June 5, 2025 • 54 mins
Susan was going about a normal day at work when an FBI Agent showed up with terrifying news. She was on a hit list. A notorious terrorist organization wanted her dead. Susan tries to find out why she of all people would be targeted. As she tries to answer this question, she must also work to protect herself.
Articles referenced in the episode:
The Seattle Times:
Department of Justice:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/maryland-man-charged-interstate-transportation-stolen-vehicle
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
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 3 (00:30):
Welcome to the Knife. I'm Hannah Smith. I'm Patia Eton.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
This week we speak with a woman that we're calling Susan.
We are not using her real name or identifying her
location because she asked us not to, and after hearing
her story, we understand.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Why sometimes one moment can shift so much in a
person's life. 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. Susan, thank you so much
(01:05):
for joining us on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Thanks, it's interesting to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
How are you feeling about it?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, 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. But before we get to that point,
give us just a little bit of a snapshotow what
was going on with you.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I couldn't be more boring.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I live in the Midwest, and I had a pretty normal,
you know, upbringing. 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, and it was it was really successful,
Like nothing unusual to report in my life. At the
(02:11):
time that this happened, I was just working a ton,
I was a single mom. 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, and you know, I think at the
time this happened, I had about seventy employees. The corporate
(02:32):
offices were right there on the manufacturing site, so I
had a lot of interactions with my employees. It was
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. But you know, things happened, and
(02:54):
you know, people would show up. We had law enforcement
show up a few times, and so it's just kind
of yeah. So when when this initially happened, I was
just like, oh, yeah, the you know, law enforcements here. Well,
I wonder what's up today. We'll see who's getting in
trouble today, you know. So it was summer of twenty sixteen,
(03:15):
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. 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 and so I
(03:36):
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 leftop and he was
holding some folders 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
(03:58):
like that. And his hands were shaking and I could
see his hands sweating. Wow, and I thought, this is
really weird.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I mean, it's so weird. Patient. I know, we've interviewed
multiple FBI agents at this point and.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
We're always just like blown away by their confidence, Like
you did what for how long? And you thought that
was fun? Yeah, it's like definitely a typical of an
FBI agent to come off as nervous, even if they are.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah. I just kind of chalked it up to, you know,
maybe 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. 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. The FBI has a
(04:44):
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, 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. I'm
(05:04):
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. 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,
he didn't know what to do with my reaction. I
think he was ready to be very serious, and I
(05:26):
think he was ready to have me fall apart and
you know, get all this, you know, but I was
just laughing. 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, and he
translated it, and he scrolled down a little bit and
there I was, and it was my name, my full name,
(05:48):
and my address. And I thought, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Just a few minutes earlier, Susan had been going about
an otherwise normal day, and now she's being told that
and a violent terrorist organization wants her dead. None of
it makes sense, especially coming from this scared, sweaty man
sitting in front of her, was he really with the FBI?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
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. And he said, no, you can't talk to anybody.
This has to be completely confidential. And I said, no way,
I don't even know how to understand this information. I'll
(06:31):
be right back. So I went in and I talked
to my CEO and he'd been working for me for
like ten years. I knew him really well. And I said,
I need you to 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 3 (06:51):
Yeah, that's so smart to double chat, because it's like
a random person walks in, he's sweating and tells you
shocking information.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So you go and you talk to your CEO. And
did he or she already know that the FBI was
in the building.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Supposedly, 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.
So he did, and he came in and said, yep,
this guy's the real deal. And I said, we'll sit
down because we need to talk. And so the FBI
(07:24):
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,
and so they told me that there was one other
person in my state that was on the list.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
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. But this FBI agent he didn't
have an answer, and when Susan pressed him on, it
almost felt like he was guessing.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
They couldn't figure out why we had been picked for
the list. They didn't know if it was randomly generated.
The other person who was in my state didn't have
anything to do with my business industry that I was in.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
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. I'd
been in a women's magazine about you know, women who
accomplished 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.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
So really he had no idea necessarily, But you're just
getting the information that your name is on a kill
list and this is a well known terrorist organization. Yeah,
how are you even processing that information in that moment?
What are you thinking?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
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 a dress
ongoing and I just was laughing.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And so you're receiving this like mind blowing information that
is both like incredibly scary and makes no sense at all.
He has no reason why you would be on the
list to offer you how do you leave off?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Is it just like good luck?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Basically? I mean really, he said, you know, I said
what should I do? And he said, well, you need
to call your local county sheriff's department because if something
happens and you need to call nine to one one,
they're going to think you're nuts, and so you need
to alert them. And I was thinking, you alert them,
(09:45):
you know, like you're just coming to tell me, Like
I can't believe that law enforcement isn't hearing about this.
So he said, you know, caller Scheff's department, have a
conversation with them, and then just be safe. And he
said call me if you need anything. And he slides
this like sweaty kind of dang up curd across the
table at me, and I'm thinking, dude, you are the
(10:06):
last person that I'm going to call if there's any
kind of a threat. So 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. 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
(10:27):
isn't real. 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,
all of a sudden, felt very alone. And I went
outside and I was just sitting on the ground trying
to figure out what to do. Next, and I called
my partner and told him what had happened, and he
(10:51):
was It was the very first experience of oh it
was think, got you mixed up with somebody.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Else, 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. This was real. Susan was on
a hit list. An organization that she'd read about in
(11:19):
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
(11:41):
just made her feel even more afraid.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
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 3 (11:52):
Can I ask, though, because because you do have kind
of a common name, So yeah, how are you sure?
Because I think you did know it was actually you? Right?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, I mean they had my name and address on
the website.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Yeah, so they have your address there, Like, how can
that be a mistake, especially when your life is this
is talking about the potential of your life being in danger.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah. It was heavy on my mind that the FBI
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. So
I called my dad, who is just like the loving,
most sweetest, most protective dat ever, and he ended up
going to the FBI and saying, Okay, somebody showed up
(12:35):
on my daughter's doorstep, what the hell is going on?
And all they could really do is confirm They showed
them all the information that they showed me. They gave
them the same instructions about get a hold of local
law enforcement and just let us know if anything happens.
