S11 E6: [Sasha] Wired

[0] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to something was wrong early and ad -free right now.

[1] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[2] I'm Dan Tversky.

[3] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York.

[4] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[5] What's the answer?

[6] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[7] Hysterical.

[8] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[9] Binge all episodes of hysterical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[10] Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences.

[11] Episodes can discuss topics that can be triggering, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, suicide, and murder.

[12] I am not a therapist or a doctor.

[13] If you're in need of support, please visit something was wrong .com slash resources for a list of nonprofit organizations that can help.

[14] Some names have been changed for anonymity purposes.

[15] Opinions expressed by the guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself or audio chuck.

[16] Resources and source material are linked in the episode notes.

[17] Thank you so much for listening.

[18] You think you know me, you don't know me will.

[19] I am Sasha, and I will start with talking about how I met Heidi.

[20] I was new to a major city, taking night classes, working during the day, really kind of thinking about what I want to do with my life, with my career, and with all of that, really struggling to make new friends and just to balance workload, school, social life.

[21] I think with being a young person moving to a new city, it can also be pretty lonely, which is something I was really struggling with.

[22] I started going to a few churches in the town and checked out a small group at a pretty large church, and it was basically with a bunch of other young professionals.

[23] And that's where I met Heidi.

[24] We both were talking about how we didn't like our jobs.

[25] We're really trying to figure out what we wanted to do next, wanted to, you know, be in the business world.

[26] But we're kind of struggling with where to start.

[27] How do you work your way up?

[28] And so he's kind of clicked instantly.

[29] We also lived super close to each other.

[30] And so I actually never went back to that small group meeting.

[31] But her and I exchanged numbers and started hanging out.

[32] What were your first impressions of her as a person?

[33] Was she outgoing?

[34] Oh, yeah, she was very outgoing, very confident, and just super easy to talk to.

[35] I think one of the first things that drew me to her was just her listening and always having stories or examples.

[36] It always felt like we had very similar things to talk about, especially that first time we met.

[37] So, yeah, super bubbly and charismatic for sure.

[38] It didn't take long for Sasha and Heidi to start spending more time together outside of church functions.

[39] We very quickly moved into hanging out outside of church.

[40] Within a few days of meeting, we met up and started hanging out.

[41] So it was pretty quick.

[42] As we were hanging out, we started talking about dating in our lives, and Heidi confided in me about this guy that she had been seeing.

[43] She talked about they had been dating for some time, but there was a lot of issues with a relationship.

[44] And she was constantly going back and forth between if she should break it off with him.

[45] Pretty quickly from when we first started hanging out, we talked about Peter.

[46] And it really only took a few weeks before we all met up.

[47] We all got drinks, just me, Heidi, and Peter.

[48] Peter was a bit different from the young professionals.

[49] Sasha was used to hanging out with.

[50] He was a bit older and made a lot of money.

[51] I think it was just a bit surprised that he was hanging out with us.

[52] I wasn't always really used to hanging out with people who have a lot of power and responsibility.

[53] So I think it was a little shocked when I first met him.

[54] After we all got drinks, I know Heidi ended up.

[55] breaking it off with him.

[56] And we went to church together one morning.

[57] This is only a few weeks after.

[58] He was actually there, like, in the back of the church sanctuary.

[59] I was kind of like, why is he here?

[60] And she was like, I didn't tell him to come here.

[61] We aren't texting.

[62] That's what she told me. He wanted to talk to her.

[63] And so it really looked like he was following her schedule and trying to get her attention.

[64] We had plans to hang out after church, but we didn't end up hanging out.

[65] She ended up going and talking to him.

[66] And it was a bit uncomfortable, but she was like, you know, it's really not that bad.

[67] He just wanted to talk.

[68] Heidi described Peter always in both amazing terms and really bad terms.

[69] There was never really a middle ground.

[70] It was either he's this wonderful person or things are really bad and he's actually not that good to me. So it was always hard to kind of gauge what was happening between them.

[71] She originally told me that they were dating.

[72] He was her boyfriend.

