S14 E3: Oh Here We Go

[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] This season, guests will be sharing their own testimony in regards to the criminal allegations against Jake Gravbrot.

[11] All persons are assumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

[12] Guess experiences are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of myself, something was wrong, or Wondery.

[13] At the time of this episode's airing, Jake Gravbrot has not responded to our request for comment.

[14] If you have been a victim of Jake Gravbrot or have a crime tip in relation to these matters, please visit Something Was Wrong .com slash 14 for more information.

[15] All names of minors involved in this story have been changed for their privacy and protection.

[16] Some survivor names have also been changed for anonymity and safety purposes.

[17] Season 14 covers a variety of mature topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence.

[18] Content warnings for each episode and resources for survivors can be found in the episode notes.

[19] The podcast or any linked materials should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment.

[20] Thank you so much for listening.

[21] So this is when Melissa comes into the picture.

[22] I'm Melissa.

[23] I've known Jake my whole life.

[24] My grandmother was acquaintances or friends with his grandma.

[25] They would get together, have coffee, tea, things like that, and we would play as children.

[26] He went to a private Christian elementary school.

[27] I went to public elementary school, so we didn't have a lot of contact through those years.

[28] We went to middle school together.

[29] Middle school was a very different experience for both of us.

[30] I was, extremely bullied, the outcast, and he was the popular kid, but we had known each other our whole lives.

[31] So he was always kind to me and stood up for me. Because of that, he was always a person that I thought highly of.

[32] He was one of my only friends all through middle school.

[33] I eventually was pulled out of that middle school in my eighth grade year and moved to a different town because the bullying was so bad.

[34] And because of that, we went to different.

[35] high schools.

[36] I'm an extremely guarded and shy person.

[37] It's always my entire life, it's been really hard for me to make new friends, to come out of my shell.

[38] I was adopted and I think because of that I have pretty severe abandonment issues that I've carried from childhood.

[39] I also had some emotional and mental abuse as a child, which are things that Jake knew and eventually.

[40] used against me later on.

[41] Back in middle school, the bullying, I had severe anxiety from the way I was treated.

[42] The actual act of getting up and going to school every day, it was a terrible, vicious cycle of feeling sick and not wanting to go and fighting my family to not make me go.

[43] I eventually went to a different district and things were fine.

[44] I made friends a lot easier once I was out of that other environment.

[45] I would say as an adult, it hasn't been as hard for me. I make friends fairly easily now, but I'm still extremely shy.

[46] So that's been a hard thing for me to overcome in my life.

[47] That's part of what always drew me into Jake is that he was the opposite of me. He was the life of the party.

[48] He was the one that easily made friends wherever he went, and people wanted to be around him.

[49] When you're the opposite of that, I think that's what you wish you could be.

[50] That might have been a big part of why I held him on such a pedestal from such an early age.

[51] He would always tell me things like, you were at my first birthday party, and obviously I don't remember that.

[52] So I have no reference if that is true, but he would tell people that, that I was his oldest friend in the world, and one of his favorites.

[53] What I observed through childhood, and even in the middle school, he was very outgoing.

[54] he was the type of person that was friends with everyone.

[55] He got along with everyone.

[56] He didn't have a specific group that he was a part of.

[57] He was funny and loud.

[58] He was really, honestly, the most popular kid in school.

[59] And everybody wanted to be his friend and everybody wanted to be around him.

[60] It didn't help me that he was nice to me. It didn't give me points.

[61] He definitely was a kind person as far as that goes.

[62] He had issues within his family.

[63] He was born to a single mom.

[64] She lived with her parents for the first couple years.

[65] I believe while she went to college, she eventually met a man she married who ended up being Jake's stepdad.

[66] And that man adopted Jake.

[67] I cannot remember the age, but it was fairly early in his life.

[68] It was when his mom and stepdad started having their own kids, that he was treated a little bit differently.

[69] And I don't know if he started acting out because of that or if he was treated differently because he started acting out.

[70] But I know that he did start getting in trouble.

[71] He came from a very extremely religious family.

[72] I remember him saying in middle school that he wasn't allowed to have any kind of music that had any swear words on it.

[73] Everything was highly censored, so he had to sneak around a lot, even with the music that he listened to, had to hide things so his parents wouldn't find them.

[74] And his stepdad was definitely the one that was more of the disciplined person.

[75] He tried to keep him in line the best that he could.

[76] It created a really big rift between them over the years where he resented him.

[77] Pretty much as As soon as he turned 18, he moved to Seattle.

[78] He comes and goes from their lives, as with anything, if he needs something and they can serve that purpose.

[79] But I don't think that he really has any desire to have a relationship with them.

[80] I met Chris when I was 17, right after my 17th birthday, and we dated until I was 22 when we got married.

[81] We already had our first child.

[82] In 2003, we had a daughter and our son was born in 2008.

[83] So they would have been probably around five and my son was around one.

[84] I didn't get very many breaks.

[85] I didn't get very many weekends away.

[86] During this time, my grandma was dying of cancer.

[87] I don't have a really large family.

[88] And my mom was the caregiver for my grandma.

[89] And I didn't have a lot of child care options outside of either my mom or my grandma.

[90] And they were both obviously wrapped up during a lot of that time.

