S14 E8: We Went Public

[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] Hi, friends.

[11] Happy Mariah Carey season.

[12] I have a few exciting announcements before we jump into today's episode.

[13] Something Was Wrong Live is almost here this Tuesday, December 13th, at 6 p .m. Pacific Time.

[14] Join Season 14's Kalin, Melissa, Sarah, and myself as we broadcast live from L .A. to your devices.

[15] During this special episode recording event, Something Was Wrong is partnering with moment to stream live video as we dig into listener questions and updates from the season.

[16] 33 % of the net proceeds from this event will be donated in Emerson and Ivy's honor to the National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association, which supports and promotes court -appointed volunteer advocacy for children who have experienced abuse or neglect.

[17] The organization ensures children's safety, permanent housing, and the opportunity to thrive.

[18] For more information, and to grab your tickets, head to moment .com slash something was wrong.

[19] Audio from the studio recording will be broadcast on the podcast feed at a later date.

[20] Also, y 'all are the best and have been asking for season 14 merch since the artwork dropped, and I'm super stoked to share it's finally here, and 33 % of the proceeds will also be donated in Emerson and Ivy's honor to the National Court -appointed Special Advocate Association of Seattle.

[21] This is a limited merch drop, so grab yours while you can.

[22] Head to Something Was Wrong .com.

[23] Thank you so much and see you Tuesday.

[24] I'm so excited.

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

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

[27] Guess experiences are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of myself.

[28] something was wrong or wondering.

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

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

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

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

[33] purposes.

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

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

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

[37] Thank you so much for listening.

[38] I had booked a job in Seattle in November, and that one was kind of gut -wrenching because I was like, this would have worked out perfectly if we were still together.

[39] I had really wanted to tell him about that.

[40] So we start talking again.

[41] I tell him about the job in Seattle.

[42] He's so excited.

[43] He's asking if he can see me. I told him that, like, let's see where this goes.

[44] I was up there with the band.

[45] We were recording in a music venue, an album, and doing like a live stream because this was the only way people were going to concerts during COVID.

[46] So we're planning all of that out.

[47] Seattle's on a COVID lockdown though.

[48] So he starts expressing like his strong disapproval and righteousness about us coming up there and how messed up it is.

[49] He wants to see me, but this is fucked up.

[50] We shouldn't be staying all together, all these things, right?

[51] I had made arrangements to stay with the whole crew because I didn't want to miss out there so much to a job and a production that happens in between moments.

[52] the bonding and networking, all that stuff, that I didn't want to go stay with him and then go to work.

[53] I didn't want to have to explain that I was dating someone that they knew again in that area.

[54] So all of that led me to say, I'm going to keep this again very separate.

[55] I'm going to protect my job, my relationships over in this world, and I'm going to go to Seattle, but I'm going to do it my way.

[56] I'm going to be with them.

[57] And then I'll block out a couple days towards the end and I'll stay with him once we're all done and wrecked.

[58] So that's what I did.

[59] He wasn't extremely thrilled with that while I was there.

[60] He was throwing fits every once in a while, wanted to come by the venue to see me. And again, I was just being extremely protective.

[61] Now that I look back in hindsight, I behaved and reacted in ways that knew.

[62] I was guarded still.

[63] I wanted to believe the good.

[64] I still approached things with caution because I knew that he would probably show me his true colors again.

[65] And I wasn't 100%.

[66] Like, I wouldn't have bet money that it still would have worked out.

[67] I had a great time in Seattle.

[68] I end up spending Thanksgiving with him.

[69] He's running all over the city texting me. Can I get you anything?

[70] I want you to feel super comfortable while you're here.

[71] I'm going to go get you all these bath things at this time.

[72] I re -download Tinder and I start swiping in the Seattle area.

[73] I thought it would be interesting to see if he came up.

[74] This was my only opportunity to know, hey, are you like being true?

[75] Are you being serious?

[76] what I've seen from your Instagram and making it appear as though you're available when you're not.

[77] I'm not posting him either.

[78] One, I'm not actively using social media, but I'm not posting him because of reasons I've stated before.

[79] Like, I like to be private.

[80] But that doesn't give someone license to be shady.

[81] And I feel like he probably is responding to women in his DMs, maybe is on dating apps.

[82] So I go and I look and I don't spend too much time doing this because that's just like a lot of energy I didn't want to spend in that way.

[83] I ended up closing out of that completely forgetting about it when I don't find him.

[84] Fastward to the time that I'm spending with him at his house, we had a decent time.

[85] He went and showed me a bunch of really beautiful hikes and places that he likes to go.

[86] It seems almost like everywhere that we've been.

[87] He has a story or like an emotional tie to it or this is where me and my ex did blah, blah, blah.

[88] It never felt like he was really 100 % there with me. That made me sad.

[89] It felt like we're always being haunted by the ghosts of relationships passed and that maybe I'm a stand -in for the women that he's lost.

