up escalating to where it did. And I only call it this because this is what he called it. And I don't know what other term it was. He fish hooked me, which is where he took his finger and like put in my mouth and grabbed me by my cheek. And I still have scars on the inside of the mouth from where he like grabbed me and pulled me by the inside of my cheek so hard. And that was like July. I remember that being July. And that's where the very first times like, and it's interesting. I'm like, oh yeah, that's like one of the very first times he abused me. But after going through all the therapy and everything, I was like, no, he started being abusive very much before that. Definitely

like wedding night was non-consensual. But that. was like one of the really big pinpoints of like this is when he started getting like physically aggressive um and a lot more like into the fall and stuff i honestly don't remember too well um i lost a lot of men um when he was active duty in theater so he had just dates upon dates upon dates of this date is when, you know, this guy died. This is when Mock got cut in half by an RPG. This is this day. This is that day.

So not only was I having to like kind of damage control his severe post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury. And he had, he was blown up. Like he had some very severe injuries. So not only was I having to circumvent him and do damage control of just being like a not great abusive partner, but then he'd be getting so much more emotionally off the hinge around all of these different dates that he lost men and he would drink more. And Ian was never a kind person, but he was always abusive when he drank.

As soon as he started drinking, I'd get scared because I knew he was, it was like one plus two equals three. Every time he drank, he got scary. So during like the fall and Christmas, because there are so many freaking dates, that's just such a convoluted time at any of the years that we are married. But we ended up getting the house up closer to like Denver Boulder. We got in with a nonprofit that was awarding homes to military families if they did this like financial plan, financial certification with them for three years. So we were accepted into this. program. We got the house that I have currently live in. And for three years, every single month, we had to check in with our financial advisor. We'd go through all of these different things.

We were paying off our debt. We had a very small amount. We would pay them every month that ended up just at the end of the three years going to pay off like the paperwork fees for switching the title over and such. So we were in the new house for just a few months. And then literally the day after I turned 19, I found out I was pregnant. And this is something that's absolutely crazy, just another layer of crazy on top of the crazy. So some people that are abusive will use getting their partner pregnant as another control factor, as another way to keep them in the relationship to make it harder for them to leave.

Like very similar to how they won't let you have a job because then you can't support yourself. How are you ever supposed to leave kind of the same long, along the same lines with children? It can be another abuse tactic. So Ian can totally have children. But he told me that due to the way that he was wounded in Iraq, that the VA said he couldn't have children. that it was like one in a million percent chance. I wasn't ready to be a mom. I didn't want to have kids until I was 25.

Like I honestly never wanted to have kids after raising my siblings. But, you know, I was like, well, maybe when I'm 25. Well, after my husband told me he was infertled due to being wounded, like a normal person, I believed him. So we ended up getting pregnant. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's a miracle baby. Oh, my God. When in reality, he was just lying to me, the whole thing. whole time just to get me pregnant. But so, you know, I turned 19 in January day after I find out

I'm pregnant with my daughter. And honestly, it was really, really exciting because in my head, we were never supposed to be having children. I was excited, you know, at this time my mom's back in my life because she's now realized if she's going to have anything to do with me, she's going to need to kind of grin and bear it around Ian. So we start getting back in their lives. And were going over for holidays, this, that, and another. A couple weeks after I became pregnant, I started getting morning sickness. And then I started getting very, very, very severe morning sickness where I was violently throwing up so horribly that I had to go to the hospital or else I was going to like

literally throw myself up to death because I was just literally throwing up all of the hydration I had out of myself. And any time I try to take any drink, I just continue to throw up, throw up, throw up, throw up, throw up. So it took a little while because that's right when like Obamacare happened and everybody had to get medical insurance. So I ended up getting medical insurance and I had to wait, you know, all the paperwork for everything to go through. And it was about at my three month appointment. I finally got into the doctor and I was like 15 pounds less than my starting weight when I first became pregnant. I was a young mom, so I was in a higher demographic of issues. It's like after 40 and before 20 or high risk pregnancies. I didn't know that.

So I don't know if it was just my body having baby, my body being young, or the abuse I was enduring or all three, I couldn't hold anything down. I had to be put on endosron every eight hours. and that's what they give to chemo and radiation patients to make them stop, like, violently throwing up. And I had to take that every single eight hours for the rest of the pregnancy, or I quite literally, like, it would be, like, on the dot. And I just start just... Even when you were, like, almost due?

Yep. Wow. I threw up every single day, including the day that I gave birth to her. Oh, my gosh. But so I'm, like, violently ill. And he kept going to work out. And he would be gone for, like, literally four or five. six hours.

Like, yeah, sometimes we'd work out for like two or three hours, but like, you shouldn't be gone for six. And he'd leave me alone, horrifically ill. I remember one time, you know, because I wouldn't like shower every day because I was a sick pregnant person, but, you know, I'd have to shower and I'd still be getting sick every morning, even taking my endostrone, most days I did still throw up. And sometimes I couldn't even keep the medicine down. Like, it was a dissolvable tablet under my tongue, and I couldn't stop throwing up for

it to even dissolve sometimes. And I remember I was in the shower just trying to like clean myself. And I started passing out. So I like laid down in the tub. And I'm like a few months pregnant. I'm like five or six months pregnant. Like I've got a little bit of a tummy. And every time I try to like pull myself up to get just out of the tub, I'd block out again.

And I don't know how long I was like that just trying to get out of the tub, like literally just passing out, passing out, passing out. Because he was gone. Like the whole pregnancy. There's no support at all. Oh, God. and just being so atrociously sick, around seven months, because when I started being so sick, every week a nurse would come do a home visit. Like, I was that kind of sick.

And one of the home visits, you know, we're just talking and everything. And like always, she'd put like the blood pressure cuff on me, take my vitals. And she's like, oh, honey, we need to go to the ER right now. I'm like, what? What's wrong? And I don't remember what the blood cuff said anymore because, you know, if I try to tell you now I'm going to get it all messed up. But I was pretty much about to have a stroke. Like I was something crazy like 170 over something. Like I was about to have a stroke and we rushed me

to the ER. And from seven months on, I pretty much had to not only be on endostrone every eight hours, but then I pretty much was on bed rest and had to take my blood pressure three times a day to make sure I wasn't going to literally have a stroke and die. Right. And all the while, he's still being not sexually abusive because thank fucking God he didn't. make me do stuff when I was pregnant, but he was so fucking scary. I remember one time we were in the kitchen and I think it was a date of one of the days his guys died or maybe it was just a bad day. I don't remember. He was drunk. And growing up with my father who had PTSD and anger issues, like I'm not good around loud, aggressive men. I'm not, like if you slam your hand down on the

table, like that startles most people, but that will probably make me have like a panic attack. I was like pregnant and Ian's going off and whatever. And I remember he just started going off and he like smacked his hand down or something or anything. And I got really, really scared. And there's a like we have our fridge and there's a little bit of a space where we keep like our brooms and stuff. I think it's meant like if we had one of the really nice like double door fridges. But I was so terrified of him. And in the moment just like pure fear took over.

