August 7, 2025 • 58 mins
Betrayal Weekly is back. What happens when the person you trust most decides your future for you? Brook Fisk shares her first-person account of surviving an unthinkable betrayal.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I went down to DC thinking that I was making
a parenting plan, and I came back with business cards
for investigators and victims assistance phone numbers in my luggage,
doubting who I knew for the last five years.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything. Betrayal Weekly is officially back for season two.
Whether you've been with us from the beginning or you're
just tuning in, welcome this season. We're bringing you some
of our most riveting, emotional, and unforgettable stories yet, starting
(01:06):
with this one.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So I had been married for eleven years. It was
very shocking to me what little independence I had so
easily fallen into. And I didn't want to be like that.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That's Brook Fisk. She's an ICU nurse from upstate New York.
When she was thirty two, she divorced her first husband
and started over.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
The first couple of months were scary and lonely. You know.
I would come home from work and the house would
be empty because the kids would be at their dads
and it would be quiet, and I would sit down
in the kitchen and look around and not know what
to do with myself.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Brooke was a newly single mother of two, sharing custody
with her ex. This transition made her painfully aware of
how much she sacrificed in her marriage. She wanted to
rebuild a life where she was in control.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So when I got divorced, really my focus for that
first year was to become independent and maintain my independence,
and I really thrived at that.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
She bought a small house and fixed it up on
her own.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I would watch YouTube videos on how to fix things
and how to maintain things, and it was very empowering
figuring out how to do that stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
When she started dating again, she was careful her kids
had already been through enough change.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I was on dating apps and I would meet people
and go on dates and have a lot of fun
with that. But whenever it got to the point of
somebody wanting to get serious, I think that it would
scare me and I would back right off.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
She didn't want a boyfriend, and she definitely didn't want
to get married again. If she was looking for anything,
it was just someone to go on dates with. Her
life was busy enough with her two kids and a
demanding job in the ICU.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I worked nights and it was an incredible experience. I
loved working in the ICU. I loved being able to
really impact people's lives.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
That's where she met a medical resident.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So his full name was Secunder am Ron, but I
called him Sick. A lot of his friends called him Sick.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
One day, she was called into a room with Sick
and another doctor.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
They were talking about the patient's heart rate and he said, well,
his heart rates up now, it must be because this
nurse is in his room.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
He was talking about Brooke. He shot Brooke a small le.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Which was funny and flirtatious and maybe a little inappropriate
at the time, but yeah, that was the first time
I remember meeting him.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
A few weeks later, Brooke was working the night shift
with Sick when he asked her to help with the patient,
and once the patient fell asleep, Brooke and Sick got
to chatting.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
At the end of our conversation, he asked me if
I would like to go out with him, and I
said that I don't date doctors. He said ever, and
I said, no, I don't date doctors. I have a
rule against it. And he said, well, let me know
(04:44):
if you change your mind. And after he left the room,
the patient, who I thought was sleeping, opened her eyes
and she pointed at me. She had a trike so
she couldn't talk, but she mouthed the words that man
is for you. And I laughed and I said, no,
he's not, and she said, yes he is.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Brooke didn't like the stereotype about doctors and nurses hooking.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Up, you know, the nurse and the doctors sneak off
into a supply closet, because that's what's depicted on Gray's anatomy.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That's why she had the rule no dating doctors. But
after a few weeks of flirtation, he won her over.
She took his number and decided that just this once,
she could break her rule. They started with an ice
cream date, then long walks and dinners at his apartment.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
We really developed kind of a friendship first kind of relationship,
so we would spend a lot of time watching movies,
going to movies. I taught him how to cook rice
American style. I don't think either of us realized at
the time how much closer we were getting while we
(05:59):
were doing those casual things. So that fall we went
out a couple of times and we started talking about,
you know, where he came from, what my background was,
and I knew that he had come for residency from Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
He came from a family of doctors. In fact, his
dad had owned a hospital in Pakistan. Like his older brother,
Sick wanted to stay in the US and practice medicine here.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Where he grew up. Men and women didn't do public
displays of affection. And I remember the first time that
he held my hand in public. He was so awkward
about it, and I was like, what are you doing?
Are you holding my hand in public? You know, kind
(06:54):
of joking with him, and he was like, yeah, I am,
but he was so nervous about it.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
There was a real connection between them, but that didn't
change Brooke's feelings about commitment.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I was honest with him that I really wasn't looking
for any kind of a relationship. That I have kids
at home and they're my first priority. He knew that
I would only go out with him when my kids
were with their dad, and he was accepting of that.
He also said that he wasn't looking to get into
(07:28):
a relationship or get married either.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Regardless of what he said, Brooke could tell he was trying.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
He would always pay attention and notice details. He would
notice how I took my coffee and make an effort
to prepare it for me that way. He knew which
ice cream flavors I liked, at which dessert restaurants. He
was logical and thoughtful and funny and caring.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
After six months of dating, they realized that what was
happening here was more than just a casual fling.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
It was probably late the next spring that he looked
at me and he said, do you consider me your boyfriend?
And I hadn't even thought about it, and I said, well, yeah,
I guess I do. Is that okay?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
It was definitely okay with him. Once they became official,
they kept things quiet at work.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
A lot of our coworkers knew that we were together,
but it was just kind of a thing that nobody
really talked about. Occasionally someone would say, oh, I saw
your boyfriend, but I would say, oh, do you mean
doctor Imron.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
You know, outside the hospital. They built a rhythm. When
Brooks kids were with their dad, she and Sick planned
romantic dinners and weekend getaways.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
We loved to go on trips. What we really liked
to do is go to vacation spots and find the
foods that they were famous for.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
It started with an impromptu road trip to Chicago. Sick
drove with Brooke asleep in the passenger seat.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And I remember him waking me up as we were
kind of driving into Chicago. It was nighttime and Chicago
was let up. A lot of the buildings had purple
lights on them for some reason. And he woke me
up and he said, look, I called Chicago and had
them light the buildings up purple for you, because he
(09:47):
knew that I liked purple.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
That weekend, they didn't have a plan. They just explored
their way through the city.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
We found this really awesome restaurant that had Kastani food
and they were open all night. We went there at
like one o'clock in the morning, in this hole in
the wall restaurant, and it was the most amazing food.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Next they went to New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Even though I donate me, we ate alligator, it was
pretty good.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Back home in New York, they weren't living together, but
they were in each other's lives in real, tangible ways.
About two years into dating, Sick came to her with
a proposition.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
He moved out of his apartment and into a townhouse,
and he had said at one point that he thought
that I would come and live with him, and I said,
I can't come live with you. I have kids, and
he said, well, you can just stay here when your
kids aren't home, and I said that's fine. And at
that point we had a conversation about how we really
(11:01):
liked the life we had together, and we liked being
together when we could be together, but that neither of
us were really passionate about wanting to get married.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Still, Brooke had been careful about boundaries from the very beginning,
especially when it came to her kids.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
For me, there was a lot of hesitancy about introducing
someone to my kids, so there was a little bit
of integration, but not a lot. We all went to
the movies together a couple of times, and he came
over for dinner a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Her kids really took to sick and enjoyed having him around.
After that, he wanted Brooke to meet his family.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
His mom came to town and he asked me if
I would meet her, and she invited me for lunch
and tea. So I went over and we had a
really nice afternoon together and we ended up talking about love.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Sick was at work, so it was just Broken his mom,
and there was clearly a wink and a nod to
the conversation because Sick hadn't been completely honest with his mom.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Sick had told her that I was his friend. But
she's a mom and she's not dumb, so I think
she knew what was going on. She asked me what
I thought about arranged marriage and if I thought it
was good or if I thought love marriages were better,
(12:40):
And we had a nice conversation about love, and she
told me about meeting six Dad and their marriage. I
didn't get any sense of disapproval from her at all.
She was very kind to me.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
The meeting went so well. Broken Six moms started sending
letters and care packages back and forth, which made Sick
a little nervous.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I remember him being a little bit like, she's going
to know, She's going to know, and I was like,
I think she already knows.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Brooke didn't see the big deal, but for Sick, his
family expectations mattered, especially when he came to marriage.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
He talked about feeling like there was an expectation on
him to marry a Pakistani girl. And his family wouldn't
accept him marrying a white girl. And I asked him, well,
what if you just don't get married, would that be okay?
Would your family accept that? And he said I think so.
