S10 E11: [Emily] Destroying People

[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 somethingwaswrong .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] The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports that up to 99 % of domestic violence experience economic abuse, and finances are often cited as the biggest barrier to leaving an abusive relationship.

[19] Economic abuse involves maintaining control over financial resources, withholding access to money, attempting to prevent a victim from working and or attending school in an effort to create financial dependence as a means of control.

[20] Victims and survivors are often forced to choose between staying in abusive relationships and poverty or even homelessness.

[21] Economic abuse can take many forms, including employment -related abuse, preventing the victim from.

[22] accessing existing funds, coerced debt, identity theft, and more.

[23] I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is, something was wrong.

[24] Think you know me. You don't know me well.

[25] Hi, my name is Emily, and I met Cody really kind of through a mutual friend, or it was really a reconnection on social media.

[26] I'm sure a lot of people can relate to being friends with people from high school or people just that are acquaintances and you're kind of friends with everyone on Facebook.

[27] Not necessarily people you keep in touch with.

[28] And this was a person that grew up in a neighboring town to me. We didn't run in the same circle.

[29] We didn't even really know each other, maybe of each other.

[30] But we were Facebook friends.

[31] Had been for a few years.

[32] And Cody reached out to me, he noticed some things that I was doing and was asking me about, hey, I see your training for this.

[33] What's that like?

[34] I do this.

[35] And then we just had.

[36] had the obligatory, what are you up to now?

[37] Conversation.

[38] And then it just sort of kept going.

[39] And we just started talking more on chat.

[40] And then it turned into text and phone calls.

[41] And probably within a month or so, we went on our first date.

[42] One in particular mutual friend when we started dating.

[43] And they told me he's had kind of a rough life.

[44] He's had some ups and downs.

[45] But he's a good guy at heart, and I'm really excited for you all.

[46] And he had.

[47] He did not grow up like I did.

[48] I grew up in a very, with my parents still being together, a very comfortable lifestyle, went to college and grad school, was raised, believing in, I'm a Christian, so believing in just like being a good person and all those things, following the rules, just had a loving support system.

[49] He did not.

[50] He his parents divorced very young.

[51] His dad was not full.

[52] He was not full.

[53] He was not in the picture much of his life and his mom was a single mom kind of working and trying to make it.

[54] And so he was left kind of on his own a lot.

[55] He had fought very hard.

[56] Again, this is what it looked like to me, to try to make a different life for himself and gone to school a little bit.

[57] He was doing that all on his own.

[58] So he hadn't finished.

[59] But he had a very good career at the time that I met him in the restaurant industry.

[60] It looked like he was doing well.

[61] And then he also was divorced, but he'd been married to this person for six years or so.

[62] They'd gotten married very young when she became pregnant with their first child.

[63] The way he explained that breakup and that divorce to me was very logical.

[64] I mean, I know people that that happens to you get married very young, you start a family, and you grow apart.

[65] That wasn't an overwhelmingly shocking or questionable story.

[66] It was something that's very, very common.

[67] But at that time, that's really all what I knew about him in terms of his past.

[68] Cody was different than most guys that I had dated.

[69] And honestly, probably someone I would not have dated had I not had the previous dating experience.

[70] So I was in my early 30s and I had this checklist like I know many people do, thinking of what I wanted, what I needed from a relationship.

[71] And I thought I'd found that in someone I dated briefly.

[72] and it turned out that he was actually married.

[73] That was not something I was interested in.

[74] And so I was in kind of this broken place of I need to look beyond the list that I had set for myself and just really focus on the person, right, and how I felt with that person.

[75] I wasn't necessarily saying they have to have this degree from college.

[76] They have to have this kind of job, things like that.

[77] So I just was really starting with a clean slate.

[78] it's the entire reason why I really continued the communication with Cody and ultimately accepted to see where it went.

[79] So Cody and I started dating and it did move pretty quickly, I have to say.

[80] And again, I enjoyed that.

[81] I liked that because this was someone who there was really no games.

[82] It seemed to be a very authentic.

[83] We liked each other.

[84] We wanted to spend time with each other.

[85] And that's what we did.

[86] Really quickly, we started being serious and he actually was divorced and had two children.

[87] And I met them pretty early on, which now being a mom myself and looking back on that, that probably should have been a red flag.

[88] But at the time, I just thought, oh, this is going well.

[89] He wants me to meet his children.

[90] Emily's friends and family were supportive of her relationship with Cody, and she really started imagining a future with him, until four months into their relationship when she made a concerning discovery.

