Fire & Brimstone (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

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We've all heard about scorned ex-lovers lashing out at their former partners when the relationship comes to an end, but it's unlikely you've ever heard of what happens between the lovers in today's story.

It is quite possibly the most unlikely outcome of a failed relationship ever.

But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the Wright podcast because that's all we do.

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Okay, let's get into today's story.

Michelle Hadley was born in 1985 in Ontario, California, a city located 40 miles east of Los Angeles.

Her parents, who owned a small manufacturing business in town, never had a ton of money, but they always had enough to make ends meet.

Growing up, Michelle's parents taught her and her younger sister to always put their all into whatever it was they were involved in, whether it was academics, athletics, or relationships.

They also taught their daughters to always take their Christianity very seriously.

By the time Michelle was in high school, she had made her parents very proud, becoming one of the top students in her class, and also becoming a very talented cross-country runner.

But despite these early successes, Michelle never bragged about them.

Not because she was trying to stay humble necessarily, but because that was just her personality.

She was a very private person who did not seek the spotlight.

After high school, Michelle attended Dickinson College in Pennsylvania on a scholarship, and then after graduation, when Michelle was just 22 years old, she married her high school sweetheart.

However, that relationship would not last.

When they divorced just four years later, Michelle was upset about it, but she was confident that she was going to be okay.

She was still very young, she had the full support of her family, and she had a good job that allowed her to be self-sufficient.

All she needed to do was to be patient and wait for the right partner to come along.

And in 2013, roughly a year after her divorce, it seemed like the right partner had.

In August of that year, Michelle connected with a U.S.

Marshal named Ian Diaz on a dating website.

The U.S.

Marshal Service is the federal government's primary agency for fugitive investigations.

Shortly after Michelle and Ian connected online, they met in person for the first time over a cup of coffee.

At 35, Ian was nine years older than Michelle.

He was tall and fit.

Michelle was slender with dark hair and deep brown eyes.

They both had great smiles, and right away they hit it off.

That first cup of coffee was quickly followed by text messages, phone calls, and arrangements to meet again.

On just their second date, Ian blurted out, I love you, to Michelle.

This definitely caught Michelle by surprise, but she was thrilled.

As a child, she sometimes fantasized about being a princess and having her Prince Charming come along and whisk her away, and suddenly it seemed like that actually was happening.

Over the next several months, the pair would continue to see each other on a near daily basis.

And then in the spring of 2014, they moved in together.

And then in December of 2014, Ian took Michelle on a trip to New York City, where he asked for her hand in marriage, and she would say, yes.

Michelle was on Cloud 9.

Ian really was her Prince Charming.

Once they were engaged, Michelle threw herself into planning their perfect future together as Mr.

and Mrs.

Diaz.

However, cracks began to appear in their relationship.

Michelle would later say that Ian had pressured her to take a $20,000 pay cut to leave her job that she loved and take a marketing position at a place he loved and had once worked himself, Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.

She also said that Ian began asking her to wear more revealing, sexier clothes, and he wanted her to get acrylic nails and get her belly button pierced.

It wasn't Michelle's style, but since she didn't want to disappoint her future husband, she would from time to time put on the crop tops and short skirts just to make him happy.

But despite doing that, Ian never really did seem happy, and eventually he would open up to her about some of his deeper sexual fantasies.

He told Michelle that what he really wanted to see was her having sex with other men.

At first, Michelle was stunned and said, no, absolutely not.

But despite her refusal, Ian brought the subject up again and again, each time with a little more insistence, and then finally, Michelle agreed.

On Valentine's Day 2015, with enough cold medicine and alcohol in her system to lower her inhibitions, Michelle had sex with a stranger that she believed Ian had recruited on Craigslist.

What Michelle didn't know was that Ian had filmed the entire sexual encounter, and then afterward, he wanted to watch it with her.

Michelle was horrified.

She begged Ian to destroy this video, but Ian refused and said, no one forced you to do it.

But despite these huge issues in their relationship, they did not cause the couple to end their engagement.

In fact, these issues only seemed to bring the couple closer together, if for the wrong reasons.

As Ian became more and more controlling of Michelle, Michelle became more and more emotionally dependent on Ian.

And so with that in mind, in June of 2015, eight months before their wedding date, Ian and Michelle took out a mortgage together and they moved into a brand new two-story condo in downtown Anaheim, California.

It was Michelle who came up with the entire $14,400 down payment, but she didn't care.

She and Ian were both so excited about a change of scenery to hopefully get their relationship back on track.

Just weeks after moving in, all of the excitement of the new place was gone, and in its place were all of their old unresolved issues.

