The Knife: Off Record – 120

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Speaker 9 If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's even paying off?

Speaker 12 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved so you know what's working and what to fix.

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Speaker 10 That's pendo.io slash podcast.

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Speaker 19 This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 20 Hello, and welcome to The Knife Off Record. I'm Patia Eaton.

Speaker 19 I'm Hannah Smith. And this week we're reading listener emails.
I'm really excited about this. Thank you to everyone who has emailed us.
Send us an email and we might read it on the podcast.

Speaker 19 We won't use your name unless you tell us that we can. So email us at thenife at exactlyrightmedia.com.
You can email us your thoughts on an episode.

Speaker 19 You could email us a story that you know of in your own life that you want to tell that might be interesting to talk about in the podcast or maybe a tip of something we should look into.

Speaker 20 And we have some great emails today. One of them is about an unsolved disappearance that took place in Brea, Kentucky.

Speaker 20 A listener wrote in, we did some additional research on what happened, and we'll tell you what we can about it. And that's coming up.

Speaker 19 I'm looking forward to that one. And then at the end, we'll have recommendations, as well as I have a request for listeners.
And I'll tell you what I mean when we get there. So stick around for that.

Speaker 19 But let's get into the emails.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 19 Okay. First email.
This is a really nice email from a listener about the episode we did on Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy. They say, hello and thank you for this.

Speaker 19 I listened to your episode with Meg and Mountain Park this week.

Speaker 19 The following day, I was chatting with an acquaintance and she mentioned that she was from Miami and after getting into trouble was sent to a school in the Ozarks.

Speaker 19 I jokingly said, it wasn't Mountain Park, was it? Her face went pale and she said, how did you know that? After much discussion and Google searching, she is indeed a survivor of this place.

Speaker 19 We got her connected through the Mountain Park Survivors website and I shared Meg's story on your podcast to listen to.

Speaker 19 She shared with me that anytime she had told this experience to someone, she always feels that they don't actually believe her.

Speaker 19 I was so grateful to genuinely look her in the eye and say, I believe you.

Speaker 19 Thank you for covering Meg's chilling truth and allowing me to connect with someone in my my life with a way of healing that she didn't even know existed.

Speaker 20 Keep up the great work.

Speaker 19 This email was so nice to receive and really like kind of made me tear up when I read it. We kind of debated if we should include it or not because it does feel like, is this too self-congratulatory?

Speaker 19 But the reason we decided to share it is because it really speaks to

Speaker 19 the importance of people sharing their stories and what we love about what we do.

Speaker 19 And this feels so good to know that you know Meg was able to share her story and then it connected with someone else is

Speaker 20 the power of storytelling in true crime and to be able to be part of that is really meaningful yeah I mean working in true crime and telling crime related stories you want to feel like you know you're doing some good because In that story, someone was negatively impacted by what happened.

Speaker 20 And if anything positive can come from it, then we're all about it.

Speaker 19 Yeah. So thanks so much for reaching out.

Speaker 20 And we're going to move on to the next listener email. Hi, ladies.
I was the victim of a rental scam in November 2024.

Speaker 20 It started when my husband and I were looking to rent a house in a town called Santa Clarita, California. It's a suburb north of Los Angeles.

Speaker 20 Most people know it as the town where Magic Mountain is located. We have a child and we were looking to rent a house.
We were renting a condo at the time.

Speaker 20 When looking, we found a listing on Redfin, which I expressed interest in.

Speaker 20 Shortly afterwards, I received a text from someone named Jason Hammonds, and he said that he was the owner of this property, but the lease was signed.

Speaker 20 But he said he did have other properties available and sent us a listing for another one.

Speaker 19 So she reached out to the person listing the condo and he said, this is booked or like someone else has already leased it, but I have a different property.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 19 And that doesn't feel that strange. No, that feels like I've had that same experience.

Speaker 20 Yeah. It's like you see a well-qualified tenant and you're like, well, I have a whole business.
Why don't I see if I can keep them somewhere?

Speaker 20 So the next day, he provided us with the code to enter the home. I was on the phone with him the whole time while seeing the home.
So she's at the house in person.

Speaker 20 So she says we entered the home, did the tour and left. Shortly afterwards, he sent us an application.
We were approved. He sent us a lease.

Speaker 20 After sending several thousand dollars via Zell, he told me one of the transactions did not go through.

Speaker 20 I went back and forth with him and Zell regarding this transaction for a month until he finally sent me a check to deposit as a quote refund for that transaction. Wow.

Speaker 19 A month? That's so scary. When are you trying to move into this place? That's what a nightmare.

Speaker 20 Also just like Zelle can't get it together. They're a big company.
That doesn't feel right either.

Speaker 19 So like, what's going on?

Speaker 20 I'm sure that was just like already stress levels are rising. She says it makes no sense.
I know, but I deposited this check and sent him more money. So he sends her a check for a quote refund.

Speaker 20 She deposits it. Then she says, I got a call from my bank that the check had bounced.

Speaker 20 After calling Jason and yelling at him and telling him he's a scam artist, he said he can only cancel the lease and give me my money back if I send him $500.

Speaker 20 Oh my gosh. I know.
At that point, I stopped talking to him. He took a total of $12,000 from me,

Speaker 20 which was basically my entire savings.

Speaker 19 Oh my gosh, that's like so horrible and heartbreaking. Yeah.

Speaker 20 And honestly, it was, I've rented for so many years. And

Speaker 20 yeah, I mean, you see in that online, you go in, you fill out all your information, social security number. It's so much information.
Yeah.

Speaker 20 And it's just a piece of paper you're handing to someone you've never met.

Speaker 19 Totally. And, you know, this is a suburb of LA.
And so it's also like for context.

Speaker 19 I think it's different in different places, right? But trying to find somewhere to live in LA. I'm not talking about buying a house.
I'm talking about renting an apartment.