[91] I know four months doesn't seem very long, but we had moved pretty quickly, right?

[92] So I was definitely already in love with him.

[93] I'd already made a connection to his kids.

[94] The first thing that happened was I realized that he had taken a credit card of mine and gone to the casino.

[95] And he did not tell me that.

[96] I found it by getting a notification about unusual charges.

[97] I confronted him about that and was very upset, obviously, as a violation of trust.

[98] And he told me that he had a gambling problem.

[99] And he kind of walked me through that and apologized and whatnot.

[100] We basically decided to work through it.

[101] I thought long and hard about that.

[102] I started attending Gaminon, which is similar to Alon, the support group, for spouses or partners or family members of those that have that addiction.

[103] The Mayo Clinic defines compulsive gambling, also called gambling disorder, as an uncontrollable urge to keep gambling despite the toll it takes on your life.

[104] Gambling can stimulate the brain's reward system, much like drugs or alcohol can, leading to addiction.

[105] For a while there, it seemed like things were going well, and I was making a conscious choice, or what I felt was a conscious choice, in living a life that way.

[106] We made rules up about finances and what he had access to and all of that as we continued our relationship and eventually moved in with each other about a year later, and I had full control over the finances, and that was just our agreement.

[107] He didn't have access to those sorts of things.

[108] as far as I could tell, things were pretty much going in a positive direction, and I had just accepted.

[109] When that happened, I did confide in a few of my closest friends about that.

[110] They were definitely concerned.

[111] But at the end of the day, you go to support your friend.

[112] I think that they also felt that I wasn't going into it blind thinking it would never happen again if this is truly a problem that he had, and I was taking on that, and if I decided to move forward, all they could really do was the same.

[113] And that's what they did.

[114] After she had discovered Cody had taken her credit card without her permission, in an effort to win over her friends, Cody planned a special event with them.

[115] He, on his own, reached out to those friends and had dinner with them to assure them that he took this seriously and he was doing the right things to avoid hurting me again.

[116] He promised he was going to take care of us and be a good trusted husband.

[117] He did this with my friends and he also did this with my family.

[118] This was all before we got married.

[119] So in my eyes, that was huge because I didn't ask him to do that.

[120] He chose to put himself out there, reach out to them on his own and felt it was important that he kind of had their blessing, right, and that he'd be honest with them about what happened.

[121] That was huge to me. I was really kind of blown away by that because I just hadn't anyone kind of stand up or step up like that before.

[122] So this is another time, again, early on in our relationship.

[123] But we were laying in bed one morning and all of a sudden he said, I need to tell you something.

[124] And everyone knows that's like the worst thing you can hear from a partner, and I said, okay, what?

[125] And he said, well, you know, I got into some gambling with some guys from work, and I owe someone $6 ,000, and they told me that if I didn't pay that week, that they're going to turn me into the police or come after me. And so I was shocked and also really frightened and scared for him.

[126] And again, this is being totally naive on my part.

[127] But this was like right at the perfect part at the beginning of a relationship where it's like I was already in love, I was already invested.

[128] And so my thought process at the time is, well, that's terrible.

[129] And I have some money.

[130] So I have some.

[131] I don't need it.

[132] He really needs it.

[133] And so unfortunately, I ended up going to the bank and withdrawing $6 ,000 from my savings account and gave him the cash.

[134] Of course, looking back, I regret that.

[135] And also, I wonder what he really spent that money on.

[136] I have no way to know if that story was even true or what other type of mess he was in, but $6 ,000 was gone.

[137] And again, he didn't really fight me too much on taking it.

[138] So he was glad to accept it.

[139] But that's just, again, another kind of financial piece of a big chunk of money.

[140] But yes, this time I gave it willingly.

[141] And maybe that's why he felt so comfortable to take it as our relationship progressed.

[142] But it was unfortunate.

[143] Despite these early warning signs, Emily believed Cody when he said he had a compulsive gambling disorder and wanted to support the person she loved however she could.

[144] After we got married, again, it seemed like we were on a good track.

[145] And slowly but surely, especially after we got married, things started to change.

[146] And he started to just not behave the way that he had previously.

[147] So it really almost was like a switch.

[148] We started not going to the gamblers anonymous meetings and whatnot.

[149] He started telling me, I really don't think that that's the problem.

[150] You know, I like doing it, but I'm not addicted to it.

[151] So I really don't think that's helping me. I just need to be better about understanding finances and how to manage my money.

