August 14, 2025 • 50 mins
This week, Patia and Hannah dig into listener emails, covering a rental scam, a case of digital dating abuse (yes, it’s real), and a cold case: the 2013 disappearance of Brookelyn Farthing.
Recommendations:
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Alone (History Channel)
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.
(00:21):
Hello and welcome to the Knife Op Record. I'm Patia Eton,
I'm Hannah Smith, and this week we're reading listener emails.
I'm really excited about this. Thank you to everyone who
has emailed us. Send us an email and we might
read it on the podcast. We won't use your name
unless you tell us that we can. So email us
at the Knife at exactly rightmedia dot com. You can
(00:44):
email us your thoughts on an episode. You could email
us a story that you know of in your own
life that you want to tell that might be interesting
to talk about in the podcast, or maybe a tip
of something we should look into.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And we have some great emails today. One of them
is about an unsolved disappearance so that took place in Bria, Kentucky.
A listener wrote in. We did some additional research on
what happened and we'll tell you what we can about it,
and that's coming up.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I'm looking forward to that one, and then at the
end we'll have recommendations as well as I have a
request for listeners and that I'll tell you what I
mean when we get there, So stick around for that.
But let's get into the emails. Yeah, okay, first email,
This is a really nice email from a listener about
the episode we did on Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy.
(01:33):
They say hello and thank you for this. I listened
to your episode with Meg and Mountain Park this week.
The following day, I was chatting with an acquaintance and
she mentioned that she was from Miami and after getting
into trouble, was sent to a school in the Ozarks.
I jokingly said it wasn't Mountain Park, was it. Her
face went pale and she said, how did you know that?
(01:56):
After much discussion and Google searching, she is indeed survivor
of this place. We got her connected through the Mountain
Park Survivor's website, and I shared Meg's story on your
podcast to listen to. She shared with me that anytime
she had told this experience to someone, she always feels
that they don't actually believe her. I was so grateful
(02:17):
to genuinely look her in the eye and say I
believe you. Thank you for covering Meg's chilling truth and
allowing me to connect with someone in my life with
the way of healing that she didn't even know existed.
Keep up the great work. This email was so nice
to receive and really like kind of made me tear
up when I read it. We kind of debated if
(02:37):
we should include it or not because it does feel
like is this too self congratulatory, But the reason we
decided to share it is because it really speaks to
the importance of people sharing their stories and what we
love about what we do. And this feels so good
to know that, you know, Meg was able to share
(02:57):
her story and then it connected with someone else. Is
the power of storytelling and true crime and to be
able to be part of that is really meaningful. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I mean, working in true crime and telling crime related stories,
you want to feel like you know you're doing some
good because in that story, someone was negatively impacted by
what happened, and if anything positive can come from it,
then we're all about it.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, So thanks so much for reaching out.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
And we're going to move on to the next listener email. Hi, ladies,
I was the victim of a rental scam in November
twenty twenty four. It started when my husband and I
were looking to rent a house in a town called
Santa Clarita, California. It's a suburb north of Los Angeles.
Most people know it as the town where Magic Mountain
is located. We have a child and we were looking
to rent a house. We were renting a condo at
(03:47):
the time. When looking, we found a listing on Redfinn
which I expressed interest in. Shortly afterwards, I received a
text from someone named Jason Hammond's and he said that
he was the owner of this property but the lease
was signed, but he said he did have other properties
available and sent us a listing for another one.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So she reached out to the person listing the condo
and he said, this is booked or like someone else
has already leased it, but I have a different property. Yeah,
and that doesn't feel that strange, No, I said, that
feels like I've had that same experience. Yeah, It's like
you see a well qualified tenant and you're like, well,
I have a whole business when and I see if
I can keep them somewhere. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
So the next day he provided us with the code
to enter the home. I was on the phone with
him the whole time, well seeing the home. So she's
at the house in person. So she says, we entered
the home, did the tour and left. Shortly afterwards, he
sent us an application. We were approved. He sent us
a lease after sending several thousand dollars via Zell, he
(04:45):
told me one of the transactions did not go through.
I went back and forth with him and Zell regarding
this transaction for a month until he finally sent me
a check to deposit as a quote refund for that transaction.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Wow, that's so scary. When are you trying to move
into this place? They now had a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Also, just like Zelle can't get it together. They're a
big company that doesn't feel right either.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Ye, like, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I'm sure that was just like already stress levels are rising.
She says it makes no sense. I know, but I
deposited this check and sent him more money. So he
sends her a check for a quote refund. She deposits it.
Then she says, I got a call from my bank
that the check had bounced. After calling Jason and yelling
(05:30):
at him and telling him he's a scam artist, he
said he can only cancel the lease and give me
my money back if I send him five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
At that point, I stopped talking to him. He took
a total of twelve thousand dollars from me, which was
basically my entire savings.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Oh my gosh, that's like so horrible and heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, and honestly it was I've rented for so many
years and yeah, I mean you see in that online
you go in, you fill out all your information, social security,
it's so much information. Yeah, and it's just a piece
of paper you're handing to someone you've.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Never met totally, and you know this is a suburb
of La and so it's also like for context, I
think it's different in different places, right, but trying to
find somewhere to live in La, I'm not talking about
buying a house. I'm talking about renting an apartment. It
is such a horrible experience. It is so difficult. Like
(06:31):
I remember going and like showing up to listings and
it's like I'm getting there right when the open house starts.
There is a line of people down the block and
everyone already has like a printed statement of why they
would be a good tenant and they're smoothing with the landlord.
It is so competitive.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
There's regularly bidding wars. I have a friend who just
rented a house that seventeen other people showed up the
same open house that she did, and they had to
pay two years rent upfront to get that house.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
That's nuts. It's nuts.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
So she goes on to say, most of my family
and friends don't even know that this happened to me.
I'm very ashamed, but I also feel like this kind
of scam needs to be known to the general public.
I tried to message my local Instagram and Facebook accounts
with no luck. Filed a police report, but honestly, I
don't know what they're doing because I'm afraid to even call.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
It.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Took a lot for me to even get to the
point where I could file a report because I'm so
incredibly embarrassed. I have really next to know actual information
about Jason. We don't know that that's his real name,
and I highly doubt that that's his real name. I've
been working as an earners for the last six years,
worked a lot of overtime during COVID to save that money,
and some of it was gifted to me by my parents.
(07:43):
Money had been saving for the day we could finally
afford to buy a home, and this stranger took it
from me simply because I could not fathom that something
like this could be a scam. What bothers me the
most is that I had the bad feeling about it
the whole time, even since we applied, but I ignored it.
Now we are settled in a new place with a
great and real landlord, but I've been working overtime to
save up again, taking time away from my fifteen month
(08:06):
old and my husband. I don't think I will ever
not be mad at myself for this. I mean, that's heartbreaking,
but like I don't think that many people would have
been able to like sniff that out.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
That's pretty normal.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Like you go in, you find a landlord that you
like working with, you find a property, you send money
via Zelle. I mean that seems so standard. It's like,
I wonder how many people he's been able to do
this too, because no one wants to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Probably so many people. There's a lot of rental scams.
And also it's that feeling of oh my gosh, I
found something, I found a place I love, it's a
good deal, and then that feeling of like I need
to jump on this quickly because if I don't like
it will go to someone else, and that's also like
actually a reality, yeah, is that it will like even
(08:56):
when they're real, it's like you kind of have to
move really quickly, and so that situation is ripe for scams.
I was looking up things though, like what can you do,
and one of the things that is recommended is always
meet the person that's renting to you in person. And
so in this email, she talks about like being given
(09:17):
the code to the house, which feels so legitimate, but
also the scammer could have found a different listing and
pretended to be like a prospective tenant, gotten that code,
and then just like pretended like he was the landlord. Right, Yeah,
So always like try to meet someone in person was
(09:37):
the recommended first sort of way to make sure that
this is real, This is a real person, they really
like they have the keys to the house, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah, But you know, I rented a house a couple
of years ago and I never met the landlord in
person hm, and we ended up moving from there after
maybe less time than we thought we would, But it
was a perfectly real situation. It was his house and
he just didn't live locally, and we met him over
zoom and we were let in remotely, and you know
(10:06):
that was a real listing. So I don't think that
she should feel shame or embarrassing, and I think that
could happen to anyone, but it's good to know there's
a few little safeguards you can put up.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, okay, So one other thing you can do is
you can ask for identification from your landlord. And you
can also just like do a quick Google search. You know,
are they part of a rental group? Just verify what
you can about them, which is at least one step
that you could take, I suppose in this very difficult
situation of trying to rench an apartment. Next, we have
(10:47):
an email from a woman named Ava, who gave us
permission to use her name. She reached out to us
in May, and this is what she said in her email.
My name is Ava. I love your show and I
wanted to write in with a story of mine you
may be interested in. At the age of fifteen, I
met an online friend through a public Minecraft server. He
(11:09):
was eighteen at the time, and we became very close
friends very quickly. After a few months, he convinced me
that we should in quote date, even though he lived
in North Carolina and I lived in California. I reluctantly
agreed and we started dating. I was under the impression
that he would come and visit me in person soon
and our online relationship would only be temporary. Only about
(11:31):
a week after we started dating, he backed out of
going into the military last minute and moved out of
his dad's house to live with his mom and half siblings.
