Episode 5 - Are You Hiding Him?

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Speaker 11 The TikToks appeared on a Wednesday in late May. One of them began with the words, This is my friend Daisy.

Speaker 12 Maybe you can already picture it.

Speaker 11 The carnival ride, the neon colors, the high school graduation photo,

Speaker 1 and then the cut to photos of Victor.

Speaker 12 Each of the TikToks had slightly different music and different photos and videos, but all of them told the same story.

Speaker 11 Daisy's life mattered, and the person who took it was still running free.

Speaker 12 An Instagram post was published the same day.

Speaker 16 on a new account called Justice for Daisy.

Speaker 12 This post contained a slideshow of photos of Victor.

Speaker 11 A lot of them were taken from his own Instagram.

Speaker 12 In one of them, he wore a striped beanie.

Speaker 11 In another, a bowler hat.

Speaker 17 Each of the photos showed off some identifying feature, gauged ears, or a tattoo of what looked like big rats crawling up his ribcage.

Speaker 1 The text on the post was in all capital letters.

Speaker 11 If seen, please contact us.

Speaker 11 Wendy, Daisy's former neighbor, she saw this post while she was scrolling through her Instagram feed one night.

Speaker 19 And then I started seeing the viral video that went on TikTok. And I was like, what? Like, it was him? I was like, oh my God.

Speaker 20 Wendy knew who Victor was.

Speaker 11 She used to see him hanging around the apartment complex with Daisy.

Speaker 21 It was shocking.

Speaker 19 It was very shocking because, like I said, we didn't know what was going on in the beginning.

Speaker 19 And then after that, well, at least I took that out of my head that it was like dangerous that we had to be watching our bags for somebody killing women or raping them out there and stuff.

Speaker 19 But I was just mad at the fact that this kid did something like that and he was thinking that he was going to be able to get away with it.

Speaker 19 It's like, how do you think you're going to get away with something like this? Like, you killed somebody. Like, you didn't just hurt her.

Speaker 19 That was like, probably, he got tired of hurting her where, you know, so now that he killed her.

Speaker 19 That's what I was thinking. I was thinking a lot of things, but.

Speaker 11 She desperately wanted to see Victor held accountable for Daisy's murder.

Speaker 12 And so she used the tools at her disposal. She went to Instagram and shared the posts.
On TikTok, she reposted and reposted and reposted.

Speaker 19 And I would go back and see all the videos because they would always come up on the For You page.

Speaker 25 The For You page.

Speaker 26 It's the homepage that shows this never-ending scroll of TikToks.

Speaker 12 From people who you may or may not follow, they're all served up by this super secretive algorithm to fit each user's individual interests.

Speaker 17 And these TikToks must have showed up on a lot of people's for you pages, because there were comments from people shouting out their locations.

Speaker 16 People as far away as Texas and Washington and even Canada.

Speaker 12 They commented as proof of how far the TikTok had spread.

Speaker 31 And no one knows exactly how the TikTok algorithm works, but there's this popular thinking around it, which is that the more comments a TikTok gets, the more often it'll appear on for you pages.

Speaker 12 So people kind of just kept commenting as a way to sort of show how much the TikTok had spread, but also to boost its visibility in other people's feeds.

Speaker 12 And it became this thing where people shouted out their locations all over Southern California.

Speaker 26 Southgate, Huntington Park, South Central, Long Beach, Riverside, San Diego.

Speaker 29 It was like this neighborhood watch assembling on the internet in real time.

Speaker 27 There were comments from people who lived in Daisy's neighborhood, and people who were appalled that they hadn't heard about Daisy's murder until that very moment, including people who actually knew Daisy, like Lolly, her friend from middle school.

Speaker 33 So I didn't find out about her death until I saw it on TikTok. And I was just like shocked.
I was like, nah, like, it's a lie. You know, it's a lie.

Speaker 33 And I just got like the chills and I was like, no, it's a lie.

Speaker 30 When Lolly got over her shock,

Speaker 16 she was horrified.

Speaker 33 You know, she was a good person. She didn't deserve it.
I know it broke me and it broke a lot of people. And just like this case deserves a lot of awareness, so many other ones do as well, you know?

Speaker 33 Like, so many things happen every day that people don't even find out.

