The Kill List

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Speaker 15 And I will tell you that the fact that they are called terrorists is because that is what they do. I was completely terrorized.

Speaker 1 Welcome to The Knife. I'm Hannah Smith.
I'm Paisha Eaton. This week we speak with a woman that we're calling Susan.

Speaker 1 We are not using her real name or identifying her location because she asked us not to. And after hearing her story, we understand why.
Sometimes one moment can shift so much in a person's life.

Speaker 1 For Susan, that moment came unexpectedly when a routine day at the office ended with her fearing for her life. And she's never told her story before now.
Let's get into the interview.

Speaker 15 Susan, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Thanks.
It's interesting to be here.

Speaker 1 How are you feeling about it?

Speaker 15 I feel nervous. I think this is something that needs to happen.
And it feels like this big secret that I've been holding. I don't know that I've really

Speaker 15 mentally understood how heavy it's been, but now that I've agreed to do this, I can really feel it's been in my system. So I'm hoping to let this be kind of a purge.
Yeah.

Speaker 15 So you reached out and, you know, your message to me was a little bit cryptic. You were like, something very weird happened to me and you wanted to talk about it finally.

Speaker 15 But before we get to that point, give us just a little bit of a snapshot of what was going on with you. I couldn't be more boring.

Speaker 15 You know, I live in the Midwest and I had a pretty normal, you know, upbringing.

Speaker 15 After I had my daughter, I started a business that was totally different than what I had studied in school and didn't really think it would go anywhere, but it did.

Speaker 15 And it was, it was really successful. Like nothing unusual to report in my life.
At the time that this happened, I was just working a ton. I was a single mom.

Speaker 15 I was going to soccer practice with my daughter. You know, I mean, just like things could not have been more normal.
So I had a manufacturing business.

Speaker 15 And, you know, I think at the time this happened, I had about 70 employees. The corporate offices were right there on the manufacturing site.
So I had a lot of interactions with my employees. It was

Speaker 15 production work. And frankly, it was people who were living under some pretty hard circumstances.
We tried really hard to pay them a living wage and to, you know, make life better for them.

Speaker 15 But, you know, things happen and, you know people would show up we had law enforcement show up a few times and so it's just kind of

Speaker 15 yeah

Speaker 15 so when this when this initially happened i was just like oh yeah the you know law enforcement's here well i wonder what's up today we'll see who's getting in trouble today you know so it was summer of 2016 kind of early summer i was at work you know i was just working away in my office and one of my front office people came up and she kind of leaned around the corner and said the FBI is here and they want to talk to you.

Speaker 15 And I was like, The FBI? Oh my gosh, somebody's in deep trouble, you know? So we got him into the conference room. It was this guy who came in.

Speaker 15 And so I went in there and said hello and sat down with him. And right off the bat, I noticed that he was so nervous.
He was holding a laptop and he was holding some folders.

Speaker 15 Like he did not look like an FBI agent. He was a very unimposing, kind of this very soft, gentle looking person, not like official or anything like that.

Speaker 15 And his hands were shaking and I could see his hands sweating. Wow.
And I thought, this is really weird. I mean, it's so weird.
Patient and I know we've interviewed multiple FBI agents at this point.

Speaker 1 And we're always just like blown away by their confidence. Like, you did what for how long? And you thought that was fun.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like definitely atypical of an FBI agent to come off as nervous, even if they are.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 15 I just kind of chalked it up to, you know, maybe I've seen too many movies because I haven't ever, to my knowledge, met an FBI agent before. So I thought, well, okay, I guess we're all human.

Speaker 15 But, you know, he was rattled. He seemed like he didn't know how to start the conversation.
And he just said, I'm here.

Speaker 15 The FBI has a duty to inform you that we have learned that there is a Middle Eastern terrorist group that issues kill lists. He called it a kill list.

Speaker 15 And he said, the people who are on that list, the FBI, you know, we come and inform you that you're on that list. And I was thinking, well, who's on that list?

Speaker 15 I was trying to rack my brain to remember if somebody on my crew was Middle Eastern or something. And he said, you're on the list.

Speaker 15 I looked at him and I just started laughing. I mean, it just was so absurd that I started laughing.
He was, poor guy. I mean,

Speaker 15 he didn't know what to do with my reaction. I think he was ready to be very serious.
And I think he was ready to have me fall apart and, you know, get all, you know, but I was just laughing.

Speaker 15 And he said, let me just lay this out for you. Let me tell you what we know.
And he opened up his laptop and he pulled up a website, which was in an Arabic language.

Speaker 15 And he translated it and scrolled down a little bit. And there I was.
And it was my name, my full name and my address. And I thought, oh my God.

Speaker 1 Just a few minutes earlier, Susan had been going about an otherwise normal day. And now she's being told that a violent terrorist organization wants her dead.

Speaker 1 None of it makes sense, especially coming from this scared, sweaty man sitting in front of her. Was he really with the FBI?

Speaker 15 Like, who is this guy? What's going on? And when he had come in, he had shown me his badge and he had given me his card. And so I said, hang on just a minute.
I need to go talk to somebody.

Speaker 15 And he said, no, you can't talk to anybody. This has to be completely confidential.
and i said no way

Speaker 15 i don't even know how to understand this information i'll be right back so i went in and i talked to my ceo he'd been working for me for like 10 years i knew him really well and i said i need you to

Speaker 15 check out this guy call the fbi don't call the number that's on this card call them and see if this guy is actually an FBI agent. He doesn't seem like it.
He's really nervous.

Speaker 15 Yeah, that's so smart to double check because it's like a random person walks in, he's sweating, and tells you shocking information.