[152] Because, again, one of the things that happened when he stole my credit card earlier on was gambling, but then also was when he showed me kind of his financial status.

[153] It was horrible.

[154] He had no credit.

[155] He was laid on bills.

[156] It looked to me like it was a money management problem.

[157] And so that's why I took everything over.

[158] And so he was kind of sticking to that story.

[159] And then slowly things started happening like he was supposed to be responsible for the child support that he paid for his other children.

[160] And then I found, again, a charge on a credit card for that.

[161] And so I took that away and said, okay, no, I'm going to be handling that because you're supposed to be paying that out of your pocket, not putting it on credit.

[162] That was another slip up that, of course, looking back was fairly large.

[163] But again, we were married at that time.

[164] Following their wedding, Cody began to tell Emily that he was unhappy in his career.

[165] And after Emily became pregnant and had their son, he suggested to her that he should quit his job and become a stay -at -home dad.

[166] But I was hesitant because that put all of the financial burden on me. And I was absolutely the breadwinner.

[167] I made more money.

[168] But I was confused of how he thought we were going to sort of live the same type of life.

[169] life without that income.

[170] He really was using the argument of daycare is so expensive and we could be saving that money and spending time with him.

[171] We were doing our research about it and he was sending me his business case and Excel files about how this would work.

[172] I was still hesitant to do that, but he ended up quitting his job sort of before we had really finally decided that that was going to happen, and then we were left there and had to start down that path.

[173] That was difficult, but I had returned to work.

[174] I was the breadwinner.

[175] We had a baby at home, and so I just went with it.

[176] Not that we didn't have our fights, but I just went with it and said, you know what, maybe this will work.

[177] He'll be happier.

[178] So in our marriage, and this was at the point where, again, I hadn't found out everything yet.

[179] He was supposedly driving Uber.

[180] He was staying home with our son, and he would go out and Uber in the evenings, especially on the weekends, obviously, is where there's more traffic.

[181] He gets more money and so on and so forth.

[182] And it's about 2 a .m. and I am dead asleep in our room, and all the kids are there, everyone's been asleep, he's been gone all night.

[183] And he comes through the door, kind of wildly opens the door, and comes charging into the room, scares me to death.

[184] I wake up and he just throws himself around me, like throws his arms around my waist and is laying his head in my lap and he is just uncontrollably crying.

[185] I'm Dan Tiberski.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[193] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[194] Well, you were holding something back.

[195] Intentionally.

[196] Yeah, well, yeah.

[197] No, it's hysteria.

[198] It's all in your head.

[199] It's not physical.

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

[201] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem?

[202] Or is it something else entirely?

[203] Something's wrong here.

[204] Something's not right.

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

[206] A new limited series from Wondering, and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[207] Follow Hysterical on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

[209] 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.

[210] I'm Sachi Cole.

[211] And I'm Sarah Hagee.

[212] And we're the host of Scam Fluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns.

[213] of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims and what's left once the facade falls away.

[214] 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.

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

[216] To the infamous scams of real housewife stars like Teresa Judice, what should have proven to be a major down.

[217] only seem to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame.

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

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

[220] This is horrifying.

[221] I'm terrified what in the world has happened.

[222] Is he okay?

[223] Or are the kids okay?

[224] What's going on?

[225] And so I'm trying to wake up and I'm like, you've got to talk to me. Cody, what happened?

[226] Why are you so upset?

[227] What's going on?

[228] And he proceeds to tell me, this elaborate story of him Ubering downtown and was not in a great area, and he had just dropped someone off.

[229] And as he was sitting in his car, looking at his phone to get his next ride, he said that someone got in the back seat and put a gun to the back of his head and stole his wallet.

[230] It was terrifying.

[231] He was so upset.

[232] Storms into the room at 2 a .m., this man is balmed.

[233] and crying, scared to death.

[234] So it was horrifying.

[235] It was terrible.

[236] Credit cards and things that had been in his wallet had been used.

[237] And so I did the due diligence of getting online and reporting it and things like that.

[238] And then tried to get him to talk about it to we had a friend at the time who was police officer, so talk to them about it.

[239] And he was very unwilling to do that.

[240] And I thought that was a little bit odd.

[241] but eventually we moved on from that.

[242] He didn't drive for a few weeks after that event because he was still a little bit traumatized, but then he eventually did start driving again.

[243] We had put credit cards that we weren't using anymore.

[244] I had a safe where I kept that information.

