S13 E6: [Natalia] Absolutely Terrified

[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 discuss topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, suicide, and murder.

[12] If you're in need of support, please visit Something Was Wrong .com slash resources for a list of non -profit organizations that can help.

[13] I'm not a therapist or a doctor.

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

[15] Opinions expressed by guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily represent my views.

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

[17] Thank you so much for listening.

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

[19] He would take these heavy drugs, but, you know, I couldn't take a hit of my vape pen if I wanted to.

[20] And so we're talking about this.

[21] I'm pushing a little bit, and he's pushing back, and he's getting a little defensive.

[22] And that's when I'm like, you can't do this in my house.

[23] I fully support safe drug use and all of these other things, but there's a boundary within my house that this is not something that I'm comfortable with.

[24] And that's not okay.

[25] And of course, that leads to another huge, angry fight.

[26] And we're going back and forth for a little while.

[27] And then again, things calm down.

[28] And so things come down.

[29] He wants to extend his trip for an extra day.

[30] He's sweet talking me and he's like love bombing me in some moments of the day where he's like, I love you so much, you're so perfect, you take all of these great care of me, you make sure I'm fed, you're always cooking for me. And then at the same time, he's misogynistic where my only role was to be in the kitchen and to make sure his stuff was taking care of.

[31] Like he asked me to wash his clothes.

[32] It felt good, but it was.

[33] the same time it didn't feel good and it didn't feel right and something fell off and something didn't feel good.

[34] So he extends his trip.

[35] I sent a group message, you know, the group chat.

[36] And Monique was in that group chat.

[37] She's one of the people in the chat.

[38] And I was like, oh my God, he extended a trip for like another 24 hours.

[39] He changed his flight.

[40] This is so great.

[41] I'm so excited and all these great things.

[42] And then within the hour, I call her walking my dog saying, you need to get this guy out of my house and I don't know how to deal with this.

[43] And she was completely confused on how he even got there.

[44] In between the time that he extended his trip until I called her, he decided that he wanted to watch football on his phone.

[45] It was college football weekend.

[46] He wants to watch this football game.

[47] He's cheering for his team or whatever.

[48] He's getting excited and I'm in the kitchen literally making him a sandwich.

[49] The only thing that was wrong with this picture and his mind was I wasn't barefoot and pregnant.

[50] Like I'm Susie homemaker to the max making sure that he has everything he needs.

[51] He's watching on his phone and he starts cheering and he starts getting really, really loud.

[52] We're not in a stadium.

[53] I live in a duplex.

[54] There's a very thin hall.

[55] It's an older building.

[56] My neighbors can hear you.

[57] And honestly, you're too.

[58] You're too.

[59] loud for me. You're too loud for where I need you to be in my apartment.

[60] That's not the energy level.

[61] That's not the vibe.

[62] That's not what I have going on in my house.

[63] All I said to him was, can you keep it down?

[64] Or can you go in my room and shut the door because it's just really too loud in here and it's echoing?

[65] He was so upset that he took his cell phone and slammed it down on the coffee table.

[66] Our coffee table was an old -fashioned train trunk, those gorgeous train trunks that everyone's always trying to find.

[67] And my roommate had one and we used it as a coffee table.

[68] And he slammed down his phone so hard on this trunk that he ended up breaking the trim off of the coffee table, off of this train trunk.

[69] And then he slams his hand down and it breaks it again.

[70] He slams his phone down first and then he slams his hand down.

[71] And I am in full mode of when Natalia and Landon lived together.

[72] I am in full mode of I'm going to get punched in the face in two minutes.

[73] I need to maintain myself.

[74] I need to defend myself.

[75] But I also need to stay far enough away than I'm nowhere near him because my body went into immediate reaction mode of I know how this happens.

[76] I know how this goes.

[77] I've seen this story before.

[78] I know how the movie ends.

[79] And so he is going through these moments of pure anger.

[80] The look on his face and the words that he's saying, he's so angry and he's screaming at me. And he's telling me in my home that I pay for that has my name on the lease that only comes out of my bank account, he's telling me that I, if I wanted him to be quiet and I didn't want to hear him yelling, that I should go into my bedroom and shut my bedroom door.

[81] I was floored.

[82] I was completely floored because I don't know who the hell you think you are.

[83] You don't pay for anything over here.

[84] You're a guest in my home.

[85] Now you're going to speak to me disrespectfully after you just changed your flight and you can't change it back.

[86] There's no place for me to sit there and tell him he can get out because he has no place to go right now.

[87] We go back and forth, and I'm arguing with him, how dare you speak to me like this?

[88] I don't know who you think I am and I don't know how you think this interaction has gone, but you're not going to speak to me like this.

[89] Like, this is my house.

[90] And it was the wildest thing where he was alternating between screaming and yelling at me and being vicious and mean.

[91] And then like, it would be a couple minutes later and I'm like angry and I'm, like, angry and I'm upset and I'm getting loud and I'm overwhelmed and I'm reacting to his, you know, mood and stuff, that he would then come back and say something and something of like a really calm voice and a really quiet voice and really chill.

[92] And then I would respond really chill.

[93] And then he would come back screaming and he'd be like, why are you yelling at me?

[94] You were yelling at me and I'm talking to you calm.

[95] And I'm like, but you aren't.

[96] And I'm like getting totally confused.

[97] And then he's totally gaslighting me the entire situation.

[98] He's making it that it's my fault.

[99] It's my fault that he yelled.

[100] It's my fault that I didn't have a TV.

[101] It's my fault that I didn't go into my own bedroom to give him the privacy that he needed in my house.

[102] It was all of my fault.

[103] I'm going back and forth and I am like, I am way smarter than this.

[104] I have done this before.

[105] Like, I've lived this before.

[106] I've lived this life before.