[91] I was really looking forward to having a weekend away.

[92] And I believe my in -laws watched our kids for the weekend.

[93] And I was so excited to have adult time and decompress a little bit because life had been pretty heavy.

[94] I was extremely close with my grandma.

[95] was probably the closest person in my life.

[96] And to watch her slowly fade and go downhill was a lot to take in.

[97] 2009, she passed away.

[98] It was a hard couple months there.

[99] I was definitely in a vulnerable state.

[100] When he came back into my life, I was really struggling with that whole process.

[101] I had actually a lot of loss leading up to that.

[102] My grandpa had died suddenly about two years before that.

[103] And the closest person that I had in my life, my mom's best friend's son, we grew up together.

[104] He was my brother and I was his sister.

[105] And growing up, we were either at his house or he was at our house.

[106] We did everything together.

[107] And he was killed in a car accident in 2006.

[108] That was a really hard thing for me to go through losing him.

[109] And then my grandpa died a year later.

[110] and then my grandma died two years after that.

[111] My entire family was gone within a really short period of time.

[112] I think that definitely affected my marriage.

[113] On top of that, having a special needs child was a lot of strain.

[114] Personally, it was a lot of weight on my shoulders, trying to grieve and go through it and find the right paths forward.

[115] And I didn't feel like I had a lot of support as far as dealing with the constant, appointments.

[116] I had a really good job and I wasn't able to go back to it because there were weekly occupational therapy and speech.

[117] We had a therapist that would come in and work in our home.

[118] Every day there was something and it was a lot of weight for me to carry on my own.

[119] I was in my mid to late 20s around 2009.

[120] I was living not far from the town that we grew up in.

[121] So we still had a lot a mutual friends.

[122] One of my best friends, she went to high school with Jake and worked with him a summer job for a baseball team.

[123] She was in contact with him on Facebook and we had planned a weekend getaway to Seattle to go to a Mariners game.

[124] It was her and her husband and my husband and myself and they were going to fly in.

[125] She had mentioned to me like, oh, I had I talked to Jake.

[126] and he wanted to meet up at the game, and I told him that you were going to be there, and he was really excited because, you know, we had not talked in so many years.

[127] And I got a friend request not long after that.

[128] He was over the top nice from that very first conversation that we had.

[129] He wanted to know, what time are you getting to Seattle?

[130] I can't wait to see you.

[131] I can't believe how many years that it's been.

[132] This is so crazy.

[133] He was a person that I felt very strongly for in my life.

[134] He was always such a positive person to me. There wasn't a bad story up to that point attached to Jake.

[135] I was super excited to see him a little bit nervous because it had been so long.

[136] And seeing each other as teenagers versus seeing each other as adults with children, a lot happens in between there.

[137] I went to Seattle before everyone else, my best friend and her husband flew in a little bit later and we're going to meet at the stadium.

[138] I checked into the hotel and I got a message from Jake.

[139] He asked if he could swing by and pick me up at my hotel.

[140] And I felt really uncomfortable with that.

[141] I thought, oh, I'm not ready.

[142] Being shy and being guarded, I felt like when I see him for the first time after all these years, I'd feel more comfortable if it were in the group setting when everybody's there.

[143] I declined that and ended up going and meeting a different friend before the game.

[144] and I believe it was a couple innings in to the game.

[145] My best friend and her husband had arrived.

[146] We had a friend that played for the Mariners.

[147] We had made plans to go out with him and his wife after the game.

[148] Jake came and met us and he had his son with him.

[149] He came up to us and he gave me a hug.

[150] He said, how are you?

[151] And I said, I'm good.

[152] How are you?

[153] And instead of the normal, generic, I haven't talked to you in so long, I'm good kind of response.

[154] I got a response back that literally made me take a step back because it was a lot.

[155] 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.

[156] I'm Sachi Cole.

[157] And I'm Sarah Haggy.

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

[159] 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.

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

[161] To the infamous scams of real housewife 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.

[162] Follow scam influencers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

[164] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

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

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

[167] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends.

[168] Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[169] What happens next?

[170] Depends on who you ask.

[171] Was it a crime of passion?

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

[173] This was clearly an intentional act.

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

[175] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

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

[177] Everyone had an opinion, and after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

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

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

[180] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus.

[181] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

[182] He said, I've been really bad.

[183] My son's mom is crazy and she took him away.

[184] I didn't know where he was and she wouldn't let me see him.

[185] It's been stressful and I've been going to court and there's all this stuff going on and I've been depressed and all of this.

[186] I instantly was thinking to myself like, well, that is a lot of information in an opening conversation to someone that you have not seen in over a decade.

[187] what I know now, that definitely would have been a red flag.

[188] But I do remember feeling this is a little bit off.

[189] There's something weird with that.

[190] But I brushed over it and he didn't really bring it up the rest of the night.

[191] I thought it was really odd that he talked about all of that in front of his young son that was standing right next to him.

[192] I think at some point one of us changed the subject to get it off of that because it was really awkward and uncomfortable to just have him be spewing all of that towards us within the first couple minutes of meeting up.

[193] In a public place at a baseball game seemed like a really inappropriate time for that conversation.

[194] We invited Jake to go with us out to dinner.

[195] And he said in passing that he had a girlfriend, I had said to him, invite your girlfriend.