I literally like squeezed myself into that corner and like was just like putting my hands up. like having a full mental breakdown because I was just so terrified of him. So finally, September rolls along and I finally, finally, finally have my daughter. And it was actually pretty scary. So I decided that I did not want an epidural because honestly, somebody shoving a needle into my spine was much more terrifying than just having like normal childbirth. So I got to be in like the bathtub. I spent most of my labor in the bathtub because it just hurt.

But every once in a while they'd have me come back to the bed and they'd put the fetal doppler on to check the baby's heart rate and see how far I've dilated if I'm ready to give birth and all that. And I'd just gotten out of the bathtub. They're doing the fetal doppler and everything. They were just about to take it off. And my daughter's heart rate literally stops. Something happened where like the cord got caught or the cord like pinched inside me.

And all of a sudden they're like throwing my family out, like doctors and nurses are running in. They flip me over, they put me on oxygen. They're like, sorry, this is a little graphic, but like one nurse is like from the inside trying to rotate my daughter. Another nurse is pushing on the outside of my tummy. And I hear somebody like, emergency cesarean, like the alarms are going off. People are yelling. And finally, I don't know what they did. But they turned her just enough.

Her heart starts going up again. So literally had we taken that Doppler off a moment early or I had gotten out of the bath a little bit earlier, she would have died. I would have given birth to a stillborn. Wow. So thank God she is born. She comes out and she's like the idious, bitty little thing. She's only, so the nurse actually rounded up for us so she wouldn't be preemie weight. She was five pounds, 10 ounces when she was born.

Yeah, it came out. with just crazy dark hair. Ian's Native American, he's Apache. So my daughter, I'm not quite sure the exact percentage, but she's, I think, like, 30, 40% Apache, came out just like, squinty little eyes, dark, dark hair. I'm like, oh my God, what child is this? But, you know, it was, she got here.

And honestly, I'm so fucking thankful for my child. because I don't think I'd still be here without her. Not just like as a person giving me something to like live for, but she was the catalyst that got me out. So after Anna was born, what ended up getting to like the really bad like trafficking and stuff. So with Ian and his sexual depravity and like the pornathons, he was really into like wanting to be a swinger,

wanting to go to the swinger clubs and like all this stuff. And that was something I just like, no. And he'd like fantasy talk where he'd be like, oh, I want you to go find somebody and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then like tell me about it or like bring them back. Like pretty much just a lot of like really gross. Like I don't want to say gross because to each their own. But for me it felt very gross and it was like really gray line. Because, you know, one part of our relationship, like, we're supposed to be this Christian couple, we're going to church, all this stuff, which is in, like, complete opposition of, like, being in a swinger relationship and, like, swapping partners and stuff.

So, again, like, that dissonance in my young brain was really, really hard to even, like, comprehend why it felt so wrong. But you like really started pushing like wanting to go to the swinger clubs and all this. And I just had on a, I was only a couple months post-pregnancy, postpartum. And I just started going back to the gym. And I met somebody. And this is where I take my own responsibility for what I did, but to an extent. I started talking to this person. I started liking them.

And I was for my own morality, I was going outside the back. of our relationship, but at the same time, we were talking about being a swinger couple. So I wasn't, but I was, you know. So at one point I did end up just once kind of hooking up with this guy from the gym, and I immediately felt really, really bad about it. And I told Ian. Do you think he was hooking it with other people? Yeah, 100%.

He gave me like chlamydia when I was pregnant. Oh, lovely. Yeah, so like those hours and hours that he was gone, like, at the gym. Oh, no, 100%. He was not being faithful. Like, when you go in for your pregnancy appointments, like you usually do a urine sample every single time. They just, you know, check a whole shit ton of stuff.

Like, didn't have an STD, didn't have an STD, didn't have an STD, didn't have an SDD. Oh, all of a sudden, chlamydia. Like, where'd that come from? Dirty dick. Dude, and like, not to give you a little sneak freak here. he gave me HPV, which has led to my pre-cancerous diagnosis of having cervical cancer. One of the reasons I have to get my hysterectomy is because of his dirty dick. Like, seriously, dude.

And that's, like, not even one of the worst stories, dude. Like, one time, I don't remember this was, like, right after I had Anna or right before I got pregnant. But he was supposed to be going on base because he had an appointment and then go to the ConX and the PX, which is just like the grocery store. And he's like, oh yeah, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to stay the night. It's just going to be easier that way. I'm like, okay, whatever, totally believing him.

Until I see in the office on his Facebook that he has open, you know, back in the day when you get a message, it would just pop up in that little like message square. Yeah. So I'm just walking by the office. He's supposed to be on base and bloop. Like I see a little Facebook thing. I'm like, oh, you know, I'm just curious. I heard the sound go to see. It's this one notorious gay guy from Lifetime.

So what hotel does? did you get? And they're like talking back and forth to each other on Facebook and I'm like watching it happen life. He's like, oh, blah, blah, blah. I'm here. Oh, that's amazing. One time should I come over. What's the room? So he was hooking up with men too? He was hooking up with a gay man. So I'm like literally seeing all of this play out live. I call him and I'm like, so how's base? He's like, oh, it's great, this, that, and another. I'm going to hit the connecks soon. I'm like, oh, okay, okay. I give it about 30, 40 minutes until that gentleman was supposed to meet him at his room. I called the hotel and I am like, hi, blah, blah, blah.

My husband's staying in room number, whatever. Could you just patch me through to the phone line? So he answers the phone in his room. I'm like, so how's fucking base? What did he say? He didn't deny a single fucking thing of it and he refused to come home. So he still messed around with the gay guy and the gay guy's boyfriend. Wow.

Even though I literally called the hotel room and was like, wow. So lies. Yeah. They're like that man like to the truest extent is 100% like anti-social personality disorder or like legit sociopath. Because just the lack of any human emotion or anything that even resembles remorse. not existent. Right. Like nothing there but just like violence and anger.

Yeah. So what happened when you came home and you told him about the guy from the gym? So I told him. Like I felt bad. I was like, this is what I did. And he lost his ever loving fucking mind. He kicked on and I out for two weeks. Wouldn't let us come home.

I had to go stay with my mom. And I'm just like beside myself, right? So I'm not taking into account all of the horrible sexual things that have happened, all of the things that he's orchestrated, all of the seeds that have been planted, all of just the depravity, right? And all I can see is I'm a horrible wife and I've cheated on my husband. Not kind of seeing that like the gray areas of the swingers and, you know, feeling very scared and unsafe in a relationship doesn't really, allow you to leave in a safe way to, like, start a new relationship. So I 100% like take responsibility for, you know, not doing something morally upstanding.