Speaker 19 It is such a horrible experience. It is so difficult.
Like, I remember going and like showing up to listings, and it's like, I'm getting there right when the open house starts.

Speaker 19 There is a line of people down the block, and everyone already has like a printed statement of why they would be a good tenant, and they're schmoozing with the landlord. It is like so competitive.

Speaker 20 There's regularly bidding wars. I have a friend who just rented a house that 17 other people showed up the same open house that she did, and they had to pay two years' rent up front to get that house.

Speaker 20 And

Speaker 20 it's nuts. So she goes on to say, Most of my family and friends don't even know that this happened to me.

Speaker 20 I'm very ashamed, but I also feel like this kind of scam needs to be known to the general public. I tried to message my local Instagram and Facebook accounts with no luck.

Speaker 20 I filed a police report, but honestly, I don't know what they're doing because I'm afraid to even call.

Speaker 20 It took a lot for me to even get to the point where I could file a report because I'm so incredibly embarrassed. I have really next to no actual information about Jason.

Speaker 20 We don't know that that's his real name. And I highly doubt that that's his real name.

Speaker 20 I've been working as an ER nurse for the last six years, worked a lot of overtime during COVID to save that money, and some of it was gifted to me by my parents.

Speaker 20 Money I'd been saving for the day we could finally afford to buy a home and this stranger took it from me simply because I could not fathom that something like this could be a scam.

Speaker 20 What bothers me the most is that I had the bad feeling about it the whole time, even since we applied, but I ignored it.

Speaker 20 Now we are settled in a new place with a great and real landlord, but I have been working overtime to save up again, taking time away from my 15-month-old and my husband.

Speaker 20 I don't think I will ever not be mad at myself for this.

Speaker 20 I mean, that's heartbreaking, but like,

Speaker 20 I don't think that many people would have been able to like sniff that out. That's pretty normal.

Speaker 20 Like you go in, you find a landlord that you like working with, you find the property, you send money via Zelle. I mean, that seems so standard.

Speaker 20 It's like, I wonder how many people he's been able to do this to because no one wants to talk about it.

Speaker 19 Probably so many people. There's a lot of rental scams.
And also it's that feeling of, oh my gosh, I found something. I found a place I love.
It's a good deal.

Speaker 19 And then that feeling of like, I need to jump on this quickly because if I don't, like it will go to someone else. And that's also like actually a reality.
Yeah.

Speaker 19 is that it will, like, even when they're real, it's like you, you kind of have to move really quickly. And so that situation is ripe for scams.

Speaker 19 I was looking up things though, like what can you do? And one of the things that is recommended is always meet the person that's renting to you in person.

Speaker 19 And so in this email, she talks about like being given the code to the house, which feels so legitimate, but also the scammer could have found a different listing and pretended to be like a prospective tenant, gotten that code, and then just like pretended like he was the landlord, right?

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 19 So always like try to meet someone in person was the recommended first sort of way to make sure that this is real. This is a real person.
They really like, they have the keys to the house, you know?

Speaker 20 Yeah. But, you know, I rented a house a couple of years ago and I never met the landlord in person.
And we ended up moving from there after maybe less time than we thought we would.

Speaker 20 But it was a perfectly real situation. It was his house and he just didn't live locally.
And we met him over Zoom and we were let in remotely.

Speaker 19 And, you know, that was a real listing.

Speaker 20 So I don't think that she should feel shame or embarrassment. I think that could happen to anyone, but it's good to know there's a few little safeguards you can put up.
Yeah.

Speaker 19 Okay.

Speaker 19 So one other thing you can do is you can ask for identification from your landlord and you can also just like do a quick google search you know are they part of a rental group just verify what you can about them which is at least one step that you could take i suppose in this very difficult situation of trying to rent an apartment

Speaker 3 are your ai agents helping users or just creating more work if you can't compare your users workflows before and after adding ai How do you know it's even paying off?

Speaker 12 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 14 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 16 That's pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 21 Hi, I'm Martine Hackett, host of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix.

Speaker 21 This season, we're sharing powerful stories of resilience from people living with MG and CIDP.

Speaker 21 Our hope is to inspire, educate, and remind each other that even in the toughest moments, we're not alone. We'll hear from people like Corbin Whittington.

Speaker 21 After being diagnosed with both CIDP and dilated cardiomyopathy, he found incredible strength through community.

Speaker 22 So when we talk community, we're talking about an entire ecosystem surrounding this condition, including, of course, the patients at the center that are all trying to live life in the moment, live life for the future, but then also create a new future.

Speaker 21 Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 23 Every year I promise myself I'll find the perfect gift.

Speaker 12 Something they'll actually use.

Speaker 23 And love. This year, I found it.
The Bartesian Cocktail Maker.

Speaker 24 Oh, that's the one that makes cocktails at the push of a button, right?

Speaker 17 Exactly.

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Speaker 19 Next, we have an email from a woman named Ava who gave us permission to use her name. She reached out to us in May and this is what she said in her email.
My name is Ava.

Speaker 19 I love your show and I wanted to write in with a story of mine you may be interested in. At the age of 15, I met an online friend through a public Minecraft server.

Speaker 19 He was 18 at the time and we became very close friends very quickly.

Speaker 19 After a few months, he convinced me that we should in quotes date, even though he lived in North Carolina and I lived in California. I reluctantly agreed and we started dating.

Speaker 19 I was under the impression that he would come and visit me in person soon and our online relationship would only be temporary.

Speaker 19 Only about a week after we started dating, he backed out of going into the military last minute and moved out of his dad's house to live with his mom and half siblings. It was a very unstable home.

Speaker 19 His mom was using drugs and had different men in the house. There were sometimes incidents with gun violence too.
Wow.

Speaker 19 So he like immediately is going into this very volatile situation and makes a huge life decision not to join the military, which was his plan, I guess.