[73] and I wanted to believe her.

[74] I was trying to make new friends.

[75] I was pretty uncomfortable around him.

[76] I have always kind of had my ears up about men and dating in general.

[77] And I really didn't like that it looked like he was, I don't know if this was the right term, but almost like stalking her showing up at church when he knew she was going to be there waiting for her near the door in the back of the church.

[78] So after that, I was pretty uncomfortable and really tried to not hang out with him.

[79] I wanted to hang out with Heidi, but I really didn't have any interest to be around him.

[80] What was the reason that she gave why she broke up with him originally, if you recall?

[81] Originally why they broke up was because they would get into pretty big fights.

[82] They would yell at each other.

[83] She never mentioned it getting physically abusive at this point, but she did talk about how they would yell at each other and how she was wanting to be in a serious relationship, but he was always backtracking on how serious they were, if they were boyfriend -girlfriend, if they were exclusive, if they were seeing other people.

[84] So I think she just broke it off because she was tired of arguing with him.

[85] So with Heidi, we talked a lot about dating and Peter, but we also did a lot of other normal things, the two of us.

[86] We would get lunch together during the day.

[87] We would get coffee.

[88] We would sometimes get drinks.

[89] But I've never been a big drinker.

[90] And she always seemed fine with that, totally fine, never feeling like we had to go out and get a drink or do any of that.

[91] But she did always have drama.

[92] So whenever we got together, there was always an intense story for us to chat about.

[93] And for her to go to me for advice or to have someone to vet to for a few hours over a coffee and a long walk.

[94] Living in a big city is really expensive.

[95] So I also babysat, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, because that's when you can always make some good cash.

[96] She referenced several different famous people that she would babysit for.

[97] Whenever we got together, it wasn't usually super lighthearted.

[98] It was usually to talk about things going on in our lives, but also really kind of focused on drama in her life.

[99] even things that you would think not have so much drama like babysitting on a Friday or Saturday night when you're putting kids to bed.

[100] I think through all of that, especially over the course of the year plus that we were friends, always having fights with Peter, breaking it off, talking about going on dates with other people, getting back with Peter.

[101] When things got particularly bad with Peter, for example, we were sitting at coffee and she told me that she reached out to a few journalists at a few big magazines.

[102] and newspapers because she had information on Peter and his business.

[103] She felt like he was doing some things that weren't morally right, and she wanted to get that information out there.

[104] She brought us up a few times.

[105] One time she even said that she actually spoke to a journalist, but there was never any follow through.

[106] I never saw anything.

[107] She never mentioned there being any reports, articles or things online.

[108] And at the moment, I was like, maybe she's just really mad, and this is her way of just venting.

[109] She's in love with this person and things aren't going, way that she wants to, because her ultimate goal was she really wanted to get married.

[110] And not just get married, she was very much of this mindset of she really wanted someone who was older, who was established, who had money, and even kind of pushed that onto me as well.

[111] I did go out on a few dates with people that I met.

[112] In school, they're also students in a big city, so they didn't have any money.

[113] And always kind of pushing me towards, they're all of these older men, we're at our prime, you should be out there, maybe see if you could find someone.

[114] and even openly talked about how she really wanted to have someone take care of her.

[115] And that's kind of how she viewed marriage.

[116] When it came to her relationship with Peter, I think she had had this older, wealthy establishment in her life.

[117] And she really did talk about how much she liked him and wanted something there.

[118] Heidi wanted to introduce Sasha to some of Peter's wealthy older friends.

[119] Apparently she had like showed my picture to like a few of his friends and then set me up on a blind date and gave me very specific advice that it just made me feel uncomfortable.

[120] She was like, don't text in very often, only text details, make sure that you dress a certain way, make sure that you really show off your curves and your body really put in the effort to look good for this date.

[121] It was also like Peter and all of his friends always joke about needy women, so really don't try to come across as needy.

[122] Giving me all this advice that for my other dating experience, it felt off and weird, but I was like, well, this guy seems nice.