But I didn't try to hide it. Like, I fucked up and I came home and I was like, I fucked up. We've been talking about some really gray area swing or shit. And I don't feel like I did was right. And he took that and ran with it. So, you know, Anna and I stay with my mom for old time. And I'm like just trying to get him to like let me come back home. And he's like, we're talking about all this stuff and like counseling and we're going to go to counseling.

And we pretty much come home on the guys that everything's okay. We're going to work through it. We're going to, of course, Christian counseling. And I'm like, this is great. You know, maybe this is what we needed, you know, to finally like fix our relationship. because throughout this whole time, like, we'd been going to different counselors, we'd been doing, like, you know, the partner bonding military events where, like, you're going to a said day or two event just to bond with, like, the military person and

their spouse to, like, create deeper bonds and all of that stuff. Like, we're doing all the things. I'm trying to get him to stop drinking. Like, I'm trying to, like, like, one time he had a whole suicide thing and he had to be in mental, like, God, how do you say this? Inpatient in the mental health ward of the VA, like, came, visited him, like, was trying to do fucking everything I could to help this man, you know, from war shit to, like, just physical ailment shit. And he, like, he finally lets me come home under this guise of, like, working on things. And I don't even know if that really lasted at all once I, like, got home. Because again, like the whole facade falls.

And his thing was pretty much, we're going to do what I want to do now, whether you like it or not, or I'm kicking you out and I'm keeping the child because I get to keep this house. I'm the wounded warrior. And since you struggled with postpartum depression, which I did for a time, you know, considering I was being abused the whole relationship in pregnancy, like big shocker I was having some depression issues you know spoke to my doctor about it had been put on antidepressants for a time he took that and completely weaponized it and was like I can take your child away from you they will give me full custody because of you saying that you have postpartum depression

i'm barely 20 years like i'm 20 years old i believe him like why wouldn't i believe him he's so much older than me. He's like a highly decorated veteran. Like, of course he could take my child away from me. Like, where would I even go? I don't have a house. I don't have a job. So I'm like, yeah, no, like, you know, okay, let's fix this, quote unquote, fix this. And it started with camming. Like he would, and it's hard because it wasn't like he was forcing me, like he had me by the back of my neck forcing me, but it was that psychological fear, the coercion, everything that would happen if I didn't do what he wanted to do. And I mean, he was, he didn't ever like hit me, but he was so physically aggressive,

like grabbing me, grabbing my clothes, doing the fish hook. He only thank God did it a handful of times, but like one of his favorite things, I'm not a very big person. I'm only five foot four. He would grab me by my shoulders and pick me up as high as he could and then throw me down onto the ground as hard as he could. I have a compressed SI joint in my back now from that. And, you know, when it is a completely horrifying feeling to feel that vulnerable,

to literally be picked up and just chucked across the room. So, you know, first it started with the camming and, like, doing things for cam and, like, taking a bunch of pictures together to put out on the porn sites for the like meetups and again all of this was so and even still I don't understand because he was doing all of the things he made the sites he was taking the pictures he was uploading things he was like we would he would have me live cam but he'd be the person doing all the laptop shit was he taking fully nude photos of you uh no nude photos and then also like like you know what cam girls do pretty much that so were you like masturbating on camera yep so it was

like masturbating on camera us doing things on camera and then people would pay to watch right something like that again i i wasn't you weren't controlling it you were just like a pawn yes and i wasn't i don't know if we made money i wasn't allowed to know these things if he did make money off of me I never knew and never saw any of it. Okay. So it kind of started out as that. But then that wasn't enough because he wanted to do what he wanted. And his thing was like, we're going to do this until I feel satisfied.

And then we're done. It wasn't like, oh, you just have to do this one thing or just have a threesome and we're even. No, like he took full, like, icky control. Did you guys ever meet up with anybody on the meetup sites? Yeah. So one couple, he drove me out to their apartment, and they had like a whole camming, like, they were well-known cameras. I don't even know if I'm using the correct terms.

Yeah, I don't know. They had like this whole site, a whole base, like they do all of these different things. Like they had a whole sex following. And he took me over there, you know, against my will. I didn't want to do any of these things. And we pretty much were doing cam stuff all four of us and doing like a soft swap. So that's pretty much where you're switching spouses, but you're not having like full sex. And I was very, very uncomfortable.

Like they were force feeding. They're like, here, drink, drink, drink. Like, I'm like, fuck, if it makes anything better, I'll drink, you know. And it just got to a point where I don't remember what happened, but we're like, okay, let's come back again later. because I don't know if it was me just not feeling good about things or I'd gotten drunk. I don't remember what it was, but the couple I don't think had any inkling that I wasn't consensual with all this. So then I think it was only a few days later. Maybe the next weekend we ended up coming back again and doing more stuff.

And that's where at one point, because, you know, we're live camming the whole time. Oh, God. I mean, again, they were just having me drink so much. So it's a little bit fuzzy, but they were trying to get me to dance. And I'm just not a dancer, whether I'm drunk or not. And I finally was like, I don't want to fucking dance. And instantly the whole vibe changed. And I think that's when that couple finally caught on that maybe I didn't really want to be there.

That it wasn't really my decision that I was being coerced into it. And thank God they kind of like closed it all down. And we didn't ever see them again. but that's when the worst of the stuff happened. So as you've heard, he liked men as well. And he had this whole thing, like his new fantasy after, I guess the cam couple didn't work out, was having a threesome with another man so that he could mess around with a dude and then both the dudes could mess around with me.

And this was something that I really did not. want to do because he wanted to do double penetration. He had this whole thing on feeling the other guy's dick through my body while they're both pretty much like raping me at the same time. So that happened and that was really, really, really bad with this one guy. And I remember I was drinking. But I think that to backtrack, Ian put was, I will never have a hundred percent proof of this. But I am quite positive that he was slowly poisoning me to try to kill me. Why do you think that? Because I started getting really sick. And then right after my 21st birthday, I had to have an emergency gallbladder removal because my gallbladder was so inflamed,

it was about to explode. So when they did remove my gallbladder and do the odd, thinking they fall like gallstones or something. Because to have a gallbladder removal surgery at 21 is highly unusual. Most people that have gallbladder issues are older, overweight, or eat a very fat, saturated diet. I was none of those things. I was training for a bodybuilding competition. I was very well fit.

When they did the autopsy, they found nothing. But after talking to another one of the survivors who she knows he was drugging her, I'm pretty sure he was putting something in my food to try to slowly kill me. But during that one bad trafficking incident with the other gentleman, I was drinking, but I got fucked up. Like, in a way, I've never gotten drunk before, like, date rape drug. Like, fucked up, something was in my drink. And they did the stuff, and I was just completely cathartic.