[196] So he did.

[197] Kalyn picked us up after the game.

[198] We got into the back of the car and the whole way to the restaurant.

[199] He would, was telling her, Melissa's one of my oldest friends.

[200] I've known her since basically I was born.

[201] I could tell Kaylin was maybe not overwhelmed, but kind of like, okay, I get it.

[202] You don't have to keep telling me. It was an interesting ride there with him almost talking like he was proud of how long we had been in each other's lives.

[203] It was an interesting feeling for me because I didn't have a lot of people that I felt would have been proud.

[204] on that level to be my friend.

[205] So it made me feel good.

[206] It made me feel like he's the person that I remember.

[207] He's the kind, caring.

[208] He's the same.

[209] He hasn't changed.

[210] My first impression of Kalen was that she was so kind and she was beautiful.

[211] She seemed to match what I would think as far as Jake would go.

[212] Him being in my mind, this charming and caring and outgoing person, Kailen seemed to be similar to that.

[213] She was very welcoming.

[214] The type of person that when you first meet makes you feel at ease.

[215] I always felt that from her, even from day one.

[216] I didn't have very many more times where I saw Kaylin after that.

[217] When I would see Jake, he would always have an excuse why she couldn't come.

[218] They didn't have a child together at that point.

[219] She was just his girlfriend.

[220] As my grandma was getting sicker and sicker, he was checking in with me. pretty regularly and making sure I was okay and asking if I needed anything.

[221] He would message me and share a memory that he remembered of my grandma.

[222] It meant a lot to me during that time that he cared enough to reach out to make sure I was okay during all of that.

[223] And past that, it was pretty, I'd say inconsistent.

[224] We didn't talk on a regular basis.

[225] Once in a while, as the years went on when I would be in Seattle if I was going to go to a Mariners game.

[226] I don't think I met up with him outside of a Mariners game.

[227] It was when my husband and I would go to Mariners games, we would usually meet up.

[228] And I remember he actually came to my 30th birthday and I invited Kalin too.

[229] And he made an excuse that she had other plans that night or wasn't able to get a sitter.

[230] I don't remember exactly what it was, but she didn't come.

[231] But talking to her, I don't think he even told her.

[232] about it.

[233] It was strange because he would comment things if I would ever post a selfie.

[234] He would write things like, you get prettier and prettier as the years go by.

[235] I'm proud to say I knew you and you were one.

[236] It would make me feel good, but it's borderline inappropriate, considering I'm married and he's in a relationship.

[237] I would usually comment back like, thanks.

[238] I'm thankful for your friendship.

[239] Knowing what I know now, I think he was doing a lot of groom.

[240] he would put those little feelers out to see if I would bite at anything that he said.

[241] Of course, I never did.

[242] That was 2009 when we got back in communication and Chris and I separated around September of 2012.

[243] I had posted something, probably dramatic, a meme or a song lyric or something to that effect.

[244] Jake reached out and wanted to know what's going on.

[245] Are you okay?

[246] And I told him, Chris and I separated.

[247] It's for the best.

[248] We were not good.

[249] It wasn't right.

[250] I'm definitely struggling.

[251] It's a lot of change.

[252] I've been with him since I was 17.

[253] It's a family.

[254] It's scary to think about where we go from here.

[255] He writes back and tells me, I can relate.

[256] Kalin and I are going through the same thing.

[257] Let's be here for each other.

[258] We can get through it together.

[259] I was surprised to hear that.

[260] but also not really surprised because I was Facebook friends with Kaylin and I was also obviously Facebook and Instagram friends with Jake and I started thinking I haven't really seen them posting together.

[261] I had not talked to him super consistently in the months leading up to that.

[262] I just took him for his word and assume that he was being honest.

[263] He tells me they're separated, they're living separate lives.

[264] He told me that Kaylin was living downstairs.

[265] He was living upstairs.

[266] They were not spending any time together.

[267] She would go to work.

[268] You would go to work.

[269] She would go do things with friends.

[270] He would go do whatever he was doing.

[271] And they did not have anything that they were really sharing together at that point.

[272] But they were still struggling with how to move forward with kids and how do you separate the family and all of that.

[273] I did not question that because I was going through the exact same thing.

[274] And it's really hard and it's confusing.

[275] We were friends.

[276] that started talking more frequently at that point and texting back and forth more frequently.

[277] My daughter had pretty long hair, came home from school one afternoon, and said, I want short hair, and I want to donate my hair to a cancer patient.

[278] I said, oh, I think that is amazing.

[279] Let's go get your hair cut.

[280] And she has super thick hair.

[281] They braided it and then just cut the braid off.

[282] And because her hair is so thick in the back, it looked horrendous.

[283] They could not really blend it.

[284] It looked like someone had taken a weed whacker to the back of her head.

[285] I posted a picture of it like, oh my gosh, what do you even do with this?

[286] Laughing but not laughing, I don't know what to do.

[287] Jake texted me and he said, you have to bring her over so I can fix her hair.

[288] You can't send her back to school looking like that.

[289] I said, it's the middle of the week.

[290] I can't get to Seattle.

[291] I would not be able to get over there until the weekend.

[292] At this point, he owns his own salon, and he says to me, bring her over Saturday, I'll open the salon up and go in just to fix her hair.