[123] I'll go ahead and give him a shot.

[124] We met for dinner.

[125] It was a really uncomfortable.

[126] He was a lot older.

[127] And really, we had nothing in common.

[128] And so I was really confused as to why she set us up because I really could not see legitimately like what we had in common.

[129] The day ended after a pretty short dinner and then I never talked to him again.

[130] And she really pushed me to try to keep texting him.

[131] And I was like, no, I'm not really interested.

[132] He's older than my older brother, who's already significantly older than me. This just fell off.

[133] So I dropped it.

[134] But she did push it for a while.

[135] And it just became very evident through a lot of these small things that her and I had some differences.

[136] But at the end of the day, she was always there for me. If I was having a hard time, if I was struggling with job interviews, if I was just feeling down about what I'm doing and feeling like I'm never going to be able to have the kind of career that I want.

[137] She was always there to comfort me and talk about it.

[138] And I think despite some of these red flags, she was there for me when a lot of people weren't, even though there were some of these things that were kind of off and made me feel weird, but I can't.

[139] kept staying friends.

[140] After the two friends had known each other for about a year, they decided to plan a vacation together.

[141] Both of us had not really taken any time off at all unless it was to see family.

[142] And so she had brought up us taking a trip together, going some more cool, going overseas, getting out of the U .S., trying something new.

[143] We both also made a similar amount of money as well and spent pretty similar amounts.

[144] And so she was like, I think this could really work.

[145] We could have a great time.

[146] We could set the budget and plan a trip.

[147] And so, So I thought about it and thought, actually, this could be really fun, let's do it.

[148] So over the next few weeks, we book tickets.

[149] One of the big things of note is she did mention, even around the time that we started talking about planning a vacation together, is that she was doing house sitting, which I thought was interesting, but it was similar to babysitting.

[150] And when she would tell you about house sitting, was she also claiming to be house sitting for celebrities as well?

[151] Yes, she was.

[152] And did you ever come into contact?

[153] with any of the celebrities yourself or did she ever recommend you for any of the people she was working for?

[154] She never recommended me for anyone.

[155] I also never met any of the people that she was house -sitting or babysitting for.

[156] But we did talk about it a lot.

[157] The only person that I knew was real and actually who they said they were was Peter.

[158] Everyone else that she talked about, I never met, never saw text messages.

[159] Before their planned vacation, Heidi invited Sasha to her birthday party, which is where I really, for the first time, met most of her friends.

[160] And that night ended up being very shocking.

[161] I'm Dan Tiberski.

[162] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[163] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[164] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[165] She's like, I can't.

[166] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

[167] It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls.

[168] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on.

[169] the download.

[170] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[171] Well, you were holding something back.

[172] Intentionally.

[173] Yeah, yeah.

[174] Well, yeah.

[175] No, it's hysteria.

[176] It's all in your head.

[177] It's not physical.

[178] Oh my gosh.

[179] You're exaggerating.

[180] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Salem?

[181] Or is it something else entirely?

[182] Something's wrong here.

[183] Something's not right.

[184] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[185] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios.

[186] Hysterical.

[187] Follow Hysterical on the Wonderlander.

[188] app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[189] You can binge all episodes of hysterical early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[190] Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught.

[191] I'm Sachi Cole.

[192] And I'm Sarah Haggy.

[193] And we're the host of scam influencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims and what's left once a facade falls away.

[194] We've covered stories like a Shark Tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment, but soon faced mounting bills, an active lawsuit followed by Larry King, and no real product to push.

[195] He then began to prey on vulnerable women instead, selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs.

[196] To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Judice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame.

[197] Follow scamfluencers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[198] You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad free right now on Wondry Plus.

[199] Although the town I was in was full of people were usually out pretty late most, especially weeknights.

[200] I usually was not.

[201] And this was a Saturday night.

[202] We all went out.

[203] But then as I started talking to some of her friends, I made a comment, I've never seen Heidi drunk before.

[204] And her friends actually laughed and they were like, Heidi gets drunk a lot.