[245] That's where I kept my social security number, any credit cards, checking account numbers, all of that.

[246] So just even if he had an itch or a temptation, he couldn't access it to do any damage.

[247] And so I thought that that was pretty smart and I was protecting myself and just not even making that an issue.

[248] As things were getting tighter and he was getting more and more, not aggressive, but he was questioning me more and more about that and making me feel bad that I was mishandling our money.

[249] And that's why things seemed so tight.

[250] I was doing all the things, just trying to cut back, not doing the things like get your hair, your nails done normally, probably paying some bills, a little bit late, also trying to not eat out, all those things that you do when you're trying to pinch pennies.

[251] It was getting really hard.

[252] As they continued to struggle financially, Emily started to feel a lot of pressure.

[253] They had a child and a mortgage to take care of, and she was worried she wouldn't be able to do so alone.

[254] One day, I finally said, okay, I'm going to go and apply for a loan just to help with consolidating debt.

[255] There's no reason to pay all the fees and whatnot on different credit cards, may as well just consolidate it to a very low rate and work that down.

[256] That was my plan.

[257] And I went online and I did that.

[258] And then I got denied immediately.

[259] I was so confused because I have never been denied for anything like that.

[260] I've always had a credit score of 700 or above.

[261] And then when you do get denied, for those of you that don't know, it does show you why.

[262] It was revolving debt and credit score.

[263] I was like, what are they even talking about?

[264] Again, at this time, we're not even using credit cards.

[265] So I just couldn't believe it.

[266] I was able to then obviously dig deeper, and I went on and I ran my credit.

[267] And it was in the low 400s, maybe even lower.

[268] I honestly can't remember.

[269] but it was drastically cripplingly low.

[270] I was just shocked.

[271] Then I go through page by page of that credit report and realized he was spending money on the credit cards I didn't think that he had access to that were locked in a safe.

[272] Still don't know how he got them.

[273] He was stealing my mail and writing out the checks that credit card company send you for cash advances and hiding, obviously, financial information from credit cards and things like that from me. And then he had opened maybe two credit cards and a loan using my information, which meant ultimately I realized he'd stolen my identity.

[274] I remember just sitting there.

[275] I was so shocked.

[276] I was an absolute disbelief.

[277] One, because how could my own husband and do such a horrible, deceitful thing to me, and not just to me to our family, including his other children.

[278] Also, how the hell did he get all this information?

[279] I thought I was being smart.

[280] It was really an odd moment of just total and utter shock, disbelief, hurt, confusion.

[281] It was a mess.

[282] I sat there with it for a minute, and then I text him and said, what did you do?

[283] He texted me back and said, just tell me how to fix it.

[284] To me, A, you know what I was talking about, and B, you don't just fix something like this, right?

[285] This isn't an isolated incident.

[286] It was an awful time.

[287] Emotions aside, when I really dug into it, he really left me in financial ruin.

[288] I had high card balances.

[289] I had accounts sent to collections.

[290] My credit was dramatically and cripplingly low.

[291] The bills paid up.

[292] There was no way to catch up.

[293] And it was just overwhelming.

[294] Then I remembered when I met him, I was actually debt -free.

[295] And then four years later, I've got over $50 ,000 in credit card debt, a credit score lower than I ever had in my life, two cars with upside -down loans, a third.

[296] 3 ,000 square foot house that I couldn't pay for.

[297] And so it was very, very scary.

[298] And aside from just my marriage, right?

[299] And my family, I didn't realize, like, how would I come back from that?

[300] Because that was not a life that I wanted to live.

[301] So pretty quickly, I said, I don't want you to be there when I get home.

[302] A few days passed, I had to be at work and try to handle all this.

[303] And I literally came home one day, I took my baby, I put it in the car, and I pulled out with him kind of banging on the hood, telling me I was making a huge mistake.

[304] And I left and went to my parents' house and just unloaded everything to them.

[305] Emily and her son stayed with her family for a long weekend as she processed what she had uncovered.

[306] Her parents were extra careful about what they said as they worried the couple would stay together and it would create distance in their relationship with Emily long -term.

[307] And I remember very vividly, I was actually in our backyard.

[308] I was in our pool.

[309] And I just was out there kind of floating, trying to relax, just dealing with everything.

[310] And I really did have like a vision of, I thought to myself, okay, we could probably get through this.

[311] We could go to counseling.

[312] My parents can help us.

[313] We could get through this.