[293] I was so touched that he was willing to do that.

[294] I said, okay, I took him up on it.

[295] And Saturday morning, we got in the car and we drove to Seattle.

[296] We get to Seattle, and he was waiting at his salon with his son, Bowie.

[297] His son and my daughter, they're about the same age.

[298] they've met one other time before this at a mutual friend's wedding and they really hit it off and had a ton of fun playing he cuts her hair and spends what felt like probably an hour hand shaping the back of her head it was really actually incredible what it looked like before to what he got it to look like at the end and I was just so thankful and I went to pay him and he wouldn't take my money he's like no I did that for you you're going through a lot and you're a really good friend, and I would never take your money.

[299] We're getting ready to leave, and he said, we're hungry.

[300] Do you guys want to go get lunch?

[301] I said, sure.

[302] So we go to lunch at an Italian restaurant, and he wouldn't let me pay there either.

[303] And then when we left there, he says, do you want to go ride the Ferris wheel?

[304] It's winter, and there's a mountain pass in between Seattle and where I live.

[305] And as the day is getting further and further away from us, and it's starting to get dark, I'm thinking I'm going to have to drive over the pass.

[306] I don't want to be here too late, but I also don't want to be rude.

[307] But I'm like, okay, we rode the Ferris wheel.

[308] Then he said, let's go get ice cream.

[309] I'm starting to get a little bit of anxiety at this point because he just keeps extending it out and he did something so incredibly nice for me and for my daughter that I'm feeling bad saying, no, thank you.

[310] I'm going to head out.

[311] So I went, we went and got ice cream and left from there.

[312] I tried to pay for the ice cream.

[313] I tried to pay for the Ferris wheel.

[314] He would not take my money.

[315] That was the start of where things shifted between us.

[316] That was early December is when he tried to take it to a more romantic place.

[317] And he told me that he had feelings for me. And he's like, and I know that you feel the same.

[318] I can sense it.

[319] He said it makes a lot of sense.

[320] We've been friends.

[321] Our whole lives.

[322] We trust each other.

[323] We've been through similar things.

[324] going through the same thing now.

[325] The two of us make sense together.

[326] I didn't really know how I felt at that point, but he started bombarding me. The second that the feelings were out on the table, I was questioning what I was feeling for him.

[327] I was going through a lot in my life, and he was making me feel better.

[328] I didn't know if I was mistaking that for romantic feelings, or if I did feel that for him.

[329] He started really bombarding me with messages all the time from the morning when he would wake up until two, three o 'clock in the morning.

[330] It pretty quickly wore me down and I gave in.

[331] Maybe this is all happening for a reason and maybe something good could come out of this.

[332] I felt really hopeful.

[333] Around the beginning of December of 2012, I was going to be in Seattle to visit other friends.

[334] I already had other plans.

[335] I knew I was going to be there, but I had purposely not told him that yet because I was seeing where things were going to go between us.

[336] I was a little bit uneasy and unsure and questioning things a little bit.

[337] He had been pretty pushy and wanting to meet up, even offered to drive to where I'm at, wanted me to meet up with him.

[338] He said, we can go to dinner, we can do this or we can do that.

[339] And I had up until that point blown all of that off.

[340] and made excuses because it was not ready.

[341] I felt that once it moved to that next stage, I wasn't sure what would happen.

[342] And that unknown with everything I was going through felt really scary.

[343] This is a friend that I've had my whole life that I really tremendously value.

[344] And I don't know if this, for one, is the right time.

[345] And two, even if it was good timing, I'm not sure it's worth risking a friendship that I value.

[346] this much.

[347] He convinced me that you mean a lot to me and this is different.

[348] It was special.

[349] I did finally tell him a few days before that I was going to be in Seattle and I was staying in a hotel, had plans for the majority of it, but that there would be times where I could make plans with him too.

[350] That was the first time that we slept together.

[351] He definitely shifted a little bit right after.

[352] He didn't try and end things.

[353] They got a little bit distant for a couple days and then came back again full force, started the whole thing again, the constant text messages.

[354] I made plans to go back specifically to spend time with him a couple more times in December.

[355] Both of those times, he was really pushy about taking pictures and videoing.

[356] I was really uncomfortable, but he was so pushy about it that I gave in and let him.

[357] It made me really uncomfortable.

[358] He sent them to me after the fact, and I deleted him.

[359] because I didn't even want to watch.

[360] It was not something that I wanted to really be reminded that I was a part of.

[361] It was something that he had pushed me out of my comfort zone and didn't really respect that I didn't feel comfortable.

[362] He didn't want to take no for an answer.

[363] I gave in to that and let him walk all over me. I went to Seattle to a Seahawks game with another friend, and he messaged me the whole time, I'm borrowing Kalin's car.

[364] Can I come pick you up?

[365] Can you leave the game?

[366] I said, no, I'm not going to leave the game.

[367] This was planned way before.

[368] I'm not going to blow off my friend.

[369] And he was relentless.

[370] He ruined the game for me because he would not stop messaging the whole time.

[371] It was probably 100 text messages throughout the whole game later into the evening.

[372] He was upset that I would not meet up with him.

[373] Then I did actually finally meet up with him the next day.