It was a very unstable home. His mom was using
drugs and had different men in the house. There were
sometimes incidents with gun violence too. Wow, So he immediately
(11:53):
is going into this very volatile situation and makes a
huge life decision not to join the military, which was
his plan, I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And wants to online date a girl who's fifteen.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah. He started smoking weed at an unhealthy rate and
picking fights with me. These fights would start from the
smallest thing I would say or do and would last
for hours. He spammed my phone with multiple paragraphs until
I was apologizing relentlessly for something I didn't even understand
that I did wrong.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Okay, that reminds me of a time when I had
a friend in a situation where she had caught her
boyfriend doing something really bad and she had written him
a text about it, or he had written her a
text about it. And it was back in the day
where if you texted someone enough their phone would delete
prior messages, and he just started spamming her phone over
(12:44):
and over and over. It's like, you know, like consume
someone totally, like a form of control.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah. It reminds me of the book we both read,
There Is No Ethan Too, where it was a form
of abuse and control, where this online boyfriend was just
relentlessly emailing and requiring constant time and attention, especially when
Ethan knew that Anna was going to be like at
(13:13):
work or at a social event, it would increase. So
it was really felt like this like intentional controlling thing. Yeah,
and they like she had always done something wrong. Yes,
I was always like, oh my gosh, you've disappointed me
or hurt me, and now I need to take up
a lot of your emotional energy right now. Yeah, okay.
So Eva goes on to say this happened over a
(13:34):
longer period of time, slowly getting worse and worse. I
started isolating myself from friends and family. I was always
up in my room talking to him on the phone,
trying to keep him happy. I started walking on eggshells
around him, careful of my tone of voice and the
things I would say. He would always find something to
start hours long fights over. During these arguments, he would
(13:58):
self harm and send me pictures of his injuries. Yikes.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
It's so manipulative. Yeah, really and unhealthy. I mean, if
someone's really doing that, it's like they need professional help. Also,
the idea that she's walking on eggshells around you know,
someone who the entirety of the relationship is happening online
on the phone, but that's real now, you know, your
(14:28):
phone can ring and your stomach can drop because that's
how relationships are forming.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah. Oh, this makes me so sad for her, especially
being fifteen. It's just like, you're so young, and it's
sad that she's like spending all this time and feeling
this burden over someone who, like, yeah, clearly needs help himself,
but it's not her responsibility. But it's so easy to
not understand that when you start getting, you know, emotionally
(14:55):
involved with someone and there's that manipulation factor happening.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Then she says, he made me think it was my
fault or it could have been avoided if I'd done
something different, So you know that's horrible. It became one
hundred percent my responsibility to keep him in a good mood.
He demanded hours of my time. He started to control
every aspect of my life. I was allowed no privacy,
no boundaries. He always knew where I was, and he
would get upset if I weren't on a call every
(15:23):
second of every day. Pretty much we would be on
the phone for upwards of sixteen hours at a time,
and he frequently would use his self harm to control her,
and like threatened to go to even more extreme lengths,
like to die by suicide.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, I mean sixteen hours of a person's day to
be spent on the phone. It's like I think anyone
would have a hard time then deciphering, well, what is
my real life that I'm actually living? Is that this
person I'm on the phone with because it's taking up
so much of my time or is it outside of that?
At age fifteen sixteen, I wouldn't have known the difference.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
No, And I just remember, like when I was that age,
my emotions were so intense and like strong and so
that too, I can only imagine would like make this
situation even harder, Like I can imagine she would just
feel trapped, Like I think I would feel trapped if
I were in that scenario.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, and you probably don't have a lot of other
relationship experience to draw from, so what are you comparing
it to.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, so this happened when she was like sixteen and nineteen.
They never met in person, which is interesting. Obviously they
lived like on different sides of the country. But yeah,
it's like online relationship, very real, like they never met
in person, but affected her life so deeply. She said,
my mindset during this time was just based on survival.
(16:49):
In my mind, I had no choice to leave because
then it would have been my fault if he did
something harmful to himself. After a few years of this,
he moved back to his dad's house, and there was
a note shift in his mental state. There were fewer arguments.
I was able to leave him shortly after this time,
although he still tried to control how much time and
(17:09):
details about my life that I provided him. I had
no one to help me and was utterly alone in
this at such a young age. These years deeply affected
my life and still do. Unfortunately, my parents were not
able to help me during this time because they didn't
know the warning signs that someone might be getting abused.
I'm writing this in because abusive relationships come in so
(17:31):
many forms, and I would like to spread awareness about it,
hopefully prevent someone else from experiencing what I did.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, I mean I'm happy, she wrote us. I want
to talk about the dangers. We have talked a little
bit about the dangers of online dating, but you know,
it's become the norm. And I think that obviously, as
an adult, you download a dating app, you go on dates,
but kids are online playing games where they can interact
(18:00):
with people. I mean when I was a child and
you could like log into your one computer in the
house and get on like AOL or whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
It was the computer room. The computer room. Oh my gosh,
I'll throw back. I play this game called horseland oh
my gosh, of course you didn't we sighted, I know.
And there was like a chat room where you would
like go in and try to sell your like virtual horse,
and there would be like I remember seeing kind of
(18:29):
creep messages in that chat room and just thinking.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Well, that's weird.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, like not really totally understanding what's going on. Yeah,
no clue what was going on that There were like
creepy people in what is it Horseworld, horseland Horselands.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, they would just drop these like weird things in
the chat room and I'd be like, excuse me, Maybe
they don't know where they are, but they knew exactly
where they were. And you know, now, kids are way
more tech savvy than I was at that age. Also,
they're not in a computer room where I remember the
computer screen faced the entire room, so it would have
(19:05):
been very easy for my parents to come in and
monitor anything that was going on.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
I mean it's a very real risk and form of
abuse meeting someone online and being taken advantage of.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, for sure, I feel like a little bit disconnected
from what teens are doing now, to be honest, that's
just what I read about. I think probably they're much
more hopefully suspicious and also understanding of the Internet than
we were at that time. Yeah. The idea that you
can get roped into something and abused over the Internet
(19:38):
is so real and something that should be acknowledged.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
We did follow up with Ava and she sent us
a little more information. She said that when she was sixteen,
she tried to convince her parents to let her fly
to see her online boyfriend, and they said no. They
were like, this is an older guy, and we don't
want you to fly out of state to meet someone
(20:08):
who we don't know, we haven't met, She says. When
I was eighteen, I tried to tell my parents again
that I wanted to fly out to see him, and
they firmly told me no again. I tried to play
the legal adult card. I did not end up flying
out without their permission because I knew it would cause
a lot of problems between us. It became clear after
a while that John was perfectly content with our relationship
(20:32):
being one hundred percent online, and he did not have
any plans to come see me in person. In hindsight,
my parents made the right call and potentially saved me
from a relationship which could become even more abusive and controlling.
Who knows how much worse things could have become if
I had visited him in person.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, truly, I mean, I'm speculating, but it feels like
the danger of an online relationship, especially as a child
a teenager, is when no one, like a parent, even
knows about it. Because sometimes that's the case. It's like,
she clearly at some point shared with her parents that
she had built this relationship with someone online. My dad
(21:10):
would have said the exact same thing. My mom would
have said the exact same thing, like, no freakin way, it's.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
A real danger.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
There was a case, probably a lot of people have
heard of it, the disappearance of a teenage girl from Glendale, Arizona,
back in twenty nineteen. Her name's Alicia Navarro. She was
believed to have met someone online who lured her away,
and she left her home in the middle of the night.
She left a note that said I ran away, I
(21:38):
will be back. I swear I'm sorry, and she was
not found until she turned eighteen, when she walked into
a small town police station in Montana and said she
wanted to be taken off the missing person's list because
now she was eighteen, Was.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
She still with the person that she had left to
go meet.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So they've never said, but the person saying that she
was living with at the time, he's never been publicly
connected to her actual disappearance or charged with any crimes
in relation to that disappearance. So what happened is when
she said, Hey, I want to be taken off the
missing person's list.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
This is my name.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Of course, that triggered that police department to contact the
police department locally where she had been living when she disappeared,
so they connected her back to her family, and so
they started a line of communication.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
And then a few.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Months I think went by, because I was like checking
in on it a lot, and there were no arrests
made with her disappearance. And then the apartment she had
been living in with an older man was raided and
there's a surge worr, and he tried to get rid
of his phone really quickly and all of that. So
she eventually returned home to her family and he was arrested,
(22:55):
charged and convicted of possession of child sex abuse material,
a crime related to possession of that I don't recall
the exact crime, but the images were not of her
and she had absolutely no ties to that court case,
but it is the person that she had been living with,
and he was sentenced to one hundred years.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
How old was she when she left?
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Fourteen?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, and then she was eighteen when she walked into
that police station.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
And her mom had this Facebook page where she would
plead for people to send in any leads and there
was a private investigator working on the case. I mean,
she was not found, and I don't know that she
would have been if she hadn't walked into that police station.
It's incredibly scary and what they think happened if she
met someone online on an online game. But yeah, luckily
(23:49):
she was found alive and has been reconnected with her family.
I think that's the danger, right is you don't even
know who your kids are connecting with online most of
the time. So I think there's like all kinds of
parental controls in place now, but it terrifies me.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, I mean kids and also adults though too. I
think it happens too.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah, I mean elderly people are at risk of this
in different ways. We all are, but like maybe someone
who's not as savvy about the bad things that happen
online is particularly vulnerable. And you know, there's an actual
term for this, digital abuse or digital dating abuse.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Wow. Yeah, where the coercion or control takes place entirely online.
I'm so glad there's a term for it now that
makes sense. So I'm trying to remember who told this
to me, but I remember there was like a point
in my life when I realized I had this like revelation.
It was probably like already in my thirties, someone had
(24:51):
said something to me where they were like, you know,
when you're in an interaction or relationship, pay attention to
how you're feeling, because that is like one of the
biggest things that you should pay attention to instead of like,
am I just getting so focused on the chaos that
this other person is creating and it's making me feel
anxious to try to like help them. But then when
(25:15):
I sit back, it's like, well, is that really how
I want to feel in a relationship? Is like constantly
anxious about someone else's chaos. It's not a good feeling.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
It's so unhealthy, And I mean, it's so true. And
I think a lot about like moments where maybe in
my past relationships, things I like, I don't want to
keep sharing these things with my friends because now I
know that it's probably past time to leave. And that
was always a big sign for me internally, when you
(25:44):
don't want to tell your friends what's going on, right,
Because it's different than like, oh, my husband refrigerated the
peanut butter. It's like, yeah, you know, once you're retelling
sort of the same kind of story over and over again.