[314] But I know, like I knew in my gut and my soul that this would happen again, and again and again.

[315] And I started literally having visions of my son being in his 20s or something or later and having his dad asking him for money, his dad taking from his college account, planning on getting a car for one of the kids only to find out he wasn't making the payments.

[316] Just all of these scenarios of if I stay, I will never feel secure, it will never go away.

[317] and he will continue to hurt me and my son, no doubt.

[318] And so I made a decision right then and there.

[319] And I chose to protect my son and his future.

[320] And I filed for divorce and we were basically divorced within months.

[321] Because he didn't have much of a leg to stand on, I was able to just say, hey, we're splitting.

[322] You take this, I take this.

[323] We're moving on.

[324] And so I was able to have the divorce happen as quickly as you can.

[325] but that was just the beginning of cleaning up my life and primarily cleaning up the financial issues that he left me in.

[326] So the other interesting thing about this is if most people who had been caught doing something as awful as what he had been doing for months and months would be incredibly remorseful doing anything to repair it, upset, begging you for forgiveness, really groveling.

[327] And he really didn't.

[328] He really didn't.

[329] This is when he started his mantra that he now has, was very like, listen, it happened, but there's no need to dwell on the past.

[330] We just need to move forward.

[331] And I thought that was very odd.

[332] I was like, no, no, no. That's not really how the world works.

[333] That's not how it works.

[334] And so he was absolutely not for the divorce.

[335] That's the first kind of way or case that he tried to build.

[336] was that when that didn't work, then it was I obviously was not committed to our wedding boughs because at the first sign of trouble, I was running.

[337] I wasn't willing to look to move forward or to work on things.

[338] I was the one choosing to break up our family.

[339] And he was very, very clear about that.

[340] And still to this day, we'll say the reason that we got divorced was because it was my choice to not work on it.

[341] And so, yeah, that was kind of a first glimpse where really kind of the light bulb went off that I was like, something's not right here.

[342] This is so weird.

[343] Like, who does this when they do something so awful, just tries to brush it off and blame the other person.

[344] But that was just the beginning of that behavior.

[345] But I did have my light bulb moment then and then was a little more prepared for what was to come.

[346] As Emily dove into their financial records, Cody's behavior made even less sense to her.

[347] He wasn't spending money on anything of real significance or need.

[348] There was a lot of online gambling charges, which, again, in looking at when those were made, was mostly during the day when he was supposed to be home, parenting my son.

[349] So that obviously didn't sit well.

[350] There were also things like one of the credit cards that I didn't have that I didn't think that we were using that was in the safe.

[351] There were a few of those.

[352] One of them, he'd connected to an account at Chick -fil -A, the other to an account at Waterburger, and was using that to eat every week.

[353] And I'm talking like, this is an individual who ran up $800 at Chick -fil -A in one month for just himself.

[354] So don't ask me how that adds up, but that's what it was.

[355] And it was just like, here we are.

[356] I'm at home.

[357] And literally, my friends always remind me of this.

[358] I mean, I literally one night warmed up a can of black beans, a can of black beans to eat for dinner.

[359] Because I was trying to wait to go to the grocery store and not order in because I was waiting until the end of the week when I got my paycheck and trying to stay on a budget.

[360] And he was clearly going to fast food restaurants for every single meal while that's how the rest of us were eating.

[361] So it just didn't make sense.

[362] And then there were random charges of diet pills or just the most random things.

[363] It wasn't like he was going and buying like a TV, right?

[364] It was these little things that just were so, just didn't make sense.

[365] And then the only access to anything you did have was, again, he didn't have access to my debit card, but he did have a target card because he was the one that would go and do some of the grocery shopping and stuff.

[366] That was one of our deals when he decided to stay.

[367] home.

[368] And I noticed there, and again, you have to dig a little deeper because you get your balance.

[369] You can look at your target card and see the total number amount that was spent.

[370] But then if you go to your bank statement, or it may be the other way around, you have to look somewhere else and then you can see exactly what it was.

[371] And he was getting $40 cash back every single time he went to Target, which was multiple times sometimes.

[372] In a lot of a week.

[373] It wasn't like he was going and spending $200, but I mean, he would go and buy like a candy bar so he could get $40 cash back.

[374] As she dug deeper into their records, she made another telling discovery.

[375] He was supposed to be driving Uber.

[376] While he was, that was another part of the deal of him staying home was all right, well, you need to drive Uber to cover the child support for your other children and bring in some income as well.