(13:46):
And I said, well, okay, let's do that. Then let's
just not get married.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Their agreement worked for almost four years, but when six
residency ended, there were relationship hit across roads. He started
applying to Fellowship programs across the country.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
We actually went to a couple of different places. We
took a little road trip around for him to look
at them and interview.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
The program he really wanted to go to was in DC,
a six hour drive from upstate New York. Brooke made
it clear that relocating wasn't an option for her family.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I don't think that trying to have a long distance
relationship is a good idea, especially given that I have
kids and he's going to be living states away. And
he acknowledged that, and we had a couple of conversations
about it, but ultimately he decided that it was important
(14:50):
for him to go to this program. It was a
program that his brother had done, so it was kind
of a family legacy.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
It was bittersweet, but Brooks supported sick if he wanted
to start his career in America. This really was for
the best.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I was very happy for him, congratulated him. I bought
him a cake and helped him start looking for places
to buy down there, and helped him paint it and
helped him pick out furniture and decorate it. And then,
you know, we kind of said goodbye after that, But
(15:30):
of course goodbye wasn't really goodbye, as often happens in
these relationships.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
They knew they had an expiration date, but they were
having a hard time letting go.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I remember walking into the airport with tears streaming down
my face, bawling after saying goodbye to him, and Tshent
came up to me and she said, are you okay?
And I said, yeah, I just said goodbye to my boyfriend.
But I'm sure she thought something was horribly wrong, just
from the amount that I was crying. We said a
(16:06):
lot of good byes that year.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
This began a new era of their relationship, one where
they kept finding their way back to each other weekend
by weekend.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
We weren't in a relationship, we were not together, but
what we would end up doing is anytime either one
of us had like a long weekend free, or if
it was one of our birthdays, we would take a
little trip together.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
For her thirty seventh birthday, Sick planned a trip to
the Poconots.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
We stayed at a bed and breakfast up in the mountains, fireplace,
woody romantic get away, candle at dinners and fireside chit
chat every night. You know.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Brooke didn't know it at the time, but what happened
that weekend would affect the rest of her life. At
the end of their trip, they said another tearful goodbye.
It was a great time, But that whole weekend, Sick
had been keeping a secret. He just couldn't bring himself
to tell her in person.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
He called me a couple of days later, and he
said that he wanted to talk to me, and he
wanted to let me know that he had talked to
his mom and that he had agreed to let his
mom arrange him a marriage.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
After a romantic getaway for Brooke's birthday, Sick called her
with surprising news he was moving forward with an arranged marriage.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I was surprised because he had not been interested in
an arranged marriage and hadn't expressed any interest in it.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
She always thought Sick wanted a love marriage. And when
he broke the news, he didn't even seem excited about
the idea.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
He seemed resigned to it. He seemed sad about it.
He talked about it like he was going to get
a girl who wanted to marry a doctor.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Brooke tried to hide it, but she was hurt.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I felt sad, but I think that part of me
had been expecting it because we'd basically been trying to
say goodbye for a year. So even though part of
me felt like he was still mine, he really wasn't
mine anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
If he was serious about pursuing this, that meant their
relationship had to be over.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I told him that if that was happening, then we
really needed to stop talking to each other, because it
wasn't fair to another woman to think that she was
getting a husband and have her husband over here in
the United States talking to me and going on trips
(19:30):
with me. That's just not fair. And he agreed, And
for all the times we had tried to say goodbye
over the past year, I think that finally seemed to
be the thing that let us stop talking to each other.
(19:51):
After that, conversation. I think we went the longest period
we had ever gone without talking. It was over two weeks.
Neither of us reached out, and then I realized my
period was late, so I took a pregnancy test and
(20:15):
it was positive.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Brooke knew it happened during their Pocono's trip.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
The moment I realized I was pregnant, I started thinking
about the baby and who he was going to be.
I really just felt like that was my baby. From
the minute I knew I was pregnant, it felt like.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
A gift from the universe. She knew this would be
her last baby, and it just felt right. But now
she faced another decision.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I wasn't sure if I should even tell him. Part
of me thought, if I don't tell him, he'll never know,
and I just have the baby and go on with
my life and he can go on with his life.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
On the other hand, it felt wrong to keep this
from him.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Is it fair of me to not give him that
choice and that opportunity to take part in his child's life.
I knew how much I liked being a parent, and
I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to be in
my child's life. So I decided to tell him because
I thought that it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
She told him over the phone. He was quiet for
a few seconds, and then.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
His immediate reaction was to ask me to have an abortion.
I told him I couldn't and he didn't have to
be involved. He didn't have to financially support the baby,
he didn't have to have anything to do with the baby.
I was already a single mom. I loved having kids.
(22:00):
I'm good at raising kids. If he doesn't want to
have the baby, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
She went to the doctor and learned the baby was
perfectly healthy. It was a little boy.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I was already picking out names before I was even
showing because I already knew who he was. I decided
to name him Makai and call him Kai for short.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
But Sick wasn't on the same page. After she told him,
he started spiraling.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
That started months of phone calls and text messages, begging
and pleading with me to have an abortion, and telling
me that I was ruining his life, that this was
going to cast shame on his family in Pakistan, that
his mother was going to be ridiculed and he was
(22:59):
going to be an outcast, and that I was causing
him mental anguish.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
She understood that having a baby outside of marriage wasn't
part of his plan, but plan or not, this was happening.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
All of that text message and the phone calls about
your ruining my life, You're ruining my mom's life. That
all made me pretty mad.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
She kept waiting for Sick to come around, but every
time she talked to him, he tried a new tactic.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
One day, I was sitting on my bed and I
was on the phone with Sick, and he said that
he had talked to a friend of his who was
an OPIQI N and that his friend had told him
that I could take mesaprostal and that it would abort
(23:55):
the baby, and that I could do it right there
at sex house and it all happened very easily, and
I wouldn't even need to go to the hospital or anything.
And said could be there with me the whole time,
and asked if I would be willing to do that,
and I said absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
No.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
He said that he wasn't trying to pressure me, but
that we were running out of time because we could
only do this in the first trimester, and my first
trimester had been coming to an end. So he wanted
me to do this, and I said now.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
When she started the second trimester, the conversation was over.
She'd made her choice. The window for second guessing had closed.
Now that it was official, Brooke shared the news with
her two kids.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
We had a little gender reveal cake for the baby.
We went shopping and bottom a bunch of clothes and
some stuff for his croup.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
She didn't hear from sick for a few weeks, but
when he did reach out again, he'd had a change
of heart.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Eventually, he starts talking about setting up a bank account
for me and the baby, and then he asks me
if I'll come down to see him so that we
could figure out a parenting plan and figure out a
way that we could have this baby together and him
(25:30):
still be in d C and maybe in New York,
but still have this baby together.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Finally, the sick she knew was back. She made plans
to drive down to d C right after her four
month ulder sound appointment.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The morning that I left, I went to the doctor,
We did a fetal heart rate, everything looked good, and
I left and set off to go down to d
C to see him. I drove the whole way down there,
he texting me reminders to get up and walk so
I don't get a blood clot, reminding me to drink water,
(26:07):
asking me how my drive is going.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
When she got to Sick's house, he gave her a
long hug.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Everything seemed back to normal, except for one thing. He
didn't say anything about my belly. He didn't try to
touch it or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
When he came to the baby, he still seemed to
have a wall up.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
He hadn't even wanted me to tell him the gender
of the baby, so I knew it was a boy,
but he didn't. At one point that evening, I did
start to bring up the baby, the pregnancy, and he said,
let's wait and talk about this tomorrow, and I said okay.
(26:56):
And the next morning we got up and we start
making breakfast together, which we've done hundreds of times before.
I'm making eggs and he's making coffee, and he's making
coffee that we had gotten when we went to New Orleans.
And it's this chickory root coffee, so it's a little
(27:19):
bit stronger. So when I started drinking it, I noticed
that it burned my stomach a little bit, and I
kind of just thought, you know I'm pregnant. I probably
shouldn't be drinking so much coffee. I'm probably developing an ulcer.