Speaker 20 And wants to online date a girl who's 15. Yeah.

Speaker 19 He started smoking weed at an unhealthy rate and picking fights with me. These fights would start from the smallest thing I would say or do and would last for hours.
He spammed my phone.

Speaker 19 with multiple paragraphs until I was apologizing relentlessly for something I didn't even understand that I did wrong.

Speaker 20 Okay, that reminds me of a time when I had a friend in a situation where she had caught her boyfriend doing something really bad and she had written him a text about it or he had written her a text about it.

Speaker 20 And it was back in the day where if you texted someone enough, their phone would delete prior messages and he just started spamming her phone over and over and over. It's like,

Speaker 20 you know.

Speaker 20 like consume someone. Totally.
It's like a form of control. Yeah.

Speaker 19 It reminds me of the book we both read, There Is No Ethan, too, where it was a form of abuse and control where this online boyfriend was just relentlessly emailing and requiring constant time and attention, especially when Ethan knew that Ana was going to be like at work or at a social event, it would increase.

Speaker 19 So it was really felt like this like intentional controlling thing.

Speaker 20 Yeah. And they like she had always done something wrong.

Speaker 19 Yes. I was always like, oh my gosh, you've disappointed me or hurt me.
And now I need to take up a lot of your emotional energy right now.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 19 Okay. So Ava goes on to say, this happened over a longer period of time, slowly getting worse and worse.
I started isolating myself from friends and family.

Speaker 19 I was always up in my room talking to him on the phone, trying to keep him happy. I started walking on eggshells around him, careful of my tone of voice and the things I would say.

Speaker 19 He would always find something to start hours-long fights over. During these arguments, he would self-harm and send me pictures of his injuries.

Speaker 20 Yikes. That's so manipulative.
Yeah, really.

Speaker 19 And unhealthy.

Speaker 20 I mean, if someone's really doing that, it's like they need professional help. Also, the idea that she's walking on eggshells.

Speaker 20 around, you know, someone who the entirety of the relationship is happening online, on the phone,

Speaker 20 but that's real now. You know, your phone can ring and your stomach can drop because that's how relationships are forming.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 19 Oh, this makes me so sad for her.

Speaker 19 Especially being 15. It's just like, you're so young.
And it's sad that she's like spending all this time and feeling this burden over someone who like, yeah, clearly needs.

Speaker 19 help himself, but it's not her responsibility.

Speaker 19 But it's so easy to not understand that when you start getting, you know, emotionally involved with someone and there's that manipulation factor happening. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 19 Then she says, he made me think it was my fault or it could have been avoided if I had done something different. So, you know, that's horrible.

Speaker 19 It became 100% my responsibility to keep him in a good mood. He demanded hours of my time.
He started to control every aspect of my life. I was allowed no privacy, no boundaries.

Speaker 19 He always knew where I was and he would get upset if I weren't on a call every second of every day, pretty much. We would be on the phone for upwards of 16 hours at a time.

Speaker 19 And he frequently would use his self-harm to control her and like threaten to go to even more extreme lengths, like

Speaker 19 to die by suicide.

Speaker 20 Yeah. I mean, 16 hours of a person's day to be spent on the phone.
It's like,

Speaker 20 I think anyone would have a hard time then deciphering, well, what is my real life that I'm actually living? Is it this person I'm on the phone with? Because it's taking up so much of my time.

Speaker 20 Or is it outside of that? At age 15, 16, 17, I wouldn't have known the difference. No.

Speaker 19 And I just remember like when I was that age, my emotions were so intense and like

Speaker 19 strong. And so that too, I can only imagine would like make this situation even harder.
Like I can imagine she would just feel trapped. Like I think I would feel trapped if I were in that scenario.

Speaker 20 Yeah. And you probably don't have a lot of other relationship experience to draw draw from.

Speaker 20 So what are you comparing it to? Yeah.

Speaker 19 So this happened when she was like 16 and 19. They never met in person,

Speaker 19 which is interesting. Obviously, they lived like on different sides of the country.
But yeah, it's like online relationship, very real.

Speaker 19 Like they never met in person, but it affected her life so deeply. She said, my mindset.
during this time was just based on survival.

Speaker 19 In my mind, I had no choice to leave because then it would have been my fault fault if he like did something harmful to himself.

Speaker 19 After a few years of this, he moved back to his dad's house and there was a noticeable shift in his mental state. There were fewer arguments.

Speaker 19 I was able to leave him shortly after this time, although he still tried to control how much time and details about my life that I provided him. I had no one to help me and was utterly alone.

Speaker 19 in this at such a young age. These years deeply affected my life and still do.

Speaker 19 Unfortunately, my parents were not able to help me during this time because they didn't know the warning signs that someone might be getting abused.

Speaker 19 I'm writing this in because abusive relationships come in so many forms and I would like to spread awareness about it to hopefully prevent someone else from experiencing what I did.

Speaker 20 Wow. Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 20 I'm happy she wrote us. I want to talk about the dangers.
We have talked a little bit about the dangers of online dating, but you know, it's become the norm.

Speaker 20 And I think that obviously as an adult, you download a dating app, you go on dates, but kids are online playing games where they can interact with people.

Speaker 20 I mean, when I was a child and you could like log in to your one computer in the house and get on like AOL or whatever it was. The computer room.
The computer room.

Speaker 20 Oh my gosh, I'm going to throw it back. I played this game called Horse Land.

Speaker 19 Oh my gosh, of course you did.

Speaker 20 I know. And there was like a chat room where you would like go in and try to sell your like virtual horse.

Speaker 20 And there would be like, I remember seeing kind of creep messages in that chat room and just thinking, well, that's weird.

Speaker 19 Yeah. Like not really totally understanding what's going on.

Speaker 20 Yeah. No clue what was going on.