It's like, huh, this is not a one off. This
is not a problem I just need to solve. This
is their issue to be dealing with. And I also
(26:06):
think my dad gave me great advice as a teenager
which stuck with me, which is it only takes one
person to break up, like you don't need their permission
to break up with them.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
That is such good advice. Thanks Dad, Thanks Dad. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, he also told me to never pluck my eyebrows.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I didn't listen. I did not listen.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
That's like someone told me that. I'm suretty sure my
mom did, and I was like, are you gonna do
what I want? It's the nineties. Yeah, it's really good advice.
Thank you so much for writing in Ava, and we're
really happy that you were able to get out of
this relationship.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah, truly so.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Our next listener email came from a person who has
done their own deep dive into a missing person's case
in their hometown of Bria, Kentucky. This is the disappearance
of Brooklyn Farthing.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
I read the last email, but maybe I'll read this
one as well because it's a short email. And then
that you have done a bunch of research about the case,
and so I'm excited to hear what you found. Yet
I'll set it up with this email. This listener wrote,
my hometown has a still unsolved mystery disappearance that I
think you all could cover really well. It has it
(27:16):
all arson the hollers of rural Kentucky and a potential
connection to a child pornography ring. You may already be
familiar with the name Brooklyn Farthinge. She disappeared from Beria, Kentucky,
on June twenty second, twenty thirteen, after attending a party
with friends in a neighboring county. There are a couple
of decent sources available on this case, and I'm willing
(27:38):
to bet there are people who want to talk about it.
I have a couple of my own theories, but i'll
spare you. I'd be interested to see what conclusions, if any,
you are able to draw from the case.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
So, actually wish this listener was here because I have
some questions about their theories. But let me just start
off with a little bit of information about Brooklyn and
who she is. So her sister page described Brooklyn on
I quoted this from their website. My sister Brooke was
a spunky, tell you how it is, lovable person. She
(28:10):
loved animals and the outdoors, but she was truly a
girly girl who loved pink and camouflage. She would do
anything to help anyone. She had the sweetest, deep, blong
country sounding voice you can only find in Kentucky. In
twenty thirteen, Brooklyn was eighteen years old. She had recently
graduated from Madison Southern High School. There was nothing out
(28:31):
of the ordinary going on for Brooklyn prior to her disappearance,
and on June twenty first, twenty thirteen, the day started
out like any other, except that on this day she
and her sister Page were going to take their drivers
test for their licenses.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And are they twins? Are they both?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
They're just sisters and they happen to be taking it
at the same time. And I think Brooke is the
older sister of the two, and brook passed. Page did not,
so little rivalry there, but mostly the two of them
were focused on celebrating their grandfather's birthday later that evening,
so they met at their Granny Bonnie's house to celebrate
(29:12):
their Papa Kenny, and afterwards they had planned to go
to a party out on Red Lick Road. So after
the party everything's fine and normal. They celebrate with family. Brooklyn,
Page and their cousin all drive out to the party together.
The plan is so Brooklyn has an overnight bag packed
and she's going to meet another friend at this party
(29:34):
and spend the night with her. So she has a
ride home and she has a place to stay that night,
all set up for her beforehand, which I think is
so smart if you're driving out of town and there's
going to be people you don't know somewhere. So shortly
after arriving, Page and their cousin actually head back. They
don't stay at the party, but Brooklyn stays because she
has this friend there that is said that she can
(29:56):
stay the night with her and get her right home. Unfortunately,
what ends up happening is this friend that Brooklyn made
plans with bails. She decides she wants to stay overnight
with her boyfriend. Oh wow, so she leaves Brooklyn at
this party. Brooklyn then she recognizes a few faces, but
doesn't seem to be like close friends of her there
any longer. But she's having a good time and so
(30:19):
she stays at the party and she recognizes a male
classmate of hers is there, former classmate from Madison Southern
High and he is quite drunk, and so she's like,
not only do I need to find or ride home,
but I need to find him or ride home. She
had actually been in a long term relationship that they
had been engaged and then had just broken up, And
(30:41):
so she recognizes a friend of her former fiance at
this party. She doesn't know him well, but she does
know him enough to feel somewhat comfortable, and she sees
he has this truck there, So she's like, can you
take me and this person that she went to high
school with home when the party's over because he can't
(31:02):
drive he's so drunk.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
And my ride left.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
And this is twenty thirteen, which, like I think uber
was maybe like first a thing, but probably just in cities. Yeah,
I dot it was out in Kentucky. I mean also
in twenty thirteen, I still remember like taking cabs even
in La Yeah, so it was like still a thing
where how do I get home late at night?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Totally, And I mean in small towns it's still could
take a while to get an uber sometimes. Plus you know,
she had been with her fiance for years, so to
know even though they had then broken up, you know,
this is a person she loved and trusted and this
is a friend of that person.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, so he agrees.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
To give them a ride and they do drop off
Brokes classmate, who was very drunk at his house, but
then instead of taking Brooklyn home, he takes her to
his house. And you know, there's not a lot known
about what he told her about that decision being made,
but she's uncomfortable. But at this point, she's with this
(32:02):
man and he's taking her to his.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
House, and how do you know that that decision happened
or that she was uncomfortable? Right?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
So Brooklyn had her cell phone and she was texting
with her sisters and with her ex fiance because they
were still on good terms, and she was like, hey,
I'm getting kind of weirded out, Like yeah, yeah, not
her exact words, but she was relaying to them that
she had a little bit of concern that her friend
had bailed on her and now she's with this other person.
(32:31):
So her sisters I watched in an interview, said they
were unable to come and get her. They totally would have,
but they were unable to because they had also been drinking,
and so you know, it's a small town where bad
things don't really happen, so there wasn't like it's not
like someone just dropped the ball and should have gotten her.
There wasn't like a big cause for concern known to
(32:51):
them in that moment. And as the night goes on,
it's getting really late. So Brooklyn's texting with her now
ex fiance and he's at a factory job that's overnight
and he's going to get off at about six thirty am.
So they're texting around four am, and she's like, I'm
getting really scared. Can you please come get me? And
(33:13):
he's like, I can come after my shift, and she's
like okay, and then she's like, I think she sends
a text that says please hurry or something that is
really fearful, and he doesn't see that until after.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
He's off of his shift.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
So it's clear that her fear is ramping up at
this point. So Paige, her sister, had a final conversation
with Brooklyn over the phone back around four am. That's
when Brooklyn told her she had left with someone she
knew from the party. She would be catching right home
with her ex fiance as soon as he got off work,
(33:48):
and so they were like, okay, great. But then at
five thirty am, her texts change. She's no longer scared
or worried. She says she's actually going to another party.
Her text reads, never mind, I'm okay, I'm going to
a party in Rockcastle County. Strange, suspicious, very suspicious. And
so Brooklyn never comes home and she's not heard from again.
(34:10):
So now we're at June twenty second, twenty thirteen, so
very early morning hours when an investigation into her disappearance begins.
We learn that the person who took Brooklyn back to
his house, well, his house was in foreclosure. The utilities
were not operating, everything had been turned off. It was
a totally dilapidated house. And he says he left early
(34:35):
in the morning, Brooklyn was still at the house and
he left to go check on a horse. And so
later that day he calls in to report a fire
that had broken out in his house and it had
started on this sofa. Really strange because they go and
investigate this fire and he never well, I'll get to
(34:55):
this later, but Brooklyn's belongings were still at the house,
but she was not there. So when he reports the fire,
he never says there's a person in the house, please
go make sure she's okay. He just reports the fire,
which is really strange.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Meaning like he knew that she wasn't in the house.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
He must have known that she wasn't in the house.
It's like, this is a foreclosed on house. What 'sis
big concern if not a human being inside of it,
if there's a fire. Super weird. Now, he has never
been named as a suspect formerly in the case. He
has never been charged with any crimes related to her disappearance.
(35:34):
But I found an article published on August eleventh, twenty twenty,
a local news station Lects eighteen News said that the
man who took Brooke and her friend back from the
party that night was Josh Hensley, and when this article
was published in twenty twenty, he was currently in jail
on charges including possession or viewing of matter portraying a
(35:58):
sexual performance by a minor, And from what I can
tell online, he's actually still incarcerated but possibly could be
released later this year, which is I think terrifying Brooklyn's mother.
She commented to this reporter in this article. You know,
I think there's a lot of obviously suspicion around this
(36:20):
man because he was the last person to see her. Yeah,
and the fire is very strange. And why would you
take a girl home back to your home, and then
if you're going to go check on a horse, why
wouldn't you bring her and drop her off?
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Then it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make so suspicious.