[374] And he got so angry at me that during sex, he scratched my back so deeply that it was bleeding, literally gushing blood, telling me that he did that to mark his territory.

[375] Like, you chose to go be with someone else.

[376] I said, I was with female friends.

[377] I wasn't with another guy.

[378] I wasn't on a date.

[379] Like, what are you even doing?

[380] I left there in obvious pain.

[381] My back was a mess.

[382] I remember going to another friend's house and I said, can you look at my back?

[383] feels like it's on fire right now.

[384] I will never forget her reaction to it.

[385] She was so angry.

[386] She said, I don't think I've ever seen something like this before.

[387] This is disgusting.

[388] She went and got Neosporin and put it all over my back because she's like, this looks so deep.

[389] It could get infected.

[390] You're going to have to like keep it clean.

[391] It was so painful.

[392] That was the first time that I'd ever seen him act like that or get jealous.

[393] He didn't like me having other friends.

[394] He didn't like me talking to other people.

[395] He was mad if I wasn't prioritizing being with him.

[396] But I was just coming out of this long marriage and I was also enjoying being able to visit with friends, have that side of my life where I could just be an adult.

[397] I did not want to give him every single ounce of my time.

[398] During our communication in February, one thing that he started really coming at me with was I've never felt the way that I feel about anyone, the way I feel about you.

[399] Like you're special.

[400] I feel differently about you.

[401] And then he would start to tell me things like I've been a really bad person up until this point, but you make me want to be a better person.

[402] But I want you to understand the person that I was before.

[403] He would go into these long explanations in detail about all this horrific stuff that he had done in relationships.

[404] And I have all of this in screenshots.

[405] He told me that he never was loyal to Kalen, that he was dating some personal trainer already when he started pursuing Kalin.

[406] He said, when I started pursuing Kalin, I had a girlfriend.

[407] She lived on Bainbridge Island.

[408] So she was, you know, across the water.

[409] I didn't see her every day.

[410] He said, I also was sleeping with four co -workers at the salon I was working at.

[411] He said, the summer that I started dating Kalin, I slept with dozens of women outside of her.

[412] I said, that's disgusting.

[413] Why are you telling me all of this?

[414] And he would say, I don't feel that way about you.

[415] He said, if I felt that way about you, I'd never want to see you again.

[416] I've had so many one -night stands, waking up next to women disgusts me. He would tell me about how he would basically hop from coworker to coworker.

[417] He would have sex with them in the salon and then he would later in the day have sex with a different one.

[418] He said they all knew that I was sleeping with all of them and they were okay with it.

[419] And I just thought, I don't know what world this man lives in that this is like a normal way of life.

[420] But I was so pulled in by this point that I listened to it.

[421] And I thought maybe he's being honest with me that he wants me to understand.

[422] that he hasn't been great up until this point, but that he wants to be better.

[423] There's a lot of these conversations where he's admitting to things that he's done and tells me that he's been with so many women that he's lost track.

[424] And I said, what do you mean he lost track?

[425] And he said, oh, I stopped counting somewhere in the two to three hundreds.

[426] He said something to the effect of, I can sleep with anyone I want to.

[427] I said, how does that even happen?

[428] How do you even get to that point?

[429] And he said, because I realized that I could sleep with anybody that I wanted, so I did.

[430] I'm starting to think, okay, I get obviously why his marriage with Kalin failed.

[431] It didn't seem like either of them were ever really invested in it.

[432] I didn't really question that they really were separated and that they really were moving towards a divorce and that she really did despise him as much as he claimed that she did the first weekend in February.

[433] one of my other very close friends invited me to come to L .A. for a weekend.

[434] Fly out Friday afternoon, fly back early Monday.

[435] Jake said, well, what are you going to do with your car?

[436] I said, I'll leave it at the airport.

[437] And he said, well, don't do that.

[438] Park it at my house.

[439] I live close to the light rail.

[440] It's stupid to pay all that money to park when you don't have to.

[441] I said, okay.

[442] And he said, well, since you're coming over here anyway, could you swing by and pick Bowie up?

[443] for me because I pick him up Friday afternoons for my visitation over the weekend and that would save me a trip.

[444] I remember thinking, is his mother not going to think that's weird that some random person that she's never met is picking up her son?

[445] But I agreed to it and I went there and picked his son up and drove him over to Seattle.

[446] We got really hung up in traffic and I was worried I was going to miss my flight.

[447] Jake said, it's okay.

[448] Come to the house and I'll just drive you to the airport really quick.

[449] He was waiting outside.

[450] He sent his son inside and he hopped in.

[451] He's like, here, let me drive.

[452] I know the roads better.

[453] He had spoken to being separated and Kalen being the only one in their marriage that had a car.

[454] It was causing issues because they were trying to coordinate who could take the car.

[455] I just said to him, like, maybe it would make things easier for the weekend if you had two cars.

[456] So you can use my car for whatever you need.

[457] He was really thankful that I had offered that.

[458] My flight on the way back was delayed, so I was pretty late coming back.

[459] And he was annoyed because I wasn't on the ground when I said I was going to be.

[460] I was trying to explain to him like, I have no control over when planes take off or when there's delays.

[461] I finally landed, drove him home, and I went home the next day.

[462] He messaged me and said, hey, can you do me a really big favor?