[90] I was trying to give him space to process and mourn and heal.

[91] I feel like if you suppress those emotions or you push him down, you never deal with them and then you have to deal with them later.

[92] He appeared as this man who hadn't dealt with a lot of his shit.

[93] And here is his first time being out of a marriage and technically alone.

[94] We're in a long -distance relationship.

[95] This is the first time he's lived alone and had this much space to, like, sit with a lot of these things, which he made note to over and over again that Mimi rushed a lot of their relationship, that he had no time in between things to process or mourn his first marriage or the loss of his relationships with his daughter.

[96] I was like, wow, that sounds pretty awful.

[97] You need to deal with your shit.

[98] There's no point of us continuing our relationship.

[99] If you're not processing all your past trauma, you're going to repeat things.

[100] I thought it was very much for the best that he sits with.

[101] those things.

[102] It felt unfortunate to me that it would often be when I'm with him, but I was guilty at this time of putting other people's needs and comfort and all of that before my own.

[103] The first time he asked to film was in San Francisco.

[104] He was extremely pushy about it.

[105] The camera wasn't even with us.

[106] It was in the car that was parked up the street.

[107] We were already hooking up when he's like, I need to go get my camera.

[108] I need to go get my camera.

[109] Please.

[110] It was extremely pushy and I eventually like caved for him to go get the camera.

[111] That was the first time after that.

[112] When I was in Seattle, he had actually already had the cameras installed in his house.

[113] I didn't really think anything of it because when we broke up after Santa Cruz, he got two cats.

[114] He threw himself into like being a cat dad, which I've interpreted as his way of dealing with our breakup.

[115] When we finally spoke again, he was like, I've just been here playing with the cats.

[116] So I was comforted by the idea, okay, he's not out there rebounding or like finding someone else or anything like that.

[117] He's just doing his thing and playing with these cats.

[118] On social media, he had posted that he got these cameras to care for them, to check in on them while he was at work each day.

[119] And I was like, okay, I know other people who do that.

[120] His apartment's extremely small.

[121] There's only like two real rooms, the living room that's connected to the kitchen and then the bedroom, so he just had two.

[122] And I honestly didn't give it too much thought.

[123] I didn't even think about it while I was staying there because he often recorded with his actual camera.

[124] So it didn't even occur to me that times where he didn't take the camera out when we were in his bed, that he was still technically always recording.

[125] You can go back and pull that footage up to like two hours later, which makes me extremely uncomfortable knowing that even though I consented at times, there were times that I was still being recorded and never knew about it.

[126] I don't have a way of proving it.

[127] I probably will never know, but the thought of the time, where I didn't consent to that and didn't think I was being recorded.

[128] I didn't put two and two together.

[129] It was definitely in hindsight and then realizing too that other people maybe didn't know about the cameras at all.

[130] So none of that sits very well with me at all.

[131] 2007 through 2000, probably 12.

[132] He would get whatever he wanted whether or not I said yes or no. As far as the sexual stuff, I would tell him, no, I don't feel good, or no, I don't, for X, Y, and Z. And he'd be like, come on, come on, come on.

[133] He would badger me and push me and push me until I'd finally be like, okay, so that you'd shut up.

[134] Now that I've been able to step away from that, I can see how he's done that.

[135] And he continues to do that.

[136] The sexual stuff was really scary for me. Bowie's mom told me that she saw video of us, which I did not know existed.

[137] There would be times where we would be engaging in sexual acts and he would be recording when I turned around or something.

[138] I can remember one time we were in the bathroom and I was on the counter and he had the camera like behind me so I couldn't see that he was recording.

[139] It's very uncomfortable now to know that he has this.

[140] When I left him and came to California, he would send screenshots of videos of us having sex and I would say you need to delete that right now I do not give you permission to have this delete this it's disgusting I don't want you watching that that's so wrong and he'd be like this is all the porn I watch or all the porn I need or something ridiculous and I'm not deleting it which would enrage me early December he takes a trip to Arizona to see his dad.

[141] His dad was having some health issues.

[142] I'm talking to him.

[143] I'm home.

[144] I'm just doing my own thing.

[145] He ends up getting into an altercation with his mom, who he was staying with.

[146] I knew that they had had a bit of a rough relationship.

[147] She sounded narcissistic.

[148] I have a lot of experience with that and having a difficult relationship with my own mom.

[149] So I felt for him, it also sounded to me like he would go off on her and his extreme anger was alarming as he would tell me the story and it would be over things like her not having a cooking pan in her rental house.

[150] Really arbitrary things that he was making into a really big deal.

[151] I started understanding like he's overreacting to a lot of little things.

[152] But maybe that's just because he has a lot going on.

[153] Maybe he's under a ton of stress with all this COVID stuff.

[154] I was cutting him a lot more slack than I would generally anybody else because of the circumstances.

[155] He has this fight with his mom.