Speaker 33 And I feel like TikTok helps with that. You know, like one person can post a little clip that they saw and then it'll go viral.

Speaker 33 So I feel like, in a sense, TikTok helps more than the like news outlets and stuff like that. Like we find out so much quicker through TikTok than anything else.

Speaker 24 Wally's in her early 20s and like a lot of people in her age group that I reached out to for the story, she was distrustful of the media.

Speaker 33 You know, sometimes they lie, sometimes they leave things out, sometimes they don't even cover what's going on. So I feel like I rely more on TikTok to see what's going on.

Speaker 33 With what's going on around the world. Yeah.

Speaker 37 Is there something that made you not trust the news or just saying that you felt like the stories you wanted to see weren't represented?

Speaker 5 I feel like

Speaker 33 just because they don't cover them enough, you know, they don't always cover them. Like, I could hear about a person getting shot, let's say, here in Huntington Park, and the news won't cover it.

Speaker 33 And I'll just find out because someone posted, oh, this happened, or TikTok, you know.

Speaker 33 So I feel like the news doesn't cover everything. It only covers whatever goes viral.
Whatever.

Speaker 36 I found Lolly's view disheartening, but I get it.

Speaker 39 I mean, in the instance of Daisy's murder, Lolly was right.

Speaker 35 The news only covered it once it had gone viral.

Speaker 36 Prior to that, the only article about the murder, it didn't even mention Daisy by name.

Speaker 12 It only referred to her as a Jane Doe.

Speaker 25 But once people learned Daisy's story, once they found out that she had a name and a life and friends and family who cared so deeply about her, They felt compelled to join the search party to help find her murderer.

Speaker 16 But vigilante justice can be a tricky thing because once you spot the culprit or, you know, the person that you believe is the culprit, what do you do next?

Speaker 30 Do you call the cops?

Speaker 14 Do you alert the media? I mean, do you rely on these same institutions that have previously failed you?

Speaker 16 Or do you roll up your sleeves and deal with it yourself?

Speaker 13 Does violence justify more violence?

Speaker 16 What is the right way to deliver justice in the age of TikTok?

Speaker 11 I'm Jen Swan from London Audio, iHeartRadio, and executive producer Paris Hilton. This is my friend Daisy, episode 5.

Speaker 38 Are you hiding him?

Speaker 26 It was a Sunday afternoon in early June of 2021, and Valerie Ariano was panicking.

Speaker 12 She was standing on the metro light rail train platform when she spotted a guy with a skateboard in his hand.

Speaker 13 Valerie did a double take.

Speaker 1 He looked a lot like Victor.

Speaker 40 I saw half of his face. It looked like him.

Speaker 40 Like I saw like his eyebrows and his eyes because I feel like he has very unique features in that sense and I did make eye contact with him and it freaked me the hell out. I feel like it was him.

Speaker 18 You might remember Valerie.

Speaker 15 She grew up in Huntington Park.

Speaker 20 She knew Daisy back in high school.

Speaker 12 She never met Victor, but she'd been seeing photos of him all over Instagram and Facebook and TikTok.

Speaker 17 The posts had been circulating for a little less than two weeks.

Speaker 12 And because of them, Valerie had a pretty good sense of what Victor looked like.

Speaker 40 He has like deep set eyes now and like thick eyebrows. I've seen a lot of people compare him to Richard Ramirez and I'm like, that's a good description.
Yeah,

Speaker 40 especially when he had the long hair.

Speaker 29 Richard Ramirez, the so-called Night Stalker.

Speaker 41 He was notorious for breaking breaking into homes and assaulting and murdering women in LA in the mid-1980s.

Speaker 41 When the police finally identified him and shared his mugshot with the public, it sent the whole city on a manhunt. Residents caught him attempting a carjacking just a day later.

Speaker 41 They beat him up so badly that when the police came and arrested him, he reportedly shouted, I'm lucky the cops caught me.

Speaker 14 But this was a much different situation.

Speaker 36 The police hadn't released a a photo of Victor, but Valerie had little doubt that it was him.

Speaker 40 I think I just heard through my friends, like, for sure, it was the boyfriend, because they said something about

Speaker 40 him being the last person that saw her.

Speaker 19 And yeah.

Speaker 5 At night time, I believe.