I was out of it, like, pretty much just, like, I can remember parts of it. but I think I was like they gave me too much of whatever they gave me I was not like I was pretty much just like a wet noodle so they ended up stopping and having Larry come back again so that whole horrible thing ended up having a second time and of them both yep having sex with you the same time yep because I guess they gave me too much of whatever the first time so you know I still, like, I want to say it was my choice to drink, but I don't really think it was my choice to drink. Because if I would have said no, I wouldn't have like, I would have been drinking anyways.

So I feel like, I'm like, okay, well, at least it was my choice to drink for any of it. So I say that. I'm like, oh, yeah, I chose to drink. But I think that's just psychologically me feeling like I had some semblance of any choice in any of this. But in reality, I don't think I would have had the choice not to drink. I'm sure he would have been like, no, you're fucking taking shot. But no, that last time, and I, and this is something like when I talked to the forensic

interviewers, when I brought the case against him for our county, I don't really remember what happened at the very end of that last session with the two of them. I was gone. Like, I left my body. I was so broken. that I don't really remember the next few weeks after that. I know that after that around that time, that's when things finally started to stop with like the four sexual stuff.

But yeah, I just think psychologically my mind finally broke. And it was really, really horrible because the entire time that he was making me do these things, You know, my daughter wasn't like there in the room, but she was there in the house. And I remember that very last time, you know, part of Lee, like probably what broke me so much, every fiber in my body wanted to fight back. Every fiber in my body wanted to scream. But my daughter was asleep in the next room. And I was so terrified what he would do not just to me, but to her.

And I think that's, you know, that's, you know, that's, you know, Your brain can, your mind can only take so much sometimes. Yeah. And I was still, I was only 20. Just a 21 year old baby, you know? Sorry. I think I ended up turning 21 a little bit later after all of the things. Again, he was just like, I called it the three months of hell.

Because it was like January to March or February to April. And again, when nobody in the house. is working and you're just like living the same day over and over and over again, like stuff gets kind of like when exactly what month was this? Because January was just like February, February was just like March. That, you know, finally things calm down. They stopped. And I don't, I don't even, I could not tell you exactly why he decided to finally stop. So for like those three months, it was just constant forced sexual acts. Like every day. Yeah. Whether. it was having people or someone come over or going over to somebody or just like having me do

cam stuff or the pornathons. And I can remember at times like, you know, when I had pretty much given up knowing that like I wasn't going to be able to say no, I wasn't going to be able to go to bed. I would just like sit there and pretend to masturbate like literally on like the side of my bond, you know, like the little hump just like, you know, like, you. Yep, uh-huh, I'm sure doing this with you. Yeah. Because, like, I had no other option. I wasn't allowed to stop.

I wasn't allowed to go to bed. I wasn't allowed to say no. So whenever other people were involved, was he always participating as well? Or, okay, so he was always part of it. Yeah. Yeah. And I found out later that Larry, the guy that helped him pretty much with the gang rape, he knew what they were doing. He knew.

because after me, when he finally, thank fucking God, like a year later, got removed by our local police department. So the thing with Colorado that's really cool, if the police come for domestic violence, I forget what they call that, like just come to the house for a domestic violence incident. And I don't know if this is still holds true

because it's been 10 years later now, but Colorado had like a battered women's life. law with after the third time of coming for domestic violence altercation, the state would remove the offender instead of the woman because she is too battered to be making like level-minded decisions. So thank fucking God, like the PD like yeeded him out of the house. It was April 22nd, 2016. I'll never forget the fucking date. That was the last time he was ever, ever in my house. So you called the police on him? That was just such a bad night.

So I have one more question before that. Were you telling your mom about everything that was happening? Oh, God. No, no, no. Kept to yourself? Yep. There was at one point when I first, like when Ian kicked us out and I stayed with my mom for like two or three weeks, she came to me and she's like, I think there's abuse happening here.

but pre all of the horrible sexual stuff I just wasn't even able to see it like that because I was just living through it and I was like no no mom blah blah blah blah but no I mean my mom was spot spot on I think she maybe had some inkling but there's no fucking way

she actually knew this extent or any of like the sexual stuff Yeah. You know, that took me, like literally took me five years of pretty intense therapy to even be able to talk about. Because when he was removed finally, it was just for domestic violence. I didn't come forward or say anything about what had happened the year earlier because there's no fucking way I could. You know, had my body not started falling apart, I was going to take that to my grave. I was never, ever, ever going to tell people what happened to me.

But because of getting raped in that way being double penetrated, it literally like broke my butthole, broke my rectum. So I have to get, so what happened is it's called a rectocil. So you have like, sorry for the grossness. You know, you've got your rectum, obviously, where your poop comes out, which is very close to your vaginal, vaginal cavity and tunnel as well. In between, it's called your predium. That's like that little space between the two holes that we all have.

It's just a layer of tissue that kind of like separates those two tubes. So during all of the trauma, my rectum made a 90 degree little like pouch. So instead of going forward, like loop because of all of the trauma that happened. So progressively having to go to the bathroom every day and use my rectum, that pocket got bigger and bigger and bigger until I wasn't able to get my poop to come out. I was 23 years old and I'm like, what the fuck is happening? So I had to start essentially pressing on that in-between to cause like a little bit of pressure. Pressure? Yeah, like structure since my wall was broken, so the poop could come out.

And I lived that way for like two or three years. Like, oh, this is normal. Like, I'm just constipated. And I had had my gallbladder out. So I was like, oh, you know, my tummy was really weird after having a gallbladder removed, had some pretty weird cha-cha tummy for a little bit until my body decided what it was doing. So I'm like, oh, you know, this is normal. It's probably for my gallbladder surgery until it was very, very apparent.

it was not normal. And that's where between my body starting to kind of fall apart a little bit whilst I was doing therapy, it finally came to this beautiful cataclysm of I was well enough mentally and unwell enough physically to finally come to my doctor and be like, so this happened. And that's what's led now to over a year of being in medical appointments and And far more tests than I care to even go into that we finally found out what was wrong. So I'll have to, you know, get a hysterectomy for the pre, since I'm pre-cancerous. But then they'll have to go in and repair the rectocil and then siture my butthole back up where it's supposed to be.

And that won't be a forever fix. I'll have to come get retouched up every 10 to 15 years until medical. advancements catch up. Yeah. That was just crazy. Yeah. And the fucked up thing after Ian was removed, not very long afterwards, he got in another relationship, of course, because that's what abusive narcissistics do.

And he also did horrible sexual things to that other survivor and trafficked her. And do you want to know who else helped with that? Larry, the same man that did the same things with me and Ian, and he 100% knew that the other survivor did not want to do any of that. Right. And was in cahoots. Oh, hi, the baby. This is Kitty.

Again, she comes every time. Hi, baby. Oh, hi. I can't with her. Hi. I know my hands are a little sweaty. I'm sorry. What are you doing?

Good morning. Oh, that's the best part of this whole show now. Oh, I know. She's just, she always says, can you get your, your butt out of the screen maybe? Just maybe? I was going to ask you. I was going to ask something based on what you said. It's gone now.