[463] And he asked me if I would reach out to Kalyn and thank her for letting me park my car at their house.

[464] I thought, well, that's kind of strange.

[465] But sure, I'll do that.

[466] So I reached out to her.

[467] She wrote back and said, yeah, no problem.

[468] Hope you had a good time.

[469] And then a couple hours later, I got another message from her.

[470] And it said, what happened between you and Jake?

[471] I'm Dan Taberski.

[472] In 2011, something's strange.

[473] Strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

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

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

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

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

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

[479] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

[480] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[481] Well, you were holding something back.

[482] Intentionally.

[483] Yeah, yeah.

[484] Well, yeah.

[485] No, it's hysteria.

[486] It's all in your head.

[487] It's not physical.

[488] Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating.

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

[490] Or is it something else entirely?

[491] Something's wrong here.

[492] Something's not right.

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

[494] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[495] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[496] You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[497] I was really caught off guard by it.

[498] I wrote back.

[499] Huh?

[500] Or something like that.

[501] I'm really confused because I'm under the impression that, yes, they're still living together, but definitely the way that he had told it to me those few months leading up to all of that was that they were separated, that they were living separate lives, that it was over, that Kaelin wanted nothing to do with him, that even leading up to when they separated, she wouldn't have sex with him, that she despised him.

[502] He told me that he never actually wanted to marry her.

[503] They just weren't compatible.

[504] Neither one of us really wanted to be together.

[505] He never really spoke badly to me about Kalin.

[506] He would complain about things that she would do, but he never once said she's crazy.

[507] He spoke fairly highly of her.

[508] It met Melissa three times prior to that.

[509] She leaves her car at our house, And I'm like, it's weird, but like, I don't care, whatever.

[510] I'm glad I have a car during the day.

[511] I went home to Orange County.

[512] It was maybe a week.

[513] We would talk every day, very surface.

[514] Like, how are you, fine?

[515] Okay, like, this is what I'm doing.

[516] Okay, bye.

[517] He obviously didn't tell me he was having anyone at our home.

[518] When I got home, I noticed that there were long brown hairs in my bathroom.

[519] And so I was like, did you have somebody over?

[520] And he's like, no. And I said, oh.

[521] It's weird because there's like a long hair in the bathroom.

[522] And he's like, oh, here we go.

[523] And he's like, I'm a hairstylist, Kailen.

[524] Hair sometimes comes home on me. And I'm like, okay, I'm sorry.

[525] But like, we've been living together for two years and never ever has a hair come home with you in a long strand and been placed on our counter.

[526] That doesn't happen.

[527] I'm like, I don't even care if you had someone over.

[528] Just be honest.

[529] It's fine for you to have friends.

[530] You can have somebody over.

[531] It's not a big deal.

[532] And he's like, I didn't have.

[533] anyone over, okay?

[534] I'd let it go for the time being, but in the back of my head, I know something's going on.

[535] He leaves his iPad one day when he goes to work, and so I look at it again, because I'm like, something is going on.

[536] I normally would just look in his inbox or anything that was there in plain view, but I looked at his scent.

[537] I had never ever done anything like this in a previous relationship.

[538] It's out of the normal for me. I look at his sent messages, and I find a picture of him having sex with Melissa that he had sent to her.

[539] I message her, and then I message him, and I said, you could have been honest when I asked you if you had somebody over, and I forwarded the email to myself so that he couldn't tell me I was crazy and that I made it up.

[540] I'd seen it with my own eyes.

[541] I have proof this time.

[542] I sent him the screenshot.

[543] Like, what the hell is this?

[544] What is going on?

[545] I don't even know what I'm supposed to respond to this.

[546] Catch me up here because I feel like I'm missing a piece to this puzzle.

[547] He writes back and says, holy shit, okay, I'm heading home.

[548] And I'm like, no, I want you to talk to me. Tell me what is happening here.

[549] He finally responds hours later.

[550] And he says to me, Kalen is the love of my life.

[551] I can't lose her.

[552] She can't leave me. And I said, what do you mean leave you?

[553] You guys are separated.

[554] You can't leave someone when you're not together.

[555] And he says, we're not separated.

[556] I told you that.

[557] No, you did not.

[558] Tell me that.

[559] And he said, well, either way, whether I lied to you or whether I didn't lie to you, I love her.

[560] She's the love of my life.

[561] She's my soulmate.

[562] I can't live without her.

[563] I don't even know what roller coaster I am on, but let me off.

[564] I'm so confused right now.

[565] I've never encountered anything like this in my entire life.

[566] I have no clue what to even make of this.

[567] I pack up my stuff and I go to one of my friends' houses.

[568] I stayed with her for, well, it ended up being like two and a half weeks that I stayed with her.

[569] She would watch Emerson for me when I went to work, which was so amazing of her to help me. He first said, okay, it was Melissa, and then it turned into, okay, it was Melissa and like these other people.

[570] And then it was Melissa and five other people from his work long time ago.

[571] He's like, I never cheated on you when you were pregnant.

[572] Just kept saying that.

[573] I'm like, whatever.

[574] I don't even believe you.

[575] It doesn't matter.

[576] I said, I want to move back to California where I can be with my parents, where I have help.

[577] I'm not staying.

[578] He said, will you go to therapy with me?