I'm shocked that he was never a suspect, Like, how
does that happen?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
How does that happen? I mean, I can only imagine
how her family feels. Yeah, and I was on you know,
a Facebook page related to her disappearance, and it seems
like there's a fair amount of like pretty reasonable outrage
that there's at least one person who should be I
don't know. It seems surprising that he hasn't been named
(37:03):
as a suspect. And maybe that's like a strategy. I
have no idea.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Happened, but it seems reasonable to think that a man
who said he would take her home and then didn't
didn't have great intentions. Yeah, it's terrible, and I'm sure
the friend of hers that left her at the party that.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Night feel terrible.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Yeah, and you know, it made me think about that
case in Sparta, Tennessee. You know, a very different case
because those two kids there's an accident, they drive into
the river. But Rosa, who was their friend that was
supposed to be with them that night, she carried a
lot of guilt for a long time about not having
been there. And it's just terrible. And yeah, I would
(37:44):
love to know why he hasn't been or someone hasn't
been held accountable. I guess it's just maybe a lack
of evidence. I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So what happened to the ex fiance? Did he end
up driving to this house? Because he was friends with
this guy Josh Hensley Hensley, So her ex fiance was
friends with I don't know how long they've known each other,
but this is his friend supposedly, so he knows where
he lives. I would assume did he end up driving
(38:16):
to come get her or with these texts that were
sent that were like just kidding, we're going to a party,
did he believe them? Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I wonder if I could find out, you know, I
think the next day, what I recall reading was that
it was like, Okay, well, Shirley, she'll be.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Home any time now.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
And then yeah, as time goes on, you learn a
little more and a little more, and then you learn
about a weird fire and a neighbor had supposedly seen
her at the house but so rural area already and
he lived on the outskirts of them.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah, okay, you know, we don't know what went into
the investigation or where the cases like from the investigator
standpoint now, but it's so hard to believe because like,
there are times when a crime happens or someone's even
just being periphery to it, or happens to be in
the wrong place at the wrong time ends up like
(39:09):
sending them to prison for twenty years. And obviously every
case is different, but the fact that this man did
a series of things that were all suspicious. Was the
last person to see her, you know that her texts
changed so dramatically and in tone feels like, well was
she texting or was he texting? And where is she?
(39:33):
And why is the couch now on fire? Is this
like an attempt to cover up evidence? You know, I
don't know, but why are her belongings there? And she's not. Yeah, like,
how is it that no one's looking into this? And
I don't know. Maybe they did look into it, but
it just feels so suspicious.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's some detective or law
enforcement locally. They're probably equally or more frustrated with the
lack of movie. But in the case, maybe you should
call him up. I should call him up. Yeah, it's terrible,
and I think you know, even now, you hear so
much about ride share drivers and it's not always safe
(40:11):
to get a ride home with someone you don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Books family has set up a website and Facebook page
where people can submit information and tips, and you know
they're not going to stop looking for her.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Well, thanks for the listener who wrote that in and
for all of the digging that you did on that. Yeah,
we love hearing from you guys. And there's so many
cases we haven't heard of that we're glad to look
into or see if we can get interviews on them.
And so if there's one that's on your mind, reach
out the knife at exactlyrightmedia dot com send us an email. Okay, recommendations,
(40:46):
I have multiple. My first recommendation it's actually we know
some people who worked on this show. It's called Aftermath
Hunt for the Anthrax Killer, and I found it to
be so interesting. A lot of people will probably remember
after nine to eleven there were these anthrax lace letters
(41:09):
that were mailed out to people as well as news agencies,
and it was this really big scare at the time
because there was, you know, nine to eleven had just happened,
and then there was this anthrax thing happening, and it
was sort of like a scramble to figure out what
was going on with that. And in the opening episode,
(41:30):
the host talked about remembering this anthrax scare that happened,
but not really remembering a lot of the details about it,
or like who actually sent the anthrax letters? And I
realized that I had the same experience, Like I was like, actually,
what was going on with that?
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Yeah, like I definitely know the word anthrax that those
letters were sent, and I know nothing else about it.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Yeah, this is a really great investigation into that. They
interview different FBI agents who worked on this investigation. It
was a long investigation to try to find some answers.
I thought it was really well done and really interesting.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Yeah, I'll have to give that a listen.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
My second recommendation, this is a podcast that I've listened
to for years, but I really like it. It's against
the odds. It's a wondering podcast if you listen to
this one.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
I have listened to a few episodes of it, but
actually not in a while.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
I should go back.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yeah, such a different format of podcasting, right, It's just
like a narrator telling a story, a historical story of
people surviving in wilderness situations. They did a season that
I really liked a couple of years back that covered
the plane crash in the Andes Uruguayan Air Force Flight
(42:44):
five seven to one. It was the rugby team that
was on the way to a tournament and they crashed
in the Andes and very high elevation and some of
them survive, like this wild story of surviving for many days.
It was really well done. And then I just started
their newest season which is about Mount Saint Helens erupting.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Oh my gosh, actually my mom just sent me these
wild photos of my college campus at Wazoo Washington State
University after that eruption cover and ash.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, it was in nineteen eighty that it happened, So
I'm just really enjoying it. It's a totally different kind
of podcast than what we do, but I think their
storytelling is well done. It touches on similar to true crime,
almost like this is what I would do in that scenario,
even if it's not actually there's something happening there. And
(43:39):
I feel like I have the same thing with natural
disaster content, where it probably is coming from some deep
anxiety about like climate change or something, or maybe it's
because I watched so many disaster movies growing up. You know,
It's like Armageddon is like burned into my brain. I'm like,
guys were allowed to watch this, We could watch those
because I don't know why they weren't like religious, Like
(44:03):
I don't know for some reason, like a lot of
the stuff I wasn't allowed to watch, but like Action
Adventure was okay, So like yeah, like Dante's Peak and
Deep Impact, all of those movies are like so vivid
and formed part of how I became who I am.
So whether it's like scripted or if it's like historical,
(44:26):
I'm so into it and I don't want that to
be like downplay the reality of like the horror of
natural disasters. Something I think about a lot, and I
also love like listening to history podcasts. That's why I
think one of the reasons I love Against All Odds
is because it's sort of like the natural disaster. It's
also stories of people surviving, which is really inspiring, and
(44:49):
it's history as well. But one of the things I
was thinking about is like, if I could create my
perfect podcast, I mean I can create, you can, yeah,
but to listen to, Like I don't necessarily want to
make this podcast, but I would love to listen to
this podcast, like a history podcast that touches on natural disasters,
(45:11):
but that is like told through a female lens or
queer lens or more diverse lens. I just think, like
the power of storytelling is so important to me, and
no matter how sort of unbiased you are or whatever,
like your life experience does impact the way you view
a story and the things that you might bring up
(45:32):
about it. And so that's why I would love this
kind of podcast, except if it had like this extra lens.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Actually, I mean this is not natural disaster? But is Wilderness?
Is that show alone on the History Channel? Yes, love
that show. Love that show, And on one of the
earlier seasons, gosh, I do not remember her name. I
wish I did, but there was this woman on there.
She was such a force. She had MS and she
was absolutely crushing it on Alone. There's cuts of her
(46:03):
like throwing a fish back into the river because she
was so well fed with Oh my god he had
And then they cut to this guy who's like, I'm
leaving after three days, like I can't take this anymore.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
It's always the like prepper dudes who can't cut it.
And then it's like the woman who like made like
wove her own chair. Yeah, yeah, she was thriving, thriving.
There was one woman who made like a jacket of
squirrels or something.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Probably my all time favorite on Alone was Calie. She
was in a later season.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
If I watched that one yet, well I'm not gonna
give you a spoiler, but Callie rocked.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Her season and was incredible to watch. But yeah, I
was in an earthquake in seventh grade.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Wait, you want to tell people before you move on
real quick? What Alone is?
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
So if you're not familiar, Alone is, it's an unscripted
It's a reality show, but not what you think when
you think reality shows. There's these contestants who are wilderness
survival expert in some way, and they all have you know,
different backgrounds or from different climates, and the seasons mostly
take place in Canada, maybe all of them, I'm not sure,
(47:10):
but deep in the wilderness, these people are dropped off
all far away from each other, so everyone is alone.
There is no camera crew. These people are trained to
take their own footage with their own GoPros, and.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
They really set up like the most beautiful shots.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
It's actually like reminiscent for me of that documentary Grizzly Man.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
I love that documentary, so very sad but really good.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yeah, and he just, you know, he really took a
lot of pride in setting up these shots. And they
do the same thing, probably because they don't have a
lot to do when they're not trying to like fish
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah, and they're really alone for like a long time,
like they're trying to outlast everybody, so it's not like
thirty days when you're done. It's just like you don't know,
you want to be the last one standing, and you.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Don't know when the other people have dropped off, which
I think is genius because like the games that would
play with you is like, Okay, well I'm almost ready
to leave, but I'm just up against one other person.
Would be a very different decision making process than if
you knew that there were still six people left. Yeah,
like it's huge. Yeah, one moment from Alone that I
don't think it's talked about enough. I think it's on
(48:17):
the very first season. Should fact check this before it
for it airs, But I swear to you there was
the crew comes and picks up the last person on
the on a boat to tell them they've won. And
on the way there, someone had brought this person cookies
and a crew member ate them. What And I'm like,
(48:38):
what kind of person who raised you? This person is
starving in the wilderness and you ate the cookies someone
made for them. That's right, like beyond my comprehension. But yeah,
Alone is I think just a great show and I'm
super impressive.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah, agreed, We're gonna tell a story about it.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
I have a very distinct memory of junior High I
was in I think I was in seventh grade and
there was a big earthquake where I'm from in Washington
State and I was standing in the lunch room.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
I think this plays into my fear of them.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
And I was waiting in line or I was standing
next to someone and this guy like kind of like
bumped me. It just felt like a weird bump, like
not like someone brushing her shoulder, and it took me
a second to sort of realize what was happening. But
we both sort of turn around and see the entire
rest of the cafeteria is under the tables, and so
(49:32):
I'm like, well, what do I do? Because then you
realize the whole ground is moving. I swear I could
see things like rolling. It was the most bizarre experience.
There were like cracks in the concrete after this, and
then the tile.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
It was weird.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
And then I got under the moving condiment cart like.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
This subs like just swinging everywhere.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Like I know I would not survive better than nothing,
but it added another layer of difficulty to the moment.
And yeah, so the and I also remember then walking
outside of the cafeteria into like the courtyard of the
school I went to and a bird had fallen. Oh weird,
and you don't see birds just like fall and I'm.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
A bad omen.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Yeah that's our show, Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Yeah, we'll see you next.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Week.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
If you have a story for us, we would love
to hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactly
rightmedia dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram
at the Knife podcast or.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
A Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
by me Hannah Smith and me Paytia Eaton.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgareff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
(00:21):
Hello and welcome to the Knife Op Record. I'm Patia Eton,
I'm Hannah Smith, and this week we're reading listener emails.