If I think about it, I'll, I'll ask. But, yeah. So, you know, not only did this other man do something horrible to me with Ian. And for the longest time, I didn't think that Larry knew what was. was going on. Right. Until I connected with the survivor after me who, like, she even like during all of the things that were happening to her that were non-consensual, like she openly verbalized.

She didn't want to do this to both of them. And they both did not give two fucking shits. Right. You know, and he now after talking to his ex-wife before me, myself, one of the other survivors, all of which happened in Colorado, by the way. my case through my county got closed even though there's other survivors they're just not in my county

so it doesn't matter doesn't matter but that's why I'm so happy that the military criminal investigation division has gotten involved because they're feds they're actual federal so like I'm like just please honestly anything can we just get him for anything well also the fact that it started when you were so young like you were a minor when everything started so

We have the stature of limitations, though. So you can only, and this is stuff that I'm not super well versed in. It's what Biden wants to change. He wants to change the stature of limitations so that it doesn't matter when it happens. You can come forward at any time. Right. So if that actually does go through and pass, I could have actual federal grounds. Because in the state of Colorado, 17 is the age of consent.

Not in fucking North Dakota. Yeah. Not Wyoming. So all of those things can even, and that's the thing, I may have been consensual at those moments, but legally, a underage child, a minor cannot consent to sexual activities with an adult because they're a minor. Yeah. So even though I was like, oh yeah, I'm big bad in 17, like, no, I was still, I was a

child, I was still a minor. Yeah. So my consent doesn't count because I'm not. I was a baby. Right. So when you told your doctor everything, was she kind of like, oh, it makes sense now? Like, did they completely reevaluate? So it was my therapist who really helped me get to the point of talking to my doctor,

giving me, like, the confidence of even using the word that I was extorted or trafficked. Because those seem like really big, scary words, especially how in modern society and mainstream media, they're portrayed, like you get kidnapped and brought to a different country. But in all reality, that's a very small fraction of how human trafficking happens or how extortion, sexual extortion can happen in a relationship. Yeah, I was going to say, I want you to explain that because I know that I, you know, I think a lot of people, like you said, when they hear sex trafficking, that's what they assume and that's immediately what they jump to.

Yep. So yeah, I want you to explain that too. So people have an understanding as well. Yeah. So, you know, all of a lot of us, when we think of something. sex trafficking, we think of how it's been portrayed in the movies. Like, you go to a different country and some traffickers find you and eat you away and you're never seen, or, you know, you're traveling somewhere maybe in like New York City and you get kidnapped and brought to Mexico.

Yes, that does happen. I'm not going to, you know, say percentages because I don't know any accurate ones, but there is a very large demographic that that's not how it happens. So extortion, whether it's financial or sexual is anything that you are made to do by pretty much blackmail. So like you need to do this or I'm going to take your child away from you. Extortion. Forcing somebody to do sexual acts to be able to continue to have their home to not get kicked out, that's trafficking. That's essentially like you're being a pimp.

So if you live and I'm just going to try to put out, like an example here. So let's say you have a partner and you're both living together in the apartment. Maybe the one person has all their names on the apartment and the bills. And they're like, okay, you can only stay here and continue to be my girlfriend if you start camming and you make money for us or else you're getting kicked out. Yeah. That's sex trafficking.

If you live in, if you're a foster child and you are living in a foster home and your foster parents are taking pictures of you, taking videos of you, putting them out on Pornhub, doing things with you or bringing you to other people, that's sex trafficking. Right. You know? Yeah. And it's, part of me wants, I want to do more research and really, really delve into what it looks. what it looks like here in America, you know, realistically. But also it's kind of a scary thing to look into because it is significantly more prevalent than any of us would like to know.

Right. You know, even just the amount of abuse and sexual abuse that goes on in the foster care system is more than horrific. And barely anybody knows about it. And nobody does anything about it. Right. You know, you have, oh, God, what is it? There's, like, something like 15,000 foster kids right now that are adoptable in America

that are just in the system. Right. And, like, different states will, like, lose foster children. Like, I don't know if you've seen that in the news where, like, oh, yeah, X amount of foster children have been lost in Texas. Like, what? Right. Yeah.

So, yeah, you know, it's something that through all of the, you know, it's, it's something that through all my own medical shit this past year. I haven't always had the bandwidth to do as much research as I want. And especially like with my TikTok platform, bringing more awareness to this, spreading more advocacy and being hopefully a helpful person for other people, you know, whether they're in my situation or know somebody that's been in my situation or God forbid, just want to make sure that they're never in my situation. Right. I was going to say, too, your story could help somebody that might be in the beginning,

you know, phases. Yep. Where those red flags might not be, you know, waving in front of them, kind of like they weren't for you. Yeah. But if they were to hear that, they could be like, oh, wait, that's happening to me. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And especially, like, I don't want to put down any religion because everybody has their right to their religious preferences. but there is a large amount of religious trauma for Christian kids like me that we're not given proper sexual or sexual health information or upbringing. You know, we're taught abstinence and it's pushed down our throat, but we're not taught any healthy things about sex or consent or any of that. we have you know purity culture shoved down our throat you have the you know you are subservient to your husband and then you have the whole you know divorce is just as bad as murdering somebody yeah so there's

so many and i i've spoken to a few other women who have been not maybe in my exact situation but in an abusive situation and they didn't know that they could say no to their husbands I was one of those kids, I was a kid, one of those young adults, I was never taught that you can say no to your husband, that you still get to have choice of consent. That was never taught to me. Right. Ever, you know, the fact that you don't have to stay in an abusive relationship or some dude with a beard is going to strike you down with lightning. Yeah. Like, you can leave.

Are you still religious at all? I am. So I practice, I'm a witch. I definitely practice more of the occult, but I'm an omnis. Yeah, omnis. So I believe that all major religions have it right. There are very similar threads in all of the major religions. I think they all have the right idea, but it's just become so convoluted. And so this side, that side, my way, your way. You know, I believe. even a higher power. Things don't just happen out of nowhere.

But I wouldn't call myself just like a straight Christian. Okay. That's too much of a box. Yeah. You know? Mm-hmm. Makes sense. So after he was taken, the last, I'm just covered in per.

After he was taken the last time, was that it with you guys? Um, kind of. So he was removed and, um, you know, so like all of this horrible sexual stuff, Let's just say it's been buried 10 feet down. I'm just trying to cope. Because in, towards the very end, even though Ian got a massive amount of money every month, we were always broke. And I even talked to his ex-wife about this.

Because it doesn't make sense to both of us. Like, we don't know what he was spending all that money on, whether it was escorts, drugs, gambling. no idea, but there's no way making over $3,000 a month 10 years ago that we should have been like not having enough food to eat or not being able to pay bills. Yeah. Like three grand right now, you'd barely be skimming by, but you could still do it. Right.