[107] And then all of a sudden, it was like, I saw myself again.

[108] And I remembered who I was.

[109] And I remember the lessons I lived through with Landon.

[110] And then Tyrone says to me, the thing that scared the crab out of me, he turned to me and he said, do I remind you of Landon?

[111] Do I remind you of Landon?

[112] I don't mind you of Landon.

[113] And the minute he said that, I knew all that's were off.

[114] There's no reason for anybody else to compare themselves to your abuser.

[115] Once he compared himself to my abuser, I knew that he wasn't safe.

[116] I knew there was no difference between Tyrone and Landon.

[117] The difference was the time period of my life.

[118] But they were the same person and it was going to be the same situation.

[119] And so at that moment, I realized I need to get out of the house.

[120] My dog is a senior dog.

[121] So a walk around the block could take 30 minutes because he's a 17 -year -old dog.

[122] I used that full hour.

[123] I went on a really long walk for an hour and I called Monique.

[124] And I was like, I don't know what to do.

[125] I need to get him out of my house.

[126] And so we start coming up with some type of plan.

[127] He did not want her at the house when he was there.

[128] He did not want to interact with her.

[129] He was very adamant.

[130] That's your ex -girlfriend.

[131] Do what you do.

[132] But I don't want her around when I'm around.

[133] I just assumed it was jealousy.

[134] And I went with it.

[135] But he was very adamant that he didn't want her there.

[136] So she's like, I can't come over there, but can you come here?

[137] But I didn't want to leave him in my house.

[138] Like, this is my house.

[139] This is my home.

[140] I worked really hard for everything within these four walls.

[141] I refused to leave, and I was afraid that he was going to find my personal information.

[142] And to be honest, I had been listening to your podcast nonstop because I didn't have a TV.

[143] There was nothing else to do and there was nowhere to go.

[144] And I'm hearing all of these stories about leaving people in your homes and they're stealing identities and they're stealing this and they're stealing that.

[145] And I could not imagine leaving this stranger in my home.

[146] having him be able to access my electricity bill or to be able to access my passport or to be able to look through my stuff.

[147] So I refused to leave my house.

[148] And Monique said to me, well, then the only other thing that you can do is play the game.

[149] If he wants a submissive woman, give him what he wants.

[150] And that's what I did.

[151] I came back from that walk a very different woman.

[152] I came back calm.

[153] I came back quiet.

[154] I came back with a yes, no, anything else I can get for you type of attitude.

[155] I should have got an Academy Award for the amount of people pleasing that I was doing.

[156] And so the last like 24 hours went pretty smoothly.

[157] My roommate came home that night.

[158] They met him.

[159] My roommate didn't get a good feeling.

[160] Like this is weird.

[161] Something's off.

[162] I can't put my finger on it, which is also something that Monique had said too, that she had realized that something was wrong when I was at her house and we were sitting by like the fire pit or on the couch or something during like when everybody was over.

[163] She said, I don't know if it was my relationship with you or what, but she's like, you are always touchy with me. You always are sitting next to me, even if we're not like holding hands or whatever, you always at least sat really close to me, your foot touched me, your arm touched me, your leg touched me. something was always touching me and you would always sit next to me and she's like but when you were with tyrone you were not sitting next to him you would have space between you i didn't realize i was doing that i think it was like my subconscious but that's when she started to realize that it might be a bigger problem so by the time i called her on that sunday she was already questioning a lot of things so he ended up staying until the monday after 3rd Thanksgiving.

[164] His flight was in the afternoon.

[165] I was working in the morning.

[166] He was working in the morning.

[167] He packs up his stuff and he's like looking at me. He's like, are you okay?

[168] Are you good?

[169] Because your attitude seems weird.

[170] I'm like, no, no, I'm great.

[171] I'm fine.

[172] I'm still overly people pleasing so I can have calm in my space until he leaves.

[173] He pulls off and he leaves my neighborhood.

[174] At the time, my neighborhood was in the process of gentrifying.

[175] It's like a very interesting space where there's people who are of color who have been there their entire lives, whose houses are not as worth as much as the land that they're on.

[176] And then you have people coming in and making things, tearing things down, making them brand new and putting up these new townhouses and condos.

[177] It's a very interesting dynamic living in a place like this.

[178] It's an interesting group of people who you live around.

[179] There's a variety of folks.

[180] There is some crime, but I don't think anything more normal for them in the area.

[181] It's not that far away from a housing project.

[182] I've never had issues.

[183] I walked down in my street that night.

[184] I walk my dog.

[185] I say hello to everybody.

[186] I mind my business.

[187] I'm good.

[188] I never had any issues in my neighborhood.

[189] But he called me on the way to the airport to tell me a story that he went through with his lift driver.

[190] Around the corner from my house, he made a turn, and somebody was just stopped in the middle of the road, having a conversation with someone on the sidewalk.

[191] And I guess the driver of the lift honked the horn, the person in their car gave them a really dirty look as they drove by.

[192] And Tyrone turned to the driver, and my understanding is English was not their first language.

[193] They might have been new to the country and not necessarily familiar with the neighborhood.

[194] Tyrone turned to the driver and said, hey, you need to be careful in this neighborhood because the people here, the black people here, they'll shoot you.

[195] I was so upset at the level of anti -blackness that you then gave to this person whose interactions with black people might be limited to the people who are in his car.

[196] You're putting this level of scariness on my neighborhood and this stereotype on my neighborhood, which it's not it's a really great neighborhood it was a really great place to live really nice neighbors and you're telling him that my neighbors are going to shoot him because he honked his horn and this is black man to black man like why would you put someone down like this I was generally upset about this because it didn't make sense to me that you would do this to someone who would also be in your same situation because tyrone you were also a black man so anyone could say anything about you and could believe it the protests of Black Lives Matter and not that far away at this point, months behind us, if that, he wears a Black Lives Matter mask, but he didn't understand the racial implications and the anti -blackness of telling this person, you need to be careful in this neighborhood because it's very black.