(27:40):
Maybe I shouldn't drink this. So I didn't finish my
cup of coffee. I sat it aside, finished breakfast, and
went on about our day. Got ready went shopping.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
But as soon as they got to the mall, I was.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Having a queasy feeling, so I ended up going into
the back room quite a few times. At some point
he asked me if I was feeling okay, and I
told him no, that I had an upset stomach. His
response was just, oh, okay, And that struck me in
(28:17):
that moment as being very odd, because he normally would
have asked if I needed anything, or gotten me a drink,
or had some follow up to make sure I was
all right, And in that moment, I remember thinking that
I wondered if he was hoping that something was wrong,
(28:42):
And then, of course I convinced to myself to put
it out of my mind.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
As the day went on, she started to feel better,
so they decided to get takeout and go back to
his place.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
After dinner. He put on my favorite movie and said
that he was going to make me a cup of
tea for my stomach, so it was dark in the room.
He brought me the tea, and when I tasted it,
I noticed that it was unusually sweet, which was not
how I took my tea. And he said that he
(29:17):
had accidentally put in both sugar and honey, which was
odd because he always remembered how I took my tea.
But I drank it anyway. And when I got toward
the bottom of the cup of tea, I took a
sip of it, and there was grit in the bottom,
(29:40):
and from being a nurse, I knew that texture was
ground up pill so I spit it back in the cup,
and I put the cup down, and I said that
I had to go to the bathroom. I went into
the bath room and I put my finger down my throat,
(30:03):
and then I put a toothbrush down my throat to
try to make myself throw up, and I couldn't. And
I sat there in the bathroom and I wasn't sure
what to do.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
As the minutes passed, she started doubting what she'd seen
at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Of her cup. I've known him for years. I've been
dating him for years. This man loves me the man
I know wouldn't do that. And then I remembered that
conversation where he told me that his friends suggested that
I take me supostal and it would cause an abortion,
(30:41):
and I told him no, and I just I knew
that's what he did. But then I kept going back
to maybe I'm crazy. Maybe there weren't pills in my cup.
He wouldn't poison me, so maybe I'm insane. But then
(31:02):
if he did that to me, what else would he do?
If I go out there and he knows I know,
and he actually did it, will he kill me? If
he wants to get rid of the baby so bad
that he'll poison me? Is he going to kill me?
So I can't let him know that I know.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
In that moment, she came up with a plan. And
before we keep going, I want a flag that what
Brooke is about to describe could be emotionally triggering for
some listeners. If you've had experience with pregnancy loss, please
take care while listening. Now back to Brook, Here's what
she decided to do.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
I'm going to wait until he goes to sleep, and
I'm going to sneak out of the house and I'm
going to go to the hospital. And so I sat
down on the couch with him, and the movie was
almost over, and I told him that I was tired
and I wanted to go to bed, and so the
movie ended, and he got up to take my dishes
(32:08):
to the kitchen, and I said I'll take them, and
he said, no, I'll take them, and he pulled them
out of my hands, took the dishes to the sink,
and I saw him tip the cup into the sink,
and then he went into the bathroom. And when he
went into the bathroom, I thought, I have to know,
(32:30):
so I turned on the kitchen light and I looked
and there was pill fragments in the bottom of the cup.
So I got a plastic baggie out and I scooped
out the rest of the pill fragments that were in
the cup, and I zipped them up in the little
plastic baggy and I hit him in my purse, and
I thought, when he goes to sleep, i'll go to
the hospital. Because now I don't so much think I'm insane.
(32:53):
I think he probably did poison me. But now I
really do need to wait until he's asleep.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Now that she had seen the proof, the panic came
flooding in what had he given her and how much
of it did she drink? But she had to stay
calm so she could get out and get help.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
So I got ready for bed, and I laid down
next to him, and I just listened to him breathing
and waited to hear his breathing change so I could
hear when I got deeper so I could sneak out
of bed. And while I was laying there, I felt
(33:35):
a pop and I felt myself start bleeding. I got
up and ran into the bathroom and I was bleeding,
and I started crying and laid down on the bathroom floor.
At this point, I was almost twenty weeks, a long
(33:57):
four months pregnant. The baby was fully formed, so having
this happen in his bathroom at his apartment is certainly
medically dangerous for me. And he came in and he
said what's wrong? And I said, the baby's dying. You
need to call nine one one, and he said, no,
(34:23):
you're fine. I'm a doctor. I can take care of you.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Brooke planned to get out of Six's house quietly and
drive herself to the hospital. Before she could, she started bleeding.
Four months into the pregnancy. She knew she needed to
get help quickly, but when Sick found her on the
floor of the bathroom, he didn't want to call an ambulance, and.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I said, you need to call nine one one, and
he said, no, you're okay, I'm a doctor, You're going
to be fine. I didn't know if he was refusing
to call nine one one because he wanted to kill me.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
She was terrified for herself and for her baby.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Part of me was really hopeful that maybe if I
could just get to a hospital, somehow, the baby was
going to survive. So I was desperate for him to
call nine one one. I said, you don't understand your
(35:54):
son is dying, your son, and if you don't call
nine one one, then I will.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
She hadn't told him the sex of the baby until
this moment. When she called the baby his son, something
shifted for.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Sick, and then he said, okay, I'll call and he
went and he called nine one one, and then the
ambulance came, and at this point I was bleeding a
lot more.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
The paramedics picked her up from the floor and laid
her on the stretcher.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
As they're pushing me out of the apartment. I see
my purse sitting on the counter, and I remember that
the pill fragments are in a baggy in my purse.
So I ask the paramedic to hand me my purse
and he says, you don't need it, and I said, no,
(36:54):
I want my purse, and Sick picks it up and
he says, I'll take it. I have another moment of panic,
thinking if the paramedic asks me for my insurance card,
Sick is going to open my purse and he's going
to see that baggie in there with the pills in it,
(37:14):
and he's going to get rid of it. So they
lowed me into the ambulance and Sick gets into the
ambulance with us. I just keep thinking, if I can
get this paramedic to just make eye contact with me,
he'll see in my eyes that I'm afraid and I
don't want Sick here.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
But the paramedic was too busy triaging Brooke to notice
all the while Six stayed right by her side, acting concerned.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
So we get to the hospital and the whole time
Sick is holding my purse. Finally we get up to
labor and delivery and he sets it down on the counter.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
In the room sick wouldn't leave her, and he made
it known that he was a doctor.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
She's right there the whole time, right next to my bed,
helping them move me from stretcher to bed and talking
to the doctor about their medical training and where they've
both worked, and he's that normal person that everybody likes
in that room. Finally he goes into the bathroom and
(38:29):
I whispered to the nurse to make him leave. I
could just see the colored drain out of her face.
She looked at me and she whispered, back, are you okay?
And I said no. A couple of minutes later, the
charge nurse came in and got sick and said that
she wanted to show him the father's lounge, and she
(38:51):
took him out. And then the nurse and the doctor
came and asked me what was going on, And I said,
I swear I'm not crazy, but I think he poisoned me.
I found pills in my tea and they're in a
baggy in my purse.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
The nurse went into Brooks bag and grabbed the ziploc
with the pill fragments. She wanted to send them to
the lab for testing.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Not long after, that my water broke and Kai was born.
He was not alive. Part of me still hoped he
would cry when he was born, but he didn't. But
they wrapped him up in a blanket and put a
(39:49):
little tiny hat on him and brought him to me.
They let me hold Kai for a couple of hours.
I was holding Kui, I wasn't thinking at all about
what Sick had done. It was more thinking about the loss.
(40:12):
Even though Kai wasn't alive. Still looking at him, there
was sort of this amazement about who he was as
a person, which is odd to say about somebody who
wasn't alive to recognize who they are as a person,
(40:34):
But he was. He was a little person with little
long fingers and long toes. And that's what I was
thinking about when I was looking at him, that he
probably would have played basketball, and he would have been tall,
and maybe he would have played piano because he would
have had long piano playing fingers. Probably sounds strange to
(40:56):
somebody who hasn't lost a baby, but that's what I
was thinking about in that moment.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Sick was in the room too.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
When he saw what Kai actually looked like, Sick cried.
I almost think that that is the first time Sick
realized that it was a whole human. I think that
was really the first time that it was real in
(41:30):
his mind that that was his son.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
After they took Kai's footprints and filled out the paperwork,
his body was taken for an autopsy.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Seven am rolls around and the day shift nurse comes
in and she takes me in the bathroom and she
very quietly asks me what happened.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Once again, Brooke told the story.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
And she says, what are you going to do? And
I said, I don't know. I don't know what to do.