Speaker 40 Yeah, so it was just already established, like it's him. And why is he not being found, you know?

Speaker 5 Right. Like, if he's innocent, why is he not present, you know?

Speaker 40 And that's usually how it is with women that are unfortunately killed. They usually should be looking at the boyfriend or family members first.

Speaker 31 Valerie's right.

Speaker 27 Some reports have found that more than half of all women killed in the United States were murdered by a current or former male intimate partner.

Speaker 14 That percentage goes up when the victim is a young woman of color.

Speaker 16 Valerie knew these statistics intuitively.

Speaker 14 And like a lot of people who had been following this case, she had been frustrated by the seeming lack of progress made by detectives and the lack of news coverage by the media.

Speaker 25 I mean, all she knew about it was what she'd been seeing on her social media feeds.

Speaker 40 I heard on Instagram girls saying that supposedly they had seen him and supposedly that he was trying to approach other girls on the station. I don't know if that's true.

Speaker 40 I never heard like someone say like, oh yeah, he approached me. I just heard people mentioning that.

Speaker 40 Yeah, and that's what made me feel like, oh crap, it is him because he's taking, he's being seen on the blue line by other girls.

Speaker 32 And they're probably like, you know, scared and alone to like, you know, want to call the cops or something like that.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that sounds terrible.

Speaker 12 Valerie.

Speaker 31 was also scared.

Speaker 14 Or as her friend Chantelle Batrace put it, Valerie was freaking out.

Speaker 44 And at first, Chantelle had no idea why.

Speaker 45 I think when you saw him, I was looking another way. I was looking like, you know, just because I'm like that.

Speaker 1 I have ADHD, dude.

Speaker 45 Like, I'd be looking and staring off. So when you turned to me, you're like, oh, I think, I think you told me, oh, I think that's Victor.
And I was just kind of like, what?

Speaker 21 I did see somebody like...

Speaker 45 slight, like kind of with the, with the, like the figure of him kind of like leaving. Yeah.
But that was it.

Speaker 21 I didn't actually see what you saw.

Speaker 45 You saw him pass by you.

Speaker 5 And he went down wherever he went.

Speaker 45 But I remember you, yeah, you were like very frazzled, you know, and obviously I understood that.

Speaker 41 Valerie desperately wanted Victor to get caught, but she didn't want to call 911.

Speaker 40 She remembered thinking, I'm not sure whether that's appropriate to call the cops on someone who I can't even see their face entirely.

Speaker 12 Valerie, like a lot of people I spoke with in Daisy's community, had not had the most pleasant interactions with law enforcement.

Speaker 12 She told me about a time early on in the pandemic when she was in a car with her aunt and her aunt's boyfriend. A cop pulled them over and insisted that their car was registered as stolen.

Speaker 12 Eventually, according to Valerie, the cop told them the real reason he pulled them over was because he was looking for Valerie's uncle.

Speaker 31 The car had been registered to a house where he lived at one point.

Speaker 40 And he did not like that I was telling him, like, how can this car be stolen? Like, he was lying. And I did not like that.
It was a bad experience. And we all felt like on edge.

Speaker 40 And also, he kept like touching his gun too and we're like what the hell you know it's a Latino cop but it's like dude I don't care if they're like Asian

Speaker 35 okay so what Valerie is describing it's known as a pre-textual stop it's basically when a cop pulls you over for something minor in order to ask you questions about a much larger unrelated potential offense it was such a widespread practice that California actually passed a law about a year ago banning it.

Speaker 39 So now when police pull you over, at least in California, they have to tell you exactly why they're doing so.

Speaker 36 All to say, when Valerie saw the skateboarder who looked like Victor, she did not immediately call the police.

Speaker 39 Instead, she sent a Facebook message to her best friend, the friend who used to live with Daisy and her family.

Speaker 40 I wrote, I was by the blue line on Florence and Graham and I saw someone that looked like him, meaning Victor. Does he skate? I'm going to call the detective number.
And then she said, yes, he does.

Speaker 40 And I wrote, I'm calling right now

Speaker 24 valerie showed me the messages she sent to her best friend that day they were dated june 6th 2021.