[156] He said he wasn't going to have a place to stay.

[157] He didn't have money to get a hotel that night.

[158] It wasn't that far from where I was living.

[159] He had a rental car.

[160] I was like, if you just want to drive here, you can stay here.

[161] That's fine.

[162] He ends up doing that.

[163] He takes pictures the whole way there.

[164] He's happy again.

[165] He gets to my place for the first time, and he stays with me. And then we decide to go to Joshua Tree for the weekend.

[166] I paid for Airbnb.

[167] We head out there after Joshua Tree.

[168] Our next trip and time that we saw each other was at the end of December.

[169] I went up to Seattle for New Year's.

[170] It was like two days, probably.

[171] I came in to spend New Year's up there.

[172] We actually ended up staying in.

[173] COVID was still obviously a concern.

[174] One thing stood out.

[175] We were walking in like the Pioneer Square area and someone recognized him.

[176] I was a little taken back by his response.

[177] This guy comes down and he's like, oh, hey, the way he's looking at me is the only thing that made me feel like something was off.

[178] He kept looking at me with these eyes that was just like questioning who I was.

[179] Jake never introduced me and I'm not to.

[180] typically one to, like, step in and be like, hey, I'm his girlfriend or anything.

[181] I was trying to respect, like, I don't know his relationship with this guy.

[182] He had been inviting us to come up to his apartment to have a drink.

[183] Jake was very adamant.

[184] No, no, no, like, we got to go.

[185] We're busy trying to get rid of this guy, so we leave.

[186] And after that, his demeanor changed.

[187] I got the feeling that he was hiding something there.

[188] And my gut was telling me, like, I think this guy knows something about Jake that maybe I'm not in on.

[189] I didn't know if he had seen him around with another girl.

[190] that put a little seed of doubt in my head about the truthfulness, the validity of the things that Jake was telling me at the time.

[191] I come home and we're talking about the next time I'm going to see him and how I want it to be a longer trip and he wants me to come up there for like three or four weeks.

[192] I've never introduced anyone that I've dated to my daughter.

[193] I've never been really willing to bring those two parts of my lives together.

[194] But I was thinking like if I'm going to be somewhere for longer than just a couple days or it's not going to coincide with a work trip, I need to discuss this with family, figure out what my plan is from there, but I need to be sure about someone before I ever do that.

[195] And at this point, I had had enough doubts that I was like, I need to put this to the test and see if what I'm feeling is right or if I'm way off base here.

[196] So I had been listed the help of a friend.

[197] 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.

[198] I'm Sachi Cole.

[199] And I'm Sarah Hagey.

[200] And we're the host of scam influencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery, that takes.

[201] 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.

[202] 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.

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

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

[205] Follow scam influencers on the Wendry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

[207] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[208] She had been under the influence that she left him there.

[209] In January 2020, local woman Karen Reid was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

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

[211] What happens next depends on who you ask.

[212] Was it a crime of passion?

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

[214] This was clearly an intentional act.

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

[216] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[217] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a conference.

[218] up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[219] Everyone had an opinion.

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

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

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

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

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

[225] I told her, I need to know if this is real, and I need you to slide into his DMs and see if he takes the bait.

[226] I send her his handle, she does that, and he quickly responds.

[227] Everything's on the up and up.

[228] It's extremely friendly.

[229] Nothing that I actually have a problem with.

[230] I'm not somebody who thinks that, like, you can't have female friends.

[231] If you can't have a friend outside of your relationship that is a woman, the problem isn't the woman.

[232] It's the fact that you can only see women as objects or within a sexual scope.

[233] Like, you don't have respect for actual women.

[234] I've reiterated this time and time again to men that I've dated.

[235] She had flit in and said something about, yeah, I'm coming to Seattle.

[236] I see all your pictures.

[237] It seems like such a beautiful city.

[238] It's my first time there.

[239] Do you have any recommendations?

[240] And he was extremely nice and saying, like, yeah, you should check this out.

[241] And she had tried to take it a set further of being like, I don't know if you'd be willing to hang out.

[242] He was playing it safe.

[243] There was nothing necessarily wrong.

[244] They wouldn't have even been mad if you hung out and made new friends.

[245] I like to make new friends in cities that I'd like to make new friends in cities that go to.

[246] She was sending me the screenshots.

[247] We had hopped on a call and I was like, I need something that he can't talk his way out of.

[248] Ask him if he has a girlfriend.

[249] Her next message to him was something along the lines of like, that sounds good.

[250] I want to make sure I'm not stepping on anyone's toes.

[251] Do you have a girlfriend?

[252] It takes a while to respond to this one and we were on the phone sweating it out.

[253] He said something like, you're all good.

[254] I live alone.

[255] I was divorced last year.

[256] He mentioned his recent divorce.

[257] It was lying by omission.

[258] I knew it was something that he would still try to talk his way out of if confronted with it.