I was kind of stunned. I mean, I don't even
really remember the next couple of days, and my partner
(12:55):
was continuing to be like, you know what, I'd say,
I'm so scared, aren't you scared? And he said, no,
I'm not scared.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
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. 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 hilert. They could be prepared
(13:25):
if she ever did need their help.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
So I called my local sheriff's office, and I remember
talking with the dispatch person and she was like, 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. And so somebody did call
(13:49):
me back a couple days later, and they had somebody
from the sheriff's department come to my house. And he
thought I was nuts. I mean, he just thought, this
is the biggest waste of my time. He didn't mean
really asked me any questions. He didn't want to talk
about it. I have two cats. One of them jumped
up on the counter. So we spent like twenty minutes
talking about my cat. He was telling me about his
mom's cats, and he had zero interest, zero curiosity. There
(14:13):
was no sense of urgency. I was so freaked out
and scared that nobody was responding to this.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
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.
Your partner who dismisses it as a mistake and doesn't
show any real concern. And now the local sheriff's office
(14:41):
that the FBI instructed you to contact to showing you
the same sort of nonchalance.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
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, I wasn't upset, but he was just like,
don't worry, you know, this is fine. So I talked
to him about my cat for a while and he
left and just you know, gave me his card and
(15:07):
said let me know if you need anything. So I'm
still kind of in this place where I'm just this
is nothing, this is silly, and then feeling just so stunned,
I was just in shock. I'm nobody. I have not
done anything controversial. I've been totally kind of apolitical my
(15:28):
whole life. I've not done anything that would be a
threat to anyone, 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 sweat team guy. And I'm thinking, okay,
here we go, here we go again. And he turned
(15:49):
out to be an angel. I mean, he turned out
to be such a grounding force and he was so helpful.
He had two guys with him, and he showed me
his card, showed me as badge. He was like, if
you want to check this out, we'll wait right here.
And at that point I was like, come on in.
(16:09):
I'm like checking people out. So he came in and
he said he was from my county's swat team, and
he said, we have just been debrieched by the FBI.
We know that this is happening. 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
(16:31):
some things that we need to do today and we're
here to help you. 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. You know,
this guy, the main guy, was talking to me, I'll
call him Alan. He was talking to me, talking through
(16:53):
what they knew about the website, what they knew about
the kill lists. And then the other two guys went
around my house. Yes, they took pictures of every square
inch of my house. And then they walked me around
and said, Okay, a person could hide here, a person
could hide here. They walked me around my yard because
I have a lot of landscaping in my yard, and
(17:13):
they said, you need to cut all this down because
it'd be so easy for somebody to hide right here.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
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, 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
(17:39):
out places A trained assassin could hide. 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. Every moment of her life now
carried the way of potential violence.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
They said, when you're in your car, make sure your
car is always locked. When you pull up to your
garage in your locked car, 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.
Everything that they were saying was making it so real.
(18:15):
They had thought through how this organization was going to
carry through with their threat, 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 and he said, we're going to have people
surveilling your house. They put this I can't remember what
the word is, but it's it's a designation that they
(18:37):
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? 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. They will pick
you off in a parking lot or somewhere were you
(18:58):
least expected, because that's what they do. I think at
that moment, I just I felt so exposed. I felt
like a sitting duck, and I felt very isolated. You know,
(19:21):
all the people that I told were men, and I
don't have anything against men, but I wish that I
had 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. And so at that
point I just stopped. I couldn't work. I was afraid
(19:44):
to go to work because I didn't want to put
anybody else in danger.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
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. Every creaky floorboard, every hum of
a car engine, it all made her heart race. The
SWAT team was surveilling her home and her work, which
(20:15):
brought its own mix of emotions. 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 2 (20:27):
They were watching my facility. This big black suburban like
three times a week at night would drive by, and
you know those spotlights that they have on their cars.
There would be these big spotlights that would go on
as they drove by. 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
(20:50):
taking this seriously, but it also was terrifying. And I
just started to fall apart. 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.
And I really started to fall apart. And I think
(21:11):
it was because I could hardly eat, I could not sleep,
and I would be laying in bed and I would
be kind of like in this semi 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.
(21:35):
So it was just over and over and over again,
and I felt so alone. And I would say to
my partner, are you afraid, And he'd say no, and
he'd say, don't worry, I'm right here, and then he
would fall asleep, and I knew that he couldn't help me.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Susan's home was no longer a place she felt safe
or in control. She knew what it was like to
be tie. She'd been a single mother, she ran her
own company, but this kind of sleep deprivation was different.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
It was worse.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I got to the point where I live kind of
close to some foothills, and I got so unglued from
lack of sleep that he would take me up there
and he would just like sit on the head of
his car, spread some blankets out, and I would just
sleep because I needed sleep so desperately, and I'm so
afraid to fall asleep because it was I felt like
(22:31):
I was the only one watching. I felt like I
was the only one that was taking it seriously. And
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, and there's a
photograph of somebody that's a sympathizer, you know, or maybe
(22:53):
part of this terrorist group who were watching, and they
live like forty five minutes a town that's like forty
five minut it's away from me. And he said, we
want you to know what he looks like.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Up until this point, the terrorist group behind the hit
list was still just made up of nameless, faceless people
thousands of miles away. 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 in ideologies.
It's a very real threat. In twenty fourteen, a US
(23:27):
citizen and terrorist sympathizer Ali Mohammed Brown killed four people
for what he described as vengeance over US policy in
the Middle East. In twenty nineteen, a man named Rondel
Henry was arrested after plotting attacks in DC. He'd run
in 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. Maryland
(23:48):
prosecutors determined Henry had been inspired by a terrorist attack
in France back in twenty sixteen. This email from the
FBI alerting Susan of a nearby sympathizer included both his
photo and the make and model of his car.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
He was real, and he was close.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I started seeing those cars everywhere, you know, It's like
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. So I was starting to
be in this very weird, suspended place, which I know
now is just like I was in this big vat
of trauma that was going on. And so I decided
(24:30):
I needed to go someplace where nobody knew where I was.
So I went about two hours away and just rented
this little place. 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
(24:51):
the time when Dennis Miller was a really popular comedian
and he would do those top ten lists. Do you
remember that.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
I'm not familiar. Was this like amedian?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
He was a comedian yeah, and he would do these
top ten lists, okay, and that was very popular at
the time. And so as I'm getting plastered, I start
making up this list about the top ten things that
are worse than being on a terrorist hit list, and
I started to laugh and it kind of started to
break up a little bit, like I couldn't be afraid anymore.