Speaker 40 i called the detective it left me on voicemail

Speaker 34 this is reduced please leave a message

Speaker 12 valerie found his cell phone number plastered all over the social media posts that daisy's friends and family had made And this number, right there on the flyers, it seemed a lot more accessible, more appropriate than than simply calling 911.

Speaker 1 I left him a recording of what I saw.

Speaker 40 He quickly left on skateboard, and I put he was wearing all black, a black beanie. And then I made a typo here.
I put in a black ski mask, but I did not mean that. I meant a black bandana.

Speaker 5 So I had corrected that.

Speaker 40 And then I put he left so quickly, but I saw half of his face and I looked at him. And then I put

Speaker 40 maybe 5'6, 5'7 in regards to his height. And then I just reiterated again, it's on Florence and Graham.
But he was covering his hair and half of his face.

Speaker 22 And then he said he left quickly.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 40 And oh, and she was asking me if he had, if I could

Speaker 40 identify him by his earlobes. So she told me, Did you see his ears by any chance? And I said, no, the beanie was covering it.
He had like a beanie and then a hoodie. And then he had a black bandana.

Speaker 40 So that looks suspicious to me because it's like, dude, it's hot as hell. And we're like in an outside area.
Why are you concealing yourself that much?

Speaker 31 Lugo called Valerie back.

Speaker 20 She told him what she'd seen.

Speaker 31 Her heart was pounding, her adrenaline pumping. It was hard to get words out.

Speaker 40 I think I was just so nervous. I said ski mask because it was scary that it was potentially Victor.
And he did tell me like, oh, we'll try to send cops to the area.

Speaker 22 And did you stay? Did you see cops end up showing up?

Speaker 5 No, her and I, I don't even remember. We went downtown LA for sure.
Yeah.

Speaker 45 But I remember how you were very, obviously very upset, very frazzled, and you were shaking quite a bit. And yeah, obviously, it's a very traumatic thing to see possibly.

Speaker 45 I mean, obviously, we don't know, right? For sure, but possibly seeing somebody who killed this poor young girl, like, you know, and, you know, when you, when you...

Speaker 45 When you experience someone like that, it's just kind of like, it's jarring. Because, like, what if it was him? And he's just going about his day.

Speaker 5 It was really, it was a really

Speaker 45 emotional, intense day.

Speaker 31 A few weeks later, a different woman, also named Valerie, was having an emotionally intense day of her own.

Speaker 24 She took to Facebook to let out some rage.

Speaker 31 She wrote in a public comment that she'd been hearing all kinds of rumors about where Victor was hiding. He'd been catching the blue line and sneaking around the LA Riverbed, she wrote.

Speaker 12 And now she wanted to go hunt him down.

Speaker 20 We have to lay low to get him, she wrote.

Speaker 31 We need rope and a bat because he won't go down without a fight.

Speaker 12 When I stumbled upon these comments posted in June of 2021, I was really taken aback by Valerie's aggression, this like take-no-prisoners attitude she had.

Speaker 43 It made me think about how so many people were terrified of running into Victor. And yet, here she was, seeking him out.

Speaker 20 I immediately wanted to know: who was this woman?

Speaker 17 Why was she acting like this, you know, vigilante superhero?

Speaker 12 And how did she become so invested in catching a murder suspect?

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Speaker 35 On a sweltering summer day, I stood in the parking lot of a mobile home community near Compton. And when I spotted someone who looked like Valerie Pinato's Facebook photo, I flagged her down.

Speaker 20 She was short with square black glasses and she had a haircut that Daisy once had.

Speaker 10 A black bob with blonde things.

Speaker 20 Hey, I'm Jen.

Speaker 20 It's finally nice to meet you.

Speaker 34 Nice to meet you, too.

Speaker 12 We walked across the black top and made small talk.

Speaker 38 It's hot today, huh?

Speaker 32 So hot, I know.

Speaker 12 Once we got to her place, she led me to a small wooden table in her living room.

Speaker 36 I don't know how that close this.

Speaker 38 I feel like, do you want this opened?

Speaker 31 Eventually, we got to talking about Daisy.

Speaker 16 Okay, yeah.

Speaker 22 So, and then tell me, tell me how you first heard that Daisy had been murdered.

Speaker 5 Um

Speaker 48 yeah, I first heard about it basically when it was being spread on on Facebook, you know. And I think I was in a um

Speaker 48 yeah, I think I was in like a punk group that like, you know, you share like flyers of shows and stuff.