[259] His next response to her was, I admire your boldness.

[260] That was it for me. I sent him that message of I admire your boldness and broke it off.

[261] It sent him into like a bit of a spiral.

[262] So this was like our thing of breaking up and getting back together, but I had really felt done at that point.

[263] My suspicions were confirmed for the worst.

[264] And this girl felt totally awful, but I was so grateful that she did this for me. His defense to that was that he thought it was Mimi and that she had done stuff like this in the past and as soon as the conversation took the turn he definitely thought it was me me trying to find any excuse to not give him his stuff back because they had been in contact and he said that she had contacted him that same exact day that we did this and they were making plans to get some of his last stuff at the house he would assure me over and over again that's so done i chose you that would bring up some questions of like what do you mean you chose me he's like well i chose myself in walking away she's you know tried to make some passes again and reconnect at certain points, and I chose you.

[265] When my friend messaged him in his DMs, he had said that the reason why he responded the way he did was because he thought it was me, me, me, trapping him.

[266] That checked out that she had contacted him.

[267] He was having a swing of emotions, and he was processing all that.

[268] So if he was quiet that day, it had nothing to do with me. He was like, okay, take the time I'm here, if you need me. It all made sense when he was justifying why he responded the way he did.

[269] He guilted me. And I ended up apologizing for doing all of this.

[270] I was extremely manipulated.

[271] Even though I knew better, I felt so much guilt.

[272] He was like, you kick me while I was down.

[273] Like I already told you, I was having a hard day.

[274] I was really naive about all of that.

[275] So fast forward, I'm apologizing for trapping him in some way.

[276] He had a trip plan to come already and see me in January towards like the end of the month.

[277] And I had told him, call it off.

[278] I don't want to see you.

[279] And then we would still talk to each other here and there.

[280] said that he was going to come regardless.

[281] He was just like, I've already committed to these plans.

[282] I'm making these plans and I'm going.

[283] My hope is that you'll join me and change your mind.

[284] Weeks go by and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to see this guy.

[285] He's going to bring some of my stuff that was in Seattle at his place down so he could give it back to me. And we made plans to like meet up once he landed to give me my stuff.

[286] We did exactly that.

[287] It was an emotional reunion and giving each other our stuff back.

[288] He ended up convincing me to go with him.

[289] And I was like, okay, it'll be like a goodbye trip.

[290] We're not getting back together, but I don't have anything going on this weekend and I'll go with you to Death Valley.

[291] Bad idea.

[292] It was an emotional trip and we tried talking about what our plan was going to be moving forward.

[293] Like, where do we go from here?

[294] And the response that I was getting from him was that he wanted to be together, but he obviously has a lot of work to do and he has to heal and he has to do all this stuff that I have been telling him for so long.

[295] It was such a different response to times in the past when we had broken up and He had promised the world to try to get back together.

[296] It was always like, I want to be back with you.

[297] I would do anything, but I also respect what you're saying this time.

[298] And I need to probably take a step back and work on this.

[299] There was a change in tone.

[300] I accepted that something is different.

[301] Fast forward, end of death valley.

[302] I paid for the majority of the stuff on that trip again.

[303] And then he goes home to Seattle.

[304] He's using me as emotional support still.

[305] And that was the thing that really rubbed me the wrong.

[306] way.

[307] We talked about compromising ourselves.

[308] I feel like that's probably what I did there, like allowed this person to use me for emotional support.

[309] So he would be texting me when he had a hard day or texting me stuff about the kids.

[310] He had recently come across his first daughter, Evelyn's Instagram page.

[311] So he was sending me screenshots of this.

[312] Like I've known this day was coming.

[313] I've always wanted to be in contact with her.

[314] I'm overwhelmed.

[315] What do I do?

[316] She's so beautiful.

[317] All of this stuff.

[318] And I felt like I really needed to support him through it, even though we weren't together.

[319] But on the other hand, I felt taking advantage of completely, and I was angered by it.

[320] He would reach out at really inopportune times for me. It was hard for me to draw the line of what I'm willing to give and what I'm not asking, what are we even doing?

[321] Are we friends?

[322] Is this what friendship is?

[323] Because I feel like I'm giving too much here.

[324] The wishy -washiness that I was getting from him, I just had it and decided to reach out to Mimi.

[325] He had posted something that I had seen her in one of the pictures, like a photo dump.

[326] And I was like, okay, they're definitely hanging out.

[327] I know that much to be true.

[328] He's still talking to me. She probably has no idea about me in any capacity.

[329] Whether they're friends or something more, I'm just going to reach out to her to give her the heads up.

[330] I got off the phone with him.

[331] I was frustrated by our conversation and hit send to this message to her saying like, you don't know me and you probably shouldn't, but I just want to let you know.

[332] I don't know if you and Jake are friends or talking about getting back together.

[333] We're no longer together, but we were seeing each other the last six months to do with that information what you will if you have any questions.