[197] We had like a little tiff about that.

[198] And so I was like, I'll talk to you after you land.

[199] Let me know when you're safe.

[200] Then he lands and he's good to go.

[201] And I'm like, all right, will love you and I have so much work to do.

[202] So I'm going to talk to you later.

[203] That Monday evening, I'm thinking about our weekend.

[204] And I'm trying to figure out where things went left and why this was such an opposite weekend from our first weekend that we had together.

[205] I don't like to give him the credit, but I will give him the credit.

[206] He knew how to throw a love bomb of a weekend.

[207] How do you go from this really crazy romantic weekend to this weekend where I cannot wait for you to get out of my house.

[208] What happened?

[209] So I'm sitting there thinking and I'm replaying things in my mind.

[210] I start thinking about the fact that we don't see each other often and you would think that we'd be intimate all the time.

[211] We'd be making out.

[212] We'd be touching each other.

[213] We'd be having sex.

[214] We'd be doing all of these things.

[215] If it's a long distance relationship, why aren't me doing these things?

[216] 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.

[217] I'm Sachi Cole.

[218] And I'm Sarah Haggy.

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

[220] 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.

[221] He then began to prey on vulnerable women instead.

[222] selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs.

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

[224] Follow Scam Fluencers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

[226] I'm Dan Tversky.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[234] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[235] Well, you were holding something back intentionally.

[236] Yeah, yeah.

[237] Well, yeah.

[238] No, it's hysteria.

[239] It's all in your head.

[240] It's not physical.

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

[242] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Sam?

[243] them, or is it something else entirely?

[244] Something's wrong here.

[245] Something's not right.

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

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

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

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

[250] And I realized he kept holding his phone the one time we were intimate.

[251] And I start really, like, diving deep into that in my own head.

[252] And I realize I think to myself, I think he videotaped me. I feel like he videotaped us having sex.

[253] Like, I wasn't facing the camera, like my back was to the camera.

[254] But I think his camera was out.

[255] He calls me and I don't answer.

[256] And then he texts, hey, are you okay?

[257] Is everything all right?

[258] It's not like you to not answer.

[259] And I ask him, point in blank, did you record us having sex?

[260] did you record us?

[261] And he says, yes, I did.

[262] And I felt so violated.

[263] I said to him.

[264] But I specifically did not give you consent.

[265] I'm very big on consent.

[266] I teach my nieces about consent and that you can retract consent.

[267] And consent changes so often.

[268] And consent is dynamic.

[269] But my consent about being recorded was pretty hard.

[270] It was a hard no. It was a pretty hard limit.

[271] It was a pretty hard boundary.

[272] And you did it anyways.

[273] I'm so upset.

[274] I'm like, I can't talk to you.

[275] Don't speak to me for the rest of the night.

[276] I have to think about this.

[277] I need to work this out on my own.

[278] He's calling me. I'm like, I don't want to talk to you.

[279] I don't want to speak to you.

[280] I will speak to you another time.

[281] I end up shutting my phone off and he sends like a bunch of messages and I'm ignoring them.

[282] But I'm in the group chat with Monique.

[283] And I say, he recorded us having sex.

[284] And everyone's like, are you kidding me?

[285] I'm like crying because I just have no idea where this video is.

[286] You can do anything with this video.

[287] You can post it anywhere.

[288] This is at the height of only fans.

[289] Did you post it on only fans and you're making money?

[290] Did you just use it for yourself?

[291] Like, what are you using this for?

[292] Who did you show this to?

[293] He's like, you know, I promise, I deleted it.

[294] He's sending me all these messages.

[295] I deleted it.

[296] And he's showing me screen grabs of him deleting this video.

[297] But the ICloud lives forever.

[298] You can delete things and then undelete things and you can recover things.

[299] And if you put it in a drop box, it doesn't matter that you deleted it from your phone because it's already there.

[300] There's no protection for me once you decide you want to do whatever you want to do with this video.

[301] And I am mortified.

[302] I'm a sex positive person.

[303] I fully support people doing sex work, getting money from sex work, whatever it is that you want to do.

[304] but I did not want to do this.

[305] I did not want that video, that picture of me without my final approval to be anywhere.

[306] It's not how I felt comfortable.

[307] This to me was enough of a reason for I never had to speak to him again.

[308] All of those small little red flags that I had ignored, forget those because this is big enough, this is illegal enough, that I can use this as the reason and I don't have to address any of the other things that felt weird to me. I never have to address any of that stuff.

[309] This is concrete.

[310] He knows he's wrong and this gives me the out.

[311] So I don't have to be in this situation anymore.

[312] The next morning, I wake up, I see all these messages from him and I respond with, you know what?

[313] I don't think this is working out.

[314] This is not a good situation.

[315] Let's just part as friends.

[316] Then I go walk my dog.

[317] And it's 7 a .m. in the morning, Tyrone starts calling my phone.

[318] on this walk.

[319] And he's calling my phone nonstop.

[320] I finally answer.

[321] I'm outside.

[322] I'm like, listen, I'm not arguing with you.

[323] You can apologize.

[324] And he sounds upset.

[325] He sounds genuinely sorry and like this was a mistake.

[326] And maybe he was.

[327] Maybe in some respect, he definitely felt bad.

[328] But for me, this was enough that I didn't want to do this anymore, that whatever I felt was clearly incorrect.

[329] I'm a rape survivor.

[330] I'm a domestic abuse survivor.

[331] When I say no, you need to hear me because if you don't respect my no, I know that you're not safe for me. The minute you don't respect my no, you're not a good person for me, and I need to get out of there as fast as possible.

[332] And so we're on the phone and we're talking and I'm like, I'm done.