Speaker 19 But that there were like. creepy people in what is it horseworld horse land horse land

Speaker 20 yeah that they would just drop these like weird things in the chat room and i'd be like um excuse me maybe they don't know where they are but they knew exactly where they were.

Speaker 20 And, you know, now kids are way more tech savvy than I was at that age. Also, they're not in a computer room where I remember the computer screen faced the entire room.

Speaker 20 So it would have been very easy for my parents to come in and monitor anything that was going on. Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 20 It's a very real risk and form of abuse meeting someone online and being taken advantage of.

Speaker 19 Yeah, for sure. I feel like a little bit disconnected from what teens are doing now, to be honest.

Speaker 19 It's just what I like to read about.

Speaker 19 I think probably they're much more, hopefully suspicious and also understanding of the internet than we were at that time.

Speaker 19 Yeah, the idea that you can get roped into something and abused over the internet is so real

Speaker 19 and something that should be acknowledged.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Are your AI agents helping users or just creating more work?

Speaker 9 If you can't compare your users' workflows before and after adding AI, how do you know it's it's even paying off?

Speaker 12 Pendo Agent Analytics is the first tool to connect agent prompts and conversations to downstream outcomes like time saved, so you know what's working and what to fix.

Speaker 14 Start improving agent performance at pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 16 That's pendo.io slash podcast.

Speaker 21 Hi, I'm Martine Hackett, host of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix.

Speaker 21 This season, we're sharing powerful stories of resilience from people living with MG and CIDP.

Speaker 21 Our hope is to inspire, educate, and remind each other that even in the toughest moments, we're not alone. We'll hear from people like Corbin Whittington.

Speaker 21 After being diagnosed with both CIDP and dilated cardiomyopathy, he found incredible strength through community.

Speaker 22 So when we talk community, we're talking about an entire ecosystem surrounding this condition, including, of course, the patients at the center that are all trying to live life in the moment, live life for the future, but then also create a new future.

Speaker 21 Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 23 You know what's on everyone's wish list this year?

Speaker 24 Oh, definitely the Bartesian cocktail maker.

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Speaker 1 And right now, you can save up to $150 on Bartesian cocktail makers.

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Speaker 19 We did follow up with Ava and she sent us a little more information. She said that when she was 16, she tried to convince her parents to let her fly to see her online boyfriend and they said no.

Speaker 19 They were like, this is an older guy and we don't want you to fly out of state to meet someone who we don't know we haven't met.

Speaker 19 She says, when I was 18, I tried to tell my parents again that I wanted to fly out to see him and they firmly told me no again. I tried to play the legal adult card.

Speaker 19 I did not end up flying out without their permission because I knew it would cause a lot of problems between us.

Speaker 19 It became clear after a while that John was perfectly content with our relationship being 100% online and he did not have any plans to come see me in person.

Speaker 19 In hindsight, my parents made the right call and potentially saved me from a relationship which could become even more abusive and controlling.

Speaker 19 Who knows how much worse things could have become if I had visited him in person?

Speaker 20 Yeah, truly. I mean, I'm speculating, but it feels like the danger of an online relationship, especially as a child, a teenager, is when no one like a parent even knows about it.

Speaker 20 Because sometimes that's the case. It's like she clearly at some point shared with her parents that she had built this relationship with someone online.
My dad would have said the exact same thing.

Speaker 20 My mom would have said the exact same thing. Like, no freaking way.
It's a real danger. There was a case, probably a lot of people have heard of it.

Speaker 20 The disappearance of a teenage girl from Glendale, Arizona back in 2019. Her name is Alicia Navarro.
She was believed to have met someone online who lured her away.

Speaker 20 And she left her home in the middle of the night. She left a note that said, I ran away.
I will be back. I swear.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 20 And she was not found until she turned 18 when she walked into a small town police station in Montana and said she wanted to be taken off the missing persons list because now she was 18.

Speaker 19 Was she still with the person that she had left to go meet?

Speaker 20 So they've never said, but the person that she was living with at the time, he's never been publicly connected to her actual disappearance or charged with any crimes in relation to that disappearance.

Speaker 20 So what happened is when she said, hey, I want to be taken off the missing persons list, this is my name.

Speaker 20 Of course, that triggered that police department to contact the police department locally where she had been living when she disappeared. So they connected her back to her family.

Speaker 20 And so they started a line of communication. And then a few months, I think, went by because I was like checking in on it a lot.
And there were no arrests made with her disappearance.

Speaker 20 And then the apartment she had been living in with an older man was raided. And there's a search warrant.
And he like tried to get rid of his phone really quickly and all of that.

Speaker 20 So she eventually returned home to her family. and he was arrested, charged, and convicted of possession of child sex abuse material, a crime related to possession of that.

Speaker 20 I don't recall the exact crime, but the images were not of her. And she had absolutely no ties to that court case, but it is the person that she had been living with.

Speaker 20 And he was sentenced to 100 years. Wow.

Speaker 19 How old was she

Speaker 19 when she left?

Speaker 20 14. Oh my God.
Yeah. And then she was 18 when she walked into that police station.
Wow. Yeah.
And her mom had this Facebook page where she would plead for people to like send in any leads.

Speaker 20 And there was a private investigator working on the case. I mean, she was not found.
And I don't know that she would have been if she hadn't walked into that police station. It's incredibly scary.

Speaker 20 And what they think happened is she met someone online

Speaker 20 on an online game.

Speaker 20 But yeah, luckily she was found alive and has been reconnected with her family. I think that's the danger, right? Is you don't even know who your kids are connecting with online most of the time.

Speaker 20 So I think there's like all kinds of parental controls in place now, but it terrifies me.

Speaker 19 Yeah. I mean, kids and also adults, though, too, I think it happens too.

Speaker 20 Yeah. I mean, elderly people are at risk of this in different ways.
We all are, but like.