And she said, if there's any part of you that
thinks that this man poisoned you and killed your baby,
you need to report him. Brooke agreed, and she said
(42:20):
have you asked him? Have you asked him if he
did this? And I said no, and she said, I
think you should.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
So they went back in the room just as Sick
was walking back in.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
And he said he was going to go back to
his apartment and take a shower, get changed, and bring
me some clothes. And I said that before he left,
I wanted to ask him a question, and I asked him,
did you poison me? And he said, do you honestly
(42:58):
think I would do that to you. I said, yes,
I do. And I told him I found ground up
pill in the bottom of my cup and I gave
it to the nurse and they're going to have it tested.
So if you did this, you need to come clean
(43:21):
with me right now. And he started crying and he
put his head down on the bed. He was sitting
in a chair next to the bed, and he put
his head down on the bed and just started bawling.
And he told me that he had put me sprostal
(43:42):
in my coffee that morning and that's why I had
a stomach ache, and when it didn't work, he ground
up more and put it in my tea that night.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
It was the final confirmation. She just stared at him
in silence, heartbroken. Sick continued talking and tried to rationalize
what he'd done, and.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
He said that the reason that he did it is
because he knew that I loved him and I wanted
to do what was best for him. But he knew
that if I made the decision to have an abortion,
I would be unhappy about it, so he was making
(44:31):
the decision for me so that I wouldn't have to
live with it. He said it like he thought that
he was doing something benevolent for me, but he wasn't.
He was taking from me somebody that I loved, somebody
(44:51):
that I wanted in my life, and he was justifying
it and acting like he was doing it for my benefit.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
He really seemed to believe he had done the right thing.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
I couldn't believe what he was saying to me. I
couldn't believe it. I felt betrayed. I felt like, that's
not your decision to make. And he was completely selfish.
Rather than taking on what he thought was going to
(45:25):
be ridicule, he was causing pain to other people. That's
a coward. And while he was saying it, there's a
knock on the door to my hospital room, and that
was the police.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
The police took Sick into another room for questioning.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
And he confessed that he had poisoned me. So they
arrested him and took him to jail.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Brooke wouldn't see him again until his sentence hearing, but
Sick had left his phone with her, so she picked
it up and made a call.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
I called his brother, who lives here in New York,
and I told his brother Sick had been arrested and
what he had been arrested for, that he had poisoned
me and killed our baby. And his brother said he
didn't know that I was pregnant. I said that I
(46:30):
couldn't take care of Sick anymore, that he was not
my responsibility and he needed to come down here and
take care of his brother.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Before they hung up, Sick's brother had one more thing
to say.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
While he didn't know that I was pregnant, they did
know that Sick and I were seeing each other. And
his mom had known for years. She had known since
the day she met me, and they had just been
waiting for him to tell them.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
It was a tragic revelation. The pressure Sick put on
himself to live up to his family's expectations was self imposed.
His family would have accepted Brooke and their son. Brooke
called a friend who flew down to DC to pick
her up at the hospital. Before they started to drive home,
(47:30):
they stopped by six apartment to get Brooks bags.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
The police met us there. It was very strange to
go in. There's crime scene tape in his apartment and
it's been ransacked by the police. Just an odd feeling
knowing that that's now the scene of a crime, and
(47:54):
it's a place that you painted and decorated.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
The police had turned the apartment upside down to find
more evidence, and they did. They found white powder in
a pack of one hundred missoprystal tablets with ten doses missing.
He had given her all ten in one day. It
was a massive overdose.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
So he had given me two hundred milligrams in the morning,
and then when that didn't work, he gave me an
additional six hundred milligrams in the evening. He probably needed
to give me that dose because I was way further
(48:35):
along in pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
The police told Brooke they'd be in touch, and that
was it.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
The drive back to New York was awful. There's no
eloquent way to say that. It was just awful. I
cried most of the way back. I missed my baby.
I went down to DC thinking that I was making
a parenting plan, and I came back missing my baby,
(49:07):
with business cards for investigators and victims assistance phone numbers
in my luggage, doubting who I knew for the last
five years. My whole world had changed.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
And then came the regrets. Even though she knew it
wasn't her fault. All she wanted was to go back
in time.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
You know, blaming yourself. I wish I had never driven
down there. I shouldn't have done that. I should have
known better. I've worked through that. I don't still blame myself,
but at that time I did. I kept thinking that,
how stupid was I to drive down there.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
When she got home, the loss became even more real
because she had to find a way to tell her kids.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Not only was I dealing with my own emotions, but
I had to tell my kids that I wasn't pregnant
anymore and they weren't getting a baby brother. And not
only were they not getting a baby brother, but their
baby brother was murdered. And not only was he murdered,
he was murdered by somebody that they knew and trusted.
(50:22):
And I have to help them through that. While I'm
trying to manage my own emotional fallout from this and
also figure out what to do about this criminal case,
I can hardly function to get dinner on the table.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Her kids weren't just mourning a baby brother. They were
mourning a sense of safety, and Brooke had to carry
all of it. She took leave from work leaned on
her friends and found a therapist. Even with all the support,
she stayed awake at night trying to make sense of
what happened.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
I really went through this period of wondering if I
ever knew him at all, and did I ever see
him or was I fooling myself? Was he a monster
this entire time? And I just didn't want to see it?
(51:23):
And I really did have to think about that because
either I loved a monster and never knew he was
a monster, or I loved a man and then he
became a monster. One of those is true.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Her heart tells her it was the latter.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
I had to objectively look at the person that he
was and look at his actions leading up to that time,
and look at the way he treated people. I really
think that I loved a man who became a monster.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Sick was charged with premeditated fetal homicide. He initially pled
not guilty.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
I didn't want to go to a trial. I really
just wanted him to plead guilty and take responsibility for
what he did. That's when I decided to speak out
about what had happened.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Brooke went the local news to tell her story.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
After I talked to the media, he changed his mind
and decided to plead guilty.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
After that, the only thing left was the sentencing hearing.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
He was facing twenty years to life in prison. He's
not an American citizen, so whenever he completed his sentence,
he was going to be deported back to Pakistan. So
when he decided to plead guilty, I decided to do
was to ask for leniency for him. So I wrote
(53:05):
a letter to the judge and asked for leniency, and
I explained to the judge that my son is gone.
My son is dead. Kai's life is over. He will
never do anything with his life. He's gone. He won't
(53:26):
have a chance, but six still does. He still has
a chance. And I would hate to see two lives
be gone because of this. And I really think that
rather than wasting the rest of his life sitting in prison,
(53:50):
Sick owes it to Kai to do something with his life.
The judge wrote my letter and granted him le nancy
and sentenced him to four years in prison. Otherwise he
(54:10):
would have given him twenty years to life.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Sick was released from prison in twenty twenty one and
deported to Pakistan. Today, it's been eight years since the crime,
and despite everything she's gone through, she manages to live
a joyful and fulfilling life.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Today. I have finished my master's degree in nursing and
I'm teaching nursing. I do Brazilian jiu jitsu a couple
of times a week as a fun hobby and exercise.
It's very empowering. I love doing that.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
She and her kids chose to memorialize Kai.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
His brother got a burial pla and said a prayer
over him, and we buried him in a cemetery here.
So he's got a little gravestone and a cemetery up
here in Upstate New York with his little superhero on it,
(55:17):
and it says Superheroes never sleep.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question,
why do you want to share your story?
Speaker 1 (55:31):
When people hear my story, it is a little bit shocking,
and people often say, oh my god, I can't believe
that happened to you. But what I like people to
take from it is, no matter what happens, no matter
what you go through, you'll get stronger and you learn
(55:53):
to carry it. I was surprised that I made it through,
prized by the amount of strength that I came up
with and looking at it from the other side, I
look back and I think, wow, I made it through that.
If I could make it through that, people can make
(56:16):
it through anything. They really can.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
Next week on Betrayal Weekly, I go, what are you
involved in?
Speaker 3 (56:33):
Are you being investigated by the FBI? And he looked
at me so coldly like he never knew me, and
he said, if I go down, I'm taking you with me.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
way to show support is by subscribing to our show
on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
(57:13):
you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard. Also produced
by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Melcuriy and Caitlin Golden.
(57:37):
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio
editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Additional editing support from
Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library
provided by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(57:58):
your podcasts
I went down to DC thinking that I was making
a parenting plan, and I came back with business cards
for investigators and victims assistance phone numbers in my luggage,
doubting who I knew for the last five years.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
I'm Andrea Gunning, and this is Betrayal, a show about
the people we trust the most and the deceptions that
change everything. Betrayal Weekly is officially back for season two.