[333] I can't talk to you about this anymore.

[334] I have work to do.

[335] I have to take a shower.

[336] I have to feed my dog.

[337] There's things I have to do.

[338] I come out of the shower after feeding my dog, probably like 40 minutes later.

[339] And I have over 20 missed calls from him.

[340] And he's still calling.

[341] And he's still calling.

[342] And he's still calling.

[343] And I tell him, listen, this isn't going to work.

[344] I'm going to have to block you because you need to stop.

[345] There's no type of conversation that's going to happen before I go into work, I can promise you.

[346] I tell him that and I block him and I go to work and it was great.

[347] I did what I needed to do and I focused on my job and he was quiet.

[348] He didn't bug me and then I was like, well, I probably should have to talk about this with him, have some type of resolution conversation.

[349] I shouldn't have listened to that.

[350] I should have just kept him block.

[351] But I again, people pleasing.

[352] I want him to know that he can still use the tips I give him as a reference, but we need to end this on a good note because you have our friends with my friends now.

[353] You are talking to my people.

[354] And I'm probably going to run into you if you decide that this queer community is someplace that you want to be.

[355] I unblock him and he's not calling and he's not blowing at my phone.

[356] So I'm like, all right, this is fine.

[357] It was a moment of anger and he's fine now.

[358] So many excuses for him, but I'm giving it to him.

[359] I call him later and I say to him, Hey, like, we're good.

[360] We're done.

[361] This is really done.

[362] This is how I feel.

[363] And that was such the wrong idea because now he has me on the phone.

[364] And now he's telling me that I clearly never loved him because if I loved him, I wouldn't leave him like this.

[365] Tyrone would say to me, well, I'm not like Landon.

[366] Landon hit you, but I never hit you.

[367] And you stayed with Landon for longer than you stayed with me. So why is Landon okay and I'm not okay?

[368] The correlation just didn't make sense.

[369] You don't want to be compared to my abuser, but you're comparing yourself to my abuser.

[370] You're comparing our situation to the worst relationship that I have ever been in.

[371] You should be comparing yourself to like my best relationship, but what you're doing is you're comparing yourself to the worst person, the person who is responsible for thousands of thousands of dollars in therapy, the person who is responsible for my, PTSD, the person who's responsible for so many horrible things about my life, but you want to compare yourself to him.

[372] It didn't feel good.

[373] And so I was really firm and I was really clear we need to be done.

[374] This is not okay.

[375] He didn't understand it.

[376] He didn't get it.

[377] It didn't make sense to him.

[378] And then I blocked him again.

[379] This is when my version of hell.

[380] started.

[381] He started creating fake numbers and he would call my phone.

[382] I would get a bunch of different crazed numbers calling me at all hours of the night.

[383] There was an app that he used to create new numbers, like throw away numbers.

[384] And so every time I would block one, he would call me from another one.

[385] Then he started sending me text messages from these phone numbers.

[386] He would try to like email me from these random emails, things were escalating getting worse and worse and worse and worse.

[387] So I'm blocking them.

[388] I'm blocking them.

[389] I'm blocking them.

[390] He took the day off of work to sit there and just call my phone.

[391] Now, if I were not me, I'd be like, why don't you just shut your phone off?

[392] But at the time, I was in sales.

[393] So my clients are calling me on my cell phone.

[394] I don't always have everyone's number.

[395] I can't just shut my phone off because I could miss an important call from work.

[396] And if I keep my phone on, I actually can't answer any important calls from work because Tyrone is calling me so much that my phone, it hasn't stopped ringing.

[397] And my boss is calling me, texting me, why aren't you answering the phone?

[398] My cell phone's my alarm clock.

[399] I couldn't shut my phone off in the middle of the night.

[400] He's sending alarms to call me in the middle of the night.

[401] He's taking the day off of work to call me. He's harassing me calls nonstop from random numbers.

[402] He's sending me like messages of just like pure utter stereotypical abusive behavior.

[403] Gaslighting, guilt tripping.

[404] Everything that I knew was not okay.

[405] I could not sleep.

[406] He's telling me, don't be surprised if I show up at your house.

[407] And now he knows where I live, but I have no idea where he lives.

[408] And when he picked me up, he picked me up in a rental car.

[409] And we sit in a hotel.

[410] I don't know where he lives.

[411] I don't know what car he drives.

[412] I don't know if he's going to show up.

[413] He knows the area from not just me, but from his ex -girlfriend.

[414] I am terrified that in the middle of the night, he's going to pop up.

[415] He knows the route I take because my dog was blind.

[416] A dog was deaf.

[417] And so we would have to take the same route.

[418] Otherwise, he would fall and he would trip and he wouldn't know his way around.

[419] he knows the route.

[420] He knows my routine.

[421] He knows when I call him.

[422] He knows when I take work breaks.

[423] He knows when I take my dog out.

[424] He knows when I fall asleep.

[425] I was absolutely terrified because I still remember that line that his ID says that he's a woman.

[426] And because it says he's a woman, that cops aren't going to give him the same amount of stress as if he was a man. I was absolutely terrified of where this would ever.

[427] escalate to.

[428] I realize I know nothing about him.

[429] I only know what he told me and he knows everything about me. I was so honest.

[430] I was so open and I was so trusting and something that I'm not usually that I can only imagine where he was going to go with all of this information and then he's still threatening to show up.

[431] He's threatening I will be there tomorrow.

[432] So now I'm like I can't go walk my dog and now I can't leave my house.

[433] I'm terrified to open my door to get gross and all of a sudden these deliveries start showing up at my house.

[434] He is sending me dozens and dozens and dozens of flowers because he knows I love fresh flowers.

[435] So he's sending me all of these roses.