[205] How have you not seen her drunk?

[206] I think they were a little shocked, but also thought it was funny.

[207] I started talking to some of the other girls, and we talked about Peter because Peter was always the big dramatic thing, and he wasn't there.

[208] One of the girls mentioned to me that Peter was just one of many men that she was talking to, and that confused me because I knew she had gone out on dates when things with Peter were broken off.

[209] I actually did ask her, I was like, her and Peter together, and she was like, were they ever really together?

[210] And so I found the whole conversation very confusing because it didn't fully match up.

[211] with what Heidi had told me. Sasha continued to be surprised throughout the birthday party by the information she was learning about Heidi according to her friends.

[212] Heidi was super drunk and she had a ton of men's phone numbers saved.

[213] She was texting even as we all were getting in an Uber, getting to go to another bar.

[214] Heidi in this car ride talking about all the men that she likes to sleep with and that she has different guys for different parts of the week.

[215] It was a very confusing conversation.

[216] I was not drunk.

[217] I think I had maybe one drunk.

[218] So it was just, I think, a bit baffled by the whole experience.

[219] My overall impression of Heidi was I took her as someone who was pretty religious and who really had a lot of big desires to get married, have a family.

[220] I kind of viewed her from those aspects.

[221] After that, I actually ended up talking to her about it.

[222] Like, hey, the birthday party was a bit confusing.

[223] I guess I didn't realize that you enjoyed drinking so much because we never did that together.

[224] But also, I was like, who were all of these other guys?

[225] and she kind of brushed it off.

[226] And even as I look back now, it was definitely a red flag.

[227] And I really felt it in my gut of like the person that I thought I was friends with is maybe not who she actually is.

[228] But we never really had too many conversations about it.

[229] I, for one, really didn't want to try to shame her for anything that she was doing.

[230] I just wanted her to be a little more honest.

[231] And my gut was really not telling me that things were good.

[232] And it was at this point that we started having some tension, because I really like to talk about my feelings and to share things and communicate.

[233] At this point, her and Peter were not together.

[234] They were still talking.

[235] The entire time that I had known, Heidi, she did have access to Peter's credit cards.

[236] And I knew that that came out actually pretty early in our friendship because she would always want to take Uber's everywhere.

[237] And I was like, I can't afford, can we take public transportation?

[238] And she would like, you know, be, don't worry about it.

[239] I'm using Peter's cards.

[240] That was one thing that happened.

[241] semi -regularly.

[242] She always had at least his credit card on her different ride share apps.

[243] After the birthday party and after a few of our hangouts, things started to get a little intense between me and Heidi just because that friction of trying to figure out, okay, what is actually true?

[244] Who are you?

[245] I really want to know the real you.

[246] I really didn't want her to feel like she had to hide herself from me because I did go to church or because I wasn't out all night on Friday or Saturday nights.

[247] In some of our conversations, she'd also made me feel a little bit like, I don't know if the word is guilty, but try to make me feel a little bad in terms of feeling like she had like some shame when she would hang out with me. I think through a few of our conversations, there was just this tension and this buildup.

[248] She called me one day really upset, really frantic.

[249] And my initial reaction was, oh, this is good for our friendship because we had talked about being able to trust each other and be open with each other.

[250] Maybe I'm actually going to really get to know, I guess, the real Heidi, peel back some of those layers.

[251] Because from some of our conversations, she kind of made it seem like maybe she had to hide from me because she felt like I was going to judge her.

[252] It was a Saturday.

[253] And she was like, listen, something really bad happened.

[254] Can you please come meet me?

[255] I really need your help.

[256] So I was like, of course, I dropped everything.

[257] She gave me an address.

[258] And I showed up at this very expensive apartment.

[259] And I was immediately confused because there was security, there was a doorman, and she explained to me that she was house sitting, and that's why she was at this apartment.

[260] But as I was walking through the doors to get into the elevator, I was like, why would you have a house sitter if you have security and a doormand?

[261] Things just immediately didn't feel great.

[262] So get up to the apartment, it's this massive, beautiful, multi -million dollar apartment.