[334] Here I am.

[335] She responded really openly.

[336] I was really pleasantly surprised because you're taking a gamble.

[337] 50 % of the women out would be happy that you reached out and open and want to communicate.

[338] It could also be taken really poorly.

[339] I was like a little hesitant and anxious about that.

[340] We started chit -chatting back and forth and she asked when we broke up.

[341] She's like, yeah, he can't be faithful to save his life.

[342] She starts telling me things.

[343] She's like, would it be easier just to get on a call?

[344] So we hop on the phone and we start talking, comparing dates of stuff.

[345] This is when I realized that they were not even fully split when him and I met in Milwaukee.

[346] They were still very much working on their marriage.

[347] It was a knife in the chest, like insult to injury.

[348] It hurt a lot.

[349] And I'm sure that it also hurt her too to find this out, even though they had, from what she had told me, you know, they weren't anything more than friends.

[350] She couldn't trust him to be anything more than her friend at this point, but they had spent many years together and that they will always have some sort of relationship.

[351] They had lived separately from my understanding, but they were spending nights at his place and spending nights at her place and working on it.

[352] And she had even said, discussing, turning the apartment in Pioneer Square into maybe like a photo studio and him moving back into the house.

[353] When Mimi and I had gotten on the phone, he had messaged me like, Sarah, what did you do?

[354] I spoke to Mimi.

[355] I know you two are talking.

[356] I hope you have fun on your phone call talking about me. I had not responded to anything I was done.

[357] As her and I were talking, we decided the only way to cut him off is to block him everywhere.

[358] So we shared every social page that we knew he had.

[359] He had multiple Instagrams.

[360] I had blocked his email.

[361] She had shared a few more email addresses that she had of his and we're both going to do it at the same time.

[362] We're both just going to cut them off.

[363] I don't know if she actually blocked everything because they had to discuss things with the divorce.

[364] So I know that there was a line of communication open between them.

[365] I just didn't want to talk to him anymore.

[366] The last contact I had ever received from him was conveniently on Valentine's Day February 14th.

[367] He had emailed me a couple times from other emails that I didn't even know about and was just like, I hope you're happy with yourself.

[368] And something stupid about like digging the knife in deeper.

[369] And those came on Valentine's Day.

[370] I was like, okay.

[371] So that was the last I ever heard from him.

[372] I blocked those and spent from February to like, I guess March and April, I would say were the heavy lifting emotional months grieving that process.

[373] This whole thing, it totally, fuck with my brain.

[374] So connecting with Mimi was the first relief that I felt, but it also came with so much grief.

[375] It was overwhelming.

[376] I remember laying in my bed depressed for at least two months straight of overwhelming grief and crying and piecing.

[377] When you replay back any period of time in your life and you have a completely different perspective on it, like this is what actually it was.

[378] I had to like rewrite the narrative to everything that I had experienced and see it for what I was being told was now true.

[379] Mimi had also communicated that entire time that we were together.

[380] He was in fact pursuing her.

[381] He was leaving her things in her mailbox, going out of his way to be cryptic in his stories and post things about her and their time together and their wedding and all these things.

[382] Yeah, I saw some of it.

[383] It made me feel uncomfortable and weird, but I didn't realize it was a little dance that they did that this was his way of reaching out.

[384] This was him also manipulating her at the same time.

[385] I didn't really even think of the fact like, oh, she's probably watching.

[386] Learning the truth, the fact that it wasn't her final advance, he was continually pursuing her while we were together.

[387] She had sent me screenshots of his Tinder that people had sent her.

[388] I caught confirmation that he was on dating apps while we were together.

[389] These are all things I think the body knows.

[390] It's the reason why I created a Tinder account in the first place when I was in Seattle and never lucked out and found it.

[391] But I think the body definitely knows and the gut learning how to listen to it that I need to work on.

[392] Her and I stayed in contact.

[393] I think everything that her and I discussed was enough that she needed to finally close that chapter.

[394] She finally filed for divorce.

[395] I didn't even know where they were at in that process, but apparently they hadn't even gotten there.

[396] It would be a few more months before any of that was complete or official, and that's when we decided we're going to go to Mexico to celebrate when this is all done.

[397] I want to be there to support you.

[398] I don't think I would have gotten through it as easy without her.

[399] Someone that knew the ins and outs of his playbook and had been subject to it before.

[400] My friends were awesome and they listened to me on end and would check in on me. I just don't think that people understand until they meet someone like this, how crazy it really is.

[401] It was validating to have Mimi there for that.

[402] And I think too for her having someone to remind her that this is the right move, it was extremely beneficial for both of us to have each other during that time.

[403] I was really grateful.

[404] She actually had shared with me the truth about his previous marriages and children, stuff that I had gotten completely different stories on.

[405] So that was the part of what I was grieving.

[406] It was like, wow, I thought it was bad, but it's so much worse.