Whether you've been with us from the beginning or you're
just tuning in, welcome this season. We're bringing you some
of our most riveting, emotional, and unforgettable stories yet, starting
(01:06):
with this one.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So I had been married for eleven years. It was
very shocking to me what little independence I had so
easily fallen into. And I didn't want to be like that.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That's Brook Fisk. She's an ICU nurse from upstate New York.
When she was thirty two, she divorced her first husband
and started over.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
The first couple of months were scary and lonely. You know.
I would come home from work and the house would
be empty because the kids would be at their dads
and it would be quiet, and I would sit down
in the kitchen and look around and not know what
to do with myself.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Brooke was a newly single mother of two, sharing custody
with her ex. This transition made her painfully aware of
how much she sacrificed in her marriage. She wanted to
rebuild a life where she was in control.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So when I got divorced, really my focus for that
first year was to become independent and maintain my independence,
and I really thrived at that.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
She bought a small house and fixed it up on
her own.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I would watch YouTube videos on how to fix things
and how to maintain things, and it was very empowering
figuring out how to do that stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
When she started dating again, she was careful her kids
had already been through enough change.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I was on dating apps and I would meet people
and go on dates and have a lot of fun
with that. But whenever it got to the point of
somebody wanting to get serious, I think that it would
scare me and I would back right off.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
She didn't want a boyfriend, and she definitely didn't want
to get married again. If she was looking for anything,
it was just someone to go on dates with. Her
life was busy enough with her two kids and a
demanding job in the ICU.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I worked nights and it was an incredible experience. I
loved working in the ICU. I loved being able to
really impact people's lives.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
That's where she met a medical resident.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So his full name was Secunder am Ron, but I
called him Sick. A lot of his friends called him Sick.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
One day, she was called into a room with Sick
and another doctor.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
They were talking about the patient's heart rate and he said, well,
his heart rates up now, it must be because this
nurse is in his room.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
He was talking about Brooke. He shot Brooke a small le.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Which was funny and flirtatious and maybe a little inappropriate
at the time, but yeah, that was the first time
I remember meeting him.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
A few weeks later, Brooke was working the night shift
with Sick when he asked her to help with the patient,
and once the patient fell asleep, Brooke and Sick got
to chatting.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
At the end of our conversation, he asked me if
I would like to go out with him, and I
said that I don't date doctors. He said ever, and
I said, no, I don't date doctors. I have a
rule against it. And he said, well, let me know
(04:44):
if you change your mind. And after he left the room,
the patient, who I thought was sleeping, opened her eyes
and she pointed at me. She had a trike so
she couldn't talk, but she mouthed the words that man
is for you. And I laughed and I said, no,
he's not, and she said, yes he is.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Brooke didn't like the stereotype about doctors and nurses hooking.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Up, you know, the nurse and the doctors sneak off
into a supply closet, because that's what's depicted on Gray's anatomy.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That's why she had the rule no dating doctors. But
after a few weeks of flirtation, he won her over.
She took his number and decided that just this once,
she could break her rule. They started with an ice
cream date, then long walks and dinners at his apartment.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
We really developed kind of a friendship first kind of relationship,
so we would spend a lot of time watching movies,
going to movies. I taught him how to cook rice
American style. I don't think either of us realized at
the time how much closer we were getting while we
(05:59):
were doing those casual things. So that fall we went
out a couple of times and we started talking about,
you know, where he came from, what my background was,
and I knew that he had come for residency from Pakistan.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
He came from a family of doctors. In fact, his
dad had owned a hospital in Pakistan. Like his older brother,
Sick wanted to stay in the US and practice medicine here.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Where he grew up. Men and women didn't do public
displays of affection. And I remember the first time that
he held my hand in public. He was so awkward
about it, and I was like, what are you doing?
Are you holding my hand in public? You know, kind
(06:54):
of joking with him, and he was like, yeah, I am,
but he was so nervous about it.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
There was a real connection between them, but that didn't
change Brooke's feelings about commitment.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I was honest with him that I really wasn't looking
for any kind of a relationship. That I have kids
at home and they're my first priority. He knew that
I would only go out with him when my kids
were with their dad, and he was accepting of that.
He also said that he wasn't looking to get into
(07:28):
a relationship or get married either.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Regardless of what he said, Brooke could tell he was trying.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
He would always pay attention and notice details. He would
notice how I took my coffee and make an effort
to prepare it for me that way. He knew which
ice cream flavors I liked, at which dessert restaurants. He
was logical and thoughtful and funny and caring.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
After six months of dating, they realized that what was
happening here was more than just a casual fling.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
It was probably late the next spring that he looked
at me and he said, do you consider me your boyfriend?
And I hadn't even thought about it, and I said, well, yeah,
I guess I do. Is that okay?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
It was definitely okay with him. Once they became official,
they kept things quiet at work.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
A lot of our coworkers knew that we were together,
but it was just kind of a thing that nobody
really talked about. Occasionally someone would say, oh, I saw
your boyfriend, but I would say, oh, do you mean
doctor Imron.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
You know, outside the hospital. They built a rhythm. When
Brooks kids were with their dad, she and Sick planned
romantic dinners and weekend getaways.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
We loved to go on trips. What we really liked
to do is go to vacation spots and find the
foods that they were famous for.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
It started with an impromptu road trip to Chicago. Sick
drove with Brooke asleep in the passenger seat.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And I remember him waking me up as we were
kind of driving into Chicago. It was nighttime and Chicago
was let up. A lot of the buildings had purple
lights on them for some reason. And he woke me
up and he said, look, I called Chicago and had
them light the buildings up purple for you, because he
(09:47):
knew that I liked purple.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
That weekend, they didn't have a plan. They just explored
their way through the city.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
We found this really awesome restaurant that had Kastani food
and they were open all night. We went there at
like one o'clock in the morning, in this hole in
the wall restaurant, and it was the most amazing food.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Next they went to New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Even though I donate me, we ate alligator, it was
pretty good.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Back home in New York, they weren't living together, but
they were in each other's lives in real, tangible ways.
About two years into dating, Sick came to her with
a proposition.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
He moved out of his apartment and into a townhouse,
and he had said at one point that he thought
that I would come and live with him, and I said,
I can't come live with you. I have kids, and
he said, well, you can just stay here when your
kids aren't home, and I said that's fine. And at
that point we had a conversation about how we really
(11:01):
liked the life we had together, and we liked being
together when we could be together, but that neither of
us were really passionate about wanting to get married.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Still, Brooke had been careful about boundaries from the very beginning,
especially when it came to her kids.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
For me, there was a lot of hesitancy about introducing
someone to my kids, so there was a little bit
of integration, but not a lot. We all went to
the movies together a couple of times, and he came
over for dinner a couple of times.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Her kids really took to sick and enjoyed having him around.
After that, he wanted Brooke to meet his family.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
His mom came to town and he asked me if
I would meet her, and she invited me for lunch
and tea. So I went over and we had a
really nice afternoon together and we ended up talking about love.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Sick was at work, so it was just Broken his mom,
and there was clearly a wink and a nod to
the conversation because Sick hadn't been completely honest with his mom.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Sick had told her that I was his friend. But
she's a mom and she's not dumb, so I think
she knew what was going on. She asked me what
I thought about arranged marriage and if I thought it
was good or if I thought love marriages were better,
(12:40):
And we had a nice conversation about love, and she
told me about meeting six Dad and their marriage. I
didn't get any sense of disapproval from her at all.
She was very kind to me.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
The meeting went so well. Broken Six moms started sending
letters and care packages back and forth, which made Sick
a little nervous.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I remember him being a little bit like, she's going
to know, She's going to know, and I was like,
I think she already knows.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Brooke didn't see the big deal, but for Sick, his
family expectations mattered, especially when he came to marriage.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
He talked about feeling like there was an expectation on
him to marry a Pakistani girl. And his family wouldn't
accept him marrying a white girl. And I asked him, well,
what if you just don't get married, would that be okay?
Would your family accept that? And he said I think so.