[377] And so he was going and doing that on weekends, multiple nights a week, leaving me with the other kids and kind of handle things at home, but that was the deal.

[378] And I found out when I was finally able to get his information to log into Uber that he hadn't been driving for six months, but he had still been leaving the house like four or five times a week in the evenings.

[379] But the other frustrating part was as I was uncovering things, I would confront him and I would say you need to just tell me everything that you did, right?

[380] Like forget, it's already done, we're done, but like if I can have to, I have to figure this out so I can clean it up.

[381] You need to tell me everything, so no more surprises happen.

[382] And every single time without doubt, he would say, that's it, that's it, that's the last one.

[383] I promise there's nothing else.

[384] And every single time.

[385] And it might be months later, right, that things would pop up.

[386] It was just like, almost like he was sabotage, himself and me, you know, on purpose.

[387] So it was very, very hard to discern and figure out the why.

[388] Not only did Emily continue to discover more identity and financial abuse, she learned that some of Cody's past stories had been fraudulent too.

[389] Remember that carjacking incident he told her about?

[390] Well, after we divorced, he eventually admitted that it was a complete, complete lie.

[391] And what he replaced the lie with was that he'd been at an underground illegal poker game and had basically lost and had to give them everything.

[392] At this point, I have no idea what is even true.

[393] Is that true?

[394] I have no idea.

[395] I never had anybody or even thought that anyone could make up such an awful experience to basically get out of something else that they'd done.

[396] And so it was really kind of one of the bigger moments where I recognized how far he could go, what he was willing to do, to lie about, to perform and act about something that was absolutely false, just to get me to feel bad for him and to not pay attention to what was actually going on, which was he was clearly still using cards or stealing money in some way.

[397] Because Cody was refusing to divorce, Emily's lawyer's first recommendation was getting him to move out of the house.

[398] And he wasn't working at this time.

[399] And so basically, I had no money.

[400] But my parents said, okay, fine.

[401] We'll pay for two months of rent for him to get an apartment and get out of the house.

[402] We'll pay two months of the car payment and his bills.

[403] So just like, hey, here's two months for you to get another.

[404] their job and start making money again.

[405] And so I believe that it's very generous.

[406] And knowing everything that we know now, we would have just kicked him to the curb.

[407] But at the time, I still wasn't fully aware of who he really was.

[408] I didn't understand what had happened, but I knew he had issues, but I didn't think he was necessarily a bad person or a bad bother.

[409] And so I also did things like, I mean, we had a huge house.

[410] So I gave him everything to furnish an apartment, everything.

[411] I didn't ask for child support.

[412] I actually waived it because I would have rather that money gone to him building his own life and being able to take care of our son when he was visiting him.

[413] And then we had just this standard custody agreement of every other weekend kind of thing with overnights and joint conservatorship.

[414] Because again, at the time, I mean, yes, he had done something bad to me, but there wasn't really anything legally that I could do or that we were going to be able to do to have a different type of custody agreement.

[415] I was still stuck in my giant house that was empty.

[416] I used to call it like the cemetery, basically, because there had been three other people in this huge house and rooms were empty and things were gone, but I couldn't move because I had terrible credit.

[417] And so even though paying off things and doing the things that you do to improve your credit, that takes a long time.

[418] I couldn't buy another home without that.

[419] So I was dealing with that, but rebuilding, it was very difficult to transition as any divorced parent will tell you from seeing your child every day to having to send them away for a few days and whatnot.

[420] But those were all struggles.

[421] I was moving on.

[422] And then I was just so not prepared for what happened next and what I would come to know about my ex -husband and the father of my only child.

[423] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

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

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

[426] 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.

[427] What happens next?

[428] Depends on who you ask.

[429] Was it a crime of passion?

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

[431] This was clearly an intentional act.

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

[433] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

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

[435] Everyone had an opinion.

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

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

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

[439] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondry Plus.

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

[441] So once the divorce was finalized, it was like people just started coming out of the woodwork to share their own stories of what he had done to them, or tell me about those that they knew of, that he had done to them.

[442] And my family and I were both, we were all very surprised because we grew up in very close proximity to each other and had mutual people that we knew.

[443] And how in the world could I have married someone and had a child with someone with this horrible reputation?

[444] And how are we not aware of this?

[445] Because we're also from a relatively small town where everybody knows everybody.

[446] And so I think it's that people don't really want to get in each other's business or things happened so long ago and they don't want to, they want to assume, right, that things were better and just stay out of it.