Soon, minor disagreements became major arguments, and major arguments turned into vicious accusations of infidelity and betrayal.

Finally, the fights turned physical.

When Michelle threatened to leave, he held her down on the bed while she tried to kick and claw her way free.

Families on both sides of the warring couple had the same advice.

You are not good for each other, you need to end it.

So at the end of August, just two months after Ian and Michelle had purchased the condo together, Ian took back the engagement ring he had given Michelle, and Michelle packed up her Volkswagen Jeddah and drove off to stay with her parents.

But as much as Michelle and Ian now wanted out out of their relationship, as long as they owned that condo together, they could not entirely sever ties.

Michelle wanted Ian to sell the condo so she could get reimbursed for the down payment she had made, but Ian liked the condo and had no intention of moving out.

This put them at a sort of standstill and kind of forced them to continue interacting despite being broken up.

And surprisingly, through their somewhat regular exchanges over this property, they learned how to be cordial again.

Ian would text Michelle first about the property, and then he would follow up and ask how she was doing, and Michelle would do the same thing to Ian.

Even though this did not get them anywhere closer to solving their condo issue, it seemed like they were at least at a point where they could treat each other with respect.

However, this would not last.

On September 10th, so one month after Michelle had moved out and when the condo issue was still completely unresolved, Ian received a very strange and upsetting message from Michelle.

In between friendly, cordial text messages, Michelle sent him a long, bizarre, rambly email that could only be described as biblical in her condemnation of the man she once wanted to marry.

She wrote, Your sins are many, including defiling me and my family with your wicked and evil sexual acts, your financial coercion and irresponsibility, your gluttony, your greed, your lust, your sloth, your wrath, your envy, and most of all, your pride.

She finished it with, you may try to hide behind the law of man, but it is a weak shield that will bend bend and crack against the sword of God.

I will bring the full force of the law and the word of God against you to judge you.

Ian knew that Michelle and her family were religious, and he knew from their relationship that Michelle was prone to emotional outbursts.

But even by her standards, this email revealed a vengefulness that he had not seen before.

Ian was so shaken up by it that the very next day, on September 11th, Ian filed a restraining order against Michelle.

After reading the email and speaking with Ian, the judge did not grant the restraining order against Michelle.

However, Ian's request had now brought Michelle to the notice of the Anaheim police.

Shocked that she had even been the subject for a restraining order, Michelle immediately hired an attorney to handle all interactions with Ian, and Ian would hire an attorney as well.

And by November of 2015, the lawyers were finally able to work out a compromise with the condo that would allow Michelle and Ian to finally move on from each other.

The deal stated that Michelle would not get back her $14,400 down payment.

Instead, she would continue to pay half the mortgage for six months.

But after that, Ian would either assume full responsibility for the mortgage, or he would have to agree to sell the condo and split the profits with Michelle.

Even though neither side was fully happy with this arrangement, they both were just exhausted from all the fighting and were ready to just accept it and move on.

And so they both signed the agreement and then the six-month timer began.

Ian stayed in the condo and Michelle, who was living with her parents, decided to get her own small apartment and go back to school to get her master's in business.

In January 2016, just a month or so after the condo settlement was finalized, Ian Diaz met another young woman through a dating site.

Her name was Angela Connell.

She was roughly the same age as Michelle, and she was looking for a serious relationship.

When she and Ian finally met in person, they both liked what they saw.

During their first date, Ian was honest with Angela and told her that he had just recently gotten out of an engagement that had ended very badly, but he was still certain he wanted to get married and raise a family, which was very reassuring to Angela.

Only one month later, Ian and Angela would get married and Angela would move into Ian's condo, the same condo he had bought with Michelle.

In May, just four months after meeting Ian and two months away from the deadline for Ian to assume paying the full mortgage on the condo or sell the property, Angela surprised her husband with a sonogram and announced that she was pregnant with twins.

The couple was beyond excited.

They sent copies of the sonogram of the twins to family and friends, and Angela wasted no time prepping their home for the twins' arrival.

Everything had moved quickly, but the couple was very excited at the prospect of starting a family together.

Later that month, on May 22nd, Angela was at the condo alone when she hopped on her computer to check her email.

Once her inbox loaded, she noticed there was an email from a man named Jason Ray.

She didn't recognize the name, but at first glance it looked like a real email from a real person, not some spam message, so she clicked on it to see what it was.

And the words she read sent a chill through her body.

The email was definitely not spam.

It was a personal message intended for Angela.

And whoever this Jason person was clearly knew personal details about her and her husband.

The email, which was littered with biblical references, explained to Angela that Ian had been unfaithful to her and that he didn't love her and he never would.