[579] And if you still feel the same way after a month, then you can leave.

[580] And I'll agree to it.

[581] I won't fight you.

[582] I said, okay, fine.

[583] Because I didn't want him to try and say I kidnapped her.

[584] I felt really bad and guilty that I was taking her from her dad, that I was taking her brother from her.

[585] I just felt really guilty.

[586] But this was the push I needed to be like, no, I need to do what's right for.

[587] me and my daughter.

[588] The days after that, we're still communicating, but clear, like, very clear cut.

[589] I'm talking to you as a friend.

[590] There's nothing beyond that here at this point.

[591] He's telling me, she found pictures of you on my computer and that's how she found out.

[592] I'm stupid.

[593] I should have deleted it.

[594] As the days go on, he's shifting the narrative from, I lied to you, and I wasn't honest with you to get what I wanted.

[595] He's shifting the narrative from that to, well, you knew that I was still married and you destroyed my family.

[596] My wife is going to leave me. She's going to take my daughter.

[597] I'm going to lose my family and it's your fault.

[598] He starts bombarding me with that and shifting all of the blame onto me. It appears like he's on the verge of some kind of mental breakdown because he's all over the place with the things that He's saying he seems frantic and desperate.

[599] I'm honestly concerned for his safety.

[600] And I'm trying to talk him through all of this from a place of caring.

[601] I'm rationalizing this in my head as, yeah, he lied.

[602] Obviously, there's something going on here.

[603] This is not the person that I thought that I knew.

[604] But I'm going to put all of that to the side right now because he's clearly incredibly unstable in this moment and I don't want anything to happen to him.

[605] So I'm going to be there for him as a friend.

[606] As the days go on, I'm trying to get him to be honest.

[607] I'm explaining to him, okay, you want to make your marriage work.

[608] The first thing that you have to do is be honest.

[609] You have to tell the truth.

[610] He just won't do it.

[611] He will not, for anything, tell her the truth.

[612] He's telling me, don't talk to her.

[613] Don't respond to any message that she sends you.

[614] He doesn't really go into too much detail about that.

[615] I'm wanting to get as much distance from this as possible, but at the same time, he's showing me. sides of him that I don't even know.

[616] I don't even recognize this person that's in front of me on the other side of these text messages or the phone calls.

[617] And he's just telling me over and over again, like, I have to make it work.

[618] I can't live without her.

[619] And I'm trying to not lose it with him.

[620] I'm trying to talk him through it as, okay, I can tell like you are not in a well place right now.

[621] If you want to save your marriage, you have to start by being honest.

[622] And again, he won't be honest.

[623] He will not own up to any of it.

[624] I tried a couple times to back him into a corner to get him to be honest.

[625] He would lie his way out of the corner.

[626] It was unbelievable to me. I'd never seen someone lie with such ease.

[627] There was one night that he was texting me really calmly telling me like, I know I hurt you and I lied you and that's on me. I used my words to hurt your heart and I took advantage of you or when you were vulnerable and I hope someday you can forgive me for all of that.

[628] But I really need to try and make it work with my wife.

[629] I really need to do whatever it takes to make my marriage work.

[630] I don't want to lose her.

[631] I don't want to lose my family.

[632] And I said I understand that.

[633] I just think that you need to be honest and start with a clean slate.

[634] You're not going to start anything beginning it with lies.

[635] And he even said that night, I know that you're right, and I do need to be honest.

[636] I found out later, while he's texting me and having this fairly rational conversation, he's telling Kalen, he's on the phone with her crying hysterically and sobbing, threatening to kill himself.

[637] And it's the exact same time frame.

[638] It's mind -blowing to me. I don't remember what the final straw was, but I believe that he was telling Kalen, I never told her I loved her.

[639] She knew the whole time that we were together and that I loved you and that it was just sex.

[640] Kalen was in communication with Chris.

[641] I found that out that he was telling Kalin that because Kalin told Chris and then Chris told me. It made me mad because he was the first person that said, I love you and he said it constantly.

[642] It was every day.

[643] He would throw it at me over and over and over again.

[644] That was the final straw for me. I knew at that point he's not going to ever be honest, and I'm not going to let him paint me like some person that knew he was married and knew that he wanted to be with his wife, but here I am chasing after him or whatever it was that he was saying.

[645] I wasn't going to allow that.

[646] Chris was working out of town.

[647] I messaged him and I said, hey, can you do me a favor?

[648] Can you ask Kalin if I can come talk to her?

[649] He said, yeah, absolutely.

[650] He got back.

[651] back to me and he said that Kaylin said you could come over tonight.

[652] I said, okay, I'm going to drive over there to Seattle and go talk to her.

[653] And he said, I think that's a good idea.

[654] I think that it would really help her.

[655] She's really struggling with all of this.

[656] I asked Chris, I said, I'm really nervous to go see her.

[657] I know it's the right thing to do, but I'm really nervous.

[658] I have a lot of anxiety about this.

[659] Will you go with me?

[660] And he said, sure, I'll go with you.

[661] So he actually drove me over there that night.

[662] She came over and she's talking to me and she's so sorry and I feel bad for her because if it wasn't her, it would have been someone else and I tried to tell her that.

[663] Like, I know he's been cheating on me this whole time because I keep catching him and he's making me feel crazy.