Speaker 1 So you go and you talk to your CEO, and did he or she already know that the FBI was in the building, supposedly?

Speaker 15 Yeah, he did. So when I went in and said, call the FBI and check this guy out, I didn't tell him what was going on.
I just said, make sure this guy's real, and then come into the conference room.

Speaker 15 So he did. And he came in and said, yep, this guy's the real deal.
And I said, well, sit down because we need to talk.

Speaker 15 And so the FBI guy said, I don't recommend this. He said, this cannot get out.
So he sat there. My CEO received this, you know, news.
Hey, Susan's on this terrorist kill list.

Speaker 15 And so they told me that there was one other person in my state that was on the list.

Speaker 1 Susan asked the question anyone in her position would ask. Why me? Her life was, in her own words, boring.
It didn't make any sense that this terrorist organization would want to kill her.

Speaker 1 But this FBI agent, he didn't have an answer. And when Susan pressed him on it, it almost felt like he was guessing.

Speaker 15 They couldn't figure out why we had been picked for the list. They didn't know if it was randomly generated.

Speaker 15 The other person who was in my state didn't have anything to do with my business industry that I was in.

Speaker 15 You know, the only thing that he said, because I have a little bit of an online presence because of my business and we, you know, do a lot of marketing.

Speaker 15 i'd been in a women's magazine about you know women who accomplish stuff and so he thought you know maybe because you're a woman in leadership but it really felt like he was just taking stabs in the dark or whatever that saying is so really he he had no idea necessarily no idea but you're just getting the information that your name is on a kill list and this is a you know well-known terrorist organization yeah

Speaker 15 How are you even processing that information in that moment? What are you thinking?

Speaker 15 Well, I couldn't stop laughing. I mean, my CEO and this guy, they were looking at me like I was nuts because I think I had so much adrenaline going and

Speaker 15 I just was laughing.

Speaker 1 And so you're receiving this like mind-blowing information that is both like incredibly scary and makes no sense at all.

Speaker 1 He has no reason why you would be on the list to offer you.

Speaker 1 How do you leave off? Is it just like

Speaker 1 good luck?

Speaker 15 Basically, I mean, really, he said,

Speaker 15 you know, I said, what should I do?

Speaker 15 And he said, well, you need to call your local county sheriff's department because if something happens and you need to call 911, they're going to think you're nuts. And so you need to alert them.

Speaker 15 And I was thinking, you alert them, you know, like you're just coming to tell me. Like, I can't believe that law enforcement isn't hearing about this.

Speaker 15 So he said, you know, call your sheriff's department, have a conversation with them, and then just be safe. And he said, call me if you need anything.

Speaker 15 And he slides this like sweaty kind of damp card across the table at me. And I'm thinking, dude, you are the last person that I'm going to call if there's any kind of a threat.

Speaker 15 So

Speaker 15 he left and my CEO and I went into our office and shut the door and just stood there and looked at each other. Like, what the hell?

Speaker 15 And it was funny because I was looking at my CEO and there was this switch that flipped that was like, okay, this isn't real. This totally isn't real.

Speaker 15 And got very busy and kind of went back to work and was bustling around his desk and all this kind of stuff. And I was thinking, wow, I all of a sudden felt very alone.

Speaker 15 And I went outside and I was just sitting on the ground trying to figure out what to do next.

Speaker 15 And I called my partner and told him what had happened. And he was,

Speaker 15 it was the very first experience of, oh, it was, they got you mixed up with somebody else.

Speaker 1 Sweaty and nervous or not, this amateur agent was verifiable FBI, which meant the government thought there was good reason to warn her. As the adrenaline wore off, it was all sinking in.

Speaker 1 This was real. Susan was on a hit list.

Speaker 1 An organization that she'd read about in the news, articles about violent acts and extreme tactics such as beheadings, was now targeting her this was so scary she could hardly process it but the two people she trusted to tell her ceo and her partner they didn't seem scared at all in fact they blew it off as a mistake this didn't help her calm down it just made her feel even more afraid i've thought about this so much it's not victim blaming it's just dismissal So I thought, okay, I am in this by myself.

Speaker 15 Can I ask, though, like, cause you do have kind of a common name. So

Speaker 15 how are you sure? Because I think you did know it was actually you, right? Yeah. I mean, they had my name and address on the website.
Yeah. So they have your address there.

Speaker 15 Like, how can that be a mistake? Especially when your life is, this is talking about the potential of your life being in danger. Yeah.

Speaker 15 It was heavy on my mind that the FBI guy had said, don't tell anybody, because there was no way that I was going to be able to deal with it or figure out what to do by myself.

Speaker 15 So I called my dad, who is just like the loving, most sweetest, most protective dad ever. And he ended up going to the FBI and saying, okay, somebody showed up on my daughter's doorstep.

Speaker 15 What the hell is going on? And all they could really do is confirm. They showed him all the information that they showed me.

Speaker 15 They gave him the same instructions about get a hold of local law enforcement and just. let us know if anything happens.
I was kind of stunned.

Speaker 15 I mean, I don't even really remember the next couple of days. And my partner was continuing to be like, ah, you know, I'd say, I'm so scared.
Aren't you scared? And he'd say, no, I'm not scared.

Speaker 1 In moments like this one, Susan started to feel like she was living in the Twilight Zone. But the FBI had left her with one more piece of advice that might help her stay safe.

Speaker 1 Call your local sheriff's office. The idea was that if she could update them and let them know that she was on this hit list, then they could be on high alert.

Speaker 1 They could be prepared if she ever did need their help.