[436] Every single time I open my door, I'm seeing roses on my doorstep, like DoorDash or whole foods or Amazon or like an actual florist is delivering to the point that my apartment smelled like a funeral home and I did not want to open my door.

[437] Monique came over one morning because she knew that I was just so stressed and I was so upset and so before work she went to a local coffee shop and she picked up coffee and food that I liked for breakfast and she shows up with tea because she knew I'd been crying all night.

[438] I opened the door and she's holding roses.

[439] She loves to get me flowers because she knows how happy it makes me. And I look at her and I go, are they yours?

[440] And she says no. And I start crying because there's constant reminding that he's going to show up.

[441] He knows my address.

[442] He knows where I live.

[443] And then I started getting restaurant deliveries at the time that I should eat.

[444] All of these different weird situations, I don't know who's dropping off all.

[445] this food.

[446] I don't know who's outside.

[447] My windows face the street.

[448] I'm fully expecting him to pull up.

[449] He would send messages from random numbers saying, I'm going to be there in the morning.

[450] I couldn't sleep all night because I'm expecting him to show up at my house.

[451] I'm like slowly like losing it.

[452] I'm on the phone with Monique.

[453] We're FaceTiming and she's there with a friend to mine, and I start getting a phone call from this friend that she's with.

[454] And I was like, can you tell so -and -so does not call me right now because we're FaceTiming?

[455] And she says, that's really weird because his phone is across the room.

[456] I was like, I hear what you're saying, but his caller ID is showing up on my phone right now.

[457] And she turns the phone and she shows being his phone how completely dead it is.

[458] It's not even on.

[459] And I was like, I don't understand this is really weird.

[460] So I'm taking screenshots of him calling me and sending it to her.

[461] And I'm like, I don't understand what's going on.

[462] Then another friend of mine who's down in LA, all of a sudden she starts calling me. And I knew something was off then because there's some people who you expect phone calls from at any given moment.

[463] And there's some other people that you text all the time and that's like your mean mode of communication and a phone call means that something's wrong.

[464] A phone call is not a good sign in those situations.

[465] And there's no reason why she should call me. Within like three minutes, I get a text message from her saying, hey, I don't know what's going on, but you're calling me and that's not like you.

[466] I want to make sure that you're actually okay.

[467] And I was like, what are you talking about?

[468] I'm not calling you.

[469] I'm sitting in my bed watching Netflix.

[470] What's going on?

[471] I was like, actually, now I need you to call me. And so I'm on the phone with her.

[472] She's like, it's really weird.

[473] I didn't feel comfortable answering.

[474] Something just felt me like this wasn't right.

[475] And my caller ID, the call waiting pops in.

[476] And she's calling me. So it doesn't make sense how I'm on the phone with her, but then she's calling in and she's like, don't answer it, don't answer it.

[477] I start doing some diving.

[478] And I realize that whatever app he has, to get new numbers.

[479] It's also an app that can mimic phone numbers.

[480] He's taking numbers of the people I trusted, I entrusted him with to assist with his transition.

[481] He's taking their numbers, mimicking their numbers, and calling me in an effort for me to answer the phone.

[482] He's spoofing and he's blowing up my phone.

[483] So now I have to start blocking my friends because it's not safe for me because I don't know what's actually them and I'm afraid that if I ignore my friend's phone calls, it could actually be an emergency and I don't want to have this situation where I answer and it's not them.

[484] Now I have to tell all my friends, you can't call me on this number because I'm blocking you.

[485] They understood the situation, but it was also extremely isolating.

[486] I'm losing more and more community.

[487] I'm losing more and more friends because now I can't talk to the people who I trusted the most.

[488] And now I can't talk to my inner circle because I don't know if it's him or it's not.

[489] And it keeps getting worse.

[490] And it just keeps getting worse.

[491] And it just keeps getting worse.

[492] And I'm losing it.

[493] I'm not sleeping.

[494] I'm afraid of the doorbell ringing because I don't know who it is.

[495] I'm ordering things I can defend myself with and stashing them around my house.

[496] I'm stashing them at the door.

[497] My roommate and I came up with protocols of when I have to walk the dog, that they have to come with me or that we have to leave the door locked or unlocked a certain way.

[498] So if I need to run into my house because he's outside, I can easily do that.

[499] It was making the paranoia worse and his threats, these random threats from these random numbers.

[500] And it was just making me super ultra -paranoid and I'm crying and I'm not sleeping in the group chat or the friend chat.

[501] I'm like, I don't know what to do.

[502] And my friends are listening to me and voice memos completely breaking down.

[503] I'm afraid to be in my own house.

[504] One of my friends said, you know what?

[505] I don't know what to do, but I'm sure the National Domestic Violence Hatline knows what to do.

[506] Call them.

[507] I call them.

[508] I call them.

[509] I'm talking to a representative who answered the phone and I'm explaining my situation.

[510] I'm breaking down because it was like this heavy moment of I thought I was past this.

[511] I thought I had dealt with this already.

[512] I thought I had done this.

[513] I thought I was past this moment in my life.

[514] I had gone to therapy.

[515] I'd moved across the country.

[516] I was in a completely different space and a completely different identity than I was when I was with him.

[517] How could I be here in the same situation?

[518] again.

[519] I felt so defeated.

[520] This woman on the phone made me feel so seen and made me feel less like I have another statistic again.

[521] She connected me into the local shelter and she connected me to some type of legal aid.

[522] The next thing I had to do was get a restraining order and I how to do that.

[523] And so the shelter was able to connect me to someone who was a legal lawship fellow.

[524] We did the restraining order together and we filed an emergency restraining order.

[525] At that time, the phone call started to peter down.

[526] The text messages were still pretty regular.

[527] It really felt like he had some type of alarm system or calendar system set up because they were pretty consistent at specific times.