[664] Thank you for releasing me because now I finally can be okay leaving and not feel guilty.

[665] I opened my phone to Jake's text messages and I handed her my phone and I said, you can read.

[666] his words.

[667] It's better than anything that I can tell you or me trying to defend myself or explain it in my words.

[668] I think you need to just read his text messages.

[669] She sat there and scrolled through.

[670] She was taking screenshots here and there and sending them to herself because everything she was reading in these text messages from him contradicted everything he had been telling her.

[671] She's telling me about how horrendous their marriage has been.

[672] And she's telling me he's a terrible dad.

[673] He doesn't pay for anything.

[674] He doesn't like watching the kids.

[675] He doesn't contribute.

[676] He does not want to parent.

[677] It's hard for me to even wrap my head around that because it was so opposite of the image that I had of him partially because I came into this, not questioning what kind of person he was because I've known him for so long.

[678] Also, what I believed him to be lined up with how he portrayed himself on social media.

[679] As a very hands -on, doting, loving dad and family man, she's telling me all of this.

[680] And as she's talking, I think she's a little bit distracted.

[681] And instead of sending the screenshot to her phone, she accidentally sent it to Jake.

[682] and obviously it's coming from my phone.

[683] He's shooting a concert in downtown Seattle, so he's only a few minutes away.

[684] He writes back a couple minutes later, panicking to me and says, why are you sending that screenshot to me?

[685] What are you doing with that screenshot?

[686] It was not something that made him look good, for sure.

[687] He probably assumed that I was sending that to him to let him know that I was going to send it to Kalin.

[688] He had no clue at that point that I was actually in their house.

[689] talking to her.

[690] Kaelin's still holding my phone scrolling and he calls and she answers it.

[691] At this point, he knows that I'm there and we're talking.

[692] He's like, I'm already in the car.

[693] I'm heading there.

[694] I start to panic because I don't want to be there when he gets there and I know he's not that far away.

[695] So we quickly wrap it up and we start to leave.

[696] I got really emotional because in that moment, I remember feeling.

[697] so much guilt and so much sadness for Kalyn because I could see just how drained she was.

[698] And it wasn't like, oh, I've been having a bad couple weeks.

[699] I felt it from her that this man has taken everything from me. I have like nothing left to give.

[700] She seemed like such a shell of a person.

[701] I started crying and I don't know why, but in that moment I asked if I could give her a hug and she let me give her a hug.

[702] And we left.

[703] their parking strip in front of their house if you drove straight forward you would have gone over a little cliff so you had to like pull out to leave and as we are barely getting in our car I can see in my side view mirror Jake barreling down the road he gets there before we can even leave blocks us in so we can't go forward at all and he gets out of his car I cannot make out what he's saying but he's mumbling and pacing back and forth outside my window.

[704] I'm in the passenger side and he's blocked the car in just a couple feet from the passenger side window.

[705] I'm watching him.

[706] Chris is watching him.

[707] He's pacing back and forth and the next thing I know, he starts punching my window where my head is.

[708] As hard as he can, he's punching it over and over again and he's yelling and he's enraged.

[709] I think he's trying to break the window.

[710] We're both frozen.

[711] Like, what is how?

[712] happening.

[713] I've never seen anything like this before.

[714] He's not getting the result that he wants from punching the window.

[715] So he walks to the front of the car and he jumps up on the hood of my car and walks up onto the roof and started stomping and jumping up and down on the sunroof trying to break the sunroof.

[716] At this point, Chris was like, I am not staying here for any more of this.

[717] And so with Jake on top of the car, he carefully backs the car out and around.

[718] Kalen's car that he's blocked us in with and puts it in drive and goes forward and Jake flies off the car and lands in the road.

[719] I'm horrified that any of this is happening, but I'm also concerned that now he's injured, but I watch him in the side view mirror, get up, jumps in his car, and proceeds to chase us down the road.

[720] I legitimately was scared.

[721] I called 911.

[722] one.

[723] I told them that he had attacked my car.

[724] He was chasing us.

[725] And they said, we have officers coming to meet you drive to the Walgreens that was not too far.

[726] Before we got there, he turned around and stopped chasing us.

[727] We met the police and they did a full police report and they wanted to know where he would go.

[728] They wanted to go talk to him and I had no clue.

[729] They went back to the house and spoke with Kalin, and she told them, go check his salon.

[730] They asked if we wanted to press charges.

[731] The car was in Chris's name, and he said, yes, I want to press charges.

[732] That's next time on something was wrong.

[733] He says to me, I just wanted to let you know I have cancer.

[734] I have a message in Facebook Messenger, and it is from an anonymous messenger that is calling themselves blue sky.

[735] He says to me, hey, what would you say?

[736] If I told you, I just recorded us with a secret hidden camera.

[737] That's when he got her pregnant.

[738] Thank you so much for listening.

[739] Until next time, stay safe, friends.

[740] Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production.

[741] Created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese.

[742] If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at Something Was Wrong podcast.

[743] Our theme song was composed by Gladrags.

[744] Check out their album, Wonder Under.

[745] Thank you so much.

[746] If you like Something Was Wrong, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

[747] Prime members can listen ad -free on Amazon Music.

[748] Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery .com slash survey.