Speaker 15 So I called my local sheriff's office and I remember talking with the dispatch person and she was like, um,

Speaker 15 okay, so what you're saying is like, this is not an emergency, but, you know, she was just trying to get the whole story straight. And she was just like, yeah, okay, we'll have somebody call you.

Speaker 15 And so somebody did call me back a couple of days later and they had somebody from the sheriff's department come to my house. and he thought I was nuts.

Speaker 15 I mean, he just thought this is the biggest waste of my time. He didn't even really ask me any questions.
He didn't want to talk about it. I have two cats.
One of them jumped up on the counter.

Speaker 15 So we spent like 20 minutes talking about my cat. He was telling me about his mom's cats and he had zero interest, zero curiosity.
There was no sense of urgency.

Speaker 15 I was so freaked out and scared that nobody was responding to this.

Speaker 1 Because this is now the third time. You brought it to your CEO who sort of, you know, maybe did his best in the moment, but didn't fully process it, was not sort of rallying to help you figure it out.

Speaker 1 Your partner who dismisses it as a mistake and doesn't show any real concern. And now the local sheriff's office that the FBI instructed you to contact is showing you the same sort of nonchalance.

Speaker 15 Yeah. And just disinterest.
He was a little bit older, and it was kind of like I was the hysterical woman. And I wasn't being hysterical.
I was talking to him. I wasn't crying.

Speaker 15 I wasn't upset, but he was just like, don't worry, hun, you know, this is fine.

Speaker 15 So I talked to him about my cat for a while and he left and just, you know, gave me his card and said, let me know if you need anything.

Speaker 15 So I'm still kind of in this place where I'm just, this is nothing. This is silly.
And then feeling just

Speaker 15 so stunned. I was just in shock.
I'm nobody. I have not done anything controversial.
I've been totally kind of apolitical my whole life. I've not done anything that would be a threat to anyone.

Speaker 15 And so I'm trying to balance that. And I was home one afternoon and there's a knock at the door and I go answer it and it's this guy.
He's my area's SWAT team guy. And I'm thinking, okay, here we go.

Speaker 15 Here we go again. And he turned out to be an angel.
I mean, he turned out to be

Speaker 15 such a grounding force and he was so helpful. He had two guys with him and he showed me his card, showed me his badge.
He was like, if you want to check this out, we'll wait right here.

Speaker 15 And at that point, I was like, come on in. I'm done checking people out.

Speaker 15 So he came in and he said he was from my county's SWAT team. And he said, We have just been debriefed by the FBI.
We know that this is happening.

Speaker 15 We know that you talked to your local sheriff's office and they didn't know about it at the time. They know now.
We have some things that we need to do today and we're here to help you.

Speaker 15 And it was such a relief to have somebody take this seriously. I just thought, holy shit, I am in deep trouble.
I am in really deep trouble here. So they kind of broke up.

Speaker 15 You know, this guy, the main guy was talking to me. I'll call him Alan.
He was talking to me, talking through what they knew about the website, what they knew about the kill lists.

Speaker 15 And then the other two guys went around my house. They took pictures of every square inch of my house.
And then they walked me around and said, okay, a person could hide here.

Speaker 15 A person could hide here. They walked me around my yard because I have a lot of landscaping in my yard.

Speaker 15 And they said, you need to cut all this down because it'd be so easy for somebody to hide right here.

Speaker 1 Susan's daughter was away at college while all of this was happening, but Susan thought about her all the time. She wanted someone to take this seriously, to make her feel safe again.

Speaker 1 And now someone was. At the same time, the very presence of this local SWAT team made her nightmare more real.
They walked her through her house, pointing out places a trained assassin could hide.

Speaker 1 They told her to cut down trees and bushes in her yard so an attacker couldn't use them for cover. This was no longer a theoretical threat.

Speaker 1 Every moment of her life now carried the weight of potential violence.

Speaker 15 They said, when you're in your car, make sure your car is always locked. When you pull up to your garage, you're in your locked car.

Speaker 15 Open up the garage door, drive in, close the garage door right away, look around as you're still in your locked car, and then unlock your car and go into your house. I was so afraid.

Speaker 15 Everything that they were saying was making it so real. They had thought through how this organization was going to carry through with their threat.

Speaker 15 And it was kind of like, you know, things that I had been thinking about in the middle of the night, but they were actually playing out scenarios. And then at the end, they were about to leave.

Speaker 15 And he said, we're going to have people surveilling your house. They put this,

Speaker 15 I can't remember what the word is, but it's, it's a designation that they put on my house. And it's, I think it's called Hazard One.
When the SWAT team was leaving, you know, I said, what should I do?

Speaker 15 Should I get a gun? I didn't know what to do. And he said, The reality is, is that they're very good at what they do.
And if they want to get you, they will get you. And you will not see it coming.

Speaker 15 they will pick you off in a parking lot or somewhere where you least expected because that's what they do i think at that moment

Speaker 15 i just

Speaker 15 i felt so exposed i felt like a sitting duck

Speaker 15 and i felt very isolated

Speaker 15 You know,

Speaker 15 all the people that I told were men, and I don't have anything against men, but I wish that I told somebody who had a little more capacity for empathy because everybody was so, I think, overwhelmed by the information that they didn't know how to think about what was needed at the time for me.

Speaker 15 And so at that point, I just stopped. I couldn't work.
I was afraid to go to work because I didn't want to put anybody else in danger.

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Speaker 4 Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur.

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Speaker 1 As life continued around her, Susan's reality completely shifted. She couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't walk to her kitchen without looking over her shoulder.