(25:22):
I couldn't sustain that level of terror. 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. It's interesting now that I
look back on it and I see how effective that
(25:44):
was to do that.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
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 2 (26:00):
I think it was probably like three weeks.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
That's a long time to be feeling that afraid and
not sleeping. I mean, it just really does sound like
a nightmare. 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.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, I mean it was all orchestrated so well, 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. So it's 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
(26:40):
do it physically or mentally. Emotionally, I can't do this anymore.
And then I woke up the next morning with of
course a hangover, but I heard on the news that
there had been a shooting at a concert in Dallas, Texas,
and bunch of police officers had been shot. It was
(27:02):
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. And then my mind just
started going there. I 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.
(27:23):
I could have a massive stroke and fall down dead
right here. The fact that I have a little bit
of information about this has to just be a side note,
because at the same time that everything is okay, we
all are going to go at some point.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
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 from
the moment that FBI agent walked into her office, her
sense of safety had been shattered, replaced by a constant,
(28:02):
gnawing fear of fear so great and so powerful that
it was overtaking her life. 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. No one
knows when they're going to die. In the end, it
(28:23):
wasn't taking control that gave Susan a sense of peace
or safety. It was accepting how little control she was in.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
So I kind of went back to my life, and
you know, I did all the things I got on
alarm system, and I cut down a lot of my landscaping,
and I did those things because it felt good to
me to feel like I was doing something for myself
and that I was taking action. Slowly, over the years,
some of those habits have melted away, which was such
a jarring experience when I, you know, went to my
(28:53):
friend 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.
I've tried to tell a couple of people over the years,
I think like maybe two people, and so trying to
tell people about a trauma and then trying to convince
them of its authenticity at the same time, it's horrible.
(29:16):
I can't do both. And that's why I wanted to
tell the story to you, because it's real and how
could I make this up? When I went back to work,
we decided to because I was so concerned about putting
other people, you know, in harm's way, 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
(29:38):
they'll send a bomb to the building. And then I
was thinking about all these people who 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. All the packages were
checked in a particular part of the building before they came.
(30:00):
Anything that was not like clearly marked from a vendor
that we knew was not opened.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
And so when do you decide to tell your daughter
and what is her reaction?
Speaker 2 (30:13):
I told her about four years ago.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
That's twenty twenty one. This happens in twenty sixteen. It's
a long time.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
It is. Yeah. I actually told a friend of mine
about it, one of my best friends, and she is
very logical. She's very research minded, you know. She's like, okay,
I'm looking this up and she's like, oh yeah, I
see that there are articles about these lists, and I
see that there is stuff out there. And she and
I kind of problem solved. When I told my daughter
(30:43):
about it, we were in person. I told her in
a way that was framed around you know, I'm safe,
this is okay, 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. I think she was able to process through it.
But it's like, what do you even process through. I
(31:06):
have not found a good way to resolve this yet, really,
so you just kind of have to let it age
and diminish. I think.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
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. Some targeted names of people
who worked for homeland security or were members of the
US military. Others seemed totally random. Susan never got an
answer as to why her name was on a list.
(31:41):
How long did that swat team or the FBI surveil
your home?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
How long did that go on for?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
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. We have to be really
careful at work because if we call nine to one one.
The way that they explained it to me is they
come guns drawn. So they're not going to just come
up and knock on the door and say, oh, did
(32:11):
you call nine one one. You know they're coming expecting action,
I guess. 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,
And after I had talked to the sheriff about what
my business was, the swat team guy said, how are
(32:33):
you doing? We're watching this. We're on this. Every time
that you call, it's routed directly to us, 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 I it's it's it feels over.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
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 2 (33:03):
I don't want to get the attention of anybody. I
don't want to make myself a target again. That feels
very important. Yeah, I don't want to say, oh, we
forgot that person. Well, some may go get her, right,
And I also don't want to put myself back in
that place of feeling exposed. That is a bad feeling.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, just thinking about the whole
ordeal and everything you had to go through and sleepless
nights and all the fear. 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
(33:41):
thinking around that?
Speaker 2 (33:43):
That is such a tough question. 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 in my life. And I think it was all
a terrorist ruse, and I think it was designed to
(34:06):
put me through what I went through. I wish they
had told me in a different way. I wish they
had brought me in so they didn't send some nervous
nubie out to drop this in my lap and then
say good luck. I wish they'd told me in a
different way. And you know what, I also want to
say that to everyone, from the initial guy who came
(34:29):
to talk to me to the Sheriff's department and the
SWAT team. I know that everybody was trying to do
their best. 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, So I don't
want to sound like I'm trying to disparage any of
those people who try to help.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
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, were you given
that person's name? Did you ever speak with them?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
No, they did tell me that they were They were
a doctor or dentist or something. I kind of wish
that I had asked for that information. If there's someone
out there that hears this, I would love to talk
to them to see what their experience was. The main
SWAT team guide has sent me information. It stopped probably
about five years ago, but he would send me some
(35:29):
follow up information. And another list was posted on the website,
on the terrorist website, probably two years after 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
(35:50):
like how did I get on this list? And he said,
at this point, my best guess is that it was
just random, that it was just a random thing.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
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. 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
(36:21):
this random civilian. Did they ever offer you anything about
why you.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
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.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
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? You know, you said that your relationship
ultimately ended, which I assume that means you're sleeping alone
in your house with your cats.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yes, my cats and my dogs. I have two dogs
with big, loud, scary, vicious sounding barks, which is great.
Love that 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, 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
(37:24):
a lot when you're a parent. Now it feels like
a choice for me. I live alone with my animals,
and I can lay in bed and be afraid or
I cannot. 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.
That maybe sounds kind of simple, but it's the only
(37:47):
place I've been able to make a change, to make
an actual change in how I feel.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Yeah, that makes sense, Like in your own mind. Well,
it's tricky, right, because the threat was real, So it's
not like this was just in your head. 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.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
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 that's
why it was very hard for me to figure out
how to email you guys. 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
(38:33):
somebody would thoughtfully investigate what happened and not trying or
rip me apart over it. Because, like I said, that
dismissal is really tough, and I wanted to talk to
somebody who would be responsible about handling this information in
(38:54):
a safe way.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
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 2 (39:13):
I think I had to create an over for myself
because I don't want it to be part of my life.