[407] She had sent me a video of Sky Blue emails and like the warnings that she had gotten.

[408] It was just so much worse and overwhelming than I could have ever processed and imagined meeting Mimi.

[409] I had some general anxiety about it.

[410] I hope that it's great when we're in person.

[411] Also, like, hopefully this isn't uncomfortable.

[412] I think it was out of other people's comfort zones.

[413] It kind of fell within my comfort zone.

[414] The whole traveling thing.

[415] I'm meeting new people in different cities always.

[416] It's basically how Jake and I came together.

[417] Now it's like how Mimi and I were coming together.

[418] I thought it was kind of funny.

[419] But like it's something that's definitely within my wheelhouse.

[420] So I was up for it.

[421] We met in Mexico.

[422] The trip went good.

[423] After Mexico, we went back to our lives.

[424] She was seeing someone.

[425] So I feel like we didn't communicate as much.

[426] We didn't really talk all that much actually for a few months.

[427] It was later in the summer, August or September.

[428] We actually started texting and again a lot.

[429] Grief is not linear.

[430] Healing is not a linear process and there's going to be hard times and there's going to be easier times and times where you feel like you've made progress and times where you feel like you've taken 10 steps backwards.

[431] It was Mimi who reached out to me when she was having a hard time and that's something I've always wanted her to know that I was there for her.

[432] I feel like I could reach out equally like if I was having a hard time.

[433] She was having a hard time with something grieving parts of their marriage and relationship.

[434] We were just going back and forth.

[435] Like, yeah, I wish men came with warning labels.

[436] Social media was such a big part of who he was, his obsession with it in the way and the tool that it was to him to reach women and to curate this narrative of himself that he sold and banked on so much.

[437] It was such a thing in our relationship.

[438] He constantly cheated using social media.

[439] In our conversation about all of this was saying, I wish that the next woman that was looking anything up on his social media or had that gut feeling could find a page that confirmed their suspicions early on before they were overly invested or hurt.

[440] We went back and forth of how great that would be saying like, yeah, we can post all of our stories with him and they'll see that it's kind of all the same.

[441] History just repeats itself, right?

[442] She didn't want to do it.

[443] One of my love languages is acts of service.

[444] I would do more things for my friends than I would do for myself.

[445] I feel like this might be a lot of effort or work and I probably wouldn't do it if it was just me, but I'll make the Instagram page if it makes her feel better and she could go and use it for now.

[446] It'll be used as a tool for healing in that way.

[447] I went and created an email address to like set up the Instagram and then shared all the credentials with her.

[448] It was private.

[449] No one was really supposed to see it at this point.

[450] We were joking about like, oh yeah, people should be able to search this and see that this man comes with a warning label.

[451] She got right to work.

[452] Posting quotes, there's a bunch of like covert narcissist patients, reposting a bunch of that stuff.

[453] Definitely had the tone of I'm venting and letting it all out there and I thought it was serving its purpose.

[454] Like, yeah, let it.

[455] or do her thing.

[456] I went and wrote maybe one or two posts about the financial abuse of patterns after the Instagram and after Melissa and Kaelin had found out about them, it kind of progressively gets worse and worse.

[457] Like when you think you know, it just gets worse.

[458] I'm Dan Taberski.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[466] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[467] Well, you were holding something back.

[468] Intentionally.

[469] Yeah, well, yeah.

[470] No, it's hysteria.

[471] It's all in your head.

[472] It's not physical.

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

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

[475] Or is it something else entirely?

[476] Something's wrong here.

[477] Something's not right.

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

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

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

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

[482] February of 2022, I took Emerson to the orthodontist because she had already had one round of braces, but we always knew that she'd have to have, like, a second round.

[483] He is supposed to pay 60 % of anything metal.

[484] or anything like that.

[485] I've always just paid everything.

[486] But when it came to her braces last time, I was like, I cannot pay for this by myself.

[487] So he did pay for 60 % of her braces.

[488] I gave him his information.

[489] I was like, hey, I told them your phone number, but like I need another address for the billing form.

[490] I knew that he was no longer living with Mimi.

[491] And he ignored my text messages.

[492] That night, I messaged him again and I said they're going to reach out to you directly.

[493] And then he ignored that message.

[494] Then on February 6th, 17th.

[495] Nine days later, I said, did you talk to them?

[496] Followed by, are you just going to ignore this?

[497] I'd rather talk to you before going directly to the prosecutor.

[498] Because right now, all of our child support stuff is with the prosecutor.

[499] I would rather have him do the right thing than have to contact the prosecutor and then tell them that he's not in compliance and that he needs to pay the 60 % of her orthodontist stuff.

[500] Then he responds, I'm at work.

[501] Please respect my work hours and leave me alone.

[502] I'll talk to the dentist office now bye.

[503] That's when I decided to reach out to Mimi because this is not behavior of somebody who's changed.

[504] He's showing me that he is the same person.