Speaker 1 Every creaky floorboard, every hum of a car engine, it all made her heart race.

Speaker 1 The SWAT team was surveilling her home and her work, which brought its own mix of emotions.

Speaker 1 Imagine looking outside and seeing a man in your yard, knowing he's there to see if anyone else is there, trying to kill you.

Speaker 15 They were watching my facility, this big black suburban, like three times a week at night would drive by.

Speaker 15 you know, those spotlights that they have on their cars, there would be these big spotlights that would go on as they drove by.

Speaker 15 I think early on, I hadn't remembered this until yesterday, but sometimes they would walk around my backyard, which it was comforting knowing that somebody was taking this seriously, but it also was terrifying.

Speaker 15 And I just started to fall apart.

Speaker 15 And I'm like a strong person. I'm in manufacturing and it's a male-dominated world.
And I have to deal with a lot of rough people.

Speaker 15 And I really started to fall apart and I think it was because I could hardly eat. I could not sleep

Speaker 15 and I would be laying in bed and I would be kind of like in this semi

Speaker 15 almost falling asleep and then I would hear like the slightest sound and it was like somebody was shocking me right in my solar plexus. It was just like this huge shock of adrenaline.

Speaker 15 So it was just over and over and over again. And I felt so alone.
And I would say to my my partner, are you afraid? And he'd say, no. And he'd say, don't worry, I'm right here.

Speaker 15 And then he would fall asleep. And I knew that

Speaker 15 he couldn't help me.

Speaker 1 Susan's home was no longer a place she felt safe or in control. She knew what it was like to be tired.
She'd been a single mother. She ran her own company.

Speaker 1 But this kind of sleep deprivation was different. It was worse.

Speaker 15 It got to the point where I live kind of close to some foothills, and I got so

Speaker 15 unglued from lack of sleep that he would take me up there and he would just like sit on the hood of his car, spread some blankets out, and I would just sleep because I needed sleep so desperately.

Speaker 15 And I was so afraid to fall asleep because it was, I felt like I was the only one watching. I felt like I was the only one that was taking it seriously.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 15 this guy from the FBI would check in. He called me and he said, I'm going to send you an email and it's got some information in it.

Speaker 15 And there's a photograph of somebody that's a sympathizer, you know, or maybe part of this terrorist group who we're watching.

Speaker 15 And they live like 45 minutes, a town that's like 45 minutes away from me. And he said, we want you to know what he looks like.

Speaker 1 Up until this point, the terrorist group behind the hit list was still just made up of nameless, faceless people thousands of miles away.

Speaker 1 It was scary, but now here was this person who lived just a short drive away, a sympathizer who agreed with and supported their mission and ideologies. It's a very real threat.
In 2014, a U.S.

Speaker 1 citizen and terrorist sympathizer, Ali Mohamed Brown, killed four people for what he described as vengeance over U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Speaker 1 In 2019, a man named Rondell Henry was arrested after plotting attacks in DC.

Speaker 1 He'd rented a U-Haul and planned to run into a crowd of pedestrians, but abandoned his plan at the last second because he thought the crowd wasn't big enough.

Speaker 1 Maryland prosecutors determined Henry had been inspired by a terrorist attack in France back in 2016.

Speaker 1 This email from the FBI, alerting Susan of a nearby sympathizer, included both his photo and the make-in model of his car. He was real and he was close.

Speaker 15 I started seeing those cars everywhere. You know, it's like it it all of a sudden comes into your awareness and they were everywhere.
It was a minivan. My God, there are minivans all over the place.

Speaker 15 So I was starting to be in this very weird, suspended place, which I know now is just like I was in this big

Speaker 15 vat of trauma that was going on. And so I decided I needed to go someplace where nobody knew where I was.
So I went about two hours away and just rented this little place.

Speaker 15 And I'm not a big drinker, but when I got up there, i ended up getting really drunk the first night that i was up there which is like two and a half drinks for me but it did the job i remember vaguely it was around the time when dennis miller was a really popular comedian and he would do those top 10 lists do you remember that i'm not familiar is this a comedian He was a comedian, yeah.

Speaker 15 And he would do these top 10 lists. Okay.
And that was very popular at the time.

Speaker 15 And so as I'm getting plastered, I started making up this list about the top 10 things that are worse than being on a terrorist hit list.

Speaker 15 And I started to laugh and it kind of started to break up a little bit. Like, I couldn't be afraid anymore.
I couldn't sustain that level of terror.

Speaker 15 And I will tell you that the fact that they are called terrorists is because that is what they do. They terrorize people.
I have never had a hair on my head touched, but I was completely terrorized.

Speaker 15 It's interesting now that I look back on it and I see how effective that was to do that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 How much time had gone by between this first meeting with the FBI agent at your place of work to this moment in the rental two hours away where you're like, okay, something's got to give here?

Speaker 15 I think it was probably like three weeks. That's a long time to be feeling that afraid and not sleeping.
I mean, it just really does sound like a nightmare.

Speaker 15 I mean, I think that like a lot of people can identify with being home, being afraid, having those thoughts of what if someone breaks into my house. Yeah.
I mean, it was all orchestrated so well.

Speaker 15 And maybe that was accidental, but like the method of what they did to be terrifying. At every step of the way, there was no good solution.
There was no way to resolve it.

Speaker 15 So it was just kind of hanging out there. So the point where I got to, I cannot sustain this terror any longer.
I cannot do it. I can't do it physically or mentally, emotionally.

Speaker 15 I can't do this anymore.