I don't want to carry this around inside anymore. 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
(39:35):
do that. And the over part for me is just
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. 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 my delineation
(39:59):
of it being over.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Well, that was our conversation with Susan, and I have
to say I really enjoyed talking with her. One thing
that really stands out from that conversation was this idea
that she brought up of I think she called it
victim dismissal. You know, she was experiencing this terrifying situation,
(40:23):
and yet everyone around her for a period of time
kind of acted like she was making too big of
a deal of it.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah. 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. I mean, I think that even someone
with the best of intentions could think that they're doing
(40:52):
someone good by trying to like put their mind to ease.
Oh it's nothing, it's just a mistake. There's no way,
but don't worry. Don't worry, But then the SWAT team's
at your house, and it is worrying.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
How do you not worry when a SWAT team is
literally at your house? I would be very very concerned. Yeah,
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, 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
(41:26):
situation of being on a terrorist hit list. 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. Send us an email at the Knife
at exactlywritemedia dot com and we would love to speak
with you and hopefully be able to connect you with Susan.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yeah, 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
heard before. And I was totally gamed. And sometimes I
love going into interviews like that, because you know, you
can find yourself asking different questions than maybe if you
(42:06):
had prepped yourself ahead of time. And I certainly wasn't
expecting the story that she told. 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. And after researching these sorts of target lists,
there have been multiple terrorist organizations that have made them,
(42:29):
and so we're just going to talk about a few examples.
A well known organization ISIS created multiple lists just like
this one.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
You know.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
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. And so when
they first started popping up, the FBI wasn't a learning
to people who were on them.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
What do you mean they weren't considered a threat.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
They weren't sure what to make of it, Like, they
didn't think that notifying people was necessarily in their best
interest maybe okay, And I wasn't able to verify that,
but that is what she told us. Is 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.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Meeting, right, I remember that like that they had gotten
some pushback because maybe they had not notified people about
being on hitless. So then they're notifying people, and you know,
that's also scary. I don't know what you're supposed to do,
necessarily so scary, and that FBI agent didn't know either.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
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? 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
(43:50):
the interest of lone wolves. 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 oversees in some foreign country do not.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
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 (44:23):
Right, because they would love to take responsibility for an attack.
And so that is the real threat 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
(44:45):
able to pull up multiple examples of those threats being
carried out, almost carried out and resulting in senseless tragedy.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Yeah, it is scary. It makes it more real. And yeah,
that was a clear escalation in the story. 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. Suddenly, it was there could be
someone carrying this out right now. And as you said,
(45:13):
there's been a few examples of this happening, right.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Yeah, And the surveillance that was happening at her home
and at her work, you know, it wasn't twenty four
to seven. It wasn't like she had security detail following
her around. Although they were checking in, you know, it
wasn't like this total relief. It was almost just reaffirming
the fear without making her feel any safer. So this
(45:38):
idea that these target lists the purpose was to instigate
these lone wolf attacks, it's real.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
You know. She talked about like being terrorized, feeling terrorized,
and how horrible that was for her, and how really
she just wanted someone to kind of acknowledge it in
her life and say, yeah, that's really scary and it's
really scary to be in your home and think that
someone might be actively trying to kill you.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Yeah, 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 3 (46:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
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. So when
this whole ordeal happened, the purpose behind it is great.
It's like, Okay, we're a lerning local law enforcement of
this threat, so that if you ever meet us, we're
(46:37):
ready for the threat. But all these years later, her
house is still labeled a hazard one, 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 nine one one, if she goes to sell
her house.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
That's what was really interesting when she said that she
would have to disclose that to the potential buyers, that
this house is a hazard one. So FOYI, let's so
you have little kids and you need to call nine
one one, just like be prepared that there will be
there's going to be a swat team coming to your house. Terrifying.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, I mean it's not a small consequence. It's small
relatives to the fear that someone's going to kill you.
But it's just another consequence of this happening to her.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Yeah, And she had asked for that to be removed
because it's been almost ten years since this happened a
live and you know, she feels like it's really not
a threat anymore. 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. So it's kind of this open
ended thing where they're going to keep her house and
(47:45):
her workplace listen as hazard one just in case, I guess.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
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, and actually I do want
to 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.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
Yeah, I'm so grateful she reached out and wanted to
tell us this story such a unique, 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, Okay,
someone gets dropped into this nuts situation and now what. Yeah,
(48:30):
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. Yeah. One of the things
I wanted to talk to you about in this wrap
around specifically was your thoughts on the part of the
story where Susan talked about being a parent, being a mom.
(48:50):
You know, in the beginning when she was telling us
her story. She said she's a single mom, 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. It turned out
that her daughter was away at college at the time.
Still scary, but you know, she didn't have a kid
(49:11):
in the house at that moment. But I'm just curious
if you have any like reflections or thoughts about that.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
Well, I'll say that before I knew her daughter was
living out of the house at the time, it was
my first question, 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. But I think that like,
(49:36):
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. 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
(49:57):
single parent. 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, And she had,
you know, not that much information to give her and
(50:19):
didn't want to relay the same vague but serious threat
that this FBI agent had put on her.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Yeah, I can't imagine also being like the child in
that situation. 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. 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, Yeah, that they spoke
(50:51):
about it.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
And even then it was kind of sad and scary
for her to take in. But by that point Susan
had a more sort of measured person spective on it
herself and was probably in a better position to guide
her daughter through that same experience.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
Yeah. 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 usually we're on zoom, we see their face, you know,
it's a longer conversation that ends up in the final episode.
(51:27):
And so there's that experience, 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, 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. So
(51:49):
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 this is
the stuff of nightmares, 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.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Oh my gosh, 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, you
should go back to sleep. I'm fine.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
They Also the day we did that interview happened to
also be the day that I got these 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. If you open the door,
there's a loud beeping that happens because we keep those
doors closed for obvious reasons, and I couldn't install those
(52:44):
fast enough.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
Yes, yeah, 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
surprisingly sort of deep and touching to me.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Yeah, she drew this pretty definitive line in the sand
for herself, just based off of like a shift in perspective.
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, that was a joke.
(53:22):
It was just all going to go on forever. It
was up to her to move on or not move on,
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.
Speaker 3 (53:36):
Yeah, 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. 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 and thank you so much for listening.