[505] I don't know what the hell is going on because I don't live in Seattle anymore.

[506] I messaged Mimi through Instagram and was like, hey, random question, but do you mind telling me what happened between you and Jake?

[507] Do you think he's changed?

[508] She was like, if this is about him seeing Emerson, do not allow it.

[509] He has not changed.

[510] She's the same person.

[511] Like, you'll have to call me. So I called her and we talked on the phone.

[512] It was really good to talk to her.

[513] I felt really bad for her because it sounded a lot of the same things that I lived with him.

[514] That made me really sad for her because I remember what that was like.

[515] And I remember how confusing it was and how lonely I felt.

[516] I just felt for her.

[517] She shared different stories with me about their relationship and how things were.

[518] And she told me about Sarah and how she found out about her.

[519] Moral of the story is that he's not changed.

[520] He's the same.

[521] I get off the phone with her and I like obviously message Melissa right away because I'm like, oh, I just talked to Mimi, like this is so crazy.

[522] Once I was removed from the situation and had moved on and healed and done several years of therapy, I didn't have bad feelings towards Mimi for anything that had been said or anything that was done in the past.

[523] I felt bad that she was stuck with him for so long because there wasn't any part of me that thought she was happy.

[524] I know who he is and know how miserable of a person he is and how miserable he is to be around.

[525] Jake had spent so much time trying to turn both of us against each other and using her as the excuse whenever he would abandon Ivy, it was always when Mimi made me or I didn't have a choice.

[526] On her side, as I found out later, he was using me to make her insecure and to make her feel threatened constantly.

[527] These are things that you don't know at the time if you're not communicating to each other.

[528] And he made sure that we didn't like each other.

[529] I sent her a message and said, hey, I talked to Kailen, and she said that you got away from Jake.

[530] And I just wanted to say that I'm really happy to hear that.

[531] And I hope that everything going forward for you is healthy and you're happy.

[532] I don't have any bad feelings towards you for anything that happened.

[533] And I wish you the best.

[534] And that started our communication.

[535] Back and forth, she was really kind to me and those messages.

[536] About a week after I talked to Mimi, Kaylin was trying to call me. I was in an appointment and I couldn't answer.

[537] And I called her back as soon as I was out.

[538] She was like, oh my gosh, there's an Instagram page about Jake.

[539] And I said, what?

[540] And she's like, oh, this is so crazy.

[541] There's stuff about you on here.

[542] And I said, where is this?

[543] Where do I see this?

[544] What's the name of it?

[545] She said, hang on, let me send it to you.

[546] So she sent it to me and put each other on speaker and we're like going through and looking at this Instagram page.

[547] I asked her, how did you find out about this?

[548] Did you just find this or what?

[549] And she's like, no, Mimi told me about it.

[550] it.

[551] But it wasn't really clear at that point who created it or where it came from.

[552] But I knew that Mimi had to have had some part in this because one of the first things that I saw on there was a statement that Jake had wrote for court.

[553] Under one of the highlight reels, there was his statement that he wrote about the harassment order.

[554] And it was when I challenged it, he wrote this statement to take back to court.

[555] I'd never seen it before because we didn't actually.

[556] go back to court.

[557] My name was not blocked out and everything.

[558] So it was like really obvious that it was about me. But reading it, I was like, where did this come from?

[559] This had to have come from Mimi because she was the only one that would have been around during that point.

[560] The caption on it was something along the lines of his version of the truth is deranged.

[561] I thought, oh, wow, whoever is posting this knows that this is all lies.

[562] I was like, let me call you back.

[563] Because I'm a little bit mind blown by some of the stuff that's on here.

[564] I'm feeling a lot of different emotions.

[565] We're both reading different things at different times, like, oh, did you see this and did you see that?

[566] There wasn't a lot of posts on the Instagram.

[567] There was a lot of generic memes about gaslighting and sociopaths.

[568] There was one meme that said something to the effect of, your man crush Monday owes $50 ,000 in back child support, and that one kind of made me laugh.

[569] It was all written very anonymously.

[570] You couldn't really tell who it was coming from.

[571] It was hard to gauge how many people were writing this.

[572] If it was one person or multiple people, at that point we created a group chat with Mimi.

[573] It was Mimi Kaelin and I. And that's when I found out about Sarah.

[574] And Sarah was portrayed to me as being the person that created the page.

[575] She was Jake's ex -girlfriend.

[576] Mimi had sent us the password and the username and said, go ahead and log on.

[577] You guys can add anything you want.

[578] I don't think either of us even thought twice about it.

[579] We were both like, absolutely, we'll share on there.

[580] My only concern at the very beginning was, I think I want to do this anonymously.

[581] I'm not sure I really want to put my name out there.

[582] I want to make sure that if I post anything about the child abuse or the pictures of Ivy's face.

[583] I want to make sure they can be done with privacy in mind.

[584] Real names taken out the first few days.