Speaker 15 And then I woke up the next morning with, of course, a hangover,

Speaker 15 but I heard on the news that there had been a shooting at a concert in Dallas, Texas, and a bunch of police officers had been shot.

Speaker 15 It was like we were receiving this news of, oh my God, there was a shooting. It was like that was when the last piece broke free or I let go.
It's like, okay, not even police are safe.

Speaker 15 And then my mind just started going there of like, none of us are safe. I could do everything.
This could be resolved. And I could die in a car accident on the way home.

Speaker 15 I could have a massive stroke and fall down dead right here. The fact that I have a little bit of information about this

Speaker 15 has to just be a side note because

Speaker 15 at the same time that everything is okay,

Speaker 15 we all are going to go at some point.

Speaker 1 This is the moment that everything shifted for Susan. She had done all she could do to protect herself, but had also been told, if they want to get you, they will, and you will not see it coming.

Speaker 1 From the moment that FBI agent walked into her office, her sense of safety had been shattered, replaced by a constant, gnawing fear, a fear so great and so powerful that it was overtaking her life.

Speaker 1 She knew she could not go on like this. She realized that she wasn't more or less safe than she had been before because every day was full of unknowns, risks, and surprises.

Speaker 1 No one knows when they're going to die. In the end, it wasn't taking control that gave Susan a sense of peace or safety.
It was accepting how little control she was in.

Speaker 15 So I kind of went back to my life and, you know, I did all the things.

Speaker 15 I got an alarm system and I cut down a lot of my landscaping and I did those things because because it felt good to me to feel like I was doing something for myself and that I was taking action.

Speaker 15 Slowly over the years, some of those habits have melted away, which was such a jarring experience when I, you know, went to my front door the other night to turn off the lights and I saw that it was unlocked and I was like, oh my God, you know, I have slipped that far.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 15 I've tried to tell a couple of people over the years. I think like maybe two people.

Speaker 15 And so trying to tell people about a trauma and then trying to convince them of its authenticity at the same time is horrible. I can't do both.

Speaker 15 And that's why I wanted to tell this story to you because it's real. And how could I make this up?

Speaker 15 When I went back to work, we decided to, because I was so concerned about putting other people, you know, in harm's way.

Speaker 15 And I thought, you know, maybe it won't be an attempt that is like, maybe they're not going to shoot me sniper style. Maybe they'll send a bomb to the building.

Speaker 15 And then I was thinking about all these people who,

Speaker 15 you know, oh my gosh, this is terrifying. So we put a lot of protocol in place.
We changed the format of the building in a way. So, you know, you had to have a badge to swipe in.

Speaker 15 All the packages were checked in a particular part of the building before they came. Anything that was not like clearly marked from a vendor that we knew was not opened.

Speaker 1 And so, when do you decide to tell your daughter, and what is her reaction?

Speaker 15 I told her

Speaker 15 about

Speaker 15 four years ago.

Speaker 1 That's 2021. This happens in 2016.

Speaker 1 It's a long time.

Speaker 15 It is. Yeah.

Speaker 15 I actually told a friend of mine about it, one of my best friends, and she

Speaker 15 is very logical. She's very research-minded.
You know, she's like, okay, I'm looking this up. And she's like, yeah, I see that there are articles about these lists.

Speaker 15 And I see that there is stuff out there. And she and I kind of problem-solved.
When I told my daughter about it, we were in person.

Speaker 15 I told her in a way that was framed around, you know, I'm safe, this is okay,

Speaker 15 it's over, but I just want you to know that this happened. And she was very initially upset, she was very scared.
You know, she and I are really close.

Speaker 15 I think she was able to process through it, but it's like, what do you even process through? I have not found a good way to resolve this yet, really.

Speaker 15 So, you just kind of have to let it age and diminish, I think.

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Speaker 1 The list Susan was on is real, and it's not the only one. In fact, terrorist organizations have been making these hit lists for years.

Speaker 1 Some targeted names of people who worked for Homeland Security or were members of the U.S. military.
Others seemed totally random. Susan never got an answer as to why her name was on a list.

Speaker 1 How long did that SWAT team or the FBI surveil your home? How long did that go on for?

Speaker 15 It went on for about a year and a half. But it got less and less.
At first, it was probably, you know, three times a week. then it kind of went to once a week.

Speaker 15 We have to be really careful at work because if we call 911, the way that they explained it to me is they come guns drawn.

Speaker 15 So they're not going to just come up and knock on the door and say, oh, did you call 911? You know, they're coming expecting action, I guess.

Speaker 15 So at one point, I did have to call my local sheriff's office for something that was totally unrelated. And it was non-emergency, but they came.
And when they came, a SWAT team guy showed up too.

Speaker 15 And after I had talked to the sheriff about what my business was, the SWAT team guy said, how are you doing? We're watching this. We're on this.
Every time that you call, it's routed directly to us.

Speaker 15 So we will always come. And I was like, oh, God, can't you take this thing off my house? And he said, no, we're not going to do that.
I'm glad that people know, but

Speaker 15 it feels over.

Speaker 1 This decision to stay anonymous on this podcast and sort of relatively anonymous in your life with this story, although you've told some trusted loved ones. Why?

Speaker 15 I don't want to get the attention of anybody. I don't want to make myself a target again.
That feels very important.

Speaker 15 Yeah. I don't want to say, oh, we forgot that person.

Speaker 15 Well, somebody go get her.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 15 And I also don't want to put myself back in that place of feeling exposed. That is a bad feeling.
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

Speaker 15 Just thinking about the whole ordeal and everything you had to go through and sleepless nights and all the fear.