[263] It was honestly a bit jarring.

[264] And she sits me down and she was like, Peter and I had an argument.

[265] Peter is really mad.

[266] And his business had a big deal that made the news the day before.

[267] And a bunch of investors and people were Googling him naturally because this deal had made the news.

[268] And a bunch of posts had come up from online that him and his business were tagged to.

[269] She admitted to me that she had posted a bunch of screenshots from sell conversations and put them all online and tagged him and his business.

[270] And immediately my stomach felt like it fell out of my body, that pit of like, what did you do?

[271] And why did you not talk to anyone about doing this?

[272] Why did you not tell anyone that you did this until now when Peter has found out and is really mad?

[273] And it's not just Peter, you tagged his business.

[274] This could be defamation.

[275] This could be really bad.

[276] She actually had a cease and desist order from Peter's company's lawyers.

[277] And they were like, you need to take everything down and you need to get everything.

[278] off the website and off online, which is honestly a really hard thing to do because once something is put up, it can just stay up forever.

[279] And so she had asked me to bring my laptop and I helped her take stuff down offline, do Google searches, try to find these different images and figure out how to get them taken down or email websites to see if they could take them down.

[280] But she was honestly really, really freaked out and I was just sitting there like, what is going on?

[281] Why did you do this?

[282] aren't you and Peter not even dating?

[283] It was very confusing, and I immediately knew in that moment why am I still friends with this person.

[284] We started talking more, and she starts going into a whole other story about things that had been happening between her and Peter.

[285] They had been broken off.

[286] She actually told me that Peter had hurt her, that he had hit her, that they had got into a pretty serious altercation.

[287] And I was like, oh my gosh, what happened?

[288] And she said that not only did she post all of this stuff online, but she was really worried that he was cheating, that he maybe even had another girlfriend.

[289] She told me that she had wired his apartment.

[290] And he ended up finding out about it because he found a listening device in his bedroom.

[291] And he asked her to come over.

[292] In the U .S., wiretapping laws vary from state to state.

[293] For example, my home state of California is a two -party consent state, meaning it's a criminal offense to record others via wire, oral, or electronic means, unless all parties are aware and in agreement.

[294] One exception is that if a conversation is taking place in public within government proceedings or under the conditions where one could be easily overheard, it cannot be punished under the law of California's eavesdropping statute, Penal Code 632.

[295] Conversely, Texas is what's called, a one -party consent state, meaning an individual is able to record conversations that they're a part of without consent from all parties.

[296] Of course, you should always check your local laws before recording someone without their knowledge.

[297] Punishment for breaking wiretapping laws also depends on the state and can range from paying a fine to incarceration.

[298] They ended up getting into a physical altercation and she did have bruises.

[299] So I think part of me was like, oh my gosh, wait, hold on.

[300] Are you actually in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship?

[301] What is going on here?

[302] But also, I think in that moment, wait, you wired someone's apartment that's not legal.

[303] You didn't get consent to record them.

[304] Oh, my gosh.

[305] But also, you posted all of this stuff online.

[306] And did you not talk to any of your friends about this?

[307] I'm here to help you.

[308] Why did you do this?

[309] I went through a whole range of emotions while we're sitting in this random apartment.

[310] Oh my gosh, she's actually an emotionally abusive relationship.

[311] I'm being a really bad friend to so many back and forth emotions of like what is going on.

[312] And also like, who are you?

[313] So when she's telling you that she wired his apartment, can you describe her demeanor at this time?

[314] She was really shaken up.

[315] She was really upset.

[316] that she was genuinely visibly concerned about what was going to happen.

[317] There wasn't any level of casualness.

[318] She was genuinely like everything she said was very believable.

[319] And also she did actually post these things online.

[320] She did have a cease and desist letter.

[321] She was very seriously worried about not just Peter, but Peter's company actually going after her legally.

[322] And me included in this, both of us, she didn't have that much money.

[323] You shouldn't have that much savings.

[324] So the idea of having to go up to court against someone was really genuinely scaring her.