I'm really excited about this. Thank you to everyone who
has emailed us. Send us an email and we might
read it on the podcast. We won't use your name
unless you tell us that we can. So email us
at the Knife at exactly rightmedia dot com. You can
(00:44):
email us your thoughts on an episode. You could email
us a story that you know of in your own
life that you want to tell that might be interesting
to talk about in the podcast, or maybe a tip
of something we should look into.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And we have some great emails today. One of them
is about an unsolved disappearance so that took place in Bria, Kentucky.
A listener wrote in. We did some additional research on
what happened and we'll tell you what we can about it,
and that's coming up.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I'm looking forward to that one, and then at the
end we'll have recommendations as well as I have a
request for listeners and that I'll tell you what I
mean when we get there, So stick around for that.
But let's get into the emails. Yeah, okay, first email,
This is a really nice email from a listener about
the episode we did on Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy.
(01:33):
They say hello and thank you for this. I listened
to your episode with Meg and Mountain Park this week.
The following day, I was chatting with an acquaintance and
she mentioned that she was from Miami and after getting
into trouble, was sent to a school in the Ozarks.
I jokingly said it wasn't Mountain Park, was it. Her
face went pale and she said, how did you know that?
(01:56):
After much discussion and Google searching, she is indeed survivor
of this place. We got her connected through the Mountain
Park Survivor's website, and I shared Meg's story on your
podcast to listen to. She shared with me that anytime
she had told this experience to someone, she always feels
that they don't actually believe her. I was so grateful
(02:17):
to genuinely look her in the eye and say I
believe you. Thank you for covering Meg's chilling truth and
allowing me to connect with someone in my life with
the way of healing that she didn't even know existed.
Keep up the great work. This email was so nice
to receive and really like kind of made me tear
up when I read it. We kind of debated if
(02:37):
we should include it or not because it does feel
like is this too self congratulatory, But the reason we
decided to share it is because it really speaks to
the importance of people sharing their stories and what we
love about what we do. And this feels so good
to know that, you know, Meg was able to share
(02:57):
her story and then it connected with someone else. Is
the power of storytelling and true crime and to be
able to be part of that is really meaningful. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I mean, working in true crime and telling crime related stories,
you want to feel like you know you're doing some
good because in that story, someone was negatively impacted by
what happened, and if anything positive can come from it,
then we're all about it.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, So thanks so much for reaching out.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
And we're going to move on to the next listener email. Hi, ladies,
I was the victim of a rental scam in November
twenty twenty four. It started when my husband and I
were looking to rent a house in a town called
Santa Clarita, California. It's a suburb north of Los Angeles.
Most people know it as the town where Magic Mountain
is located. We have a child and we were looking
to rent a house. We were renting a condo at
(03:47):
the time. When looking, we found a listing on Redfinn
which I expressed interest in. Shortly afterwards, I received a
text from someone named Jason Hammond's and he said that
he was the owner of this property but the lease
was signed, but he said he did have other properties
available and sent us a listing for another one.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So she reached out to the person listing the condo
and he said, this is booked or like someone else
has already leased it, but I have a different property. Yeah,
and that doesn't feel that strange, No, I said, that
feels like I've had that same experience. Yeah, It's like
you see a well qualified tenant and you're like, well,
I have a whole business when and I see if
I can keep them somewhere. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
So the next day he provided us with the code
to enter the home. I was on the phone with
him the whole time, well seeing the home. So she's
at the house in person. So she says, we entered
the home, did the tour and left. Shortly afterwards, he
sent us an application. We were approved. He sent us
a lease after sending several thousand dollars via Zell, he
(04:45):
told me one of the transactions did not go through.
I went back and forth with him and Zell regarding
this transaction for a month until he finally sent me
a check to deposit as a quote refund for that transaction.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Wow, that's so scary. When are you trying to move
into this place? They now had a nightmare.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Also, just like Zelle can't get it together. They're a
big company that doesn't feel right either.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Ye, like, what's going on?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I'm sure that was just like already stress levels are rising.
She says it makes no sense. I know, but I
deposited this check and sent him more money. So he
sends her a check for a quote refund. She deposits it.
Then she says, I got a call from my bank
that the check had bounced. After calling Jason and yelling
(05:30):
at him and telling him he's a scam artist, he
said he can only cancel the lease and give me
my money back if I send him five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
At that point, I stopped talking to him. He took
a total of twelve thousand dollars from me, which was
basically my entire savings.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Oh my gosh, that's like so horrible and heartbreaking.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, and honestly it was I've rented for so many
years and yeah, I mean you see in that online
you go in, you fill out all your information, social security,
it's so much information. Yeah, and it's just a piece
of paper you're handing to someone you've.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Never met totally, and you know this is a suburb
of La and so it's also like for context, I
think it's different in different places, right, but trying to
find somewhere to live in La, I'm not talking about
buying a house. I'm talking about renting an apartment. It
is such a horrible experience. It is so difficult. Like
(06:31):
I remember going and like showing up to listings and
it's like I'm getting there right when the open house starts.
There is a line of people down the block and
everyone already has like a printed statement of why they
would be a good tenant and they're smoothing with the landlord.
It is so competitive.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
There's regularly bidding wars. I have a friend who just
rented a house that seventeen other people showed up the
same open house that she did, and they had to
pay two years rent upfront to get that house.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
That's nuts. It's nuts.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
So she goes on to say, most of my family
and friends don't even know that this happened to me.
I'm very ashamed, but I also feel like this kind
of scam needs to be known to the general public.
I tried to message my local Instagram and Facebook accounts
with no luck. Filed a police report, but honestly, I
don't know what they're doing because I'm afraid to even call.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
It.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Took a lot for me to even get to the
point where I could file a report because I'm so
incredibly embarrassed. I have really next to know actual information
about Jason. We don't know that that's his real name,
and I highly doubt that that's his real name. I've
been working as an earners for the last six years,
worked a lot of overtime during COVID to save that money,
and some of it was gifted to me by my parents.
(07:43):
Money had been saving for the day we could finally
afford to buy a home, and this stranger took it
from me simply because I could not fathom that something
like this could be a scam. What bothers me the
most is that I had the bad feeling about it
the whole time, even since we applied, but I ignored it.
Now we are settled in a new place with a
great and real landlord, but I've been working overtime to
save up again, taking time away from my fifteen month
(08:06):
old and my husband. I don't think I will ever
not be mad at myself for this. I mean, that's heartbreaking,
but like I don't think that many people would have
been able to like sniff that out.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
That's pretty normal.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Like you go in, you find a landlord that you
like working with, you find a property, you send money
via Zelle. I mean that seems so standard. It's like,
I wonder how many people he's been able to do
this too, because no one wants to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Probably so many people. There's a lot of rental scams.
And also it's that feeling of oh my gosh, I
found something, I found a place I love, it's a
good deal, and then that feeling of like I need
to jump on this quickly because if I don't like
it will go to someone else, and that's also like
actually a reality, yeah, is that it will like even
(08:56):
when they're real, it's like you kind of have to
move really quickly, and so that situation is ripe for scams.
I was looking up things though, like what can you do,
and one of the things that is recommended is always
meet the person that's renting to you in person. And
so in this email, she talks about like being given
(09:17):
the code to the house, which feels so legitimate, but
also the scammer could have found a different listing and
pretended to be like a prospective tenant, gotten that code,
and then just like pretended like he was the landlord. Right, Yeah,
So always like try to meet someone in person was
(09:37):
the recommended first sort of way to make sure that
this is real, This is a real person, they really
like they have the keys to the house, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah, But you know, I rented a house a couple
of years ago and I never met the landlord in
person hm, and we ended up moving from there after
maybe less time than we thought we would, But it
was a perfectly real situation. It was his house and
he just didn't live locally, and we met him over
zoom and we were let in remotely, and you know
(10:06):
that was a real listing. So I don't think that
she should feel shame or embarrassing, and I think that
could happen to anyone, but it's good to know there's
a few little safeguards you can put up.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, okay, So one other thing you can do is
you can ask for identification from your landlord. And you
can also just like do a quick Google search. You know,
are they part of a rental group? Just verify what
you can about them, which is at least one step
that you could take, I suppose in this very difficult
situation of trying to rench an apartment. Next, we have
(10:47):
an email from a woman named Ava, who gave us
permission to use her name. She reached out to us
in May, and this is what she said in her email.
My name is Ava. I love your show and I
wanted to write in with a story of mine you
may be interested in. At the age of fifteen, I
met an online friend through a public Minecraft server. He
(11:09):
was eighteen at the time, and we became very close
friends very quickly. After a few months, he convinced me
that we should in quote date, even though he lived
in North Carolina and I lived in California. I reluctantly
agreed and we started dating. I was under the impression
that he would come and visit me in person soon
and our online relationship would only be temporary. Only about
(11:31):
a week after we started dating, he backed out of
going into the military last minute and moved out of
his dad's house to live with his mom and half siblings.
It was a very unstable home. His mom was using
drugs and had different men in the house. There were
sometimes incidents with gun violence too. Wow, So he immediately
(11:53):
is going into this very volatile situation and makes a
huge life decision not to join the military, which was
his plan, I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And wants to online date a girl who's fifteen.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah. He started smoking weed at an unhealthy rate and
picking fights with me. These fights would start from the
smallest thing I would say or do and would last
for hours. He spammed my phone with multiple paragraphs until
I was apologizing relentlessly for something I didn't even understand
that I did wrong.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Okay, that reminds me of a time when I had
a friend in a situation where she had caught her
boyfriend doing something really bad and she had written him
a text about it, or he had written her a
text about it. And it was back in the day
where if you texted someone enough their phone would delete
prior messages, and he just started spamming her phone over
(12:44):
and over and over. It's like, you know, like consume
someone totally, like a form of control.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah. It reminds me of the book we both read,
There Is No Ethan Too, where it was a form
of abuse and control, where this online boyfriend was just
relentlessly emailing and requiring constant time and attention, especially when
Ethan knew that Anna was going to be like at
(13:13):
work or at a social event, it would increase. So
it was really felt like this like intentional controlling thing. Yeah,
and they like she had always done something wrong. Yes,
I was always like, oh my gosh, you've disappointed me
or hurt me, and now I need to take up
a lot of your emotional energy right now. Yeah, okay.