Jason also told her that Ian was going to harm her if she didn't leave him immediately.

And the email closed by telling Angela that she and her husband had sinned against God.

Angela stared at her computer screen for quite a while, wondering what she should do.

Eventually, after reading it a few more times, she decided it had to be some sort of sick joke and that the best thing to do was just to ignore it.

So she deleted the email, shut her computer, and she walked away.

The next morning, Angela logged back onto her computer, and when she opened her email, there was a new email from Jason Ray sitting at the top of her inbox.

Angela thought about not even opening it and just deleting it, but her curiosity got the better of her and she clicked it open.

Once again, the message was aimed at trying to convince Angela to leave Ian.

It was full of biblical references, and at certain points it didn't even make any sense, but there was a new twist to this email versus the one she had received the day before.

In this email, the sender, Jason, clearly references Michelle, Ian's ex.

Jason would write that Angela was Ian's Eve, and Michelle was Ian's Lilith.

According to a particular interpretation of Jewish folklore, Lilith was the first wife of Adam from the famous Adam and Eve story.

But Lilith was banished from the Garden of Eden for disobeying Adam, at which point God made Eve out of Adam's rib and then Eve became Adam's wife.

While somewhat confusing, the message Jason was sending Angela was fairly clear.

Angela was not meant to be Ian's wife.

Ian's true wife was Michelle.

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Angela didn't know anything about Ian's ex, Michelle.

All she really knew was her name and that she existed.

But despite the lack of insight into who Michelle was, Angela couldn't help but think, this email sounds an awful lot like something a deeply scorned lover would send.

And so that night, when Ian got home, Angela showed him the latest email from Jason Ray and told him, I think this is your ex, Michelle.

At first, Ian was confused.

He and Michelle had settled their issues.

They had moved on, so why would she write this?

But after reading the email a few more times and seeing all the over-the-top biblical language that Michelle had previously used in emails to him, he became convinced as well that this probably was Michelle.

However, he told Angela that Michelle was very mercurial and that she must have just gotten worked up about something and she's overreacted.

That's why she sent these emails and she's likely to calm back down and they will never hear from her again.

However, he told Angela, if the emails do continue, please let him know and he would go to the police.

For the next several days, Angela checked her email, but no strange emails came through.

But roughly a week after that first Jason Ray email arrived, Angela received another email from Jason Ray.

And this time, the subject line simply said, die.

The body of the message read, I hope you are scared of death tomorrow.

Be prepared, don't sleep.

Be watchful of the daughters of God.

We will steal your child and we will watch as it dies.

Within minutes of receiving this email, Angela received a barrage of others from Jason Ray, as well as from other account names she didn't recognize, like Lilith Truth.

And all of these messages included the threat that Angela was going to be harmed in the coming days, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Angela was horrified and was starting to wonder if this really was something Michelle could be doing.

It just felt so evil.

Then she noticed at the bottom of one of the emails she had just received that it literally said from Michelle.

It looked like the signature had been automatically entered into the email template, and then Michelle must have just forgotten to delete it before sending.

Or, as Angela and Ian stared at it and discussed what it could mean, they thought, well, maybe she left it in on purpose.

Maybe she wants us to know this is from her.

Either way, at that point, Ian and Angela felt fairly certain that Michelle was really behind this, and so they printed out all of the nasty emails Angela had received to date, and they took that along with the email Michelle had sent Ian the year before that was very biblical in nature, and they took all of that to the courthouse and Ian would file another restraining order against Michelle.

A few days later, on June 6th, two police officers went to Michelle's residence and literally handed her the order to appear in court for this restraining order.

The date was set for June 17th.

But that night, and over the course of the next several days leading up to this court appearance, Angela continued to receive dozens of emails from Jason Ray and Lilith Truth and other anonymous accounts threatening to make her pay for having filed this restraining order.

Even though Ian told Angela that there was just no way Michelle was actually going to hurt her, Angela couldn't help but feel terrified and was afraid to leave the house.

Finally, June 17th arrived and Angela and Ian arrived at the court alongside a huge group of friends and family members who were there to support them.

When Michelle walked in with her lawyer, she was met with booze and hisses from all of these supporters.

And then once court was called to session, Angela and Ian outlined what had been happening over the last couple of weeks.

And they showed the judge the stack of all these emails.

The judge reviewed the documents and then turned to Michelle and asked her what she had to say for herself.

And she would say, I didn't send those emails.

I don't know what's going on.

I didn't do this.

But the judge wasn't buying it, especially given the fact that Ian had previously filed for a restraining order against Michelle for threatening emails.

And so this time, the judge did grant the restraining order prohibiting Michelle from having any further contact with Ian or Angela.