[447] But really, this is when I basically nicknamed him the cockroach because it had seemed that he had nine lives.

[448] He was going to use them all.

[449] It didn't matter whether somebody squashed him in their life, moved on.

[450] He was going to come back every time.

[451] There was just more and more where that came from.

[452] it was just unbelievable the things that were coming out and one of those things was he had another child that he'd walked away from and never told me about a child that was conceived while he was cheating on another girlfriend and I was just appalled and the way that my family found out about that actually was my mom was in line at the bank and there was someone who was a mother of someone that we both grew up with in line behind her, and they hadn't seen each other since everything had happened.

[453] And she said, oh, my gosh, I'm just so sorry that happened to you.

[454] And she was sort of like, I never liked this person.

[455] He used to steal from me, even when he was a kid.

[456] And then she was like, well, you know about the other child.

[457] And my mom did not know, and neither did I. And so it was just like, how is this happening?

[458] How are now we finding out all these things?

[459] I contacted a few people that were around at that time in his life to see if that was true.

[460] And they all told me that it was.

[461] And that he had actually told them that I knew.

[462] So there's actually a family member of his that once I found out said it was important to me that he had shared that with you before y 'all were married.

[463] And I even asked him on your wedding day if he had told you and he lied and said that I knew everything.

[464] That also didn't feel good to know that there was this big secret talked about at our wedding day.

[465] And he lied about being truthful.

[466] That's a great start to a marriage.

[467] As easy as it would have been to immediately pick up the phone and call him and accuse him and confront him, I actually had learned enough by that point that I sort of kept that in my back pocket.

[468] So first of all, I went and confirmed I tracked down the mother of that child and I could see pictures of that child, a very heavy resemblance to my ex.

[469] And everything looked happy and healthy there.

[470] And I wasn't about to reach out and disrupt their life, but I just wanted to know for myself.

[471] And then I kept that information and did not confirm.

[472] him with it until I had taken it back to court to adjust our custody agreement.

[473] Because it was a piece of information I felt like he couldn't deny or talk his way out of in that current conversation about children and character and things like that.

[474] So when I did confront him, he first tried to act like he didn't know what I was talking about.

[475] And then I said the child's name, and he was very taken aback that I knew that.

[476] So then in the moment, he tried to talk it out like, no, it didn't have being mine.

[477] She lied, and I didn't walk away from it, blah, blah, blah.

[478] But then after the fact, he was trying to locate her, and I would not share the information that I had found.

[479] Again, public information, mind you.

[480] But I was not going to give him information to contact her and disrupt her life.

[481] So he initially denied it, and then he basically admitted it, but said that she pushed him away.

[482] Was it him that walked away from his rights or that relationship?

[483] So just more lies.

[484] I think about that child, like when he turns 18, and if he wants to know, I don't know if he knows that his dad adopted him.

[485] I don't know that.

[486] They've shared that with him.

[487] I don't know if they will.

[488] But if he ever finds that out, is he going to come looking?

[489] Is he going to reach out to my son or the other kids on Facebook in 10 years?

[490] And they're going to be caught by surprise by this information.

[491] So again, it's things you think about that may or may not happen that impact your children that you don't have any control over.

[492] So it was interesting, but I did sit on it for a long time.

[493] I've learned to be patient with certain information that I could use for leverage when I needed.

[494] There was a story from a family that had paid for an engagement ring to another person that he was engaged to before myself and his previous ex -wife.

[495] And they had paid for that.

[496] And he ended up, the relationship ended, I'm not sure what happened, but he skipped town and ponded it.

[497] And they basically tracked him down through his own family to get the money back or to get the ring back.

[498] so they wouldn't press charges.

[499] He has been evicted so many times, had cars repossessed.

[500] Another story of a woman he dated whose parent co -signed a car, purchasing a car with him.

[501] And he, again, skipped out on the payments and just left them to deal with it.

[502] And more recently, gosh, more recently through the years, it's asking for money from other parents on the kids' sports teams, I've received screenshots from acquaintances on social media of him asking for money.

[503] The kids talk about that the church people come over sometimes and bring them groceries.

[504] And just all of these things that are just show me that he's continuing to kind of spread this.

[505] I mean, he just is taking advantage, taking advantage.

[506] I mean, he's been doing this for 20 -something years, his whole life.

[507] His whole life he's been taking advantage of people.

[508] One of our mutual friends that had originally told me he's had a rough life, but, you know, I really think things are better and he's grown a lot.