(13:46):
And I said, well, okay, let's do that. Then let's
just not get married.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Their agreement worked for almost four years, but when six
residency ended, there were relationship hit across roads. He started
applying to Fellowship programs across the country.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
We actually went to a couple of different places. We
took a little road trip around for him to look
at them and interview.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
The program he really wanted to go to was in DC,
a six hour drive from upstate New York. Brooke made
it clear that relocating wasn't an option for her family.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I don't think that trying to have a long distance
relationship is a good idea, especially given that I have
kids and he's going to be living states away. And
he acknowledged that, and we had a couple of conversations
about it, but ultimately he decided that it was important
(14:50):
for him to go to this program. It was a
program that his brother had done, so it was kind
of a family legacy.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
It was bittersweet, but Brooks supported sick if he wanted
to start his career in America. This really was for
the best.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I was very happy for him, congratulated him. I bought
him a cake and helped him start looking for places
to buy down there, and helped him paint it and
helped him pick out furniture and decorate it. And then,
you know, we kind of said goodbye after that, But
(15:30):
of course goodbye wasn't really goodbye, as often happens in
these relationships.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
They knew they had an expiration date, but they were
having a hard time letting go.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
I remember walking into the airport with tears streaming down
my face, bawling after saying goodbye to him, and Tshent
came up to me and she said, are you okay?
And I said, yeah, I just said goodbye to my boyfriend.
But I'm sure she thought something was horribly wrong, just
from the amount that I was crying. We said a
(16:06):
lot of good byes that year.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
This began a new era of their relationship, one where
they kept finding their way back to each other weekend
by weekend.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
We weren't in a relationship, we were not together, but
what we would end up doing is anytime either one
of us had like a long weekend free, or if
it was one of our birthdays, we would take a
little trip together.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
For her thirty seventh birthday, Sick planned a trip to
the Poconots.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
We stayed at a bed and breakfast up in the mountains, fireplace,
woody romantic get away, candle at dinners and fireside chit
chat every night. You know.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Brooke didn't know it at the time, but what happened
that weekend would affect the rest of her life. At
the end of their trip, they said another tearful goodbye.
It was a great time, But that whole weekend, Sick
had been keeping a secret. He just couldn't bring himself
to tell her in person.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
He called me a couple of days later, and he
said that he wanted to talk to me, and he
wanted to let me know that he had talked to
his mom and that he had agreed to let his
mom arrange him a marriage.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
After a romantic getaway for Brooke's birthday, Sick called her
with surprising news he was moving forward with an arranged marriage.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I was surprised because he had not been interested in
an arranged marriage and hadn't expressed any interest in it.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
She always thought Sick wanted a love marriage. And when
he broke the news, he didn't even seem excited about
the idea.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
He seemed resigned to it. He seemed sad about it.
He talked about it like he was going to get
a girl who wanted to marry a doctor.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Brooke tried to hide it, but she was hurt.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I felt sad, but I think that part of me
had been expecting it because we'd basically been trying to
say goodbye for a year. So even though part of
me felt like he was still mine, he really wasn't
mine anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
If he was serious about pursuing this, that meant their
relationship had to be over.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I told him that if that was happening, then we
really needed to stop talking to each other, because it
wasn't fair to another woman to think that she was
getting a husband and have her husband over here in
the United States talking to me and going on trips
(19:30):
with me. That's just not fair. And he agreed, And
for all the times we had tried to say goodbye
over the past year, I think that finally seemed to
be the thing that let us stop talking to each other.
(19:51):
After that, conversation. I think we went the longest period
we had ever gone without talking. It was over two weeks.
Neither of us reached out, and then I realized my
period was late, so I took a pregnancy test and
(20:15):
it was positive.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Brooke knew it happened during their Pocono's trip.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
The moment I realized I was pregnant, I started thinking
about the baby and who he was going to be.
I really just felt like that was my baby. From
the minute I knew I was pregnant, it felt like.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
A gift from the universe. She knew this would be
her last baby, and it just felt right. But now
she faced another decision.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I wasn't sure if I should even tell him. Part
of me thought, if I don't tell him, he'll never know,
and I just have the baby and go on with
my life and he can go on with his life.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
On the other hand, it felt wrong to keep this
from him.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Is it fair of me to not give him that
choice and that opportunity to take part in his child's life.
I knew how much I liked being a parent, and
I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to be in
my child's life. So I decided to tell him because
I thought that it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
She told him over the phone. He was quiet for
a few seconds, and then.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
His immediate reaction was to ask me to have an abortion.
I told him I couldn't and he didn't have to
be involved. He didn't have to financially support the baby,
he didn't have to have anything to do with the baby.
I was already a single mom. I loved having kids.
(22:00):
I'm good at raising kids. If he doesn't want to
have the baby, that's fine.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
She went to the doctor and learned the baby was
perfectly healthy. It was a little boy.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I was already picking out names before I was even
showing because I already knew who he was. I decided
to name him Makai and call him Kai for short.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
But Sick wasn't on the same page. After she told him,
he started spiraling.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
That started months of phone calls and text messages, begging
and pleading with me to have an abortion, and telling
me that I was ruining his life, that this was
going to cast shame on his family in Pakistan, that
his mother was going to be ridiculed and he was
(22:59):
going to be an outcast, and that I was causing
him mental anguish.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
She understood that having a baby outside of marriage wasn't
part of his plan, but plan or not, this was happening.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
All of that text message and the phone calls about
your ruining my life, You're ruining my mom's life. That
all made me pretty mad.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
She kept waiting for Sick to come around, but every
time she talked to him, he tried a new tactic.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
One day, I was sitting on my bed and I
was on the phone with Sick, and he said that
he had talked to a friend of his who was
an OPIQI N and that his friend had told him
that I could take mesaprostal and that it would abort
(23:55):
the baby, and that I could do it right there
at sex house and it all happened very easily, and
I wouldn't even need to go to the hospital or anything.
And said could be there with me the whole time,
and asked if I would be willing to do that,
and I said absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
No.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
He said that he wasn't trying to pressure me, but
that we were running out of time because we could
only do this in the first trimester, and my first
trimester had been coming to an end. So he wanted
me to do this, and I said now.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
When she started the second trimester, the conversation was over.
She'd made her choice. The window for second guessing had closed.
Now that it was official, Brooke shared the news with
her two kids.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
We had a little gender reveal cake for the baby.
We went shopping and bottom a bunch of clothes and
some stuff for his croup.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
She didn't hear from sick for a few weeks, but
when he did reach out again, he'd had a change
of heart.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Eventually, he starts talking about setting up a bank account
for me and the baby, and then he asks me
if I'll come down to see him so that we
could figure out a parenting plan and figure out a
way that we could have this baby together and him
(25:30):
still be in d C and maybe in New York,
but still have this baby together.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Finally, the sick she knew was back. She made plans
to drive down to d C right after her four
month ulder sound appointment.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The morning that I left, I went to the doctor,
We did a fetal heart rate, everything looked good, and
I left and set off to go down to d
C to see him. I drove the whole way down there,
he texting me reminders to get up and walk so
I don't get a blood clot, reminding me to drink water,
(26:07):
asking me how my drive is going.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
When she got to Sick's house, he gave her a
long hug.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Everything seemed back to normal, except for one thing. He
didn't say anything about my belly. He didn't try to
touch it or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
When he came to the baby, he still seemed to
have a wall up.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
He hadn't even wanted me to tell him the gender
of the baby, so I knew it was a boy,
but he didn't. At one point that evening, I did
start to bring up the baby, the pregnancy, and he said,
let's wait and talk about this tomorrow, and I said okay.
(26:56):
And the next morning we got up and we start
making breakfast together, which we've done hundreds of times before.
I'm making eggs and he's making coffee, and he's making
coffee that we had gotten when we went to New Orleans.
And it's this chickory root coffee, so it's a little
(27:19):
bit stronger. So when I started drinking it, I noticed
that it burned my stomach a little bit, and I
kind of just thought, you know I'm pregnant. I probably
shouldn't be drinking so much coffee. I'm probably developing an ulcer.
(27:40):
Maybe I shouldn't drink this. So I didn't finish my
cup of coffee. I sat it aside, finished breakfast, and
went on about our day. Got ready went shopping.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
But as soon as they got to the mall, I was.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Having a queasy feeling, so I ended up going into
the back room quite a few times. At some point
he asked me if I was feeling okay, and I
told him no, that I had an upset stomach. His
response was just, oh, okay, And that struck me in
(28:17):
that moment as being very odd, because he normally would
have asked if I needed anything, or gotten me a drink,
or had some follow up to make sure I was
all right, And in that moment, I remember thinking that
I wondered if he was hoping that something was wrong,
(28:42):
And then, of course I convinced to myself to put
it out of my mind.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
As the day went on, she started to feel better,
so they decided to get takeout and go back to
his place.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
After dinner. He put on my favorite movie and said
that he was going to make me a cup of
tea for my stomach, so it was dark in the room.