Speaker 48 And usually someone who does get exposed for violent behavior, it's like we post it like, hey, watch out for this person.

Speaker 48 And yeah, his his story, like and her story ended up being posted in that group.

Speaker 17 Valerie remembered looking at the photos and thinking that Daisy looked familiar.

Speaker 12 She was pretty sure she'd seen her around, maybe at a punk show.

Speaker 31 It seemed possible.

Speaker 12 They lived close to each other and they seemed interested in the same kinds of music.

Speaker 20 To Valerie, Daisy's story felt personal.

Speaker 48 I started investing my time to, you know, get her justice, basically.

Speaker 38 What did that look like for you?

Speaker 48 I feel like for me, it was, you know, going out there and trying to see where he was at, you know, look for him,

Speaker 48 um, asking around, like, hey, have you seen this dude hanging around, or like, are you hiding him? Like, let me find out, you know.

Speaker 1 You actually went to people's houses and said, Are you harboring this person, Victor?

Speaker 48 Well, it was more like I would ask other punks, like, hey,

Speaker 48 like,

Speaker 48 like, have you seen Victor? Like, are you hiding him? You know?

Speaker 37 And what did people say?

Speaker 48 They would just, you know, they'd be like, no, like, I haven't seen him.

Speaker 18 But Valerie wouldn't take no for an answer.

Speaker 12 She was convinced that Victor had to be somewhere hiding.

Speaker 44 And if other people weren't going to rat him out, she'd find him herself.

Speaker 48 Definitely. Yeah, I would go look for Victor.
Like, I actually,

Speaker 48 you know,

Speaker 48 I would be like, yeah, is he hanging around Long Beach or in the trails, you know?

Speaker 5 Really?

Speaker 48 So were you just in your car kind of like scouting on the sidewalk like oh yeah i would tell other people too like hey you want to meet up and look for him i'd be so down i feel like street justice works better than the actual system so yeah i would i was keeping an eye out on the street for for him because you know like

Speaker 48 I don't know, that's like really scary to have someone that

Speaker 48 does something so fucked up to someone else. You know, I couldn't allow that not in my neighborhood

Speaker 48 what was sort of going through your head like had you thought through what you would do if you actually saw him yeah i was already thinking i was like i'm gonna beat the shit out of this guy we'll call the cops and be like hey he's over here but yeah no i was i was super angry i was just mad i was like You know, like, how could you do something like that to her?

Speaker 48 Like, she didn't deserve it, you know? I felt like, yeah, I wanted to get justice for her.

Speaker 48 Like, just beat his ass, make him feel pain.

Speaker 44 There it was.

Speaker 15 That anger, that desire for revenge that I'd read in Valerie's Facebook comment.

Speaker 31 I was just as surprised by it in person as I was when I read it online.

Speaker 1 Surprised by the way that, I don't know, Valerie was willing to risk her own safety to take action against what she saw as an injustice.

Speaker 13 Not just in this instance, but in a bunch of others she told me about.

Speaker 15 Like, she told me about this time that she hunted down and confronted a friend's boyfriend after she heard that he'd been abusive to her.

Speaker 42 And then there was this other time.

Speaker 15 She climbed a ladder at a punk show and jumped off it to attack a guy she'd seen hitting girls in the pit.

Speaker 1 Seriously.

Speaker 48 I jumped off the ladder so fucking quick and I started punching him.

Speaker 5 Oh my gosh, that's like a wrestling move. Wow.

Speaker 48 Yeah, I jumped off. He didn't even really notice, you know, because I was so short.
And that's why I kind of have a scar on my eyelid. I think one of my eyelids has like permanently scarred.

Speaker 12 Like it's like a... Valerie showed me the spot on her eyelid where she said she got punched.

Speaker 48 And yeah, after that, a lot of

Speaker 48 girls, they would see me around at shows and they'd be like, yeah, like, I'm so glad that you did that. They're like, you're fucking crazy.

Speaker 1 Or

Speaker 48 they would say the same thing you did. Like, oh, you're so like tough, you know? And I was like,

Speaker 48 I couldn't just sit by and just watch that shit.

Speaker 26 Tough felt like an understatement.