[509] That was an individual that Cody had stolen from him multiple times over those 20 years, and he always forgave him.

[510] And he didn't share that with me up front.

[511] He was trying to think, oh, well, the last time was six years ago.

[512] Surely this guy has grown up.

[513] It was sickening, honestly, to see really who he was.

[514] And really that he also wasn't going to change because I think I had this hope maybe when we split that he could be different and that he wanted to be different.

[515] But he never will.

[516] And that's something that, you know, you learn to just accept.

[517] Throughout their divorce process, Emily grappled with whether or not she would press legal charges against her ex for stealing her identity.

[518] I was back and forth, back and forth, and then all this came out, and I was like, you know what, everybody's sort of past the buck.

[519] And I'm not saying that as anybody did anything wrong because you're in the moment and you want to be done with a person and you move on.

[520] And you don't necessarily know, right, the trail of damage that he's left behind.

[521] But now that I had this, I was like, someone has to try to stop this person.

[522] He's just destroying people.

[523] and I just really wanted to hold him accountable and it was unsettling to me that he could continue doing this to more people including my child.

[524] So I did it.

[525] I got all my evidence together because I had evidence of he admitted to everything he did.

[526] He didn't try to lie.

[527] He absolutely admitted to all those things and that I did not give him consent.

[528] So I walked in the police department.

[529] I filled out my report, I provided them with piles of evidence, and I felt a huge relief and, like, a weight off my shoulders.

[530] I wasn't going to let the cycle continue.

[531] I was going to do my part in stopping it.

[532] After filing her report with the local police, Emily received a phone call from the investigating detective.

[533] He was annoyed, to say the least, but he basically treated me like how I see in television shows and in movies the way that sometimes abused with.

[534] are treated by the police.

[535] You know, why didn't you press charges earlier?

[536] Why didn't you leave him before?

[537] Why did you marry him?

[538] Just all these questions, again, kind of putting it back on, is this my fault?

[539] From a legal perspective, we were married and he did those things, but it's still not legal to take out credit or loans in your spouse's name if you do not have power of attorney and he did not, or to forge your spouse's signature.

[540] I can't get him from.

[541] for getting $40 cash back at Target.

[542] We were married.

[543] I get that.

[544] Despite all of the evidence she had presented to detectives, including letters from Cody admitting his wrongdoings, Emily was told the district attorney wouldn't take the case to court.

[545] And the detective eventually summed it up and said, you know, it just sounds like he might need to go to Gamblers Anonymous.

[546] And I was just like, you don't get it.

[547] You just don't get what this person is going to continue to do.

[548] He's stolen from employers, and it's always scared me that he, in his line of work, has access to people's social security number, bank statements, because that's all things that you fill out on paperwork when you start a new job.

[549] And so it really scares me to think about how much damage he has actually caused to more people in businesses than I can imagine.

[550] In an attempt to help Cody, Emily's parents not only agreed to help pay the first two months of his rent.

[551] They also said they would help pay his car payment for a few months so that he could get a job.

[552] Well, an issue came up because the cars were in my name.

[553] And so the only way to transfer that to him, which is what I wanted to do, was to transfer the title, which they wouldn't let me do because they don't let you do that to somebody who's in back.

[554] financial standing.

[555] So I was sort of stuck with this.

[556] So during that, instead of just taking the very generous things that we were giving him, he actually pushed back and said that the current car he had was really too small because he's a pretty tall guy.

[557] And really he wanted this car.

[558] It was just like, okay, this person is not even acting sorry and they're getting all of this help and they're going to be picky and request a bigger car.

[559] And so instead of paying the payments, we actually paid for a down payment on the car of his, that he preferred.

[560] Another aha light bulb moment of like, this is not the way most people think about things like this or would handle a situation that this person is not just tucking your tail, right?

[561] Being picky or choosing things that are more expensive than they're actually.

[562] going to be able to pay for.

[563] So pretty quickly after everything happened, in terms of the divorce and what I uncovered, I actually reached out to his previous ex -wife and said, I'd really like to meet and talk because I'd really like to understand what really happened with your divorce.

[564] After speaking with Emily, she suggested I connect with Cody's first wife, Vanessa, and you'll hear from both of them next time on Something Was Wrong.

[565] Something Was Wrong is an audio Chuck production, created and hosted by Tiffany Reese.

[566] Our theme song was originally composed by Gladrags, covered this season by Basic Comfort.

[567] So what do you think, Chuck, do you approve?

[568] 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.

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

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