(53:59):
We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
If you have a story for us, we would love
to hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactlyrightmedia
dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram at
the Knife Podcast or a Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
by me Hannah Smith.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
And me Paysha Eaton. Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and
Alexis Samarosi.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in
the Airport Artwork five vansa Lilac executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff,
Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer,
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
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 3 (00:30):
Welcome to the Knife. I'm Hannah Smith. I'm Patia Eton.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
This week we speak with a woman that we're calling Susan.
We are not using her real name or identifying her
location because she asked us not to, and after hearing
her story, we understand.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Why sometimes one moment can shift so much in a
person's life. 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. Susan, thank you so much
(01:05):
for joining us on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Thanks, it's interesting to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
How are you feeling about it?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, 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. But before we get to that point,
give us just a little bit of a snapshotow what
was going on with you.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I couldn't be more boring.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I live in the Midwest, and I had a pretty normal,
you know, upbringing. 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, and it was it was really successful,
Like nothing unusual to report in my life. At the
(02:11):
time that this happened, I was just working a ton,
I was a single mom. 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, and you know, I think at the
time this happened, I had about seventy employees. The corporate
(02:32):
offices were right there on the manufacturing site, so I
had a lot of interactions with my employees. It was
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. But you know, things happened, and
(02:54):
you know, people would show up. We had law enforcement
show up a few times, and so it's just kind
of yeah. So when when this initially happened, I was
just like, oh, yeah, the you know, law enforcements here. Well,
I wonder what's up today. We'll see who's getting in
trouble today, you know. So it was summer of twenty sixteen,
(03:15):
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. 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 and so I
(03:36):
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 leftop and he was
holding some folders 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
(03:58):
like that. And his hands were shaking and I could
see his hands sweating. Wow, and I thought, this is
really weird.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
I mean, it's so weird. Patient. I know, we've interviewed
multiple FBI agents at this point and.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
We're always just like blown away by their confidence, Like
you did what for how long? And you thought that
was fun? Yeah, it's like definitely a typical of an
FBI agent to come off as nervous, even if they are.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah. I just kind of chalked it up to, you know,
maybe 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. 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. The FBI has a
(04:44):
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, 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. I'm
(05:04):
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. 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,
he didn't know what to do with my reaction. I
think he was ready to be very serious, and I
(05:26):
think he was ready to have me fall apart and
you know, get all this, you know, but I was
just laughing. 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, and he
translated it, and he scrolled down a little bit and
there I was, and it was my name, my full name,
(05:48):
and my address. And I thought, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Just a few minutes earlier, Susan had been going about
an otherwise normal day, and now she's being told that
and a violent terrorist organization wants her dead. None of
it makes sense, especially coming from this scared, sweaty man
sitting in front of her, was he really with the FBI?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
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. And he said, no, you can't talk to anybody.
This has to be completely confidential. And I said, no way,
I don't even know how to understand this information. I'll
(06:31):
be right back. So I went in and I talked
to my CEO and he'd been working for me for
like ten years. I knew him really well. And I said,
I need you to 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 3 (06:51):
Yeah, that's so smart to double chat, because it's like
a random person walks in, he's sweating and tells you
shocking information.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So you go and you talk to your CEO. And
did he or she already know that the FBI was
in the building.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Supposedly, 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.
So he did, and he came in and said, yep,
this guy's the real deal. And I said, we'll sit
down because we need to talk. And so the FBI
(07:24):
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,
and so they told me that there was one other
person in my state that was on the list.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
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. But this FBI agent he didn't
have an answer, and when Susan pressed him on, it
almost felt like he was guessing.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
They couldn't figure out why we had been picked for
the list. They didn't know if it was randomly generated.
The other person who was in my state didn't have
anything to do with my business industry that I was in.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
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. I'd
been in a women's magazine about you know, women who
accomplished 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.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
So really he had no idea necessarily, But you're just
getting the information that your name is on a kill
list and this is a well known terrorist organization. Yeah,
how are you even processing that information in that moment?
What are you thinking?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
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 a dress
ongoing and I just was laughing.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And so you're receiving this like mind blowing information that
is both like incredibly scary and makes no sense at all.
He has no reason why you would be on the
list to offer you how do you leave off?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Is it just like good luck?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Basically? I mean really, he said, you know, I said
what should I do? And he said, well, you need
to call your local county sheriff's department because if something
happens and you need to call nine to one one,
they're going to think you're nuts, and so you need
to alert them. And I was thinking, you alert them,
(09:45):
you know, like you're just coming to tell me, Like
I can't believe that law enforcement isn't hearing about this.
So he said, you know, caller Scheff's department, have a
conversation with them, and then just be safe. And he
said call me if you need anything. And he slides
this like sweaty kind of dang up curd across the
table at me, and I'm thinking, dude, you are the
(10:06):
last person that I'm going to call if there's any
kind of a threat. So 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. 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
(10:27):
isn't real. 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,
all of a sudden, felt very alone. And I went
outside and I was just sitting on the ground trying
to figure out what to do. Next, and I called
my partner and told him what had happened, and he
(10:51):
was It was the very first experience of oh it
was think, got you mixed up with somebody.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Else, 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. This was real. Susan was on
a hit list. An organization that she'd read about in
(11:19):
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
(11:41):
just made her feel even more afraid.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
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 3 (11:52):
Can I ask, though, because because you do have kind
of a common name, So yeah, how are you sure?
Because I think you did know it was actually you? Right?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah, I mean they had my name and address on
the website.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
Yeah, so they have your address there, Like, how can
that be a mistake, especially when your life is this
is talking about the potential of your life being in danger.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah. It was heavy on my mind that the FBI
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. So
I called my dad, who is just like the loving,
most sweetest, most protective dat ever, and he ended up
going to the FBI and saying, Okay, somebody showed up
(12:35):
on my daughter's doorstep, what the hell is going on?
And all they could really do is confirm They showed
them all the information that they showed me. They gave
them the same instructions about get a hold of local
law enforcement and just let us know if anything happens.
I was kind of stunned. I mean, I don't even
really remember the next couple of days, and my partner
(12:55):
was continuing to be like, you know what, I'd say,
I'm so scared, aren't you scared? And he said, no,
I'm not scared.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
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. 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 hilert. They could be prepared
(13:25):
if she ever did need their help.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
So I called my local sheriff's office, and I remember
talking with the dispatch person and she was like, 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. And so somebody did call
(13:49):
me back a couple days later, and they had somebody
from the sheriff's department come to my house. And he
thought I was nuts. I mean, he just thought, this
is the biggest waste of my time. He didn't mean
really asked me any questions. He didn't want to talk
about it. I have two cats. One of them jumped
up on the counter. So we spent like twenty minutes
talking about my cat. He was telling me about his
mom's cats, and he had zero interest, zero curiosity. There
(14:13):
was no sense of urgency. I was so freaked out
and scared that nobody was responding to this.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
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.