Speaker 20 Maybe someone who's not as savvy about the bad things that happen online is particularly vulnerable. And, you know, there's an actual term for this, digital abuse or digital dating abuse.
Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 19 Where the coercion or control takes place entirely online. I'm so glad there's a term for it now.
That makes sense.

Speaker 19 So I'm trying to remember who told this to me, but I remember there was like a point in my life when I realized I had this like revelation. I was probably like already in my 30s.

Speaker 19 Someone had said something to me where they were like, you know, when you're in an interaction or a relationship, pay attention to how you're feeling.

Speaker 19 Because that is like one of the biggest things that you should pay attention to. Instead of like, am I just getting so focused on the chaos that this other person is creating?

Speaker 19 And it's making me feel anxious to try to like help them.

Speaker 19 But then when I sit back, it's like, well, is that really how I want to feel in a relationship is like constantly anxious about someone else's chaos?

Speaker 20 It's not a good feeling. Yeah, it's so unhealthy.
And I mean, it's so true.

Speaker 20 And I think a lot about like moments where maybe in my past relationships, things I was like, I don't want to keep sharing these things with my friends because now I know that it's probably past time to leave.

Speaker 20 And that was always a big sign for me internally.

Speaker 19 When you don't want to tell your friends what's going on. Right.

Speaker 20 Because it's different than like, oh,

Speaker 20 my husband refrigerated the peanut butter. It's like,

Speaker 20 you know, once you're retelling sort of the same kind of story over and over again, it's like, huh, this is not a one-off. This is not a problem.
I just need to solve.

Speaker 20 This is their issue to be dealing with. And I also think my dad gave me great advice as a teenager, which stuck with me, which is it only takes one person to break up.

Speaker 20 Like you don't need their permission to break up with them.

Speaker 19 That is such good advice. Thanks, Dad.

Speaker 20 Thanks, Dad. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 19 He also told me to never pluck my eyebrows uh i didn't listen i did not listen i was like someone should have told me that um i'm pretty sure my mom did and i was like i'm gonna do what i want it's the 90s yeah it's really good advice thank you so much for writing in ava and we're really happy that you were able to get out of this relationship yeah truly

Speaker 20 so our next listener email came from a person who has done their own deep dive into a missing person's case in their hometown of brea kentucky um this is the disappearance of Brooklyn Farthing.

Speaker 19 I read the last email, but maybe I'll read this one as well because it's a short email and then you have done a bunch of research about the case. And so I'm excited to hear what you found.

Speaker 19 But I'll set it up with this email. This listener wrote, my hometown has a still unsolved mystery disappearance that I think you all could cover really well.

Speaker 20 It has it all.

Speaker 19 Arson, the hollers of rural Kentucky, and a potential connection to a child pornography ring. You may already be familiar with the name Brooklyn Farthing.

Speaker 19 She disappeared from Berea, Kentucky on June 22nd, 2013 after attending a party with friends in a neighboring county.

Speaker 19 There are a couple of decent sources available on this case, and I'm willing to bet there are people who want to talk about it. I have a couple of my own theories, but I'll spare you.

Speaker 19 I'd be interested to see what conclusions, if any, you are able to draw from the case.

Speaker 20 Yeah, so actually wish this listener was here because I have some questions about their theories. But let me just start off with a little bit of information about Brooklyn and who she is.

Speaker 20 So her sister Paige described Brooklyn on, I quoted this from their website. My sister Brooke was a spunky, tell you how it is, lovable person.

Speaker 20 She loved animals and the outdoors, but she was truly a girly girl who loved pink and camouflage. She would do anything to help anyone.

Speaker 20 She had the sweetest, deep, blonde, country-sounding voice you can only find in Kentucky. Kentucky.

Speaker 20 In 2013, Brooklyn was 18 years old. She had recently graduated from Madison Southern High School.
There was nothing out of the ordinary going on for Brooklyn prior to her disappearance.

Speaker 20 And on June 21st, 2013, the day started out like any other, except that on this day, she and her sister, Paige, were going to take their driver's test for their licenses. And are they twins?

Speaker 19 Are they both sisters?

Speaker 20 They're just sisters, and they happen to be taking it at the same time. And I think Brooke is the older sister of the two.
And Brooke passed, Paige did not.

Speaker 20 So a little sibling rivalry there. But mostly the two of them were focused on celebrating their grandfather's birthday later that evening.

Speaker 20 So they met at their Granny Bonnie's house to celebrate their Papa Kenny. And afterwards, they had planned to go to a party out on Red Lick Road.

Speaker 20 So after the party, everything's fine and normal. They celebrate with family.
Brooklyn, Paige and their cousin all drive out to the party together.

Speaker 20 The plan is, so Brooklyn has an overnight bag packed and she's going to meet another friend at this party and spend the night with her.

Speaker 20 So she has a ride home and she has a place to stay that night all set up for her beforehand, which I think is so smart if you're driving out of town and there's going to be people you don't know somewhere.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 20 So

Speaker 20 shortly after arriving, Paige and their cousin actually head back.

Speaker 20 They don't stay at the party, but Brooklyn stays because she has this friend there that has said that she can stay the night with her and get a ride home.

Speaker 20 So unfortunately, what ends up happening is this friend that Brooklyn made plans with bails. She decides she wants to stay overnight with her boyfriend.
Oh, wow. So she leaves Brooklyn at this party.

Speaker 20 Brooklyn, then she recognizes a few faces, but it doesn't seem to be like close friends of her there any longer. But she's having a good time.

Speaker 20 And so she stays at the party and she recognizes a male classmate of hers is there, former classmate from Madison Southern High. And he is quite drunk.

Speaker 20 And so she's like, not only do I need to find a ride home, but I need to find him a ride home. She had actually been in a long-term relationship that they had been engaged and then had just broken up.

