The Knife: Off Record – 120

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This story contains adult content and language.

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Hello, and welcome to The Knife Off Record.

I'm Patia Eaton.

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.

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.

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.

And we have some great emails today.

One of them is about an unsolved disappearance that took place in Brea, Kentucky.

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.

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 that I'll tell you what I mean when we get there.

So stick around for that.

But let's get into the emails.

Yeah.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Keep up the great work.

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?

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

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

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 the power of storytelling and 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.

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

Yeah.

So thanks so much for reaching out.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Yeah.

And that doesn't feel that strange.

No, that feels like I've had that same experience.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

A month?

That's so scary.

When are you trying to move into this place?

That's what a nightmare.

Also just like.

Zell can't get it together.

They're a big company.

That doesn't feel right either.

So like, what's going on?

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.

She deposits it.

Then she says, I got a call from my bank that the check had bounced.

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.

Oh my gosh.

I know.

At that point, I stopped talking to him.

He took a total of $12,000 from me,

which was basically my entire savings.

Oh, my gosh.

That's like so horrible and heartbreaking.

Yeah.

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

And

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.

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

Totally.

And, you know, know, this is a suburb of LA.

And so it's also like for context,

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.

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.

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

It is like so competitive.

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.

It's nuts.

It's nuts.

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

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.

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

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.

We don't know that that's his real name, and I highly doubt that that's his real name.

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.

Money I had 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.

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.

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.

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

I mean, that's heartbreaking, but like,

I don't think that many people would have been able to like sniff that out.

That's pretty normal.

Like, you go in, you find a landlord that you like working with, you find a property, you send money via Zell.

I mean, that seems so standard.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 renting to you in person.

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?

Yeah.

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.

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, 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.

And, you know, that was a real listing.

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.

Okay.

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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

His mom was using drugs and had different men in the house.

There were sometimes incidents with gun violence too.

Wow.

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.

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

Yeah.

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

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.

And it was back in the day where if you texted someone enough, their phone would delete prior messages.

And he just started spamming your phone over and over and over.

It's like, you know, like consume someone.

Totally.

It's like like a form of control.

Yeah.

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.

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

Yeah.

And they like, she had always done something wrong.

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.

Yeah.

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.

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.

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.

Yikes.

That's so manipulative.

Yeah, really.

And unhealthy.

I mean, if someone's really doing that, it's like they need professional help.

Also, the idea that she's walking on eggshells around, you know, someone who the entirety of the relationship is happening online, on the phone,

but that's real now.

You know, your phone can ring and your stomach can drop because that's how relationships are forming.

Yeah.

Oh, this makes me so sad for her.

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 help himself, but it's not her responsibility.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

to die by suicide.

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

It's like,

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.

Or is it outside of that?

At age 15, 16, 17, I wouldn't have known the difference.

No.

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

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.

Yeah, and you probably don't have a lot of other relationship experience to draw from mm-hmm So what are you comparing it to?

Yeah,

so this happened when she was like 16 and 19 they never met in person

Which is interesting.

Obviously, they lived like on different sides of the country, but yeah, it's like online relationship, very real.

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.

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

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.

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 in this at such a young age.

These years deeply affected my life and still do.

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.

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.

Wow.

Yeah, I mean, 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 it's become the norm.

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.

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.

Oh my gosh, I'm going to throw it back.

I played this game called Horse Land.

Oh my gosh, of course you did.

Horse, I did.

I know.

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

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

Yeah.

Like not really totally understanding what's going on.

Yeah, no clue what was going on.

That there were like.

creepy people in what is it horse world horse land horse land

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.

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.

So it would have been very easy for my parents to come in and monitor anything that was going on.

Yeah, I mean.

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

Yeah, for sure.

I feel like a little bit disconnected from what teens are doing now, to be honest.

It's just what I like read about.

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

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

and something that should be acknowledged.

Yeah.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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, 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.

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, 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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And he was sentenced to 100 years.

Wow.

How old was she

when she left?

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.

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.

And what they think happened if she met someone online

on an online game.

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.

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

Yeah.

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

Yeah.

I mean, elderly people are at risk of this in different ways.

We all are, but like

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.

Where the coercion or control takes place entirely online.

I'm so glad there's a term for it now.

That makes sense.

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.

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.

Cause 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 and it's making me feel anxious to try to like help them?

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?

It's not a good feeling.

Yeah, it's so unhealthy.

And I mean, it's so true.

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.

And that was always a big sign for me internally.

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

Right.

Because it's different than like, oh,

my husband refrigerated the peanut butter.

It's like,

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.

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.

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

That is such good advice.

Thanks, Dad.

Yes, Dad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He also told me to never pluck my eyebrows.

I didn't listen.

I did not listen.

I was like, someone should have told me that.

I'm pretty sure my mom did.

And I was like, I'm going to 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.

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.

This is the disappearance of Brooklyn Farthing.

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.

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.

It has it all.

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.

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

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.

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

Yeah, so I 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

Are they both sisters?

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.

So a little sibling rivalry there.

But mostly the two of them were focused on celebrating their grandfather's birthday later that evening.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah.

So

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Yeah, I doubt it was out in Kentucky.

I mean, also in 2013, I still remember like taking cabs even in LA.