Your partner who dismisses it as a mistake and doesn't
show any real concern. And now the local sheriff's office
(14:41):
that the FBI instructed you to contact to showing you
the same sort of nonchalance.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
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, I wasn't upset, but he was just like,
don't worry, you know, this is fine. So I talked
to him about my cat for a while and he
left and just you know, gave me his card and
(15:07):
said let me know if you need anything. So I'm
still kind of in this place where I'm just this
is nothing, this is silly, and then feeling just so stunned,
I was just in shock. I'm nobody. I have not
done anything controversial. I've been totally kind of apolitical my
(15:28):
whole life. I've not done anything that would be a
threat to anyone, 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 sweat team guy. And I'm thinking, okay,
here we go, here we go again. And he turned
(15:49):
out to be an angel. I mean, he turned out
to be such a grounding force and he was so helpful.
He had two guys with him, and he showed me
his card, showed me as badge. He was like, if
you want to check this out, we'll wait right here.
And at that point I was like, come on in.
(16:09):
I'm like checking people out. So he came in and
he said he was from my county's swat team, and
he said, we have just been debrieched by the FBI.
We know that this is happening. 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
(16:31):
some things that we need to do today and we're
here to help you. 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. You know,
this guy, the main guy, was talking to me, I'll
call him Alan. He was talking to me, talking through
(16:53):
what they knew about the website, what they knew about
the kill lists. And then the other two guys went
around my house. Yes, they took pictures of every square
inch of my house. And then they walked me around
and said, Okay, a person could hide here, a person
could hide here. They walked me around my yard because
I have a lot of landscaping in my yard, and
(17:13):
they said, you need to cut all this down because
it'd be so easy for somebody to hide right here.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
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, 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
(17:39):
out places A trained assassin could hide. 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. Every moment of her life now
carried the way of potential violence.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
They said, when you're in your car, make sure your
car is always locked. When you pull up to your
garage in your locked car, 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.
Everything that they were saying was making it so real.
(18:15):
They had thought through how this organization was going to
carry through with their threat, 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 and he said, we're going to have people
surveilling your house. They put this I can't remember what
the word is, but it's it's a designation that they
(18:37):
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? 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. They will pick
you off in a parking lot or somewhere were you
(18:58):
least expected, because that's what they do. I think at
that moment, I just I felt so exposed. I felt
like a sitting duck, and I felt very isolated. You know,
(19:21):
all the people that I told were men, and I
don't have anything against men, but I wish that I
had 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. And so at that
point I just stopped. I couldn't work. I was afraid
(19:44):
to go to work because I didn't want to put
anybody else in danger.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
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. Every creaky floorboard, every hum of
a car engine, it all made her heart race. The
SWAT team was surveilling her home and her work, which
(20:15):
brought its own mix of emotions. 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 2 (20:27):
They were watching my facility. This big black suburban like
three times a week at night would drive by, and
you know those spotlights that they have on their cars.
There would be these big spotlights that would go on
as they drove by. 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
(20:50):
taking this seriously, but it also was terrifying. And I
just started to fall apart. 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.
And I really started to fall apart. And I think
(21:11):
it was because I could hardly eat, I could not sleep,
and I would be laying in bed and I would
be kind of like in this semi 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.
(21:35):
So it was just over and over and over again,
and I felt so alone. And I would say to
my partner, are you afraid, And he'd say no, and
he'd say, don't worry, I'm right here, and then he
would fall asleep, and I knew that he couldn't help me.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Susan's home was no longer a place she felt safe
or in control. She knew what it was like to
be tie. She'd been a single mother, she ran her
own company, but this kind of sleep deprivation was different.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
It was worse.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
I got to the point where I live kind of
close to some foothills, and I got so unglued from
lack of sleep that he would take me up there
and he would just like sit on the head of
his car, spread some blankets out, and I would just
sleep because I needed sleep so desperately, and I'm so
afraid to fall asleep because it was I felt like
(22:31):
I was the only one watching. I felt like I
was the only one that was taking it seriously. And
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, and there's a
photograph of somebody that's a sympathizer, you know, or maybe
(22:53):
part of this terrorist group who were watching, and they
live like forty five minutes a town that's like forty
five minut it's away from me. And he said, we
want you to know what he looks like.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Up until this point, the terrorist group behind the hit
list was still just made up of nameless, faceless people
thousands of miles away. 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 in ideologies.
It's a very real threat. In twenty fourteen, a US
(23:27):
citizen and terrorist sympathizer Ali Mohammed Brown killed four people
for what he described as vengeance over US policy in
the Middle East. In twenty nineteen, a man named Rondel
Henry was arrested after plotting attacks in DC. He'd run
in 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. Maryland
(23:48):
prosecutors determined Henry had been inspired by a terrorist attack
in France back in twenty sixteen. This email from the
FBI alerting Susan of a nearby sympathizer included both his
photo and the make and model of his car.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
He was real, and he was close.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I started seeing those cars everywhere, you know, It's like
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. So I was starting to
be in this very weird, suspended place, which I know
now is just like I was in this big vat
of trauma that was going on. And so I decided
(24:30):
I needed to go someplace where nobody knew where I was.
So I went about two hours away and just rented
this little place. 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
(24:51):
the time when Dennis Miller was a really popular comedian
and he would do those top ten lists. Do you
remember that.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
I'm not familiar. Was this like amedian?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
He was a comedian yeah, and he would do these
top ten lists, okay, and that was very popular at
the time. And so as I'm getting plastered, I start
making up this list about the top ten things that
are worse than being on a terrorist hit list, and
I started to laugh and it kind of started to
break up a little bit, like I couldn't be afraid anymore.
(25:22):
I couldn't sustain that level of terror. 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. It's interesting now that I
look back on it and I see how effective that
(25:44):
was to do that.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
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 2 (26:00):
I think it was probably like three weeks.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
That's a long time to be feeling that afraid and
not sleeping. I mean, it just really does sound like
a nightmare. 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.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah, I mean it was all orchestrated so well, 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. So it's 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
(26:40):
do it physically or mentally. Emotionally, I can't do this anymore.