He brought me the tea, and when I tasted it,
I noticed that it was unusually sweet, which was not
how I took my tea. And he said that he
(29:17):
had accidentally put in both sugar and honey, which was
odd because he always remembered how I took my tea.
But I drank it anyway. And when I got toward
the bottom of the cup of tea, I took a
sip of it, and there was grit in the bottom,
(29:40):
and from being a nurse, I knew that texture was
ground up pill so I spit it back in the cup,
and I put the cup down, and I said that
I had to go to the bathroom. I went into
the bath room and I put my finger down my throat,
(30:03):
and then I put a toothbrush down my throat to
try to make myself throw up, and I couldn't. And
I sat there in the bathroom and I wasn't sure
what to do.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
As the minutes passed, she started doubting what she'd seen
at the bottom.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Of her cup. I've known him for years. I've been
dating him for years. This man loves me the man
I know wouldn't do that. And then I remembered that
conversation where he told me that his friends suggested that
I take me supostal and it would cause an abortion,
(30:41):
and I told him no, and I just I knew
that's what he did. But then I kept going back
to maybe I'm crazy. Maybe there weren't pills in my cup.
He wouldn't poison me, so maybe I'm insane. But then
(31:02):
if he did that to me, what else would he do?
If I go out there and he knows I know,
and he actually did it, will he kill me? If
he wants to get rid of the baby so bad
that he'll poison me? Is he going to kill me?
So I can't let him know that I know.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
In that moment, she came up with a plan. And
before we keep going, I want a flag that what
Brooke is about to describe could be emotionally triggering for
some listeners. If you've had experience with pregnancy loss, please
take care while listening. Now back to Brook, Here's what
she decided to do.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
I'm going to wait until he goes to sleep, and
I'm going to sneak out of the house and I'm
going to go to the hospital. And so I sat
down on the couch with him, and the movie was
almost over, and I told him that I was tired
and I wanted to go to bed, and so the
movie ended, and he got up to take my dishes
(32:08):
to the kitchen, and I said I'll take them, and
he said, no, I'll take them, and he pulled them
out of my hands, took the dishes to the sink,
and I saw him tip the cup into the sink,
and then he went into the bathroom. And when he
went into the bathroom, I thought, I have to know,
(32:30):
so I turned on the kitchen light and I looked
and there was pill fragments in the bottom of the cup.
So I got a plastic baggie out and I scooped
out the rest of the pill fragments that were in
the cup, and I zipped them up in the little
plastic baggy and I hit him in my purse, and
I thought, when he goes to sleep, i'll go to
the hospital. Because now I don't so much think I'm insane.
(32:53):
I think he probably did poison me. But now I
really do need to wait until he's asleep.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Now that she had seen the proof, the panic came
flooding in what had he given her and how much
of it did she drink? But she had to stay
calm so she could get out and get help.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
So I got ready for bed, and I laid down
next to him, and I just listened to him breathing
and waited to hear his breathing change so I could
hear when I got deeper so I could sneak out
of bed. And while I was laying there, I felt
(33:35):
a pop and I felt myself start bleeding. I got
up and ran into the bathroom and I was bleeding,
and I started crying and laid down on the bathroom floor.
At this point, I was almost twenty weeks, a long
(33:57):
four months pregnant. The baby was fully formed, so having
this happen in his bathroom at his apartment is certainly
medically dangerous for me. And he came in and he
said what's wrong? And I said, the baby's dying. You
need to call nine one one, and he said, no,
(34:23):
you're fine. I'm a doctor. I can take care of you.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Brooke planned to get out of Six's house quietly and
drive herself to the hospital. Before she could, she started bleeding.
Four months into the pregnancy. She knew she needed to
get help quickly, but when Sick found her on the
floor of the bathroom, he didn't want to call an ambulance, and.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I said, you need to call nine one one, and
he said, no, you're okay, I'm a doctor, You're going
to be fine. I didn't know if he was refusing
to call nine one one because he wanted to kill me.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
She was terrified for herself and for her baby.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Part of me was really hopeful that maybe if I
could just get to a hospital, somehow, the baby was
going to survive. So I was desperate for him to
call nine one one. I said, you don't understand your
(35:54):
son is dying, your son, and if you don't call
nine one one, then I will.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
She hadn't told him the sex of the baby until
this moment. When she called the baby his son, something
shifted for.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Sick, and then he said, okay, I'll call and he
went and he called nine one one, and then the
ambulance came, and at this point I was bleeding a
lot more.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
The paramedics picked her up from the floor and laid
her on the stretcher.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
As they're pushing me out of the apartment. I see
my purse sitting on the counter, and I remember that
the pill fragments are in a baggy in my purse.
So I ask the paramedic to hand me my purse
and he says, you don't need it, and I said, no,
(36:54):
I want my purse, and Sick picks it up and
he says, I'll take it. I have another moment of panic,
thinking if the paramedic asks me for my insurance card,
Sick is going to open my purse and he's going
to see that baggie in there with the pills in it,
(37:14):
and he's going to get rid of it. So they
lowed me into the ambulance and Sick gets into the
ambulance with us. I just keep thinking, if I can
get this paramedic to just make eye contact with me,
he'll see in my eyes that I'm afraid and I
don't want Sick here.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
But the paramedic was too busy triaging Brooke to notice
all the while Six stayed right by her side, acting concerned.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
So we get to the hospital and the whole time
Sick is holding my purse. Finally we get up to
labor and delivery and he sets it down on the counter.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
In the room sick wouldn't leave her, and he made
it known that he was a doctor.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
She's right there the whole time, right next to my bed,
helping them move me from stretcher to bed and talking
to the doctor about their medical training and where they've
both worked, and he's that normal person that everybody likes
in that room. Finally he goes into the bathroom and
(38:29):
I whispered to the nurse to make him leave. I
could just see the colored drain out of her face.
She looked at me and she whispered, back, are you okay?
And I said no. A couple of minutes later, the
charge nurse came in and got sick and said that
she wanted to show him the father's lounge, and she
(38:51):
took him out. And then the nurse and the doctor
came and asked me what was going on, And I said,
I swear I'm not crazy, but I think he poisoned me.
I found pills in my tea and they're in a
baggy in my purse.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
The nurse went into Brooks bag and grabbed the ziploc
with the pill fragments. She wanted to send them to
the lab for testing.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Not long after, that my water broke and Kai was born.
He was not alive. Part of me still hoped he
would cry when he was born, but he didn't. But
they wrapped him up in a blanket and put a
(39:49):
little tiny hat on him and brought him to me.
They let me hold Kai for a couple of hours.
I was holding Kui, I wasn't thinking at all about
what Sick had done. It was more thinking about the loss.
(40:12):
Even though Kai wasn't alive. Still looking at him, there
was sort of this amazement about who he was as
a person, which is odd to say about somebody who
wasn't alive to recognize who they are as a person,
(40:34):
But he was. He was a little person with little
long fingers and long toes. And that's what I was
thinking about when I was looking at him, that he
probably would have played basketball, and he would have been tall,
and maybe he would have played piano because he would
have had long piano playing fingers. Probably sounds strange to
(40:56):
somebody who hasn't lost a baby, but that's what I
was thinking about in that moment.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Sick was in the room too.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
When he saw what Kai actually looked like, Sick cried.
I almost think that that is the first time Sick
realized that it was a whole human. I think that
was really the first time that it was real in
(41:30):
his mind that that was his son.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
After they took Kai's footprints and filled out the paperwork,
his body was taken for an autopsy.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Seven am rolls around and the day shift nurse comes
in and she takes me in the bathroom and she
very quietly asks me what happened.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Once again, Brooke told the story.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
And she says, what are you going to do? And
I said, I don't know. I don't know what to do.