Speaker 15 You know, how do you think back now about the FBI's decision to inform you of this threat? Like, are you glad that that happened? Were you glad that you knew? Or what is your thinking around that?

Speaker 15 That is such a tough question.

Speaker 15 It's kind of like yes and no. I think that I have a right to know.
And I also think that I went through a lot. It's easily one of the worst things that's happened happened in my life.

Speaker 15 And I think it was all a terrorist ruse.

Speaker 15 And I think it was designed to put me through what I went through. I wish they had told me in a different way.

Speaker 15 I wish they had brought me in so they didn't send like some nervous newbie out to drop this in my lap and

Speaker 15 then say, good luck. I wish they'd told me in a different way.

Speaker 15 And you know what? I also want to say that to everyone from the initial guy who came to talk to me to the sheriff's department and the SWAT team, I know that everybody was trying to do their best.

Speaker 15 No one was unkind to me, maybe dismissive, yes, but I think that no one had been through this before and they didn't know what to do.

Speaker 15 So I don't want to sound like I'm trying to disparage any of those people who try to help.

Speaker 1 When the FBI agent who initially came to speak with you gave you the information that there was one other person in your state on the list.

Speaker 1 Were you given that person's name? Did you ever speak with them?

Speaker 15 No, they did tell me that they were a doctor or dentist or something. I kind of wish that I had asked for that information.

Speaker 15 If there's someone out there that hears this, I would love to talk to them to see what their experience was.

Speaker 15 The main SWAT team guy has sent me information. It stopped probably about five years ago, but he would send me some follow-up information.
And another

Speaker 15 list was posted on the website, on the terrorist website, probably

Speaker 15 two years after

Speaker 15 the one that I was on was published. And all those people were on the East Coast and they were all either current or ex-military.
So he's trying to piece together, like, how did I get on this list?

Speaker 15 And he said, at this point, my best guess is that it was just random, that it was just a random thing.

Speaker 1 I'm so curious how putting random names on a list, although it is terrifying for the people who are those names on the list, how it benefits that organization.

Speaker 1 I mean, I don't know if you have any insight on this after your experience, but is it just to say, you know what, FBI, I'm going to occupy your time with this random civilian?

Speaker 1 Did they ever offer you anything about why you

Speaker 15 no i mean they had some guesses i think i've already mentioned it was because women in leadership and that i have a little bit of an online presence but like i mean compared to the average i'm the same as everybody else everyone has an online presence now yeah right yeah and so when did you first start really feeling like you were in control of your life again, being able to sleep at night?

Speaker 1 You know, you said that your relationship ultimately ended, which I assume then means you're sleeping alone in your house

Speaker 1 with your cats.

Speaker 15 Yes,

Speaker 15 my cats and my dogs. I have two dogs with big, loud, scary, vicious sounding barks, which is great.

Speaker 1 Love that.

Speaker 15 And they would definitely defend me. I think it just goes back to, I used to be really afraid of the dark.
I mean, up until like long after my daughter was born.

Speaker 15 And I realized when my daughter was born that I had to get over it because you get up in the middle of the night a lot when you're a parent. Now it feels like a choice for me.

Speaker 15 I I live alone with my animals and I can lay in bed and be afraid or I cannot.

Speaker 15 And at this point, there's no way in hell I'm going to let somebody else dictate whether or not I'm laying in bed feeling afraid. That's up to me.

Speaker 15 That maybe sounds kind of simple, but it's the only place I've been able to make a change, to make an actual change in how I feel. Yeah, that makes sense.
Like in your own mind.

Speaker 15 Well, it's tricky, right? Because the threat was real.

Speaker 15 so it's not like this was just in your head or your mind you know this was a real thing that the outside world was like this is a real threat you know having a swat team come to your house is terrifying i imagine but then beyond that what you do with that and it's like yeah it's so much about your own mind and your own fear i don't know how to talk to people even yet without having it sound totally crazy and phony i've never heard anyone talk about anything close to this so

Speaker 15 That's why it was very hard for me to figure out how to email you guys.

Speaker 15 But I will tell you that listening to the podcasts that you've already put out, I wanted to tell my story in a way that somebody would thoughtfully investigate what happened and not try and rip me apart over it.

Speaker 15 Because, like I said, that dismissal is really tough.

Speaker 15 And I wanted to talk to somebody who

Speaker 15 would

Speaker 15 be responsible. about handling this information in a safe way.

Speaker 1 It sounds like in your case, you've just learned to live with this obscure, terrifying threat and manage that fear in a healthy way, but there is no, okay, it's over. And what does that feel like?

Speaker 15 I think I had to create an over for myself

Speaker 15 because I don't want it to be part of my life. I don't want to carry this around inside anymore.

Speaker 15 I don't want to have this feeling like I have this thing that's so scary and so big, but I have to keep it a secret. I'm just not willing to do that.
And the over part for me is just

Speaker 15 choosing not to, like, I'm not going to participate. You know, if I could talk to the people, I would say, I'm done.

Speaker 15 I am not going to participate in your little terrorist shenanigans that you are doing. I'm not going to do it anymore.
So that has been been my delineation of it being over.

Speaker 1 Well, that was our conversation with Susan. And I have to say, I really enjoyed talking with her.

Speaker 1 One thing that really stands out from that conversation was this idea that she brought up of, I think she called it victim dismissal.

Speaker 1 You know, she was experiencing this terrifying situation and yet everyone around her for a period of time kind of acted like she was making too big of a deal of it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I loved the way she put that because even in her own mind, she was trying to assess the threat that was, you know, what this FBI agent had told her and how vague everything was, but how real it also was because the actual FBI was there and the people that she trusted didn't really know what to make of it.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think that even someone with the best of intentions could think that they're doing someone good by trying to like put their mind at ease. Oh, it's nothing.
It was just a mistake.