Angela and Ian were thrilled, and when they walked out of the courtroom, they felt confident that this nightmare was finally behind them.

But within hours of getting home, Angela started receiving more emails, and immediately they contacted the Anaheim police to report that Michelle was already violating her restraining order.

But since the emails they were receiving now were not signed by Michelle, there was no way for the police to prove that Michelle was in fact violating her restraining order.

And so for several days, the ferocious, threatening biblical emails continued, and there was seemingly nothing Ian or Angela could do to stop it.

Then, as if it wasn't stressful enough, Angela received an email from an account she had not seen before inquiring about her rape fantasy request on Craigslist.

Angela did not understand what this person was talking about.

But eventually, when she went online and investigated, she discovered there was an entire marketplace of people posting ads on Craigslist seeking partners to take part in a rape fantasy.

And someone had clearly been pretending to be Angela and was going into these places on Craigslist and responding to all of these ads saying that she, Angela, was interested.

And then she would leave them her address and what she looked like and what her daily habits were like.

And according to some of these men that were reaching out now to Angela, apparently whoever was doing this was indicating that Angela didn't just want to be a part of some basic rape fantasy.

She wanted to be attacked out in public, and she was encouraging these men to follow her and stalk her and then attack her and rape her.

And even if she tried to say, stop, don't.

Angela knew Michelle had to be behind this, but again, there was just no evidence tying these rape fantasy responses to Michelle because she wasn't signing her name to them.

And so despite how absolutely horrifying it was to learn this was going on, there was nothing the police could do to stop it.

For Angela, this was a nightmare.

The stress and the fear of this situation was just so much that she basically just hid in her condo all day long.

But on June 24th, so one week after the court appearance and just a couple of days after first learning about this rape fantasy ad, Angela had to leave the condo to go out and run a few errands.

And so she gathered up her things and she called Ian, who was at work, to let him know that she was heading out in case anything happened to her.

And then she left her condo.

She went downstairs to the large parking garage underneath their development where residents could park their cars.

She hopped in her car and she drove up the ramp out onto the street and then went about her day, running her different errands, and it was totally uneventful.

At some point when she was done, she made her way back to the condo complex.

She went down the ramp into the underground parking garage.

She found her way back to her assigned parking spot.

She parked.

She got out of her vehicle.

She shut the door and she began walking from her car to the door on the far side of the garage that would lead to the stairwell back up to her actual condo.

But when she got maybe 30 feet away from this door, she heard movement coming from behind her.

She turned around and she saw there was this man who she didn't recognize, who was walking very quickly toward her.

And because she was already completely on edge, given all these threats she's been receiving, threats of bodily harm, threats of rape, she immediately screamed and started running towards this door that would take her to the stairwell.

But before she could open the door and get inside, this man had lunged and grabbed her around the neck and he was trying to pull her to the ground and he was trying to pull her clothes off.

And Angela began punching and kicking and screaming and biting, doing anything she could.

And eventually she was able to fight this person off of her and he quickly turned and ran away.

And then Angela quickly picked up her stuff.

She ran into the door, ran upstairs, got into her condo, and as soon as her door had shut and locked behind her, she picked up her phone and she dialed 911.

And she was so hysterical that when she talked to the dispatcher, they couldn't understand what was happening, but eventually she was able to tell them what had happened and to please come out here and help her.

And then a little while later, when the police showed up, they found Angela still totally hysterical in her condo.

Her shirt had been ripped in half and she had red spots all around her neck from where this guy had grabbed her.

But overall, she was okay.

The police would search the building, but there was no sign of her attacker.

However, Angela would tell police that she was fairly confident she understood what had just happened.

She explained what was going on with her and her husband's ex, Michelle, and how despite this restraining order against her, she was clearly signing Angela up for these rape fantasies on Craigslist, and so most likely this man who had attacked Angela down in the garage was only there because of this rape fantasy ad.

The police took down her statement and then that night they would go to Michelle's residence and they would show her a search warrant that authorized them to search all of her devices, her phone, her laptop, all of them.

And when Michelle turned them over and gave up all of her passwords, the police were able to find enough evidence that she was behind the harassment of Angela and Ian that they arrested her on the spot.

Angela and Ian were relieved when they heard the news, and that night, while Michelle was in jail, the threatening emails completely stopped.

However, the following day, Michelle posted bail, and within hours of her being free again, Jason Ray and Lilith Truth began bombarding Angela's inbox again.

Angela was so distraught, she went to the doctor for a checkup, worried that her stress would negatively affect her pregnancy.

And to her horror, the doctor would tell her that she had actually lost the twins she had miscarried.