[585] I was having a hard time I wanted to contribute, but I really had this mental block of not wanting to log onto that Instagram.

[586] So I just kept sending the screenshots and the things that I was finding in my records and where I had kept Google Photos, these little things stashed.

[587] I would text them to the group chat.

[588] Mimi would post them.

[589] And then at some point, I did log on and started posting.

[590] It wasn't too far into all of that in February when Sarah is now in our group chat.

[591] And she gets a notification on the Jake Instagram that Jake was actually on the Instagram and had accidentally liked a post.

[592] She got the notification.

[593] And she's like, oh, my gosh, he's on the page right now.

[594] What do we do?

[595] Really quickly, she made it private.

[596] And at that point, it was still all anonymous.

[597] It was just bits and pieces.

[598] I had posted a couple screenshots, and Mimi wrote the caption of one of them, and it was one of the screenshots where he was being really verbally abusive to me, and she wrote the caption.

[599] He was really verbally abusive to the mother of his youngest daughter, really disgusting the stuff that he put her through.

[600] We started sharing our stories anonymously at first, and then we had a couple people.

[601] people come forward and say, oh, I knew him and this is what happened with me and him.

[602] As the messages were coming in, I was like, oh, this is way more than I anticipated.

[603] I was not expecting the response that we got.

[604] One thing with Jake is social media is such an issue that you can usually tell which girls to be suspicious of on his Instagram.

[605] Both Mimi and Sarah had lists in their heads of, okay, these were girls that we were suspicious of during our relationships, and so they would go follow those girls, so those girls would look at the page and be like, oh my gosh, like, this is crazy.

[606] I went through this too, and that's how women started reaching out to us.

[607] This one girl was still dating him, I believe, and she found the Instagram page.

[608] She sent the screenshots of her conversation with him about it, and it was almost comical.

[609] He was like, I can explain everything on that page.

[610] Most of this stuff is from nine years ago.

[611] I was really emotionally fragile and beat down from a person who entrapped me, which was about me because apparently I entrapped him.

[612] I don't know how that works, but it made me laugh.

[613] She at one point told us, he says he's going to sue you guys.

[614] And we were all like, okay, let's put this all on public record.

[615] Go ahead.

[616] Tell him to bring it because we all have so much documentation.

[617] and so much proof that I'm not scared of being sued at all.

[618] I have so much court documents, and I kept receipts for a reason, and I still have them.

[619] So go ahead, Jake.

[620] We kept it private, and it was maybe another week or so.

[621] People started following the page, and we would look at every single person that requested because we were operating under the assumption that he was probably trying to create fake accounts to be able to see what was on there.

[622] Just trying to, like, keep him from seeing as much as possible for the time being.

[623] The four of us, when we got on board, we were like, okay, we're all going to post and we'll share everything that we can.

[624] We went public.

[625] Each of us were like, we're not going to be anonymous anymore.

[626] We're just going to post about ourselves and our stories and own it.

[627] And, like, yeah, I know I look bad in certain pieces of my story.

[628] I didn't always respond in the ways that I wish I did.

[629] I wish I would have stood up for myself.

[630] I wish I would have taken Emerson to the hospital when he hit her.

[631] I wish I protected her better.

[632] I wish I left sooner.

[633] I wish I didn't give him access to her to manipulate her and cause more damage.

[634] There's a lot of things that if I could go back, I would change.

[635] He still gets more awful to the day.

[636] like with every story that came forward on that Instagram page and everything that's coming, even just with this podcast, it gets worse and worse.

[637] Like when you think it can't get any worse, it just gets worse.

[638] He's truly awful.

[639] I thought, yeah, he's a cheater.

[640] Yeah, he's a scumbag.

[641] But I don't even have the worst.

[642] My heart broke for these women and the stories that they came forward with their experiences.

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

[644] I can't even imagine, like, how much time and effort would be spent talking to all of those women.

[645] There must have been multiple people a day at that rate.

[646] He slapped me. He's like, are you sleeping with anyone else right now?

[647] I was like, no. He's like, oh, I don't care.

[648] I just want them to see the marks I leave on you.

[649] He is flipping out.

[650] He literally screams in my face that he didn't have.

[651] time to be late because of a careless bitch.

[652] I was going down on him and I looked up.

[653] He had his phone out and he was recording me. I was just like, what the fuck?

[654] I glanced up in his room and I was like, is that a camera?

[655] So he got really weird and he told me that something was going on.

[656] He told me this over and over and over again that he couldn't tell me what it was because his lawyer told him not to speak on it.

[657] Thank you so much for listening.

[658] Until next time, Stay safe, friends.

[659] Something Was Wrong is a broken cycle media production, created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese.

[660] 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.

[661] Our theme song was composed by Gladrags.

[662] Check out their album, Wonder Under.

[663] Thank you so much.

[664] If you like Something Was Wrong, you can listen early.

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