Speaker 20 And so she recognizes a friend of her former fiancé at this party. She doesn't know him well, but she does know him enough to feel somewhat comfortable.
And she sees he has his truck there.

Speaker 20 So she's like, can you take me and this person that she went to high school with home when the party's over? Because he can't drive. He's so drunk and my ride left.

Speaker 19 And this is 2013, which like, I think Uber was maybe like first a thing, but probably just in cities.

Speaker 20 Yeah, I doubt it was out in Kentucky. I mean, also in 2013, I still remember like taking cabs even in L.A.
Yeah.

Speaker 19 So it was like still a thing where how do I get home late at night?

Speaker 20 Totally. And I mean, in small towns, it still can take a while to get an Uber sometimes.
Plus, you know, she had been with her fiancé for years.

Speaker 20 So to know, even though they had then broken up, you know, this is a person she loved and trusted. And this is a friend of that person.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 20 So he agrees to give them a ride and they do drop off Brooke's classmate who was very drunk at his house. But then instead of taking Brooklyn home, he takes her to his house.

Speaker 20 And, you know, there's not a lot known about what he told her about that decision being made, but she's uncomfortable. But at this point, she's with this man and he's taking her to his house.

Speaker 19 And how do you know that that decision happened or that she was uncomfortable?

Speaker 20 Right. So Brooklyn had her cell phone and she was texting with her sisters and with her ex-fiancé because they were still on good terms.
And she was like, hey, I'm getting kind of weirded out. Like,

Speaker 20 yeah, you know, not her exact words, but she was relaying to them that she had a little bit of concern, that her friend had bailed on her and now she's with this other person.

Speaker 20 So her sisters, I watched in an interview, said they were unable to come and get her. They totally would have, but they were unable to because they had also been drinking.

Speaker 20 And so, you know, it's a small town where bad things don't really happen. So there wasn't like, it's not like someone just dropped the ball and should have gotten her.

Speaker 20 There wasn't like a big cause for concern known to them in that moment.

Speaker 20 And as the night goes on, it's getting really late. So Brooklyn's texting with her now ex-fiance and he's at a factory job that's overnight.
And he's going to get off at about 6.30 a.m.

Speaker 20 So they're texting around 4 a.m. And she's like, I'm getting really scared.
Can you please come get me? And he's like, I can come after my shift. And she's like, okay.

Speaker 20 And then she's like, I think she sends a text that says, please hurry or something that is really fearful. And he doesn't see that until after he's off of his shift.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 20 So it's clear that her fear is ramping up at this point. So Paige, her sister, had a final conversation with Brooklyn over the phone back around 4 a.m.

Speaker 20 That's when Brooklyn told her she had left with someone she knew from the party. She would be catching ride home with her ex-fiancé as soon as he got off work.
And so they were like, okay, great.

Speaker 20 But then at 5.30 a.m.,

Speaker 20 texts change. She's no longer scared or worried.
She says she's actually going to another party. Her text reads, never mind, I'm okay.
I'm going to a party in Rock Castle County.

Speaker 19 Strange. Suspicious.

Speaker 20 Very suspicious. And so Brooklyn never comes home and she's not heard from again.
So now we're at June 22nd, 2013. It's very early morning hours.

Speaker 20 When an investigation into her disappearance begins, we learn that the person who took Brooklyn back to his house, well, his house was in foreclosure. The utilities were not operating.

Speaker 20 Everything had been turned off. It was a totally dilapidated house.
And he says he left early in the morning. Brooklyn was still at the house and he left to go check on a horse.

Speaker 20 And so later that day, he calls in to report a fire that had broken out in his house and it had started on the sofa.

Speaker 20 Really strange because they go and investigate this fire and he never, well, I'll get to this later, but Brooklyn's belongings were still at the house, but she was not there.

Speaker 20 So when he reports the fire, he never says there's a person in the house. Please go make sure she's okay.
He just reports the fire, which is really strange.

Speaker 19 Meaning, like he knew that she wasn't in the house.

Speaker 20 He must have known that she wasn't in the house. It's like, this is a foreclosed on house.
What's his big concern if not a human being inside of it if there's a fire?

Speaker 20 Super weird. Now, he has never been named as a suspect formally in the case.

Speaker 20 He has never been charged with any crimes related to her disappearance, but I found an article published on August 11th, 2020.

Speaker 20 A local news station, Lex18 News, said that the man who took Brooke and her friend back from the party that night was Josh Hensley.

Speaker 20 And when this article was published in 2020, he was currently in jail on charges, including possession or viewing of matter portraying a sexual performance by a minor.

Speaker 20 And from what I can tell online, he's actually still incarcerated, but possibly could be released later this year, which is, I think, terrifying.

Speaker 20 Brooklyn's mother, she commented to this reporter in this article. you know, I think there's a lot of obviously suspicion around this man because he was the last person to see her.
Yeah.

Speaker 20 And the fire is very strange. And, and why would you take a girl home back to your home? And then if you're going to go check on a horse, why wouldn't you bring her and drop her off then?

Speaker 19 It doesn't make any sense. It's

Speaker 19 so suspicious. I'm shocked that he was never a suspect.
Like, how does that happen?

Speaker 20 How does that happen? I mean, I can only imagine how her family feels. Yeah.
And I was on, you know, a Facebook page related to her disappearance.

Speaker 20 And it seems like there's a fair amount of like pretty reasonable outrage that there's at least one person who should be,

Speaker 20 I don't know, it seems surprising that he hasn't been named as a suspect. And maybe that's like a strategy.
I have no idea.

Speaker 20 I don't know what happened, but it seems reasonable to think that a man who said he would take her home and then didn't didn't have great intentions. Yes.
It's terrible.

Speaker 20 And I'm sure the friend of hers that left her at the party that night

Speaker 19 feels terrible. Yeah.