[528] We filed the emergency restraining order, and I'm sending them pictures and droves of information that he is texting me. He sent me a cash app request for money because he wanted to say I loved you, because I blocked him on everything else.

[529] I'm sending all of this information over to her, and she's like, oh, my God, this is great.

[530] Usually they're not so blatant.

[531] She was really big on giving me advice, and then I met with the law fellow, and she was really great.

[532] helping me get all this stuff done.

[533] Within about five days from calling the shelter to speaking to the fellow, to getting the paperwork filed, the judge approved an emergency restraining order.

[534] But then I had to get it to him.

[535] And again, I didn't know anything but other than what he told me. While we were at Monique's house when he came to visit for Thanksgiving, I had gone to the store.

[536] And he was like, oh, here's my debit card.

[537] And his debit card had his legal dead name on it.

[538] I remembered what that name was.

[539] And so between that and him mentioning his name of his mother and all these other things, I was able to do like one of those background checks online and a property search.

[540] And for like $10, I was able to get past court records and at least, the information for where his mother lived, because I knew that he stayed with her sometimes.

[541] Then I fell into this whole of research that I probably should have done before I actually met him the first time.

[542] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

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

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

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

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

[547] What happens next?

[548] Depends on who you ask.

[549] Was it a crime of passion?

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

[551] This was clearly an intentional act.

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

[553] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

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

[555] Everyone had an opinion.

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

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

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

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

[560] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcast, or Spotify.

[561] I actually found court records that he had restraining orders, not by just one person in one situation, but there were multiple restraining orders against him for multiple situations.

[562] He had, I believe, either one or two of five -year restraining orders against him.

[563] I found a record of him being in jail in Northern California, county jail, for Demandum.

[564] domestic violence.

[565] All of the restraining orders that were against him were specifically for domestic violence.

[566] The court system, it kind of feels sometimes that they put all of these blockers in place to either dissuade you or dissuade the wrong people from doing the wrong things.

[567] But when you're in this genuine situation, it is very, very scary and it's very unwieldy, and it is, like, speaking another language.

[568] I was completely panicked.

[569] I'm not eating.

[570] I had been depressed before Tyrone showed up.

[571] I had been depressed, but the depression was so much worse after all of this, because it's like I couldn't do anything.

[572] I couldn't do anything at all.

[573] I still have to do a job.

[574] I still have to be someone's daughter.

[575] I still have to be someone's daughter.

[576] I still have to be someone's friend.

[577] I still have responsibilities.

[578] I have rent to pay.

[579] I have a house to clean.

[580] And I am just like losing it.

[581] Internally, it's just too much for me to take.

[582] I can't take anymore.

[583] I get his mother's address.

[584] And now I have to somehow get some type of sheriff to serve him.

[585] they end up serving him on a .m. a Tuesday or a Wednesday, and he's not home.

[586] So they gave it to his mother that there's something that he needs to come to the police station for and he needs to pick up.

[587] And he shows up that afternoon.

[588] So the sheriff served him with the emergency restraining order and then made court.

[589] Once I got the emergency restraining order, it was great.

[590] I felt like I could sleep at night.

[591] I knew that if he did show up, I knew at least had enough that I could.

[592] I could.

[593] be protected at least by somebody with some type of uniform.

[594] And I have to make it really clear that as a black woman, for me to go to the police or the court system to protect myself against a black man and not just a black man, a black trans man, and putting that type of legal target, it didn't feel good.

[595] It didn't feel good, especially black trans people, because going to jail is such a horrible experience for them.

[596] And it's so dehumanizing.

[597] But at the end of the day, it came down to the fact of, is it going to be him or me?

[598] I could protect this black trans man or I could protect this black woman.

[599] I'm not doing anything wrong.

[600] I need to protect myself.

[601] For a few weeks, it was great.

[602] There were no more deliveries.

[603] But anytime the doorbell read, I was nervous.

[604] Anytime I went for a walk, I was nervous.

[605] I changed my walk patterns with the dog.

[606] We go to court.

[607] This is January 2021 at this point.

[608] Everything's still on Zoom.

[609] I don't think we had vaccines yet.

[610] I called Monique and I was like, you have to do this with me. I need your help.

[611] The law fellow was able to stay on.

[612] Legal Aid was able to stay on.

[613] They were able to assist with legal advice and representing me in court and talking to eventually Tyrone's lawyer.

[614] That was a godsend, honestly.

[615] That was amazing.

[616] I feel like anyone in that situation should automatically get that type of service, but I was lucky enough to be able to find it and to get it.

[617] We show up to court the first time, and my legal fellow is being supervised by an attorney who's qualified by the California Parson Association.

[618] And so I have, have two people representing me plus myself.

[619] He had hired a lawyer and the lawyer got on the Zoom call with the judge and Tyrone wasn't on there.

[620] He said, I just received the case a couple days ago.

[621] Can we get a continuance?

[622] So they continued it until the end of January.

[623] But during this court proceeding, the lawyer that Tyrone had received basically was just like, well, I'm sure you know, Natalia has no type of representation.

[624] And so I will just take care of everything directly with her.

[625] And my law fellow was like, actually, no, no, no, I'll take care of it.

[626] Which was amazing because it felt so good to be like, I don't have to deal with this.

[627] The judge was like, no, no, you can speak to her representation.

[628] You don't have to talk to her.

[629] And that surprised him.

[630] It felt like to me that he expected me to be in this certain position, which is back to how Tyrone made me out.

[631] Like, I couldn't afford anything.

[632] I couldn't have the wherewithal to take care of this myself.

[633] It was the way that it was said and how it came across.

[634] It was almost like I wasn't smart enough or I wasn't cultured enough to understand.

[635] I ended up speaking to my legal aid person a couple weeks later, his lawyer had reached out to her.

[636] and his lawyer specialized in domestic violence cases.

[637] He didn't give off good energy over the Zoom.