And if that wasn't horrible enough, the doctor also discovered that her cervical cancer, which had been in remission, was now back.

While Angela and Ian grieved the loss of their unborn children and wondered what they would do about Angela's cancer, the horrible emails continued.

And men kept showing up at their front door asking to come inside for violent sex with Angela.

Finally, on July 13th, so roughly two weeks since Angela was attacked in the parking garage, Angela looked out of her window and she saw there was this young man kind of lurking on the side of their condo complex and he appeared to be hiding.

Worried this guy was going to ambush her as soon as she walked outside, she called the police.

The police showed up and they spoke to the young man who would confirm he was there because he was responding to a rape fantasy ad.

He said the woman inside, Angela, had told him to come here and have his way with her.

After this incident, Ian was completely fed up and he demanded the police do something about this.

You need to go arrest Michelle and keep her behind bars.

And sure enough, the next day, Michelle was arrested again.

But this time, her bail was set for $1 million,

making it impossible for her to make bond.

Angela and Ian finally were able to breathe a sigh of relief.

Although they didn't know exactly what she would be charged with or what the legal outcomes would be, for the time being, so long as Michelle was in jail, they knew they were safe.

Except, Michelle was completely innocent.

Yes, she did send that first fire and brimstone biblical email the year before in September, the one that led to Ian filing that first restraining order request that was denied.

But after that, she had lawyered up and not had any contact with Ian or his new wife.

In fact, the first time Michelle had ever even laid eyes on Angela Diaz was on June 17th when Michelle was in court for that second restraining order request against her, which caught her completely by surprise.

She had totally moved on with her life at that point and was dating other people and focusing on school.

So when she was asked to come in and defend herself in court, she barely knew what to say.

It didn't make any sense.

And then when Michelle was arrested for the second time and couldn't make bail and so had to just sit in jail till her court date, her family hired a lawyer to investigate and figure out who was actually behind the harassment because it wasn't Michelle.

And what their lawyer would discover was truly shocking.

Every horrible, threatening email that was sent to Angela's inbox was sent by Angela.

The rape fantasy ads on Craigslist?

Angela.

The supposed attempted rape attack on Angela in her parking garage.

That was completely made up.

It never happened.

She made those marks on her neck.

She ripped her clothes off.

It had all been an elaborate setup by Angela and by Ian.

They had been in on this together.

At the time they launched this frame job of Michelle, they were only a few weeks away from that six-month deadline that Ian had to either sell the condo and split the profits with Michelle or take over the whole mortgage.

And apparently, Ian and Angela Angela believed their plan would result in Michelle losing her claim to the condo and their legal agreement around the condo would become null and void, thereby saving Ian from being forced to sell the condo or having to potentially pay a higher price for it.

The pair were so convinced this plan was going to work that Angela even lied about being pregnant.

It was all a ruse to make it seem like Michelle's harassment had led Angela to lose her pregnancy.

She was also lying about having cancer.

Michelle's lawyer quickly uncovered lots of these holes in Ian and Angela's plan, and finally, after Michelle had sat in prison for 89 days after that second time she was arrested, she was released.

On Tuesday, October 17th, 2017, Angela Diaz pleaded guilty to 10 felony and 22 misdemeanor charges, including kidnapping, false imprisonment, and falsely reporting a crime to a peace officer.

She was sentenced to five years in state prison.

Ian Diaz was not charged with any crimes at the time and continued in his job as a U.S.

Marshal.

But two years later, on December 20th, 2019, Michelle filed a civil rights lawsuit against Ian, alleging that he was in fact the mastermind of the plot that resulted in her wrongful imprisonment.

She also brought charges against the Anaheim Police Department for their failure to properly follow up on evidence they discovered early in the investigation that showed the threatening emails Michelle was accused of sending in fact, originated from the Diaz household.

On Friday, May 3rd, 2021, the Anaheim police announced they had reached an undisclosed cash settlement with Michelle, and then a little over a week later on May 13th, Ian Diaz was arrested and charged the following day with one count of conspiracy to commit cyberstalking, one count of cyberstalking, and one count of perjury for his false testimony in a deposition in connection with a federal civil lawsuit.

If convicted, Ian faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on each of the counts.

His case is still pending.

Since her public exoneration back in 2017, Michelle has gone on to finish her MBA, she has left California, and she found a great job in marketing with a beauty company.

Thank you for listening to the Mr.

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What if I told you that the crime of the century is the one being waged on our planet?

Introducing Lawless Planet, Wondry's new podcast exploring the dark side of the climate crisis.

Uncover shocking tales of crime and and corruption threatening our world's future.

Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.