You know, and that was a lot cheaper back in, you know, 2014, 2015, 2015. So in one night, because I had started waitressing to bring in extra money because the big turning point for me was we were broke, our water got turned off, and I didn't have any way to make formula for my daughter. And that was the final straw for me. I threw down and went and got a waitressing job in town. So the night he was removed, it was a really, really bad night. So, oh, hold on. You're fine. I had worked a double shift and he was supposed to be at home watching our 18-month-old child.

So I come home from a double shift at waitressing, which is like so tiring, you know. And he had drank an entire boat a box of wine, which is like I think the equivalent of like three or four bottles. He was belligerently drunk while he was supposed to be watching our 18-month-old. So I come home and immediately I'm like, what the fuck, Ian? But already he's like drunk drunk. And he starts just going off. And he's like grabbing laundry baskets and throwing them and doing all this stuff.

And I like I pause because it's just like so much happened so quickly that night. It just like there wasn't even an escalation. It was just like zero to like 5,000 all of a sudden. And he locked us out for a second because I was trying to like, I don't remember if I was putting something in my car because I was scared of him. Like he was over the top. Like he scared me for a very long time, but something felt different that night. And he ended up locking Anna and I out of the house without shoes. And I'm like banging on the door.

Like let me in, let me in. He finally lets us in. I'm trying to grab like just a few things so Anik and I can leave. And he starts getting really scary. And I'm holding my 18 month old. And I like start running back to the master bedroom and I go to close the door behind me, but he's too fast. So I instantly just haul ass and I'm in the bathroom.

And I'm like, have the door closed, partially closed. I've got my daughter. And I'm like literally now cornered in the bathroom, in the master bathroom. I don't know what to do. Like I am scared, shitless. And Ian's in the bedroom. And all of a sudden I remember, because, you know, he's military. Terry, we have a shotgun in our bedroom. Oh my God, we have the shotgun in our bedroom.

So I'm holding my daughter and I don't know what else to do. I just open my video and I start recording down at my hip because I'm like, if he kills me right now, if he kills us, like somebody has to know what he's done. Like that's like literally all I'm thinking because he's got, like, he doesn't have it in his hands, but the shotgun's like right behind him. I've never seen. Like I've seen him irate, but this was like next level. And that's the video that you can see. see that I posted on TikTok, that the Fort Lupton PD took, that like, it's in the system now. But you can see I've got the phone. I'm holding Anna and I've got like the door.

And you can even see her little hand trying to close, like hold the door back to. And he's just yelling and screaming and like, fuck you. Your mommy doesn't love me. Like all this shit. You leave this is my fucking house. Like all this crap. And then you see in the mirror, see him see that I'm recording. and you just see the whole demeanor change.

And his eyes just go fucking dark. And like pure rage. Like there's like when a shark goes into like attack mode like you see on finding Nemo where like the eye goes dark, same thing with him. And he's just, he just stops and he's like just cold. And you see him see it. And you see his eyes change. And he goes to like try to like grab my phone because he's noticed that now I'm recording him. And he like grabbed, hit my hand like this.

And like, so my hand came up and like hit Anna. And you hear him say, oh, good job. Hit the baby. And then like very cinematically, like the whole frame just like, because like the phone goes flying. So once like video stopped, I grab Anna. I like turn out of the bathroom. And I set her down right there on the bed.

And I face him. So he's standing in like. the bathroom doorway and we've got like a dresser right here with like our you know um like bedroom TV on it and he's like saying some shit like i'm like i'm gonna fuck you up or i'm gonna hit you something along the lines of that i can't remember exactly what he said and i'm more angry than i've ever been in my life because this is the first time i've ever witnessed him harm our child and he harmed on in my arms trying attack me so i don't know what the hell possessed me but i called I'm a coward. I'm like, you fucking do it, you fucking coward. So I've just like, open palms

slapped him, like as hard as I physically could. Because I don't know what the hell just possessed me. Like the full on mama bear came out because he just like attacked me with my daughter in my arms. And then reality hits. And I'm like, oh my God, I just fucking hit him. Like, oh my God, I just punched the bear. Oh, no. So I grabbed my daughter and I literally just start running, like running out of the bedroom down the hallway into the living room. And he's yelling and stuff and I grab my keys. And I'm like, I'm done. I'm like, I'm getting to the car.

I'm fucking done. Like, I'm pretty sure we almost about died. And he's screaming and this, that, another. And like, as I close the door, he's like, when you come back, you're going to find my fucking brain matter all over the wall. So I put Anna in her car seat and I get in the car and I'm fucking hysterical. Like, the most hysterical you can even imagine. I'm fucking hysterical.

And I go to the local police department. They're closed because it's after. five o'clock. And I'm like, I don't know what to do. The police station's closed. In my poor traumatized brain, I don't think this is a big enough emergency to call 911. So I end up calling one of the nonprofit women that has been very close to our life, Heather

Swinsky, who's kind of been knowing like everything that's gone on our entire relationship. And I call her and I'm freaking out and I tell her what's happened and I tell her what Ian says. And she's like, you need to call 911, you need to get dispatched to you. and then you need to get somebody to check on him. So I do. I'm like sitting at the park right across from the police department and I call 911. So a podcar comes over to us, picks up my daughter and I and just like brings us into the police station. And then unbeknownst to me, police do go to our house, but because he's violent and drunk with, I guess, access to weapons.

they like full on like guns drawn like surround the house and everything like oh my god my fucking neighbors i can only imagine like just the shit show that was because i guess there was a like birthday party next door where kids were having a birthday party oh yeah like this man would start drinking relatively early in the like time time didn't matter to drinking ian like it could be eight o'clock in the morning and he'd be like dousing whiskey yeah like you know you're like, oh, it's afternoon. It's probably okay to drink. No, none of that mattered to him.

So, yeah, I mean, I, God. But the birthday parties in my neighborhood were a highly Hispanic. So as you may or may not know, their birthday parties are freaking awesome. They go all night long because all the family's there and like everybody's drinking to like 10 o'clock. So it wasn't like a little kid birthday party like in the afternoon. But it was like a birthday party where all the family was over. And everybody, like how they do, they usually like set up in the garage. So they're like all set up in the garage trying to have a birthday party.

And Fort Lupton PD starts surrounding my house with like weapons drawn. Like they like some of the moms ended up calling the police force. I'm like, what the fuck? There was children around. You know? So just like a whole other shit shows happening at my house. But, you know, we get into the PD. They end up taking him and everything.

They take my statements. They take the video of what I got. And then I'm able to go home and Ian's gone. He's gone. And it was just like the most surreal feeling. It's like, oh my God, he's gone. Oh, my God, he's gone. And I remember I finally put on it to bed and I was just in full shock.

And I just like kind of sat down. Like not even on like the couch, just like sat down on the floor in the living room. And I was just like, oh my God. Like, he's gone. And the messed up thing, it's so funny. looking back on trauma because even though he was a monster, like I loved him. I really, really loved my husband. Or who I thought he was.