[325] I started getting a bit mad at her for like, why did you post this online and why didn't you tell anyone that you did this?

[326] Why am I just finding out that you posted this online?

[327] Because I definitely would have stopped you if you had talked to someone about it.

[328] That was when she immediately pivoted to talking about like, oh no, Peter's actually a really bad guy.

[329] He hurt me and this is what happened, which was, I would say, a big part of our friendship.

[330] If there was ever any moment of tension or any time that I might question her, it always immediately went back to, well, here's this other story that will make you feel bad for me and will make you want to help me. There was always that kind of pivot in a lot of our conversations.

[331] Please note, according to validated studies, false reporting in interpersonal violence and rape cases is rare.

[332] It's estimated to be between two and six percent.

[333] For this reason, it is vital to offer victims support when they disclose their abuse to loved ones.

[334] When you brought your computer over and you're sitting down with her and y 'all are searching online, did you find anything?

[335] They were definitely online.

[336] Yeah.

[337] And it was definitely a real cease and assist letter just based off of all the jobs I've had and all of the legal documents I worked with.

[338] It definitely looked real.

[339] It had all the right things on it.

[340] And she was properly served.

[341] And how long had it been since she had posted these posts online between that time and when she called you over?

[342] She told me she had posted them months ago.

[343] They had been up for a while.

[344] All I did was help her to search and try to figure out where online.

[345] They were other websites might be hosting them because at that point she had basically taken them all off of the original site she posted them on.

[346] The only reason that it came up was because people were Googling Peter.

[347] Towards the end of the conversation, I was like, I'm so sorry.

[348] You should never experience any physical violence from anyone.

[349] She was also really stressed and tired.

[350] I was stressed and tired.

[351] And this was also about three weeks before we were supposed to go on vacation together.

[352] So I just left there feeling really bad for her, but also trying to process everything that happened.

[353] It took me a few days to process.

[354] She is capable of doing a lot of, lot of things to people and hold a lot of grudges.

[355] And she's not who I thought she was.

[356] Why was she in that apartment?

[357] Who were all these men?

[358] What is her relationship with Peter?

[359] How much of what has she told me is true?

[360] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[361] She had been under the influence and she left him there.

[362] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[363] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[364] What happens next?

[365] Depends on who you ask.

[366] Was it a crime of passion?

[367] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[368] This was clearly an intentional act.

[369] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[370] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[371] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[372] Everyone had an opinion.

[373] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[374] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[375] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

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[378] And so I talked to a few people, talk to my mom a lot.

[379] My mom is the one who threw sense into me and she was like, this person is not good.

[380] My mom was like, I think she's been lying to you this entire time.

[381] And I don't think she's being honest with you.

[382] I don't think she's a good friend.

[383] You need to stop being friends with her.

[384] You need to stop.

[385] You should not be friends with someone who will knowingly do all this stuff to damage someone else.

[386] And also it seems like it's not being 100 % truthful.

[387] I was like, you're right.

[388] I just don't know where to go from here.

[389] I don't know what's true.

[390] And I don't know how I'm going to get any actual information from her in terms of what is or is not true.

[391] I talked to a friend who's an actual lawyer.

[392] If I did try to actually sit down and talk to her in person, I wasn't sure how it was going to go if she was going to get really mad at me. And if I would still end up traveling with her if I did try to work it out in person.

[393] I honestly really, really struggled with what to do.

[394] I think in large part because I, and I mean, to this day, like I still have so many questions in my mind about what is true, what she was actually doing, why she did these things.

[395] Sasha decided to express her feelings about canceling the trip with Heidi via email.

[396] I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I did this.

[397] I wrote an email and I had my mom edit it.

[398] It was very nice and we had already prepaid for hotels and stuff.

[399] And so I was like, okay, so I'm not going to ask for any money back.

[400] I'm going to tell her, please go enjoy these hotels and these things.

[401] basically explain there's been some tension in our friendship.

[402] I think it would be really good for us if we didn't travel together.