Speaker 1 There's no way. But don't worry.
Don't worry. But then the SWAT team's at your house and it is worrying.
How do you not worry when a SWAT team is literally at your house?

Speaker 1 I would be very, very concerned. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I want to quickly mention as well, even though Susan didn't want to use her name or her location, which I totally understand,

Speaker 1 She mentioned that if anything came out of this, it would be interesting to her to connect with someone else who had been through this similar situation of being on a terrorist hit list.

Speaker 1 So, you know, I don't know if someone is listening to this and you're like screaming at your phone right now. I've been through this too.

Speaker 1 Send us an email at thenife at exactlyrightmedia.com and we would love to speak with you and hopefully be able to connect you with Susan. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so initially Susan reached out to us via email and you were like, okay, we have to do this interview, but I don't even want to tell you too much about it because her story is one that we've never never heard before.

Speaker 1 And I was totally game. Sometimes I love going into interviews like that because, you know, you can find yourself asking different questions than maybe if you had prepped yourself ahead of time.

Speaker 1 And I certainly wasn't expecting the story that she told.

Speaker 1 And one of the major pieces that came with Susan agreeing to speak with us, even though she had reached out, was that we not identify the organization that had put her on this target list.

Speaker 1 And after researching these sorts of target lists, there have been multiple terrorist organizations that have made them. And so we're just going to talk about a few examples.

Speaker 1 A well-known organization, ISIS, created multiple lists just like this one.

Speaker 1 You know, one thing Susan told us in the interview about these lists in general and why the FBI reached out to meet with her was that these lists weren't really considered to be an actual threat to people.

Speaker 1 And so when they first started popping up, the FBI wasn't alerting the people who were on them. What do you mean they weren't considered a threat? They weren't sure what to make of it.

Speaker 1 Like they didn't think that notifying people was necessarily in their best interest, maybe. Okay.

Speaker 1 And I wasn't able to verify that, but that is what she told us as to part of the reason why the FBI came to tell her this, even though they had very little else to offer in that first meeting. Right.

Speaker 1 I remember that, like that they had gotten some pushback because maybe they had not notified people about being on hit lists. So then they're notifying people.
And, you know, that's also scary.

Speaker 1 I don't know what you're supposed to do necessarily. So scary.
And that FBI agent didn't know either.

Speaker 1 And so now years have passed and some research has come out about the actual purpose of these lists. Okay.
And so what is the real threat?

Speaker 1 In one of the articles I read about this, a man named Matthew Levitt from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, he said he believes that these lists are trying to spark the interest of lone wolves.

Speaker 1 So sympathizers, you know, which we talked about during the interview, people who believe in the mission of a terrorist organization, but might live domestically and have access to people on this list that the people overseas in some foreign country do not.

Speaker 1 Wow. Yeah.
So it's like this message to sympathizers. If you want to join our cause, you don't have to fly across the world.
Here's a mission for you to do. in your own state or something like that.

Speaker 1 Right. Because they would love to take responsibility for an attack.
And so

Speaker 1 that is the real threat.

Speaker 1 And that to me, learning that both partially in our interview with Susan, when she was alerted of a nearby sympathizer, and then making even more sense of what that threat really meant after researching it, that's really scary because, I mean, we were able to pull up multiple examples of those threats being carried out, almost carried out, and resulting in senseless tragedy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it is scary. It makes it more real.
And yeah, that was a clear escalation in the story.

Speaker 1 When there was a name and a vehicle, it wasn't just this sort of theoretical threat from an organization that was across, you know, the world.

Speaker 1 Suddenly it was, there could be someone carrying this out right now. And as you said, there's been a few examples of this happening, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And the surveillance that was happening at her home and at her work.

Speaker 1 You know, it wasn't 24-7. It wasn't like she had security detail following her around.
Although they they were checking in, you know, it wasn't like this total relief.

Speaker 1 It was almost just reaffirming the fear without making her feel any safer.

Speaker 1 So this idea that these target lists, the purpose was to instigate these lone wolf attacks, it's real.

Speaker 1 You know, she talked about like being terrorized, feeling terrorized and how horrible that was for her.

Speaker 1 how really she just wanted someone to kind of acknowledge it in her life and say, yeah, that's really scary.

Speaker 1 And it's really scary to be in your home and think that someone might be actively trying to kill you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, just someone to confide in about your fear, even if they're not going to be able to offer you a solution, to have to sort of carry that emotional burden on your own would be really, really lonely.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Another moment of the interview that I wanted to touch on is Susan mentioned to us that her house is labeled a hazard one. I had never heard that term before.
I had never heard of that either. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So when this whole ordeal happened, the purpose behind it is great. It's like, okay, we're alerting local law enforcement of this threat so that if you ever meet us, we're ready for the threat.

Speaker 1 But all these years later, her house is still labeled a hazard one.

Speaker 1 So even if someone slips and falls, she has to be ready for, you know, people to come guns drawn SWAT team if she calls 911, if she goes to sell her house.

Speaker 1 That's what was really interesting when she said that. She would have to disclose disclose that to the potential buyers that, hey, this house is a hazard one.

Speaker 1 So FYI, let's say you have little kids and you need to call 911, just like be prepared that there will be, there's going to be a SWAT team coming to your house. Terrifying.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's not a small consequence. It's small relative to the fear that someone's going to kill you, but it's just another consequence of this happening to her.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And she had asked for that to be removed because it's been almost 10 years years since this happened, I believe. And, you know, she feels like it's really not a threat anymore.