So Eva goes on to say this happened over a
(13:34):
longer period of time, slowly getting worse and worse. I
started isolating myself from friends and family. I was always
up in my room talking to him on the phone,
trying to keep him happy. I started walking on eggshells
around him, careful of my tone of voice and the
things I would say. He would always find something to
start hours long fights over. During these arguments, he would
(13:58):
self harm and send me pictures of his injuries. Yikes.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
It's so manipulative. Yeah, really and unhealthy. I mean, if
someone's really doing that, it's like they need professional help. Also,
the idea that she's walking on eggshells around you know,
someone who the entirety of the relationship is happening online
on the phone, but that's real now, you know, your
(14:28):
phone can ring and your stomach can drop because that's
how relationships are forming.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Yeah. Oh, this makes me so sad for her, especially
being fifteen. It's just like, you're so young, and it's
sad that she's like spending all this time and feeling
this burden over someone who, like, yeah, clearly needs help himself,
but it's not her responsibility. But it's so easy to
not understand that when you start getting, you know, emotionally
(14:55):
involved with someone and there's that manipulation factor happening.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Then she says, he made me think it was my
fault or it could have been avoided if I'd done
something different, So you know that's horrible. It became one
hundred percent my responsibility to keep him in a good mood.
He demanded hours of my time. He started to control
every aspect of my life. I was allowed no privacy,
no boundaries. He always knew where I was, and he
would get upset if I weren't on a call every
(15:23):
second of every day. Pretty much we would be on
the phone for upwards of sixteen hours at a time,
and he frequently would use his self harm to control her,
and like threatened to go to even more extreme lengths,
like to die by suicide.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, I mean sixteen hours of a person's day to
be spent on the phone. It's like I think anyone
would have a hard time then deciphering, well, what is
my real life that I'm actually living? Is that this
person I'm on the phone with because it's taking up
so much of my time or is it outside of that?
At age fifteen sixteen, I wouldn't have known the difference.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
No, And I just remember, like when I was that age,
my emotions were so intense and like strong and so
that too, I can only imagine would like make this
situation even harder, Like I can imagine she would just
feel trapped, Like I think I would feel trapped if
I were in that scenario.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, and you probably don't have a lot of other
relationship experience to draw from, so what are you comparing
it to.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah, so this happened when she was like sixteen and nineteen.
They never met in person, which is interesting. Obviously they
lived like on different sides of the country. But yeah,
it's like online relationship, very real, like they never met
in person, but affected her life so deeply. She said,
my mindset during this time was just based on survival.
(16:49):
In my mind, I had no choice to leave because
then it would have been my fault if he did
something harmful to himself. After a few years of this,
he moved back to his dad's house, and there was
a note shift in his mental state. There were fewer arguments.
I was able to leave him shortly after this time,
although he still tried to control how much time and
(17:09):
details about my life that I provided him. I had
no one to help me and was utterly alone in
this at such a young age. These years deeply affected
my life and still do. Unfortunately, my parents were not
able to help me during this time because they didn't
know the warning signs that someone might be getting abused.
I'm writing this in because abusive relationships come in so
(17:31):
many forms, and I would like to spread awareness about it,
hopefully prevent someone else from experiencing what I did.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, I mean I'm happy, she wrote us. I want
to talk about the dangers. We have talked a little
bit about the dangers of online dating, but you know,
it's become the norm. And I think that obviously, as
an adult, you download a dating app, you go on dates,
but kids are online playing games where they can interact
(18:00):
with people. I mean when I was a child and
you could like log into your one computer in the
house and get on like AOL or whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
It was the computer room. The computer room. Oh my gosh,
I'll throw back. I play this game called horseland oh
my gosh, of course you didn't we sighted, I know.
And there was like a chat room where you would
like go in and try to sell your like virtual horse,
and there would be like I remember seeing kind of
(18:29):
creep messages in that chat room and just thinking.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Well, that's weird.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, like not really totally understanding what's going on. Yeah,
no clue what was going on that There were like
creepy people in what is it Horseworld, horseland Horselands.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, they would just drop these like weird things in
the chat room and I'd be like, excuse me, Maybe
they don't know where they are, but they knew exactly
where they were. And you know, now, kids are way
more tech savvy than I was at that age. Also,
they're not in a computer room where I remember the
computer screen faced the entire room, so it would have
(19:05):
been very easy for my parents to come in and
monitor anything that was going on.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
I mean it's a very real risk and form of
abuse meeting someone online and being taken advantage of.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, for sure, I feel like a little bit disconnected
from what teens are doing now, to be honest, that's
just what I read about. I think probably they're much
more hopefully suspicious and also understanding of the Internet than
we were at that time. Yeah. The idea that you
can get roped into something and abused over the Internet
(19:38):
is so real and something that should be acknowledged.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
We did follow up with Ava and she sent us
a little more information. She said that when she was sixteen,
she tried to convince her parents to let her fly
to see her online boyfriend, and they said no. They
were like, this is an older guy, and we don't
want you to fly out of state to meet someone
(20:08):
who we don't know, we haven't met, She says. When
I was eighteen, I tried to tell my parents again
that I wanted to fly out to see him, and
they firmly told me no again. I tried to play
the legal adult card. I did not end up flying
out without their permission because I knew it would cause
a lot of problems between us. It became clear after
a while that John was perfectly content with our relationship
(20:32):
being one hundred percent online, and he did not have
any plans to come see me in person. In hindsight,
my parents made the right call and potentially saved me
from a relationship which could become even more abusive and controlling.
Who knows how much worse things could have become if
I had visited him in person.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, truly, I mean, I'm speculating, but it feels like
the danger of an online relationship, especially as a child
a teenager, is when no one, like a parent, even
knows about it. Because sometimes that's the case. It's like,
she clearly at some point shared with her parents that
she had built this relationship with someone online. My dad
(21:10):
would have said the exact same thing. My mom would
have said the exact same thing, like, no freakin way, it's.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
A real danger.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
There was a case, probably a lot of people have
heard of it, the disappearance of a teenage girl from Glendale, Arizona,
back in twenty nineteen. Her name's Alicia Navarro. She was
believed to have met someone online who lured her away,
and she left her home in the middle of the night.
She left a note that said I ran away, I
(21:38):
will be back. I swear I'm sorry, and she was
not found until she turned eighteen, when she walked into
a small town police station in Montana and said she
wanted to be taken off the missing person's list because
now she was eighteen, Was.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
She still with the person that she had left to
go meet.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So they've never said, but the person saying that she
was living with at the time, he's never been publicly
connected to her actual disappearance or charged with any crimes
in relation to that disappearance. So what happened is when
she said, Hey, I want to be taken off the
missing person's list.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
This is my name.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Of course, that triggered that police department to contact the
police department locally where she had been living when she disappeared,
so they connected her back to her family, and so
they started a line of communication.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
And then a few.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Months I think went by, because I was like checking
in on it a lot, and there were no arrests
made with her disappearance. And then the apartment she had
been living in with an older man was raided and
there's a surge worr, and he tried to get rid
of his phone really quickly and all of that. So
she eventually returned home to her family and he was arrested,
(22:55):
charged and convicted of possession of child sex abuse material,
a crime related to possession of that I don't recall
the exact crime, but the images were not of her
and she had absolutely no ties to that court case,
but it is the person that she had been living with,
and he was sentenced to one hundred years.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
How old was she when she left?
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Fourteen?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, and then she was eighteen when she walked into
that police station.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
And her mom had this Facebook page where she would
plead for people to send in any leads and there
was a private investigator working on the case. I mean,
she was not found, and I don't know that she
would have been if she hadn't walked into that police station.
It's incredibly scary and what they think happened if she
met someone online on an online game. But yeah, luckily
(23:49):
she was found alive and has been reconnected with her family.
I think that's the danger, right is you don't even
know who your kids are connecting with online most of
the time. So I think there's like all kinds of
parental controls in place now, but it terrifies me.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, I mean kids and also adults though too. I
think it happens too.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Yeah, I mean elderly people are at risk of this
in different ways. We all are, but like maybe someone
who's not as savvy about the bad things that happen
online is particularly vulnerable. And you know, there's an actual
term for this, digital abuse or digital dating abuse.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Wow. Yeah, where the coercion or control takes place entirely online.
I'm so glad there's a term for it now that
makes sense. So I'm trying to remember who told this
to me, but I remember there was like a point
in my life when I realized I had this like revelation.
It was probably like already in my thirties, someone had
(24:51):
said something to me where they were like, you know,
when you're in an interaction or relationship, pay attention to
how you're feeling, because that is like one of the
biggest things that you should pay attention to instead of like,
am I just getting so focused on the chaos that
this other person is creating and it's making me feel
anxious to try to like help them. But then when
(25:15):
I sit back, it's like, well, is that really how
I want to feel in a relationship? Is like constantly
anxious about someone else's chaos. It's not a good feeling.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
It's so unhealthy, And I mean, it's so true. And
I think a lot about like moments where maybe in
my past relationships, things I like, I don't want to
keep sharing these things with my friends because now I
know that it's probably past time to leave. And that
was always a big sign for me internally, when you
(25:44):
don't want to tell your friends what's going on, right,
Because it's different than like, oh, my husband refrigerated the
peanut butter. It's like, yeah, you know, once you're retelling
sort of the same kind of story over and over again.