[403] It just kind of wrote out a very simple thing.

[404] Please go enjoy the hotels.

[405] I hope you have a really great trip.

[406] And before I sent it, and after I got a ton of edits, I tried to make it as kind and simple as possible.

[407] My mom was like, she's capable of posting a bunch of stuff online.

[408] You don't want her having pictures of you or any of this stuff.

[409] You should protect yourself.

[410] And I was like, okay, I blocked her on every possible social media website.

[411] site, even LinkedIn.

[412] I was so torn even in that moment about what was the right thing to do.

[413] I did not block her on my phone or my phone number or my email because I was like, well, she might want to talk or do things, but I should probably go ahead and block her.

[414] So it's not like she has access to a bunch of pictures.

[415] My logic was a bit afraid because I was trying to figure how to get out of this trip.

[416] And also, I didn't want to keep talking to her because our last encounter was just so intense.

[417] I wasn't trying to ask for any money back or anything.

[418] I just really wanted to bow out.

[419] I think if we didn't have a trip plan together, it would have been a lot easier to gracefully distant myself from her.

[420] But yeah, couldn't do that because we had a trip book that was just for the two of us.

[421] Were you worried about your safety?

[422] I was very worried about my safety.

[423] I was nervous about traveling to a new place and potentially traveling with someone who was going to be drunk for most of it.

[424] But then also, I was really freaked out by how she treated Peter by posting all of that stuff, by contacting journalists, by trying to get revenge, trying to get back at him.

[425] We hadn't reached that point in our friendship where I felt like she was trying to get stuff to get back at me. But if something happens and we're traveling and she gets mad at me, I was generally worried about her doing what she did to Peter to me. She had talked about retaliating before, feeling like because Peter wasn't bully committing, because he wasn't at a point where he wanted to marry her or even exclusively date her at different points in my friendship with her and different points in her relationship with him.

[426] I don't know if it's true, but she told me she had contacted journalists and that she had information on how he ran his business.

[427] And when they would break up, she would try to contact a journalist to give them information on him to have something bad come out about him.

[428] What happened when I sent her the email was hundreds of calls and text messages.

[429] messages and nasty emails and nasty text messages and voicemails, she got really, really angry.

[430] And I was fully expecting her to be upset.

[431] I would be upset if someone did that to me and we had a trip planned.

[432] But I knew that if I tried to talk to her in person, she was so personable and bubbly.

[433] And I was worried that I was going to lose focus of the things that were red flags to me, that I was just going to go ahead and travel with her.

[434] But yeah, so she got really aggressive after and told me how awful a friend I was, turned everything around on me and said, you're such a bad friend.

[435] I confided in you.

[436] We talked about this.

[437] And she threatened to sue me. She threatened to take legal action.

[438] And all this happened within a few hours of me sending the email.

[439] Not sure how she could have sued me, but it freaked me out enough to just in case I contacted security at my work, let them know that I wasn't sure about this person.

[440] I'd explain to him.

[441] I'm really nervous about her contacting the office.

[442] office or trying to find me. I wanted to be 100 % careful, especially because of the onslaught of text messages, emails, phone calls, and like the weirdness of I'm going to sue you that didn't feel how can you sue me?

[443] I didn't want to fully block her on my email.

[444] I ended up blocking her on my phone, but I had my mom check any email she sent me because I couldn't read them because they were really hard.

[445] I was also in general feeling bad.

[446] That's not how I would have ever wanted to end a friendship.

[447] But she was doing a lot of name -calling and a lot of the messages she sent me were incredibly manipulative.

[448] I think I responded to her twice and then stopped responding to everything she sent me because she was trying to get into a fight with me. I think she was saying a lot of stuff to try to get a response.

[449] The one place I hadn't blocked her was a digital payment app.

[450] She had seen that I had paid my cat sitter because she knew the name of my cat sitter and then proceeded to send me another very manipulative email.

[451] now.

[452] This was several weeks after the vacation and she's still trying to get me to respond to her.

[453] I just was really jarring to me that she had gone to that length to look at a random payment app to find information on me. It freaked me out a little bit.