[638] It didn't feel right.

[639] In the way he talks about, me, it didn't feel good.

[640] But it turns out that his specialty was representing defendants in domestic violence cases.

[641] But she said that when she spoke to him, she actually started questioning herself as to if she was doing the right thing as my legal aid.

[642] because the way that he was talking to her was the same gaslighting behavior that Tyrone had talked to me in, where he has like, well, no, no, no, no, you're new to the profession.

[643] She doesn't need to go to court.

[644] What we're going to do is we're going to come up with a settlement and we're going to sign papers that Tyrone and Natalia are not going to speak to each other for six months and they'll be fine.

[645] They'll be good.

[646] And that will be all that we need because obviously this is not that big of a deal.

[647] And she's like, I have to speak to my client, but I don't think that's something that she's going to go with.

[648] He almost gaslit her in a way that she started questioning the facts as she knew them.

[649] And she told me later that she ended up calling her boss and being like, so this is really bad behavior.

[650] Because this is not how lawyers speak to each other.

[651] And her boss agreed.

[652] This is not how lawyers speak to each other.

[653] The way that he spoke to her was not okay.

[654] She had a legal obligation to tell me about the settlement offers that he was giving where we signed this agreement and we'd move on and we would drop the case and just not show up to court.

[655] But I realized that he had done this before.

[656] Tyrone had done this with other women before.

[657] And that's why these women had restraining orders against him.

[658] And that's why when I'm looking through these records and these background reports that I'm seeing these cases that are dropped or dismissed, it's because he's meeting people and he's going through these situations with them.

[659] And then he's getting some type of lawyer to make these agreements with them and that they're signing off saying that they won't contact him.

[660] So it gets dismissed and it's not a real case anymore.

[661] There's no record of it.

[662] I couldn't let there be.

[663] No records.

[664] There needed to be a record.

[665] There's a history and there's a pattern.

[666] Because I wouldn't have known that there was a pattern had it not been for the first restraining order and then the second restraining order and then the third restraining order and then the fourth restraining order.

[667] I knew I was doing the right thing.

[668] And I refused the agreements because there was no legal protection for me if he decided to show up at my front door.

[669] So we went to court a second time.

[670] He showed up this time.

[671] He and his lawyer are there.

[672] and me and my legal aid team of two are there.

[673] I'm nervous.

[674] I'm FaceTiming Monique and I'm showing the camera.

[675] They can't see that she's watching, which was really amazing for me because I felt like I had like a support system in court instead of me just being in my bedroom talking to my computer.

[676] His lawyer starts questioning me. Like, well, why didn't you just block him?

[677] And then why didn't you do this and why didn't you do that?

[678] If he was trying to make me feel stupid, he was doing like a really great job.

[679] And if he was trying to put doubt in my head about the choices that I made, he was doing a really good job.

[680] But I also knew that I did the right thing.

[681] So I was really sticking to my guns.

[682] I was really clear with the timeline of what happened.

[683] He asked me, why didn't you just block his phone number?

[684] That seems to alleviate everything.

[685] Clearly, this is just a love spat between two people.

[686] And I said, I did actually.

[687] I did block him.

[688] I blocked him multiple times.

[689] That's the moment that I witnessed the judge starting to go through the evidence of the screenshots I provided, of the transcripts I provided.

[690] And it felt like they hadn't gone through any of that stuff before.

[691] The lawyer is trying to frame it as like a lover's squabble instead of me being absolutely terrified for my life because we have no idea what he's capable of.

[692] And he has four other restraining orders against him for domestic.

[693] violent situations, then the judge starts questioning him.

[694] He was so confident in his responses that he was so smart he thought in his responses.

[695] He was better than me. He was saying these things that were making no sense.

[696] And so the judge is like, I see here at this time on this date that Natalia is telling you, I don't consent to you speaking to me anymore.

[697] Stop calling me. This is now considered harassment.

[698] And you kept calling.

[699] And Terran's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[700] I sure did.

[701] I absolutely did because I wasn't quite sure if she actually didn't want to speak to me again.

[702] And it was just like these weird mind fucks.

[703] I'm watching him and I'm like, I don't understand how I thought this was attractive.

[704] I don't understand how I thought that it was okay.

[705] I'm questioning my judgment on everything.

[706] He is talking to the judge and he's super confident in his abuse and thinking that this is normal, thinking that it's okay, and he's being like super apologetic, Your Honor, I really thought she was into it.

[707] I really thought she was into the flowers and the judge didn't buy it.

[708] And I'm grateful that the judge didn't buy it, but then I'm also not grateful because they only granted me a six -month protection order against him, even though multiple people have multiple restraining orders against him.

[709] I only get a six -month one.

[710] It gave me enough safety that I felt safe for a little bit, but I didn't feel safe for a long time.

[711] At the end of the entire hearing, he made a point to say, thank you, Your Honor.

[712] I appreciate your assistance with this matter.

[713] I also want to reiterate that I'm in a relationship, so I'm not going to be contacting Natalia anymore because I'm happy where I am.

[714] It just felt like some type of weird insults.

[715] I hope you're happy with someone, but at the same time, I feel awful for her.

[716] But the one thing I can do is have this on permanent record.

[717] So it's always attached to your name.

[718] Edd always shows up that I had a restraining order against you.

[719] And these were the pieces of evidence showing why.

[720] I hope that someone did some type of therapy with him.

[721] But I haven't heard from him since that last court case.

[722] and I am grateful.

[723] I was preemptively smart and I blocked him on everything.

[724] Any type of social media when we first started having that fight, he actually sent in a text message, you're really smart and lucky that you had done that.

[725] I am still picking up the pieces of the mess that he left behind.

[726] I trusted someone enough to want to be their wife.

[727] I trusted someone enough to want to talk mother.