It's like, huh, this is not a one off. This
is not a problem I just need to solve. This
is their issue to be dealing with. And I also
(26:06):
think my dad gave me great advice as a teenager
which stuck with me, which is it only takes one
person to break up, like you don't need their permission
to break up with them.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
That is such good advice. Thanks Dad, Thanks Dad. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, he also told me to never pluck my eyebrows.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I didn't listen. I did not listen.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
That's like someone told me that. I'm suretty sure my
mom did, and I was like, are you gonna do
what I want? It's the nineties. Yeah, it's really good advice.
Thank you so much for writing in Ava, and we're
really happy that you were able to get out of
this relationship.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah, truly so.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Our next listener email came from a person who has
done their own deep dive into a missing person's case
in their hometown of Bria, Kentucky. This is the disappearance
of Brooklyn Farthing.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
I read the last email, but maybe I'll read this
one as well because it's a short email. And then
that you have done a bunch of research about the case,
and so I'm excited to hear what you found. Yet
I'll set it up with this email. This listener wrote,
my hometown has a still unsolved mystery disappearance that I
think you all could cover really well. It has it
(27:16):
all arson the hollers of rural Kentucky and a potential
connection to a child pornography ring. You may already be
familiar with the name Brooklyn Farthinge. She disappeared from Beria, Kentucky,
on June twenty second, twenty thirteen, after attending a party
with friends in a neighboring county. There are a couple
of decent sources available on this case, and I'm willing
(27:38):
to bet there are people who want to talk about it.
I have a couple of my own theories, but i'll
spare you. I'd be interested to see what conclusions, if any,
you are able to draw from the case.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
So, actually wish this listener was here because I have
some questions about their theories. But let me just start
off with a little bit of information about Brooklyn and
who she is. So her sister page described Brooklyn on
I quoted this from their website. My sister Brooke was
a spunky, tell you how it is, lovable person. She
(28:10):
loved animals and the outdoors, but she was truly a
girly girl who loved pink and camouflage. She would do
anything to help anyone. She had the sweetest, deep, blong
country sounding voice you can only find in Kentucky. In
twenty thirteen, Brooklyn was eighteen years old. She had recently
graduated from Madison Southern High School. There was nothing out
(28:31):
of the ordinary going on for Brooklyn prior to her disappearance,
and on June twenty first, twenty thirteen, the day started
out like any other, except that on this day she
and her sister Page were going to take their drivers
test for their licenses.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And are they twins? Are they both?
Speaker 2 (28:48):
They're just sisters and they happen to be taking it
at the same time. And I think Brooke is the
older sister of the two, and brook passed. Page did not,
so little rivalry there, but mostly the two of them
were focused on celebrating their grandfather's birthday later that evening,
so they met at their Granny Bonnie's house to celebrate
(29:12):
their Papa Kenny, and afterwards they had planned to go
to a party out on Red Lick Road. So after
the party everything's fine and normal. They celebrate with family. Brooklyn,
Page and their cousin all drive out to the party together.
The plan is so Brooklyn has an overnight bag packed
and she's going to meet another friend at this party
(29:34):
and spend the night with her. So she has a
ride home and she has a place to stay that night,
all set up for her beforehand, which I think is
so smart if you're driving out of town and there's
going to be people you don't know somewhere. So shortly
after arriving, Page and their cousin actually head back. They
don't stay at the party, but Brooklyn stays because she
has this friend there that is said that she can
(29:56):
stay the night with her and get her right home. Unfortunately,
what ends up happening is this friend that Brooklyn made
plans with bails. She decides she wants to stay overnight
with her boyfriend. Oh wow, so she leaves Brooklyn at
this party. Brooklyn then she recognizes a few faces, but
doesn't seem to be like close friends of her there
any longer. But she's having a good time and so
(30:19):
she stays at the party and she recognizes a male
classmate of hers is there, former classmate from Madison Southern
High and he is quite drunk, and so she's like,
not only do I need to find or ride home,
but I need to find him or ride home. She
had actually been in a long term relationship that they
had been engaged and then had just broken up, And
(30:41):
so she recognizes a friend of her former fiance at
this party. She doesn't know him well, but she does
know him enough to feel somewhat comfortable, and she sees
he has this truck there, So she's like, can you
take me and this person that she went to high
school with home when the party's over because he can't
(31:02):
drive he's so drunk.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
And my ride left.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
And this is twenty thirteen, which, like I think uber
was maybe like first a thing, but probably just in cities. Yeah,
I dot it was out in Kentucky. I mean also
in twenty thirteen, I still remember like taking cabs even
in La Yeah, so it was like still a thing
where how do I get home late at night?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Totally, And I mean in small towns it's still could
take a while to get an uber sometimes. Plus you know,
she had been with her fiance for years, so to
know even though they had then broken up, you know,
this is a person she loved and trusted and this
is a friend of that person.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, so he agrees.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
To give them a ride and they do drop off
Brokes classmate, who was very drunk at his house, but
then instead of taking Brooklyn home, he takes her to
his house. And you know, there's not a lot known
about what he told her about that decision being made,
but she's uncomfortable. But at this point, she's with this
(32:02):
man and he's taking her to his.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
House, and how do you know that that decision happened
or that she was uncomfortable? Right?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
So Brooklyn had her cell phone and she was texting
with her sisters and with her ex fiance because they
were still on good terms, and she was like, hey,
I'm getting kind of weirded out, Like yeah, yeah, not
her exact words, but she was relaying to them that
she had a little bit of concern that her friend
had bailed on her and now she's with this other person.
(32:31):
So her sisters I watched in an interview, said they
were unable to come and get her. They totally would have,
but they were unable to because they had also been drinking,
and so you know, it's a small town where bad
things don't really happen, so there wasn't like it's not
like someone just dropped the ball and should have gotten her.
There wasn't like a big cause for concern known to
(32:51):
them in that moment. And as the night goes on,
it's getting really late. So Brooklyn's texting with her now
ex fiance and he's at a factory job that's overnight
and he's going to get off at about six thirty am.
So they're texting around four am, and she's like, I'm
getting really scared. Can you please come get me? And
(33:13):
he's like, I can come after my shift, and she's
like okay, and then she's like, I think she sends
a text that says please hurry or something that is
really fearful, and he doesn't see that until after.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
He's off of his shift.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
So it's clear that her fear is ramping up at
this point. So Paige, her sister, had a final conversation
with Brooklyn over the phone back around four am. That's
when Brooklyn told her she had left with someone she
knew from the party. She would be catching right home
with her ex fiance as soon as he got off work,
(33:48):
and so they were like, okay, great. But then at
five thirty am, her texts change. She's no longer scared
or worried. She says she's actually going to another party.
Her text reads, never mind, I'm okay, I'm going to
a party in Rockcastle County. Strange, suspicious, very suspicious. And
so Brooklyn never comes home and she's not heard from again.
(34:10):
So now we're at June twenty second, twenty thirteen, so
very early morning hours when an investigation into her disappearance begins.
We learn that the person who took Brooklyn back to
his house, well, his house was in foreclosure. The utilities
were not operating, everything had been turned off. It was
a totally dilapidated house. And he says he left early
(34:35):
in the morning, Brooklyn was still at the house and
he left to go check on a horse. And so
later that day he calls in to report a fire
that had broken out in his house and it had
started on this sofa. Really strange because they go and
investigate this fire and he never well, I'll get to
(34:55):
this later, but Brooklyn's belongings were still at the house,
but she was not there. So when he reports the fire,
he never says there's a person in the house, please
go make sure she's okay. He just reports the fire,
which is really strange.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Meaning like he knew that she wasn't in the house.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
He must have known that she wasn't in the house.
It's like, this is a foreclosed on house. What 'sis
big concern if not a human being inside of it,
if there's a fire. Super weird. Now, he has never
been named as a suspect formerly in the case. He
has never been charged with any crimes related to her disappearance.
(35:34):
But I found an article published on August eleventh, twenty twenty,
a local news station Lects eighteen News said that the
man who took Brooke and her friend back from the
party that night was Josh Hensley, and when this article
was published in twenty twenty, he was currently in jail
on charges including possession or viewing of matter portraying a
(35:58):
sexual performance by a minor, And from what I can
tell online, he's actually still incarcerated but possibly could be
released later this year, which is I think terrifying Brooklyn's mother.
She commented to this reporter in this article. You know,
I think there's a lot of obviously suspicion around this
(36:20):
man because he was the last person to see her. Yeah,
and the fire is very strange. And why would you
take a girl home back to your home, and then
if you're going to go check on a horse, why
wouldn't you bring her and drop her off?
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Then it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make so suspicious.
I'm shocked that he was never a suspect, Like, how
does that happen?