I had, you know, like, why is this what gets me choked up? You know, being a divorce kid, I just always really wanted a family. And I think that's, you know, I really did love him when I fell in love with him and I fell in love with him. And when you're a younger adult and you, you know, fall in love and get married, I didn't not love him. I was just terrified of him. So we ended up having to do like, you know, the court hearing the next day. And then he had to be locked up for a couple days because I guess he had like an outstanding warrant for some like, it's really stupid. He's really stupid. He He went camping and got a ticket for a fire band.

But then he just, like, never went to court or paid the $1,000 fine. So what kept him actually in jail for a couple days wasn't the fact that he, like, abused me and had to be arrested. It's because he didn't pay a fine for a fire, like a bonfire. That's what, oh, gross. That's what actually, like, kept him locked up for a few days. But the funny thing is, looking back in the trauma lens, I went and put $40 on that dumbass's like account because I was still his wife and I still cared about him

and I'm like, oh, I should put $40 on his books. I'm like, oh my God, I put $40 on his books after he was just arrested for all of that. Like, wow, like any more perfect like picture of a traumatized battered partner. Holy shit. Yeah. But no, it took a ridiculous.

long time to finally, quote-unquote, divorce him. It was technically an invalidity of marriage. So this is the kicker. That day that I went to go put money on his books. I don't remember why if I was looking for his birth certificate. Because, you know, we had like just that one drawer that has like all of the important documents along with like our marriage license and his divorce papers. And for the first time, I realized when his divorce was finalized was after we had gotten.

married. So it was not a legally or binding marriage. So, you know, we ended up doing the whole song and dance where we had to, hi baby. No, you just want to wrap up on that. Don't touch me. But no, so like it took two years, two fucking years. It was like 2018 by the time it was finally finalized. But the crazy thing was, so I got to thank God a good attorney. We had to go through all the divorce and custody stuff. I got full decision-making. I got full rights to my daughter, which is fucking amazing. My attorney did something that was just amazing.

So for Ian to get his parental rights back, he would have to go through supervised visitation, which is where you have like the special supertized visitation center. And like I would drop Anna off and Ian would come and be able to spend time with her. to show the courts that he's like a responsible and safe father. So how my attorney did it was it was like a three-step program to be getting his parental rights back. So first they'd start where he would have to come to the center, the supervisation center. And for like two or three weeks, like once a week or something, he'd have supervised visitation

at the center. The next level was like for a couple weeks, he'd get to take her out. for like three hours and then bring her back. And then like the third level was finally being able to have her like overnight or for the weekend. He never even filled out the paperwork. Wow. Never even filled out the paperwork.

So it never even got to. Nope. Because the thing was, and my attorney's smart. This is why I love my attorney. If he defaulted on any of his appointments because consistency and safety were the key points of all of this, if he defaulted and didn't make one of his appointments, he'd go back to level one. Nice.

Yeah. So we'd have to like stay consistent through the entire three levels to show that he was safe, consistent, responsible. Never even filled out the paperwork. And I'm happy. Yeah. That is truly a human that I never want her around. Do you think that he even cared in the slightest bit to see her?

You know, because of the complete lack of any humanity in him, I just don't think that there's anything in him that loves that like more than just want like that deep bottomless pit of want and like sexual ick i don't think he felt anything like love i don't think he had any real capability of actually loving me right there's no like and i know i will never understand this but there's no fucking possible way you could do that to your spouse and not just be just completely devoid of humanity. Like how does even just a human do that to another human, let alone somebody that loves and married them?

You know, like there is, there's just, it's not there. Whatever makes a person human is absent from that man. Right. You know, he would only feel, quote, unquote, bad if he got caught. And that was just an act. Yep. You know, and that's the thing, like he's gotten arrested how many times and he does his whole sob story and I'm so sorry and I'm a wounded warrior. I'm PTSD. Well, fuck you,

bitch. I've got PTSD now too. Yeah. Right. So now basically you're left with having to get all these surgeries and you said that you finally did share everything of what happened to you, right? So there are cases opened up on him now. Yeah. So the case with Weld County got closed. I did currently send in some more of my medical records now that we actually have imaging and a surgical plan. I don't know if that will do anything. Weld County is an extremely, extremely conservative Republican Red County. Like, you know, we recently just did all of our voting here. And like a good American, I voted too. And I'm going through all the options for Weld County Sheriff. It was like, oh, pick two options. There was only one option, one Republican. That was it. Not even

and any other person like in the running. And that's our judicial system. Right. And there's, I don't want to like throw any type of people's under the bus. If you're conservative, that is absolutely fine. But when it comes to being so conservative that you're not getting justice for survivors, that's where I have an issue. Yeah.

You know, I don't care if you're a police officer, a military personnel. if you're abusive, you're fucking abusive, I don't care what line of work you're in. Absolutely. There's no rules of like, you know, who is and who isn't. And unfortunately, you know, there's a lot of times that people expect like people that have these kind of power roles, you know, as officers or pastors or whatever. They expect them not to be those things. And you can hope that they aren't those things because those people are supposed to be,

you know, the safe people to be around. but it happens a lot you know so and I think that it's important even you know along with everything that you shared I think it's important that people are aware of that because there's probably a good amount of people that think oh it's impossible for someone that you know has done so many good things to you know be capable of doing something so wrong and I bring it back to like the the ted Bundy effect nobody thought Ted Bundy was like that he was good looking, he was charismatic, he was all these things, and look what kind of monster he was. Right.

It doesn't matter how you act if the things you do behind doors are like that. And that's, you know, so with Weld County, technically that case is, well, it never was made a case. It was an investigation that got closed. And when the Weld County DA called me and let me know that it was not going to be a case, it's because he said that he did not believe that they could convince a, jury of 12. I say absolute fucking bullshit to that. And then when I talked to the local Fort Lupton investigator, letting him know that I had more medical stuff and that CID was involved,

he was so dismissive and act like I wasted his time. And when I let him know that I have imaging and I'm going to be getting these surgeries that show like actual physical evidence of what happened, he went as far enough and had the audacity to say, even with the medical records, there is no proof that what happened was non-consensual. I'm saying it was non-consensual. Right. Like that's like, oh, we can't prove that any rape happened because we can't... It wasn't recorded.

Because it wasn't... Like, we can't prove it wasn't consensual. Like, that's literally, you could say that for any fucking rape case that has ever happened. Are you fucking kidding? It's the same thing with, like, a murder. It's like if the evidence is there, you know what I mean? And like, in a way, I feel like your image. and that's your evidence.