Yeah.

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

Totally.

And I mean, in small towns, it still takes a while to get an Uber sometimes.

Plus, you know, she had been with her fiancé for years.

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.

Yeah.

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.

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.

And how do you know that?

that decision happened or that she was uncomfortable 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,

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.

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.

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.

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

And as the night goes on, it's getting really late.

So Brooklyn's texting with her now ex-fiancé and he's at a factory job that's overnight.

And he's going to get off at about 6.30 a.m.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But then at 5:30 a.m., her 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.

Strange.

Suspicious.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

Super weird.

Now, he has never been named as a suspect formally in the case.

He has never been charged with any crimes related to her disappearance, but I found an article.

published on August 11th, 2020.

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.

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.

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.

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 and the fire is very strange and and why would you take a girl home back to your home and then if you're gonna go check on a horse why wouldn't you bring her and drop her off then it doesn't make any sense it doesn't make sense so suspicious i'm shocked that he was never a suspect like how does that happen 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 and it seems like there's a fair amount of like pretty reasonable outrage that there's at least one person who should be um

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 um 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.

It's terrible.

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

feels terrible.

Yeah.

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.

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.

And yeah, I would love to know

why he hasn't been, or or someone hasn't been held accountable.

I guess it's just maybe a lack of evidence.

I have no idea.

So what happened to the ex-fiancé?

Did he end up driving to this house?

Because he was friends with this guy, Josh

Hensley.

Hensley.

So her ex-fiancé was friends with, I don't know how long they'd known each other, but this is his friend, supposedly.

So he knows where he lives, I would assume.

Did he end up driving to come get her?

Or were these texts texts that were sent that were like, just kidding, we're going to a party?

Did he believe them?

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

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.

And then you learn about a weird fire.

And a neighbor had supposedly seen her at the house.

But

it's a rural area already.

And he lived on the outskirts of that.

Yeah, okay.

You know, we don't know what went into the investigation or where the case is like from the investigator's 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.

And obviously, every case is different, but the fact that this man 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?

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?

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 yeah i mean i'm sure there is some um detective or law enforcement locally they're probably equally or more frustrated with the lack of movement in the case maybe you should call him up 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 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.

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

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.

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

The knife at exactlyrightmedia.com.

Send us an email.

Okay, recommendations.

I have multiple.

My first recommendation, it's actually,

we know some people who worked on this show.

It's called Aftermath, Hunt for the Anthrax Killer.

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.

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.

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

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.

And I realized that I had the same experience.

Like, I was like, actually, what was going on with that?

Yeah.

Like, I definitely know the word anthrax and that those letters were sent and I know nothing else about it.

Yeah.

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.

I thought it was really well done and really interesting.

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

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?

I have listened to a few episodes of it, but actually not in a while.

I should go back.

Yeah.

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.

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

It was really well done.

And then I just started their newest season, which is about Mount St.

Helens erupting.

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.

It was in 1980 that it happened.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

We could watch those because I don't know why.

They weren't like

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.

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 who i am 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 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.

It's also stories of people surviving, which is really inspiring.

And it's history as well.

But one of the things I was thinking about is like, if I could create my perfect podcast, I mean, I can create

you can, yeah.

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

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.

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

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.

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

And on one of the earlier seasons gosh i do not remember her name i wish i did 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 had yes and then they cut to this guy who's like I'm leaving after three days.

Like, I can't take this anymore.

It's always the like prepper dudes who can't cut it.

And And then it's like the woman who like made, like wove her own chair.

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 going to give you a spoiler, but Callie rocked her season and was incredible to watch.

But yeah, I was in an earthquake in seventh grade.

Wait, do you want to tell people before we move on real quick what Alone is?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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

these contestants who are wilderness survival experts in some way.

And they all have, you know, different backgrounds, are from different climates.

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.

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 it's actually like reminiscent for me of that documentary grizzly man oh i love that documentary so good very sad but really good yeah and he just you know he really took a lot of pride in setting up these shots and 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 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.

It's just like you don't know.

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.

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 airs, but I swear to you, there was the crew comes and picks up the last person on a boat to tell them they've won.

And on the way there, someone had brought this person cookies and a crew member ate them.

What?

And I'm like,

what kind of person?

Who raised you?

That's wise.

This person's starving in the wilderness.

And you ate the cookies someone made for them?

Yeah, that's so rude.

Like, like beyond my comprehension.

But But yeah, Alone is, I think, just a great show and super impressive.

Yeah, agreed.

We're going to tell a story about it.

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.

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.

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, but we both sort of turn around and see the entire rest of the cafeteria is under the tables.

And so

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.

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.

like just swinging everywhere.

Like, I know I would not survive.

It's better than nothing.

It's better than nothing, but it added another layer of difficulty to the moment.

Yeah.

And yeah.

So then I also remember then walking outside of the cafeteria into like the courtyard of a school I went to and a bird had fallen.

Oh, weird.

And you don't see birds just like fall.

And that's a bad omen.

Yeah.

That's our show.

Thanks for listening.

Yeah.

We'll see you next week.

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 the Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.

This has been an Exactly Right Production, hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith, and me, Patia Eaton.

Our producers are Tom Breifogel and Alexis Amorosi.

This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.

Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.

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

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