And she said, if there's any part of you that
thinks that this man poisoned you and killed your baby,
you need to report him. Brooke agreed, and she said
(42:20):
have you asked him? Have you asked him if he
did this? And I said no, and she said, I
think you should.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
So they went back in the room just as Sick
was walking back in.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
And he said he was going to go back to
his apartment and take a shower, get changed, and bring
me some clothes. And I said that before he left,
I wanted to ask him a question, and I asked him,
did you poison me? And he said, do you honestly
(42:58):
think I would do that to you. I said, yes,
I do. And I told him I found ground up
pill in the bottom of my cup and I gave
it to the nurse and they're going to have it tested.
So if you did this, you need to come clean
(43:21):
with me right now. And he started crying and he
put his head down on the bed. He was sitting
in a chair next to the bed, and he put
his head down on the bed and just started bawling.
And he told me that he had put me sprostal
(43:42):
in my coffee that morning and that's why I had
a stomach ache, and when it didn't work, he ground
up more and put it in my tea that night.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
It was the final confirmation. She just stared at him
in silence, heartbroken. Sick continued talking and tried to rationalize
what he'd done, and.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
He said that the reason that he did it is
because he knew that I loved him and I wanted
to do what was best for him. But he knew
that if I made the decision to have an abortion,
I would be unhappy about it, so he was making
(44:31):
the decision for me so that I wouldn't have to
live with it. He said it like he thought that
he was doing something benevolent for me, but he wasn't.
He was taking from me somebody that I loved, somebody
(44:51):
that I wanted in my life, and he was justifying
it and acting like he was doing it for my benefit.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
He really seemed to believe he had done the right thing.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
I couldn't believe what he was saying to me. I
couldn't believe it. I felt betrayed. I felt like, that's
not your decision to make. And he was completely selfish.
Rather than taking on what he thought was going to
(45:25):
be ridicule, he was causing pain to other people. That's
a coward. And while he was saying it, there's a
knock on the door to my hospital room, and that
was the police.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
The police took Sick into another room for questioning.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
And he confessed that he had poisoned me. So they
arrested him and took him to jail.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Brooke wouldn't see him again until his sentence hearing, but
Sick had left his phone with her, so she picked
it up and made a call.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
I called his brother, who lives here in New York,
and I told his brother Sick had been arrested and
what he had been arrested for, that he had poisoned
me and killed our baby. And his brother said he
didn't know that I was pregnant. I said that I
(46:30):
couldn't take care of Sick anymore, that he was not
my responsibility and he needed to come down here and
take care of his brother.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Before they hung up, Sick's brother had one more thing
to say.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
While he didn't know that I was pregnant, they did
know that Sick and I were seeing each other. And
his mom had known for years. She had known since
the day she met me, and they had just been
waiting for him to tell them.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
It was a tragic revelation. The pressure Sick put on
himself to live up to his family's expectations was self imposed.
His family would have accepted Brooke and their son. Brooke
called a friend who flew down to DC to pick
her up at the hospital. Before they started to drive home,
(47:30):
they stopped by six apartment to get Brooks bags.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
The police met us there. It was very strange to
go in. There's crime scene tape in his apartment and
it's been ransacked by the police. Just an odd feeling
knowing that that's now the scene of a crime, and
(47:54):
it's a place that you painted and decorated.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
The police had turned the apartment upside down to find
more evidence, and they did. They found white powder in
a pack of one hundred missoprystal tablets with ten doses missing.
He had given her all ten in one day. It
was a massive overdose.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
So he had given me two hundred milligrams in the morning,
and then when that didn't work, he gave me an
additional six hundred milligrams in the evening. He probably needed
to give me that dose because I was way further
(48:35):
along in pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
The police told Brooke they'd be in touch, and that
was it.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
The drive back to New York was awful. There's no
eloquent way to say that. It was just awful. I
cried most of the way back. I missed my baby.
I went down to DC thinking that I was making
a parenting plan, and I came back missing my baby,
(49:07):
with business cards for investigators and victims assistance phone numbers
in my luggage, doubting who I knew for the last
five years. My whole world had changed.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
And then came the regrets. Even though she knew it
wasn't her fault. All she wanted was to go back
in time.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
You know, blaming yourself. I wish I had never driven
down there. I shouldn't have done that. I should have
known better. I've worked through that. I don't still blame myself,
but at that time I did. I kept thinking that,
how stupid was I to drive down there.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
When she got home, the loss became even more real
because she had to find a way to tell her kids.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
Not only was I dealing with my own emotions, but
I had to tell my kids that I wasn't pregnant
anymore and they weren't getting a baby brother. And not
only were they not getting a baby brother, but their
baby brother was murdered. And not only was he murdered,
he was murdered by somebody that they knew and trusted.
(50:22):
And I have to help them through that. While I'm
trying to manage my own emotional fallout from this and
also figure out what to do about this criminal case,
I can hardly function to get dinner on the table.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Her kids weren't just mourning a baby brother. They were
mourning a sense of safety, and Brooke had to carry
all of it. She took leave from work leaned on
her friends and found a therapist. Even with all the support,
she stayed awake at night trying to make sense of
what happened.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
I really went through this period of wondering if I
ever knew him at all, and did I ever see
him or was I fooling myself? Was he a monster
this entire time? And I just didn't want to see it?
(51:23):
And I really did have to think about that because
either I loved a monster and never knew he was
a monster, or I loved a man and then he
became a monster. One of those is true.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Her heart tells her it was the latter.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
I had to objectively look at the person that he
was and look at his actions leading up to that time,
and look at the way he treated people. I really
think that I loved a man who became a monster.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Sick was charged with premeditated fetal homicide. He initially pled
not guilty.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
I didn't want to go to a trial. I really
just wanted him to plead guilty and take responsibility for
what he did. That's when I decided to speak out
about what had happened.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Brooke went the local news to tell her story.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
After I talked to the media, he changed his mind
and decided to plead guilty.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
After that, the only thing left was the sentencing hearing.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
He was facing twenty years to life in prison. He's
not an American citizen, so whenever he completed his sentence,
he was going to be deported back to Pakistan. So
when he decided to plead guilty, I decided to do
was to ask for leniency for him. So I wrote
(53:05):
a letter to the judge and asked for leniency, and
I explained to the judge that my son is gone.
My son is dead. Kai's life is over. He will
never do anything with his life. He's gone. He won't
(53:26):
have a chance, but six still does. He still has
a chance. And I would hate to see two lives
be gone because of this. And I really think that
rather than wasting the rest of his life sitting in prison,
(53:50):
Sick owes it to Kai to do something with his life.
The judge wrote my letter and granted him le nancy
and sentenced him to four years in prison. Otherwise he
(54:10):
would have given him twenty years to life.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Sick was released from prison in twenty twenty one and
deported to Pakistan. Today, it's been eight years since the crime,
and despite everything she's gone through, she manages to live
a joyful and fulfilling life.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Today. I have finished my master's degree in nursing and
I'm teaching nursing. I do Brazilian jiu jitsu a couple
of times a week as a fun hobby and exercise.
It's very empowering. I love doing that.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
She and her kids chose to memorialize Kai.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
His brother got a burial pla and said a prayer
over him, and we buried him in a cemetery here.
So he's got a little gravestone and a cemetery up
here in Upstate New York with his little superhero on it,
(55:17):
and it says Superheroes never sleep.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
We end all of our weekly episodes with the same question,
why do you want to share your story?
Speaker 1 (55:31):
When people hear my story, it is a little bit shocking,
and people often say, oh my god, I can't believe
that happened to you. But what I like people to
take from it is, no matter what happens, no matter
what you go through, you'll get stronger and you learn
(55:53):
to carry it. I was surprised that I made it through,
prized by the amount of strength that I came up
with and looking at it from the other side, I
look back and I think, wow, I made it through that.
If I could make it through that, people can make
(56:16):
it through anything. They really can.
Speaker 2 (56:27):
Next week on Betrayal Weekly, I go, what are you
involved in?
Speaker 3 (56:33):
Are you being investigated by the FBI? And he looked
at me so coldly like he never knew me, and
he said, if I go down, I'm taking you with me.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal
team or want to tell us your Betrayal story, email
us at Betrayalpod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal Pod
at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One
way to show support is by subscribing to our show
on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal.
Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank
(57:13):
you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production
of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason, hosted and produced by me
Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Monique Leboard. Also produced
by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Melcuriy and Caitlin Golden.
(57:37):
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krincheck. Audio
editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio, Additional editing support from
Tanner Robbins. Betrayal's theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library
provided by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(57:58):
your podcasts
Host
Andrea Gunning
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