Speaker 31 I wanted to know what was behind it.

Speaker 38 So I asked her, How did you become so fearless?

Speaker 48 I think

Speaker 48 I think I became fearless because, you know, of the type of environment I grew up

Speaker 48 and because I went to military school. So.

Speaker 31 Military school, the kind that teenagers get sent to when their parents think they need to be straightened out.

Speaker 12 There are drill sergeants, physical training, the whole nine yards.

Speaker 20 It was so intense, Valerie said, that she realized she could face anything after that.

Speaker 22 And then where did you get your sense of like justice? Like it seems like you have a strong sense of like the community has this power that the police don't have.

Speaker 5 Like where did that come from?

Speaker 48 I think for me it came from,

Speaker 48 you know,

Speaker 48 living in domestic violence. So I grew up, yeah, I grew up in a broken home.
I guess you could say parents got divorced when I was nine.

Speaker 48 And just, yeah, like, you know, my mom being a landlord too growing up, we would have instances where

Speaker 48 you know, the neighbors, they would fight.

Speaker 48 And then I would hear some of them beat on their girlfriends and as a child you know that mentally scars you sometimes and I feel like yeah growing up too seeing women get beat you know like all kind of violence yeah it makes you want to

Speaker 48 it makes you want to carry and have justice for other women that go through that especially because of what she saw some of her own family members go through I can honestly say like what one of my grandpas, glad I never met him,

Speaker 48 he tried to kill my other grandmas with a machete he left a scar on her forehead so pretty much yeah it's a generational trauma thing right so I that's why when I heard Daisy's story I was like I can also relate to that through my grandma's history

Speaker 48 because they you know they have almost gotten killed you know I'm glad they were able to escape that but so yeah that's what that's why I tell people you don't you don't understand until you are in their shoes and when you are powerless When you don't have anywhere to go you don't have anyone to defend you.

Speaker 48 That's what's gonna happen

Speaker 48 Yeah, so I hope people will will realize that that yeah like sometimes you're you just

Speaker 48 Yeah, you just get put in a situation and

Speaker 48 and your life just just goes like that Yeah, women are just going through that every day.

Speaker 12 Women like Valerie Valerie, she told me that at one point in her life, she found herself in a relationship that had become violent. And eventually she realized she needed to get out.

Speaker 48 It was a hard decision to make. I think it's hard because it's like you want it,

Speaker 48 you want to keep giving the person you love a chance.

Speaker 48 And then, you know,

Speaker 48 it's like that unconditional love you have for someone, but then it just kind of runs out or you can't take it anymore. You know, I finally decided to put my foot down, and I said, You know what?

Speaker 48 This, I can't keep living like this. Like, I don't want to go to jail and beat his ass back.
So, yeah, it was a hard decision. I just, you know, planned it, packed my shit, and then I escaped to a

Speaker 48 domestic violence shelter.

Speaker 22 How did you find it?

Speaker 5 Um, well,

Speaker 48 pretty much, like, I was already seeing a DV therapist and then I just had told her one day like, hey, I'm fed up. Can we like, you know, call some places? And she did.
We called

Speaker 48 and pretty much, yeah, then they accepted me.

Speaker 37 You seem like so proactive.

Speaker 22 Like, how did you have this knowledge to be like, oh, to even get a DV counselor, I think is something that, or therapist is something that I think a lot of women.

Speaker 12 or some women in that situation maybe wouldn't know to do.

Speaker 23 Like how,

Speaker 22 yeah, how did you navigate that?

Speaker 32 So

Speaker 48 this is the funny part.

Speaker 12 What Valerie proceeded to tell me was actually not that funny. But I got the sense that she's someone who copes with difficult experiences through humor.

Speaker 31 She said that she never really wanted to enroll in therapy, but her caseworker knew she was struggling with housing insecurity because of domestic violence.

Speaker 12 And in order to maintain her government benefits, she was told she had to sign up for it.

Speaker 48 And at first I didn't want to. I was like, no, I don't need it.
I could deal with my problems. But then he really pushed me to get it.
And that's when I started going.

Speaker 48 I was like, all right, I needed it. I was just being hard-headed.
Like, you know, thinking that I can keep putting, like, I could deal with it myself. And, and I still tell my

Speaker 48 caseworker, thank you all the time.