And there's corroborative victims. It's not just me. Right. He is now extorted or trafficked three other women, me and two others. And that's only the ones we know of. Are they willing to come forward to with you? So the one after me did initially with Weld County. But that investigator was just, he even said to the ex-wife that he didn't even think

it was worth her time because nothing would happen. would come of this. Like he was going as far as saying that to other survivors. And this is where I just get absolutely irate with our judicial system. You know, I want to spread awareness on what happened to me, not just because he's an absolute piece of shit, but because this happens to other women. Yeah. And the fact that it's a problem at the very root of our judicial system, like, I want to be an

advocate and I want to continue doing this but end goal I would love to take it and bring it to legislation and lobby to have our laws change because this is messed up yeah this is a hundred percent messed up right so he's just free at the moment a hundred percent yeah he literally has absolutely no repercussions whatsoever at all and now currently the criminal the military's criminal investigation division is investigating. I've been contacted by a federal special agent, but things move really slow. Right. And again, and I was asking the special agent, I'm like, you know, do you do you know, like can we get him for anything, this, that another, just kind of asking him, like, what could we even do with this? And he gave a really long, really complicated answer,

But it's pretty much like, well, we have to work within this county's jurisdiction and this jurisdiction of that jurisdiction and what, you know, could be applied for this. And it's just like a whole huge game. Yeah. Do you have a restraining order on him? So this is really messed up. What started this whole investigation last winter, like a day or two after Christmas, after, you know, kind of publicly coming out on TikTok and telling my story, Ian messaged me on Instagram and I got fucking scared. So I ended up reaching out to my attorney and I'm like, I still have my protection order, right?

And he's like, oh, yeah, absolutely. So I called the PD to let them know that he was in, not opposition of his protection order, but like going against the protection order. And they looked it up and they're like, oh, yeah. So it looks like after your guys is. final court hearing, they didn't continue your protection order. And I'm like, wait, what? I'm like, my attorney and I were very much under the understanding that it was still there. And they're like, no. So no, there was like this one box on the paperwork that it was like to

continue the protection order. And it just like didn't get checked. So that's just a thing of itself. But he's like in Washington. He's on the other side of the country. And I mean, honestly, if he comes and tries to come to my house and do something, maybe at least they'd arrest him for fucking that then, you know, since they won't do jack shit for it seems like anything else. I mean, how many people get put into prison for such stupid charges like marijuana? How many people are in prison for marijuana right now? And you can get hit so easily with some of this stuff. but then you just have people like this just scotch-free.

And it's not like I'm his only victim. Like he literally has multiple arrest records for domestic violence over multiple years and multiple women. That's a pattern. He's been a violent offender as a patterning. And they keep giving him plea bails. Right. So, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Not enough being done at all. And hopefully, you know, the feds can do something because they have just such a broader. Yeah. One can hope. Hopefully. And hey, you know, maybe if Biden passes the statute of limitation, then I can just get him for that.

Because honestly, I even told that to the special agent. I'm like, sir, I don't care what we can get him for. He is dangerous. And it's not just me. It's the other survivors. He's not going to stop until he kills one of us. Yeah. Like he would threaten, like his ex-wife would threaten that he would kill her all the time.

Like, oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah. Like, the coyotes will pick your bones and they'll never find you. He's a scary individual. More than a scary doesn't even do justice. Like, just total sociopath scary. Yeah. And he's the type of person. Like, yeah, no, he, it's only.

a matter of time. Right. And especially, you know, I do really enjoy psychology and forensic psychology for like, criminal investigations. And when a perpetrator has a pattern, that's already a really big warning sign. And when that pattern starts speeding up, that's a huge red flag. Because, like, his patterning with his ex-wife was very similar to my patterning, but it sped up.

my patterning was very very similar to his next victim but it was exponentially sped up and he's currently remarried right now and unfortunately she owns or is the director of a funeral home and that is not the type of man you want around dead bodies or a crematory yeah so that is his own set of ugi issues but like fuck i get worried about his new wife because they they haven't been listening to us. Right. And it's only going to be a matter of time. He gets too angry, too drunk, whatever, you know.

So you guys have no contact now, right? Yeah, no, fuck no. No, no. Well, I got a cease and desist letter from a tardy in Oregon being like, oh, you can't be posting things about what happened. Me, me, me. I'm serving you a cease and desist. I'm like, okay, cease and desist.

desist, where are you going to get me for? Defamation. Defamation of character has to have something that's been falsified. Absolutely none of this has been falsified. And I have receipts to prove it. Like literally a viddy of you attacking me and my daughter. Like, what judge is even going to pick that up? Right.

It was a scare tactic. Yeah. Like, go get fucked. Well, I think that it's really, like I said earlier, I think that it's really important for so many reasons. that you continue to share your story, like you said you do on social media currently, and even coming on here and talking about it

in way more depth because there's so many points of your story that I feel like could really help people and continue to help people. Like even now, you know, just trying to get the justice that you deserve and that's so many women out there and men probably deserve too. Absolutely. You know, and it's really, really sad

because there's just such a high demographic of domestic violence in our murray. military personnel. And I feel like that issue is just like a root issue to, you know, you train these people how to be something that most people aren't able to do, to be trained soldiers, to be in war. And that does psychologically do something to a human brain. Like there's no if and or buts about that.

And then they just take these poor humans that they've essentially kind of like psychologically destroyed, give them absolutely no support, no mental health training, no mental health, anything, and then just give them back to their partners or their families. And like the big thing is, like so much of it is excused and pushed under the rug because, oh, they have PTSD. Oh, they've got combat experience. Like, yes, that is 100% a part of it. And I can tell you, as somebody that has PTSD now, who will now have a mental illness for the rest of my life after. the things that I have been through, just because what I am doing is understandable because I have PTSD or because maybe a military personnel has PTSD, it's understandable, does not make it acceptable.

You are still 100% responsible for your actions, whether you have a mental illness or not. Absolutely. You know? And that's just where, like, it's not necessarily the military person. personnel's fault, they are just not set up for success. Like to have that high of domestic violence issues in just one set of a job, like something needs to be helped there. Right.

You know, if we're going to be asking these men and women to lay down their lives and possibly be psychologically messed up for the rest of their life, like the military and the VA has to do some like hard-core. psychological helping, mentoring, counseling, you know? Yeah. Because they just seem to like, oh, well, not our problem anymore. But then it's like these poor military spouses, whether it's male or female. Because yes, there's a higher percentage of domestic violence as men as the perpetrator,

but that is not only men. You know, it is shown in military female personnel that there's still that statistic there as well. Absolutely. For sure. Well, thank you so much. And you did such an amazing job. And seriously, thank you for coming on here and sharing your story. And I know that it's really going to touch a lot of people and just spread awareness, which I think at this point is one of the most important things, you know, because people need to know. And even, like I said, I think a big thing for me, too, is having people know, you know, that you still can be sex trafficked with a different definition, you know, than what people are used to. And I think it can really just open

people's eyes to, you know, that and so much more. And I think you're really going to help a lot of people by sharing your story. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Of course. Thank you.