[454] I went to a great length of trying to protect myself.

[455] I think part of me looks back and wonder, did I have to contact security at my work?

[456] But I think all of it comes down to I didn't know who she was.

[457] And to this day, I will never know what exactly was true, what was not true, what was her relationship actually with Peter, who was she, how does she live her life?

[458] I think for me, I just have so many questions in my mind.

[459] I think I will always wonder, she sent me so many messages, and I never responded.

[460] We never talked, and I actually never saw her again after that.

[461] A lot of my friendship with her was because I was so lonely, and I think wanting any human connection that I'd kind of let the red flags and let things, that would have otherwise been deal breakers before not be deal breakers anymore.

[462] It actually made me realize I need to move somewhere where I already have more friends and more relationships and was able to make that move happen.

[463] How would you say that this experience that you had with Heidi impacted you and your friendships in the years that followed?

[464] I think for me to ask more questions and to be a little more thoughtful with how I approach friendships, but also with her, I think there were so many small red flags in the beginning that I think if I had mentioned that to other people and heard, hey, that's weird.

[465] Maybe you should think about that more or think about why you're spending time with this person.

[466] I hadn't thought about Heidi in a long time.

[467] And I was sitting on the couch with my boyfriend and I was like, I wonder what they're like, I wonder what they're up to now.

[468] And I googled Peter and Heidi.

[469] And literally the first thing that came up was a bunch of articles about Peter that were from the same year when Heidi had told me some stories.

[470] This article, about Peter.

[471] One of his employees had accused him of harassment and had actually recorded him and there was a physical altercation.

[472] And based off of the news article that I read, it happened at roughly the same time that Heidi had told me that story in that apartment about her getting into a physical altercation and recording.

[473] That to me was a bit weird because one of what was in the news, but also there were so many similarities of that story and of when it happened.

[474] and of Heidi knowing those details.

[475] And so I can't help but wonder.

[476] But again, it's so hard because I'm never going to know.

[477] But I wonder if she heard from Peter that he had been recorded and got into a physical altercation with a female employee and then retold that story to me as if it were her own.

[478] It just feels very weirdly similar that he would be getting into two different situations where someone had been recording him and then he got into a physical altercation with them.

[479] I don't know.

[480] It felt weird.

[481] From what I was able to see online, it looked like that the woman had then, like, a month later, redacted her statement.

[482] That was another interesting part.

[483] It looks like she had redacted it.

[484] So I have a lot of questions about why that similarity of she did redact it.

[485] But why did he really get into two situations at the same time where someone was recording him and then he got into a physical altercation with him?

[486] I think that's what to me feels more unbelievable, but maybe I don't know him really well.

[487] There's something just like feels off about that like the similarities and the timing.

[488] Even as I look back on my own story, when I look back at her birthday party, there were red flags.

[489] There were so many things where I was genuinely uncomfortable, but I went with it because I needed a friend and Heidi was actually there for me and supportive in a lot of other ways and I didn't listen to my gut.

[490] And I think if I had listened to my gut and been like actually this person may not be 100 % honest with me, this may not be a great situation.

[491] Yes, I'm lonely.

[492] Maybe that just means I think trying to identify some of those deeper root things.

[493] Maybe I should be in therapy.

[494] Maybe I should be closer to family where I have a good support network.

[495] Does this feel okay?

[496] Does it seem like they're being honest?

[497] I feel like it's been good to talk about it and actually process it and think about what happened because I really didn't, especially after it happened.

[498] And I was like, okay, this is in the past.

[499] I'm not going to tell anyone.

[500] It's been a good.

[501] Also healing, getting to process it.

[502] Well, thank you again so much for taking the time and energy to do so.

[503] I really appreciate it.

[504] Something Was Wrong is an Audio Chuck production.

[505] Created and hosted by Tiffany Reese.

[506] Our theme song was originally composed by Gladrags, covered this season by Kenna and the Kings.

[507] So what do you think, Chuck?

[508] you approve?

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