Speaker 48 Like, I'll text him sometimes. I'll be like, you're, you're the, you know, you're, you're the, you're the shit, basically.

Speaker 48 And he was like, oh, thank you. You know, I'm glad that you, you actually listened to me this time.

Speaker 12 Valerie said that the experience of doing it, of going to therapy and getting out of a bad relationship, it taught her a lot.

Speaker 48 It like shows you how strong you could be as a person.

Speaker 48 You know?

Speaker 48 Like, it shows you like how much life tests you and see if you're like, make or break it type of shit.

Speaker 5 Pretty much.

Speaker 48 And it just shows you like, yeah, how strong you are.

Speaker 12 That is really what drew her to Daisy's story.

Speaker 14 It wasn't just that she was also in the punk scene and lived in the neighborhood.

Speaker 41 It was that she knew what it was like to be hurt by someone she loved.

Speaker 48 That's kind of the reason why I wanted to get justice for Daisy. Like, that was my whole point of looking for Victor and all that, because I saw something in myself that I saw in her.

Speaker 48 I guess you could say, not only like personality, but just her.

Speaker 48 You know.

Speaker 48 Like,

Speaker 48 I was like, yeah,

Speaker 48 I can't let that shit slide.

Speaker 48 Like that, it really, like, touched the core in me.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What was, when you say you saw something in her that you saw in yourself, was it, was sort of how she looked or also just like her situation?

Speaker 48 Her situation, mostly.

Speaker 48 You know, like she got hurt and

Speaker 5 she,

Speaker 48 you know, unfortunately, like, she couldn't get her life back.

Speaker 48 And, you know, I didn't get justice for some of the things that happened to me.

Speaker 48 But I'm still alive. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to get justice for her.

Speaker 48 Just as I wish somebody would get justice for me.

Speaker 12 But as much as she looked and as determined as she was, Valerie never did find Victor.

Speaker 12 Nobody seemed to know where he was hiding, including the detectives. But all of these social media posts, they were doing something.

Speaker 11 They were getting more eyes on the case, more community involvement.

Speaker 1 They were building public pressure, the kind of pressure detectives couldn't ignore.

Speaker 26 Next time on My Friend Daisy.

Speaker 3 They put out something on social media, so, and they put out my cell number, so I'd get calls in the middle of the night all the time.

Speaker 50 Hi, everyone. This is Paris.
Thanks for listening to My Friend Daisy. If you or someone you love is experiencing abuse, you are not alone.
Help is available 24-7.

Speaker 50 Contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline for free confidential support. Call 800-799-7233.
Text start to 88-788 or visit thehotline.org. Your safety matters.

Speaker 19 Reach out today.

Speaker 41 My Friend Daisy is a production of London Audio with support from Sony Music Entertainment.

Speaker 13 It's reported, written, and executive produced by me, Jen Swan.

Speaker 41 I'm also your host.

Speaker 12 Our executive producers for London Audio are Paris Hilton, Bruce Gersh, Bruce Robertson, and Joanna Studebaker.

Speaker 12 Our executive producer for Sony Music Entertainment is Jonathan Hirsch.

Speaker 10 Our associate producer is Zoe Culkin.

Speaker 11 Production Assistance and Translations by Miguel Contreras.

Speaker 11 Sound Design, Composing, and Mixing by Hans Dale Sheeh.

Speaker 13 Our fact checker is Fendel Fulton.

Speaker 11 Our head of production is Sammy Allison. And our production manager is Tamika Balance-Kolasny.

Speaker 11 Special thanks to Steve Akerman, Emily Rossik, and Jamie Myers at Sony, Ben Goldberg and Orly Greenberg at UTA, and Jen Ortiz at The Cut.

Speaker 11 And I wanted to let you know about the statistics that I cited in this episode. They come from the CDC.

Speaker 11 They were published in July of 2017, and you can find them online under the title, Racial and Ethnic Differences in Homicides of Adult Women and the Role of Intimate Partner Violence.

Speaker 11 And if you're interested in reading more about the link between intimate partner violence and homicide, there's another study that I read called Examining Intimate Partner Violence-Related Fatalities.

Speaker 11 It was published in the Journal of Family Violence in January of 2023. Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 11 Ah,

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