And then I woke up the next morning with of
course a hangover, but I heard on the news that
there had been a shooting at a concert in Dallas, Texas,
and bunch of police officers had been shot. It was
(27:02):
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. And then my mind just
started going there. I 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.
(27:23):
I could have a massive stroke and fall down dead
right here. The fact that I have a little bit
of information about this has to just be a side note,
because at the same time that everything is okay, we
all are going to go at some point.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
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 from
the moment that FBI agent walked into her office, her
sense of safety had been shattered, replaced by a constant,
(28:02):
gnawing fear of fear so great and so powerful that
it was overtaking her life. 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. No one
knows when they're going to die. In the end, it
(28:23):
wasn't taking control that gave Susan a sense of peace
or safety. It was accepting how little control she was in.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
So I kind of went back to my life, and
you know, I did all the things I got on
alarm system, and I cut down a lot of my landscaping,
and I did those things because it felt good to
me to feel like I was doing something for myself
and that I was taking action. Slowly, over the years,
some of those habits have melted away, which was such
a jarring experience when I, you know, went to my
(28:53):
friend 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.
I've tried to tell a couple of people over the years,
I think like maybe two people, and so trying to
tell people about a trauma and then trying to convince
them of its authenticity at the same time, it's horrible.
(29:16):
I can't do both. And that's why I wanted to
tell the story to you, because it's real and how
could I make this up? When I went back to work,
we decided to because I was so concerned about putting
other people, you know, in harm's way, 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
(29:38):
they'll send a bomb to the building. And then I
was thinking about all these people who 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. All the packages were
checked in a particular part of the building before they came.
(30:00):
Anything that was not like clearly marked from a vendor
that we knew was not opened.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
And so when do you decide to tell your daughter
and what is her reaction?
Speaker 2 (30:13):
I told her about four years ago.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
That's twenty twenty one. This happens in twenty sixteen. It's
a long time.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
It is. Yeah. I actually told a friend of mine
about it, one of my best friends, and she is
very logical. She's very research minded, you know. She's like, okay,
I'm looking this up and she's like, oh yeah, I
see that there are articles about these lists, and I
see that there is stuff out there. And she and
I kind of problem solved. When I told my daughter
(30:43):
about it, we were in person. I told her in
a way that was framed around you know, I'm safe,
this is okay, 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. I think she was able to process through it.
But it's like, what do you even process through. I
(31:06):
have not found a good way to resolve this yet, really,
so you just kind of have to let it age
and diminish. I think.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
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. Some targeted names of people
who worked for homeland security or were members of the
US military. Others seemed totally random. Susan never got an
answer as to why her name was on a list.
(31:41):
How long did that swat team or the FBI surveil
your home?
Speaker 3 (31:47):
How long did that go on for?
Speaker 2 (31:49):
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. We have to be really
careful at work because if we call nine to one one.
The way that they explained it to me is they
come guns drawn. So they're not going to just come
up and knock on the door and say, oh, did
(32:11):
you call nine one one. You know they're coming expecting action,
I guess. 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,
And after I had talked to the sheriff about what
my business was, the swat team guy said, how are
(32:33):
you doing? We're watching this. We're on this. Every time
that you call, it's routed directly to us, 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 I it's it's it feels over.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
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 2 (33:03):
I don't want to get the attention of anybody. I
don't want to make myself a target again. That feels
very important. Yeah, I don't want to say, oh, we
forgot that person. Well, some may go get her, right,
And I also don't want to put myself back in
that place of feeling exposed. That is a bad feeling.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, just thinking about the whole
ordeal and everything you had to go through and sleepless
nights and all the fear. 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
(33:41):
thinking around that?
Speaker 2 (33:43):
That is such a tough question. 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 in my life. And I think it was all
a terrorist ruse, and I think it was designed to
(34:06):
put me through what I went through. I wish they
had told me in a different way. I wish they
had brought me in so they didn't send some nervous
nubie out to drop this in my lap and then
say good luck. I wish they'd told me in a
different way. And you know what, I also want to
say that to everyone, from the initial guy who came
(34:29):
to talk to me to the Sheriff's department and the
SWAT team. I know that everybody was trying to do
their best. 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, So I don't
want to sound like I'm trying to disparage any of
those people who try to help.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
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, were you given
that person's name? Did you ever speak with them?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
No, they did tell me that they were They were
a doctor or dentist or something. I kind of wish
that I had asked for that information. If there's someone
out there that hears this, I would love to talk
to them to see what their experience was. The main
SWAT team guide has sent me information. It stopped probably
about five years ago, but he would send me some
(35:29):
follow up information. And another list was posted on the website,
on the terrorist website, probably two years after 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
(35:50):
like how did I get on this list? And he said,
at this point, my best guess is that it was
just random, that it was just a random thing.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
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. 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
(36:21):
this random civilian. Did they ever offer you anything about
why you.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
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.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
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? You know, you said that your relationship
ultimately ended, which I assume that means you're sleeping alone
in your house with your cats.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yes, my cats and my dogs. I have two dogs
with big, loud, scary, vicious sounding barks, which is great.
Love that 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, 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
(37:24):
a lot when you're a parent. Now it feels like
a choice for me. I live alone with my animals,
and I can lay in bed and be afraid or
I cannot. 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.
That maybe sounds kind of simple, but it's the only
(37:47):
place I've been able to make a change, to make
an actual change in how I feel.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Yeah, that makes sense, Like in your own mind. Well,
it's tricky, right, because the threat was real, So it's
not like this was just in your head. 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.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
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 that's
why it was very hard for me to figure out
how to email you guys. 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
(38:33):
somebody would thoughtfully investigate what happened and not trying or
rip me apart over it. Because, like I said, that
dismissal is really tough, and I wanted to talk to
somebody who would be responsible about handling this information in
(38:54):
a safe way.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
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 2 (39:13):
I think I had to create an over for myself
because I don't want it to be part of my life.