Speaker 20 And, you know, it made me think about that case in Sparta, Tennessee, you know, a very different case because those two kids, there's an accident. They drive into the river.

Speaker 20 But Rosa, who was their friend that was supposed to be with them that night, she carried a lot of guilt for a long time about not having been there. And it's just terrible.

Speaker 20 And yeah, I would love to know why he hasn't been or someone hasn't been held accountable. I guess it's just maybe maybe a lack of evidence.
I have no idea.

Speaker 19 So what happened to the ex-fiancé? Did he end up driving to this house? Because he was friends with this guy, Josh

Speaker 19 Hensley. Hensley.
So her ex-fiancé was friends with, I don't know how long they known each other, but this is his friend, supposedly. So he knows where he lives, I would assume.

Speaker 19 Did he end up driving to come get her or were these texts that were sent that were like, just kidding, we're going to a party? Did he believe them?

Speaker 20 Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know.
I wonder if I could find out. You know, I think the next day, what I recall reading was that

Speaker 20 it was like, okay, well, surely she'll be home anytime now. And then as time goes on, you learn a little more and a little more.

Speaker 20 And then you learn about a weird fire and a neighbor had supposedly seen her at the house. But

Speaker 20 it's a rural area already and he lived on the outskirts of that. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 19 You know, we don't know what went into the investigation or where the case is like from the investigator standpoint now, but it's so hard to believe because like there are times when a crime happens or someone's even just being periphery to it or happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time ends up like sending them to prison for 20 years.

Speaker 19 And obviously every case is different. But the fact that this man

Speaker 19 did a series of things that were all suspicious, was the last person to see her? You know, that her text changed so dramatically and in tone feels like, well, was she texting or was he texting?

Speaker 19 And where is she? And why is the couch now on fire? Is this like an attempt to cover up evidence? You know, I don't know, but why are her belongings there and she's not?

Speaker 19 Yeah, like, how is it that no one's looking into this? And I don't know. Maybe they did look into it, but it just feels so suspicious.

Speaker 20 Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there is some detective or law enforcement locally there probably equally or more frustrated with the lack of movement in the case.

Speaker 19 Maybe you should call him up.

Speaker 20 I should call him up. Yeah.
It's terrible. And I think, you know, even now you hear so much about rideshare drivers and it's not always safe to get a ride home with someone you don't know.

Speaker 20 Yeah, Brooke's family has set up a website and a Facebook page where people can submit information and tips. And, you know, they're not going to stop looking for her.

Speaker 19 Well, thanks for the listener who wrote that in and for all of the digging that you did on that.

Speaker 20 Yeah, we love hearing from you guys. And there's so many cases we haven't heard of that we're glad to look into or see if we can get interviews on them.

Speaker 20 And so, if there's one that's on your mind, reach out.

Speaker 19 The knife at exactlyrightmedia.com. Send us an email.
Okay, recommendations. I have multiple.
My first recommendation, it's actually,

Speaker 19 we know some people who worked on this show. It's called Aftermath, Hunt for the Anthrax Killer.

Speaker 19 And I found it to be so interesting. A lot of people will probably remember after 9-11, there were these anthrax lace letters that were mailed out to people as well as news agencies.

Speaker 19 And it was this really big scare at the time because there was, you know, 9-11 had just happened. And then there was this anthrax thing happening.

Speaker 19 And it was sort of like a scramble to figure out what was going on with that.

Speaker 19 And in the opening episode, the host talks about remembering this anthrax scare that happened, but not really remembering a lot of the details about it or like who actually sent the anthrax letters.

Speaker 19 And I realized that I had the same experience. Like I was like, actually, what was going on with that?

Speaker 20 Yeah, like I definitely know the word anthrax and that those letters were sent and I know nothing else about it.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 19 This is a really great investigation into that. They interview different FBI agents who worked on this investigation.
It was a long investigation to try to find some answers.

Speaker 19 I thought it was really well done and really interesting.

Speaker 20 Yeah, I'll have to give that a listen.

Speaker 19 My second recommendation, this is a podcast that I've listened to for years, but I really like it. It's Against the Odds.
It's a Wonderry podcast. Have you listened to this one?

Speaker 20 I have listened to a few episodes of it, but actually not in a while. I should go back.
Yeah.

Speaker 19 Such a different format of podcasting, right? It's just like a narrator telling a story, a historical story of people surviving in wilderness situations.

Speaker 19 They did a season that I really liked a couple years back that covered the plane crash in the Andes. Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571.
It was the rugby team.

Speaker 19 that was on the way to like a tournament and they crashed in the Andes and very high high elevation and some of them survived like this wild story of surviving for many days. It was really well done.

Speaker 19 And then I just started their newest season, which is about Mount St. Helens erupting.

Speaker 20 Oh my gosh. Actually, my mom just sent me these wild photos of my college campus at Wazoo, Washington State University, after that eruption covered in ash.
Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 19 It was in 1980 that it happened.

Speaker 19 So I'm just really enjoying it. It's a totally different kind of podcast than what we do, but I think their storytelling is well done.
It touches on

Speaker 19 similar to true crime, almost like this is what I would do in that scenario, even if it's not actually, there's something happening there.

Speaker 19 And I feel like I have the same thing with natural disaster content, where it probably is coming from some deep anxiety about like climate change or something.

Speaker 19 Or maybe it's because I watched so many disaster movies growing up. You know, it's like Armageddon is like burned into my brain.

Speaker 20 I'm surprised you weren't allowed to watch those.

Speaker 19 We could watch those because I don't know why. They weren't like

Speaker 19 religious. Like, I don't know.
For some reason, like a lot of the stuff I wasn't allowed to watch, but like Action Adventure was okay.

Speaker 19 So like, yeah, like Dante's Peak and Deep Impact, all of those movies are like so vivid and full formed part of how I became who I am.