Speaker 1 But technically, since her name was on that list, it's not like there's an end point of like, okay, officially this is wrapped up and your name is not on this list anymore.

Speaker 1 So it's kind of this open-ended thing where they're going to keep her house and her workplace listed as hazard one just in case, I guess.

Speaker 1 Right, because it's not like this terrorist organization is going to say, you, Susan, are released from the list. The list just lives now.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And actually, I do want to mention, and we touched on this in the interview: Susan's a listener of the podcast and reached out to us. And we absolutely love that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm so grateful she reached out and wanted to tell us this story. Such a unique,

Speaker 1 strange, true crime story where like no one's getting hurt really, but it's that human experience we talk so much about where you're like,

Speaker 1 okay, someone gets dropped into this nuts situation and now what? Yeah, I'm grateful that she wanted to talk to us about it because she had not told very many people at all about this. To this day.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 One of the things I wanted to talk to you about in this wraparound specifically was your thoughts on the part of the story where Susan talked about being a parent, being a mom.

Speaker 1 You know, in the beginning, when she was telling us her story, she said she's a single mom.

Speaker 1 And then when we got to the point of her talking about being on this hit list and the SWAT team coming to her house, you know, the idea of a kid being in the house was really scary.

Speaker 1 It turned out that her daughter was away at college at the time. Still scary, but, you know, she didn't have a kid in the house at that moment.

Speaker 1 But I'm just curious if you have any like reflections or thoughts about that. Well, I'll say that before I knew her daughter was living out of the house at the time, it was my first question.

Speaker 1 What do you do? I mean, I feel like my instinct would be to just leave. My kid is a toddler, so I've been a parent for much less time than she has.

Speaker 1 But I think that like the fear you have for something happening to your child is just, you cannot even compare it to any fear you might have for something happening to yourself.

Speaker 1 But also, you know, Susan is a single parent, so she's always having to consider that if something did happen to her, that is a different situation than if you're not a single single parent.

Speaker 1 That was something about her interview that I found really touching is how much thought she even gave to when to tell her daughter about this target list, because you also don't want to burden your children with the fear that they're going to lose you.

Speaker 1 And she had, you know, not that much information to give her and didn't want to relay the same vague but serious threat that this FBI agent had put on her.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I can't imagine also being like the child in that situation.

Speaker 1 Let's say you're away at college, like the last thing you want to hear is your parent calling you up and saying, by the way, this terrorist organization that you've been reading about at the news, like knows who I am and has my address and wants to kill me.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, it makes sense that she didn't tell her daughter at that time. I think she said it was like years later that they spoke about it.

Speaker 1 And even then, it was kind of sad and scary for her to take in.

Speaker 1 But by that point, Susan had a more sort of measured perspective on it herself and was probably in a better position to guide her daughter through that same experience.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I've thought about this interview a lot since it happened. We have two different experiences or maybe more than two, but when we're interviewing someone, there's that experience of interviewing them.

Speaker 1 Usually we're on Zoom, we see their face, you know, it's a longer conversation that ends up in the final episode. And so there's that experience.

Speaker 1 And then there's the experience of like editing it and the final, the final piece that ends up coming out. There was a lot of time to think about it.

Speaker 1 And I don't know, the visuals of the SWAT team like coming into her house and the reality of them saying things like, well, an assassin could be, you know, hiding in your pantry.

Speaker 1 So that's something to think about. And it's so scary.
And it's like, I've thought about that in my house so many times since. Where would someone hide? Like, like, this is the stuff of nightmares.

Speaker 1 And then to be told that it's real, like your worst nightmare, like the monster under your bed is actually a real thing. So be careful because it's going to get you.
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 Or just, you know, my toddler wakes up at night. It's so dark.
I'm walking to her room and I'm like, I'm not scared at all.

Speaker 1 You should go back to sleep. I'm fine.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Also, the day we did that interview happened to also be the day that I got these

Speaker 1 baby-proofing like door alarms because we have a door that goes to our fire escape, a door that goes to our balcony. And it's just like a magnet.

Speaker 1 If you open the door, there's a loud beeping that happens

Speaker 1 because we keep those doors closed for obvious reasons. And

Speaker 1 I couldn't install those fast enough.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I have to say, I also have really thought about the conversation we had with her about how she mentally sort of moved past this, which was was surprisingly sort of deep and touching to me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she drew this pretty definitive line in the sand for herself, just based off of like a shift in perspective.

Speaker 1 And I think that's so powerful that she was able to do that was this recognizing that no one was going to do it for her. This organization wasn't going to say, never mind, wrong Susan.

Speaker 1 That was a joke. It was just all going to go on forever.
It was up to her to move on or not move on.

Speaker 1 And obviously, moving on doesn't happen completely, but she now is to the point where she can talk about it. And she wasn't for a long time.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much, Susan, for trusting us with your story. Thank you for listening to this episode.
Let us know what you think. You can always leave us a comment on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Speaker 1 You can also reach us directly on Instagram at the Knife Podcast. We check our Instagram.
So if you have something you want to tell us, we will get the message. We will try to reply.

Speaker 1 And thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.

Speaker 1 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 TheKnife Podcast.

Speaker 1 This has been an Exactly Right Production, hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith, and me, Tayshia Eaton. Our producers are Tom Breifogel and Alexa Samorosi.
This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.

Speaker 1 Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
Artwork by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

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Speaker 26 N'1231, see paypal.com/slash promo terms. Points can be renewed for cash and more paying for subject to terms and approval.
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