I don't want to carry this around inside anymore. 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
(39:35):
do that. And the over part for me is just
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. 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 my delineation
(39:59):
of it being over.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Well, that was our conversation with Susan, and I have
to say I really enjoyed talking with her. One thing
that really stands out from that conversation was this idea
that she brought up of I think she called it
victim dismissal. You know, she was experiencing this terrifying situation,
(40:23):
and yet everyone around her for a period of time
kind of acted like she was making too big of
a deal of it.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah. 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. I mean, I think that even someone
with the best of intentions could think that they're doing
(40:52):
someone good by trying to like put their mind to ease.
Oh it's nothing, it's just a mistake. There's no way,
but don't worry. Don't worry, But then the SWAT team's
at your house, and it is worrying.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
How do you not worry when a SWAT team is
literally at your house? I would be very very concerned. Yeah,
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, 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
(41:26):
situation of being on a terrorist hit list. 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. Send us an email at the Knife
at exactlywritemedia dot com and we would love to speak
with you and hopefully be able to connect you with Susan.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yeah, 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
heard before. And I was totally gamed. And sometimes I
love going into interviews like that, because you know, you
can find yourself asking different questions than maybe if you
(42:06):
had prepped yourself ahead of time. And I certainly wasn't
expecting the story that she told. 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. And after researching these sorts of target lists,
there have been multiple terrorist organizations that have made them,
(42:29):
and so we're just going to talk about a few examples.
A well known organization ISIS created multiple lists just like
this one.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
You know.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
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. And so when
they first started popping up, the FBI wasn't a learning
to people who were on them.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
What do you mean they weren't considered a threat.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
They weren't sure what to make of it, Like, they
didn't think that notifying people was necessarily in their best
interest maybe okay, And I wasn't able to verify that,
but that is what she told us. Is 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.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Meeting, right, I remember that like that they had gotten
some pushback because maybe they had not notified people about
being on hitless. So then they're notifying people, and you know,
that's also scary. I don't know what you're supposed to do,
necessarily so scary, and that FBI agent didn't know either.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
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? 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
(43:50):
the interest of lone wolves. 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 oversees in some foreign country do not.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
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 (44:23):
Right, because they would love to take responsibility for an attack.
And so that is the real threat 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
(44:45):
able to pull up multiple examples of those threats being
carried out, almost carried out and resulting in senseless tragedy.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
Yeah, it is scary. It makes it more real. And yeah,
that was a clear escalation in the story. 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. Suddenly, it was there could be
someone carrying this out right now. And as you said,
(45:13):
there's been a few examples of this happening, right.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
Yeah, And the surveillance that was happening at her home
and at her work, you know, it wasn't twenty four
to seven. It wasn't like she had security detail following
her around. Although they were checking in, you know, it
wasn't like this total relief. It was almost just reaffirming
the fear without making her feel any safer. So this
(45:38):
idea that these target lists the purpose was to instigate
these lone wolf attacks, it's real.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
You know. She talked about like being terrorized, feeling terrorized,
and how horrible that was for her, and how really
she just wanted someone to kind of acknowledge it in
her life and say, yeah, that's really scary and it's
really scary to be in your home and think that
someone might be actively trying to kill you.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Yeah, 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 3 (46:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
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. So when
this whole ordeal happened, the purpose behind it is great.
It's like, Okay, we're a lerning local law enforcement of
this threat, so that if you ever meet us, we're
(46:37):
ready for the threat. But all these years later, her
house is still labeled a hazard one, 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 nine one one, if she goes to sell
her house.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
That's what was really interesting when she said that she
would have to disclose that to the potential buyers, that
this house is a hazard one. So FOYI, let's so
you have little kids and you need to call nine
one one, just like be prepared that there will be
there's going to be a swat team coming to your house. Terrifying.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, I mean it's not a small consequence. It's small
relatives to the fear that someone's going to kill you.
But it's just another consequence of this happening to her.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Yeah, And she had asked for that to be removed
because it's been almost ten years since this happened a
live and you know, she feels like it's really not
a threat anymore. 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. So it's kind of this open
ended thing where they're going to keep her house and
(47:45):
her workplace listen as hazard one just in case, I guess.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
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, and actually I do want
to 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.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
Yeah, I'm so grateful she reached out and wanted to
tell us this story such a unique, 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, Okay,
someone gets dropped into this nuts situation and now what. Yeah,
(48:30):
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. Yeah. One of the things
I wanted to talk to you about in this wrap
around specifically was your thoughts on the part of the
story where Susan talked about being a parent, being a mom.
(48:50):
You know, in the beginning when she was telling us
her story. She said she's a single mom, 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. It turned out
that her daughter was away at college at the time.
Still scary, but you know, she didn't have a kid
(49:11):
in the house at that moment. But I'm just curious
if you have any like reflections or thoughts about that.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
Well, I'll say that before I knew her daughter was
living out of the house at the time, it was
my first question, 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. But I think that like,
(49:36):
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. 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
(49:57):
single parent. 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, And she had,
you know, not that much information to give her and
(50:19):
didn't want to relay the same vague but serious threat
that this FBI agent had put on her.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
Yeah, I can't imagine also being like the child in
that situation. 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. 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, Yeah, that they spoke
(50:51):
about it.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
And even then it was kind of sad and scary
for her to take in. But by that point Susan
had a more sort of measured person spective on it
herself and was probably in a better position to guide
her daughter through that same experience.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
Yeah. 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 usually we're on zoom, we see their face, you know,
it's a longer conversation that ends up in the final episode.
(51:27):
And so there's that experience, 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, 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. So
(51:49):
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 this is
the stuff of nightmares, 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.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Oh my gosh, 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, you
should go back to sleep. I'm fine.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
They Also the day we did that interview happened to
also be the day that I got these 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. If you open the door,
there's a loud beeping that happens because we keep those
doors closed for obvious reasons, and I couldn't install those
(52:44):
fast enough.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
Yes, yeah, 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
surprisingly sort of deep and touching to me.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Yeah, she drew this pretty definitive line in the sand
for herself, just based off of like a shift in perspective.
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, that was a joke.
(53:22):
It was just all going to go on forever. It
was up to her to move on or not move on,
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.
Speaker 3 (53:36):
Yeah, 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. 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 and thank you so much for listening.
(53:59):
We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
If you have a story for us, we would love
to hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactlyrightmedia
dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram at
the Knife Podcast or a Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
Speaker 3 (54:11):
This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
by me Hannah Smith.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
And me Paysha Eaton. Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and
Alexis Samarosi.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in
the Airport Artwork five vansa Lilac executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff,
Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer,
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