[728] It's so personal to me. And I already come with trust issues.

[729] Now today, I feel like I question myself as to why I didn't trust my gut when I knew I was right.

[730] I should have listened to all the red flags.

[731] I should have paid attention to all the red flags.

[732] And I didn't.

[733] But I did pay attention early enough.

[734] I don't want to beat myself up that I didn't do it fast enough.

[735] I didn't do it soon enough.

[736] I wasn't smart enough.

[737] I don't want to do that to myself because shoulda woulda coulda in hindsight's 2020.

[738] I recognize the signs when I recognize the signs and when I had enough, I had enough.

[739] And it was early enough for me while it did damage to me as just a person, it didn't do physical damage.

[740] Although sometimes the psychological ones can be worse.

[741] I'm definitely more timid when it comes to men or masculine presenting folks.

[742] I feel like I can't trust my judgment when it comes to those type of folks, but I am definitely relearning to trust my gut.

[743] I am not beating myself up because I was so lonely and in need.

[744] of love that I was willing to accept whatever.

[745] I am telling my story because there's someone else like me. There's someone else who has been a survivor, who's been an abusive relationship, whether it be physical, sexual, financially, emotionally, mentally, whatever the situation is, they've been there before and then they don't trust themselves the next time with the next person and they're like, what if I do it again?

[746] I did what I thought was the work and I still ended up in that situation again.

[747] And I realized I needed to listen to my intuition, listen to my gut, and pay attention to those red flags.

[748] Those red flags are key.

[749] Even if they're small, enough small red flags equals one big one.

[750] And so that's where I am in my life right now.

[751] That's my story.

[752] Thank you so, so much for being willing to share your story.

[753] I'm so incredibly sorry for what you've experienced.

[754] What I try to remind myself is sometimes I did the best I could at the time with the information I had at the time.

[755] And I'm sure the same is true for you.

[756] Sometimes you see the best in people because that's what they're showing you.

[757] Yeah, Monique put it in a really good perspective for me. she said, people will show up with their best representative, right?

[758] You show up being the best person you can be.

[759] And in weird situations or hard times, then you see the person behind the representative.

[760] And fortunately for me, his representative dipped out really early.

[761] And so I was able to make a personality assessment way earlier.

[762] If we lived in the similar areas, I don't know if I would have been able to see it like that, because I think my life was so separate from his, that his intrusion into my life, especially in the negative way, was so magnified.

[763] But I feel like if we had lived in similar areas and I had seen him daily, this behavior would have crept in versus being like this glaring thing to me, you know?

[764] No one asks to be in the situation.

[765] No one wants to file a restraining orders.

[766] No one wants to be terrified.

[767] No one wants to feel like this.

[768] It's not my fault.

[769] I don't take responsibility for it.

[770] What is my responsibility is what I do when the situation happens to me. And I did the best that I could with the information I had, like you said.

[771] And I made the right choices at the right moments.

[772] He's in charge of his behavior, not me. He's in charge of his reactions, not me. over Thanksgiving.

[773] What I didn't realize is that when he would calm down, he would record him speaking to me calmly and then record my reaction of me being still upset and angry.

[774] The recording of me was not just us having sex or us being intimate.

[775] It was also during arguments.

[776] In a way, I feel like because he has had the.

[777] restraining orders and he's been in these situations where people can pin things on him that he tried to almost like set it up that I was the aggressor.

[778] I'm the one causing all these problems.

[779] I'm screaming at him and look how calm he is.

[780] Like there's recordings of him talking to me calmly.

[781] And the only way that I was able to get those recordings was because he would send them to me in text messages.

[782] It was like an effort of surveillance, but it was also an effort to like protect himself.

[783] So he knew what he was doing was wrong because he knew well enough to calm himself down and record me. So I don't take responsibility for any of this because he set all of this up.

[784] Thank you so much for all of your effort and energy.

[785] I so appreciate you sharing your story.

[786] I think it's so incredibly important and impactful.

[787] I also love hearing about your community of support and also the connection that you were able to make with the domestic violence hotline and that they were able to help and connect you with the right people.

[788] There's other people right now today who are probably going to listen to this podcast who might not be able to get those same resources.

[789] And I just have to say to those folks specifically, you need to find your people and you need to find a plan.

[790] And there's resources out there.

[791] planning an escape, planning to get to the courts.

[792] There's spaces for everybody.

[793] Lots of people don't talk about domestic violence within the queer community.

[794] We are seen sometimes as two girls fighting versus the domestic violence situation.

[795] That's a lot steeper and a lot stronger than that.

[796] And there's a lot of, I think, allowances that queer people give to other queer people because they understand sometimes how hard it is just to survive.

[797] in this body or to survive in this life or to survive in your identity, whether orientation or gender, I need the queer people to recognize that sometimes the red flags are the red flags, no matter if they're rainbow colored or if they're not.

[798] You know deep in your gut that something doesn't feel right, something doesn't feel good.

[799] There's plenty of resources out there for queer folks.

[800] You have to put yourself first.

[801] And I think that's something that I really learned during this pandemic.

[802] I had to put myself first and I had to pay attention to me. I'm the only one that I get to live with at the end of the day.

[803] If I can't survive, then there's no more story to tell.

[804] And I think that's the most important thing of telling my own story.

[805] And reviving my voice, that was super I had done victim advocacy for a while, and I had to learn how to get my voice from my therapist to learn how to stand up for myself.

[806] And in those few months, I had let it go.

[807] But I didn't forget the lessons.

[808] And I needed to go back to that.

[809] Thank you so much.

[810] You're so amazing.

[811] Thank you so much for listening.

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

[813] Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media Production, created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese.

[814] 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.

[815] Our theme song was composed by GladRags.

[816] Check out their album, Wonder Under.

[817] Thank you so much.

[818] 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.

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