Speaker 19 So whether it's like scripted or if it's like historical, I'm so into it. And I don't want that to be like downplay the reality of like the horror of natural disasters.

Speaker 19 It's something I think about a lot. And I also love like listening to history podcasts.
That's why I think one of the reasons I love Against All Odds is because it's sort of like the natural disaster.

Speaker 19 It's also stories of people surviving, which is really inspiring. And it's history as well.

Speaker 19 But one of the things I was thinking about is like, if I could create my perfect podcast, I mean, I can create a feel like you can, yeah.

Speaker 19 But to listen to, like, I don't necessarily want to make this podcast, but I would love to listen to this podcast.

Speaker 19 Like a history podcast that touches on natural disasters, but that is like told through a female lens or queer lens or more diverse lens.

Speaker 19 I just think like the power of storytelling is so important to me.

Speaker 19 And no matter how sort of unbiased you are or whatever, like your life experience does impact the way you view a story and the things that you might bring up about it.

Speaker 19 And so that's why I would love this kind of podcast, except if it had like this extra lens.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 20 Actually, I mean, this is not natural disaster, but is wilderness. Is that show alone on the history channel? Yes.
Love that show. Love that show.

Speaker 20 And on one of the earlier seasons, gosh, I do not remember her name. I wish I did.

Speaker 20 but there was this woman on there she was such a force she had ms and she was absolutely crushing it on alone there's cuts of her like throwing a fish back into the river because she was so well fed with what she

Speaker 20 had yes and then they cut to this guy who's like

Speaker 20 i'm leaving after three days like i can't take this anymore

Speaker 19 It's always the like prepper dudes who can't cut it. And then it's like the woman who like made, like wove her own chair.

Speaker 20 yeah yeah she was thriving thriving there was one woman who made like a jacket of squirrels or something probably my all-time favorite on alone was callie she was in a later season i don't know if i watched that one yet well i'm not gonna give you a spoiler but callie rocked her season and was incredible to watch but yeah i was in an earthquake in seventh grade.

Speaker 19 Wait, do you want to tell people before we move on real quick what alone is? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 20 So if you're not familiar, alone is, it's an unscripted, it's a reality show, but not what you think when you think reality shows. There's

Speaker 20 these contestants who are wilderness survival experts in some way. And they all have, you know, different backgrounds, are from different climates.

Speaker 20 And the seasons mostly take place in Canada, maybe all of them, I'm not sure. But deep in the wilderness, these people are dropped off, all far away from each other.
So everyone is. alone.

Speaker 20 There is no camera crew. These people are trained to take their own footage with their own GoPros and they really set up like the most beautiful shots.

Speaker 20 It's actually like reminiscent for me of that documentary, Grizzly Man.

Speaker 19 Oh, I love that documentary. So good.
Very sad, but really good.

Speaker 20 Yeah. And he just, you know, he really.
took a lot of pride in setting up these shots.

Speaker 20 And they do the same thing probably because they don't have a lot to do when they're not trying to like fish or whatever. Yeah.

Speaker 19 And they're really alone for like a long time. Like they're trying to outlast everybody.
So it's not like 30 days and you're done.

Speaker 20 It's just like, you don't know you you want to be the last one standing and you don't know when the other people have dropped off which i think is genius because like the mind games that that would play with you is like okay well i'm almost ready to leave but i'm just up against one other person would be a very different decision-making process than if you knew that there were still six people left yeah like it's huge

Speaker 20 yeah one moment from alone that i don't think it's talked about enough i think it's on the very first season should fact check this before it before it airs but i swear to you there was um the crew comes and picks up the last person on the on a boat to tell them they've won

Speaker 20 and on the way there someone had brought this person cookies and a crew member ate them what and i'm like

Speaker 20 what kind of person who raised you that's what this person's starving in the wilderness and you ate the cookies someone made for them that's so rude

Speaker 20 like like beyond my comprehension but yeah alone is i think just a great show and um super impressive. Yeah, agreed.

Speaker 19 We're going to tell a story about it.

Speaker 20 Oh, yeah. I have a very distinct memory of junior high.
I was in, I think I was in seventh grade and there was a big earthquake where I'm from in Washington state. And I was standing in the lunchroom.

Speaker 20 I think this plays into my fear of them. And I was waiting in line or I was standing next to someone and this guy like kind of like bumped me.

Speaker 20 It just felt like a weird bump, like not like someone brushing your shoulder. And it took me a second to sort of realize what was happening.

Speaker 20 But we both sort of turn around and see the entire rest of the cafeteria is under the tables. And so

Speaker 20 I'm like, well, what do I do? Because then you realize the whole ground is moving. I swear I could see things like rolling.
It was the most bizarre experience.

Speaker 20 There were like cracks in the concrete after this and then the tile. It was weird.
And then I got under the moving condiment cart for like the stops.

Speaker 19 It was like just swinging everywhere.

Speaker 20 I was like, I know I would not survive.

Speaker 19 It's better than nothing.

Speaker 20 It's better than nothing, but it added another layer of difficulty to the moment. Yeah.
And yeah.

Speaker 20 So then I also remember then walking outside of the cafeteria into like the courtyard of the school I went to and a bird had fallen. Oh, weird.
And you don't see birds just like fall.

Speaker 19 And I think it's a bad omen. Yeah.

Speaker 19 That's our show.

Speaker 20 Thanks for listening. Yeah.
We'll see you next week.

Speaker 20 If you have a story for us, we would love to hear it. Our email is theknife at exactlyrightmedia.com, or you can follow us on Instagram at theknife podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.

Speaker 19 This has been an exactly right production, hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith, and me, Tayshia Eaton.

Speaker 20 Our producers are Tom Breifogel and Alexis Samorosi.

Speaker 19 This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.

Speaker 20 Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

Speaker 19 Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.

Speaker 20 Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.

Speaker 19 Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

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