Speaker 2 (36:43):
How does that happen? I mean, I can only imagine
how her family feels. Yeah, and I was on you know,
a Facebook page related to her disappearance, and it seems
like there's a fair amount of like pretty reasonable outrage
that there's at least one person who should be I
don't know. It seems surprising that he hasn't been named
(37:03):
as a suspect. And maybe that's like a strategy. I
have no idea.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Happened, but it seems reasonable to think that a man
who said he would take her home and then didn't
didn't have great intentions. Yeah, it's terrible, and I'm sure
the friend of hers that left her at the party that.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Night feel terrible.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Yeah, and you know, it made me think about that
case in Sparta, Tennessee. You know, a very different case
because those two kids there's an accident, they drive into
the river. But Rosa, who was their friend that was
supposed to be with them that night, she carried a
lot of guilt for a long time about not having
been there. And it's just terrible. And yeah, I would
(37:44):
love to know why he hasn't been or someone hasn't
been held accountable. I guess it's just maybe a lack
of evidence. I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So what happened to the ex fiance? Did he end
up driving to this house? Because he was friends with
this guy Josh Hensley Hensley, So her ex fiance was
friends with I don't know how long they've known each other,
but this is his friend supposedly, so he knows where
he lives. I would assume did he end up driving
(38:16):
to come get her or with these texts that were
sent that were like just kidding, we're going to a party,
did he believe them? Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I wonder if I could find out, you know, I
think the next day, what I recall reading was that
it was like, Okay, well, Shirley, she'll be.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Home any time now.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
And then yeah, as time goes on, you learn a
little more and a little more, and then you learn
about a weird fire and a neighbor had supposedly seen
her at the house but so rural area already and
he lived on the outskirts of them.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
Yeah, okay, you know, we don't know what went into
the investigation or where the cases like from the investigator
standpoint now, but it's so hard to believe because like,
there are times when a crime happens or someone's even
just being periphery to it, or happens to be in
the wrong place at the wrong time ends up like
(39:09):
sending them to prison for twenty years. And obviously every
case is different, but the fact that this man did
a series of things that were all suspicious. Was the
last person to see her, you know that her texts
changed so dramatically and in tone feels like, well was
she texting or was he texting? And where is she?
(39:33):
And why is the couch now on fire? Is this
like an attempt to cover up evidence? You know, I
don't know, but why are her belongings there? And she's not. Yeah, like,
how is it that no one's looking into this? And
I don't know. Maybe they did look into it, but
it just feels so suspicious.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's some detective or law
enforcement locally. They're probably equally or more frustrated with the
lack of movie. But in the case, maybe you should
call him up. I should call him up. Yeah, it's terrible,
and I think you know, even now, you hear so
much about ride share drivers and it's not always safe
(40:11):
to get a ride home with someone you don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Books family has set up a website and Facebook page
where people can submit information and tips, and you know
they're not going to stop looking for her.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Well, thanks for the listener who wrote that in and
for all of the digging that you did on that. Yeah,
we love hearing from you guys. And there's so many
cases we haven't heard of that we're glad to look
into or see if we can get interviews on them.
And so if there's one that's on your mind, reach
out the knife at exactlyrightmedia dot com send us an email. Okay, recommendations,
(40:46):
I have multiple. My first recommendation it's actually we know
some people who worked on this show. It's called Aftermath
Hunt for the Anthrax Killer, and I found it to
be so interesting. A lot of people will probably remember
after nine to eleven there were these anthrax lace letters
(41:09):
that were mailed out to people as well as news agencies,
and it was this really big scare at the time
because there was, you know, nine to eleven had just happened,
and then there was this anthrax thing happening, and it
was sort of like a scramble to figure out what
was going on with that. And in the opening episode,
(41:30):
the host talked about remembering this anthrax scare that happened,
but not really remembering a lot of the details about it,
or like who actually sent the anthrax letters? And I
realized that I had the same experience, Like I was like, actually,
what was going on with that?
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Yeah, like I definitely know the word anthrax that those
letters were sent, and I know nothing else about it.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
Yeah, this is a really great investigation into that. They
interview different FBI agents who worked on this investigation. It
was a long investigation to try to find some answers.
I thought it was really well done and really interesting.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Yeah, I'll have to give that a listen.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
My second recommendation, this is a podcast that I've listened
to for years, but I really like it. It's against
the odds. It's a wondering podcast if you listen to
this one.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
I have listened to a few episodes of it, but
actually not in a while.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
I should go back.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yeah, such a different format of podcasting, right, It's just
like a narrator telling a story, a historical story of
people surviving in wilderness situations. They did a season that
I really liked a couple of years back that covered
the plane crash in the Andes Uruguayan Air Force Flight
(42:44):
five seven to one. It was the rugby team that
was on the way to a tournament and they crashed
in the Andes and very high elevation and some of
them survive, like this wild story of surviving for many days.
It was really well done. And then I just started
their newest season which is about Mount Saint Helens erupting.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Oh my gosh, actually my mom just sent me these
wild photos of my college campus at Wazoo Washington State
University after that eruption cover and ash.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, it was in nineteen eighty that it happened, So
I'm just really enjoying it. It's a totally different kind
of podcast than what we do, but I think their
storytelling is well done. It touches on similar to true crime,
almost like this is what I would do in that scenario,
even if it's not actually there's something happening there. And
(43:39):
I feel like I have the same thing with natural
disaster content, where it probably is coming from some deep
anxiety about like climate change or something, or maybe it's
because I watched so many disaster movies growing up. You know,
It's like Armageddon is like burned into my brain. I'm like,
guys were allowed to watch this, We could watch those
because I don't know why they weren't like religious, Like
(44:03):
I don't know for some reason, like a lot of
the stuff I wasn't allowed to watch, but like Action
Adventure was okay, So like yeah, like Dante's Peak and
Deep Impact, all of those movies are like so vivid
and formed part of how I became who I am.
So whether it's like scripted or if it's like historical,
(44:26):
I'm so into it and I don't want that to
be like downplay the reality of like the horror of
natural disasters. Something I think about a lot, and I
also love like listening to history podcasts. That's why I
think one of the reasons I love Against All Odds
is because it's sort of like the natural disaster. It's
also stories of people surviving, which is really inspiring, and
(44:49):
it's history as well. But one of the things I
was thinking about is like, if I could create my
perfect podcast, I mean I can create, you can, yeah,
but to listen to, Like I don't necessarily want to
make this podcast, but I would love to listen to
this podcast, like a history podcast that touches on natural disasters,
(45:11):
but that is like told through a female lens or
queer lens or more diverse lens. I just think, like
the power of storytelling is so important to me, and
no matter how sort of unbiased you are or whatever,
like your life experience does impact the way you view
a story and the things that you might bring up
(45:32):
about it. And so that's why I would love this
kind of podcast, except if it had like this extra lens.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Actually, I mean this is not natural disaster? But is Wilderness?
Is that show alone on the History Channel? Yes, love
that show. Love that show, And on one of the
earlier seasons, gosh, I do not remember her name. I
wish I did, but there was this woman on there.
She was such a force. She had MS and she
was absolutely crushing it on Alone. There's cuts of her
(46:03):
like throwing a fish back into the river because she
was so well fed with Oh my god he had
And then they cut to this guy who's like, I'm
leaving after three days, like I can't take this anymore.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
It's always the like prepper dudes who can't cut it.
And then it's like the woman who like made like
wove her own chair. Yeah, yeah, she was thriving, thriving.
There was one woman who made like a jacket of
squirrels or something.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Probably my all time favorite on Alone was Calie. She
was in a later season.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
If I watched that one yet, well I'm not gonna
give you a spoiler, but Callie rocked.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Her season and was incredible to watch. But yeah, I
was in an earthquake in seventh grade.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Wait, you want to tell people before you move on
real quick? What Alone is?
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
So if you're not familiar, Alone is, it's an unscripted
It's a reality show, but not what you think when
you think reality shows. There's these contestants who are wilderness
survival expert in some way, and they all have you know,
different backgrounds or from different climates, and the seasons mostly
take place in Canada, maybe all of them, I'm not sure,
(47:10):
but deep in the wilderness, these people are dropped off
all far away from each other, so everyone is alone.
There is no camera crew. These people are trained to
take their own footage with their own GoPros, and.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
They really set up like the most beautiful shots.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
It's actually like reminiscent for me of that documentary Grizzly Man.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
I love that documentary, so very sad but really good.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yeah, and he just, you know, he really took a
lot of pride in setting up these shots. And they
do the same thing, probably because they don't have a
lot to do when they're not trying to like fish
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah, and they're really alone for like a long time,
like they're trying to outlast everybody, so it's not like
thirty days when you're done. It's just like you don't know,
you want to be the last one standing, and you.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Don't know when the other people have dropped off, which
I think is genius because like the games that would
play with you is like, Okay, well I'm almost ready
to leave, but I'm just up against one other person.
Would be a very different decision making process than if
you knew that there were still six people left. Yeah,
like it's huge. Yeah, one moment from Alone that I
don't think it's talked about enough. I think it's on
(48:17):
the very first season. Should fact check this before it
for it airs, But I swear to you there was
the crew comes and picks up the last person on
the on a boat to tell them they've won. And
on the way there, someone had brought this person cookies
and a crew member ate them. What And I'm like,
(48:38):
what kind of person who raised you? This person is
starving in the wilderness and you ate the cookies someone
made for them. That's right, like beyond my comprehension. But yeah,
Alone is I think just a great show and I'm
super impressive.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah, agreed, We're gonna tell a story about it.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
I have a very distinct memory of junior High I
was in I think I was in seventh grade and
there was a big earthquake where I'm from in Washington
State and I was standing in the lunch room.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
I think this plays into my fear of them.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
And I was waiting in line or I was standing
next to someone and this guy like kind of like
bumped me. It just felt like a weird bump, like
not like someone brushing her shoulder, and it took me
a second to sort of realize what was happening. But
we both sort of turn around and see the entire
rest of the cafeteria is under the tables, and so
(49:32):
I'm like, well, what do I do? Because then you
realize the whole ground is moving. I swear I could
see things like rolling. It was the most bizarre experience.
There were like cracks in the concrete after this, and
then the tile.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
It was weird.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
And then I got under the moving condiment cart like.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
This subs like just swinging everywhere.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Like I know I would not survive better than nothing,
but it added another layer of difficulty to the moment.
And yeah, so the and I also remember then walking
outside of the cafeteria into like the courtyard of the
school I went to and a bird had fallen. Oh weird,
and you don't see birds just like fall and I'm.
Speaker 1 (50:12):
A bad omen.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Yeah that's our show, Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Yeah, we'll see you next.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Week.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
If you have a story for us, we would love
to hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactly
rightmedia dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram
at the Knife podcast or.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
A Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
by me Hannah Smith and me Paytia Eaton.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgareff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.
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