December 3, 2024 • 35 mins
Jared, along with his friends and family, discuss why they believe Kristy set fire to their home. Almost all believed it was an attempted murder on Jared’s life that she simply could not go through with in the end. In the fire’s aftermath, an outpouring of community support floods the Akrin family. But all that goodwill quickly turns to anger and mistrust when the community uncovers Kristy’s lies.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
The morning of December sixth, twenty twenty was a day Jared,
We'll never forget because it was the day of the fire.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Christy, my wife, ended up waking me up. I remember
seeing smoke hovering above the bed. It was like a hazy,
almost a fog looking smoke. It was see through gray.
I don't know why I remember that vivid detail. I
tell her, go get the dog, get Ada, take her outside,
(00:30):
make sure you're safe away from the house. I'm gonna
grab a few things, see if it's a small fire.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
But it wasn't a small fire.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I opened that spare bedroom door that was shut. There
was a huge cloud of black smoke that just kind
of engulfed me. And when I as soon as I
opened that door, it took the breath bright out of me.
And I haven't been exposed to a heavy fire before,
so I'm thinking, okay, I'll be fine to see if
I can walk in here and spray. I had a
(00:58):
bucket of water to myself, Okay, I can walk in
your furnace on her. No. As soon as that smoke
hit me, it was like there was nothing left to
my lungs. I wanted to collapse. Looking back, it was
probably a terrible idea. I even open that door, but
it's still my home. I knew what was going to happen. Then,
all that fresh air, the cold morning, all that oxygen
(01:18):
rich air is going to get in there. And after
that the flames took off.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Jared realized he was not going to be able to
extinguish this fire on his own. He had to call
nine to one one. He went outside to join Christy
and their dog ad Up, but Christie was gone.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
When I shut the door to try to contain it.
I run outside and when I go outside, her car's gone.
Like I'm like, where did she go? I didn't see
the car. I knew I saw the car going up
the drive and I could hear it, but then it
was gone. On refond, what if you're a emerger?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Darn called nine one one and reported that his house
was on fire. He would eventually see Christy and ate
it again at the house as the fire trucks began
to arrive. But where was Christie when he came out
of the house. He says that even though his driveway
was five to six hundred feet long, if she was
parked at the top of the driveway waiting for him
(02:21):
as he asked her to do, he would have seen
their car. Why would you leave in the middle of
a fire. I'm Tricia la Fog. I'm a writer, director, actor,
(02:42):
and federal criminal defense attorney. I'm going to tell you
a story that's all too real about love, lies, and
the lens people will go to for attention. It's a
story that will leave you questioning everything you thought you
knew about truth, about reality, and about what happens when
the two collide in the most unimaginable way. From Audio
(03:02):
Up and just Sweep Press Productions, this is the Unborn.
Jared's house is located in a rural area. He's surrounded
by farms and forests. It's also located out past the
final fire hydrant that is closest to town.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
And the big thing that's running through my head is
when is the fire department to get here? It takes them.
It seemed like an eternity. They got to my house
in six minutes. Ends up, there were four, actually there
were five fire stations that actually came to the house
because there was no we don't have fire hydrants or
(03:42):
anything like that. You have to go haul water in
to spradies, so there's spring set up for collecting water
for fire trucks and things like that on probably a
mile and a half away. I think I want to
say there was twenty trucks of water had to come through.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
With the fire chief Carl, along with Tyler, one of
the firefighters from his house. Their department was first to
arrive on the scene, and they both participated in putting
out the fire. Coincidentally, Jared knew Tyler as a classmate.
He was a couple of years ahead of Tyler in school.
This is Tyler.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
We did the first ones on scene, and I'm pretty
sure the old.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
House was engulfed.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Everybody was out of house, and we just start cone
lines and working on.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I asked the chief about the level of difficulty involved
in having to bring in water. I was impressed. Carl
shrugged it off like it was no big deal.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
No, it's what we did for years before we had hiders.
Speaker 5 (04:41):
We were one of the first fire companies to do
tanker shovels here in this area. So and then I'd
caught on on the rough surrounding community. So we're all
equipped to do the same thing. Once we passed that
last tiger, we go way back to the old fashionedly
tanker shovels, and we have additional dry heide.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
In the area teams.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Jared said that the first trucks arrived on the scene
within six minutes of him placing the call. Since Carl
and Tyler were there first, I wanted to know their
opinion of the level of engulfment that the house was
in when they arrived.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I'd say it's about seventy five percent involved.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
When week there.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Seventy five percent involved. I honestly don't know a lot
about fires, but seventy five percent involved seems like a
lot to me, and the chief felt the same way.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
This seemed unusual in that amount of time, the short
response time that it would be that far long.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
Either it wasn't reported and it's early stages and nobody
saw it, or of course I wouldn't have thought it
at the time that there could have been an accelerant
involved to make it progressive before There's lots of things
that goes into the fire.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Makes thinks it either progressed further or world off.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
It was surprising he brought this up, especially because I
didn't mention it. So I asked him what some natural
accelerants would be open doors.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
For basic accident mostly just win you know air.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
Somebody opens the door, could be open doors throughout the
doors between room the room, or shut it slans the
fire down to let progressing from.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Room the room.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Jared did open doors. So we know for a fact
that there were natural accelerants involved. But what about man
made accelerants?
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah, I mean you could use paper. You don't have
to use an accelerant.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Some stack up a bunch of garbage and closed waste paper?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Is it like that?
Speaker 5 (06:46):
If you can get that sofa, See that's a good
one there too, You can get that sofa, burn.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Them things go up like an accelerant. That yellow phone it's.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
In It burns fast and quick and very poisonous.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
So there was when they get hot too, Because I
remember that Paull the guns in a safe was going
off the whole time, remember, yeah, all the shells and
a safe was going off.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Well, it's hard to tell her what she did.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
In the end, there was nothing left of Jared's childhood home.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Ruins, absolutely nothing. There was nothing left of it. There's
nothing saladar from it. My whole my childhood home that
I grew up in. I bought off my parents was
stopping planks, literally gone.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
When Jared first left his house after being unable to
put out the fire himself, he did not see Christy
or their dog Ada, but in the chaos of the moment,
Jared does recall Christy returning. The next time he saw her,
she was being examined by the EMTs. I asked him
if he ever asked the EMTs specifically, are the babies okay?
(07:58):
Or if he remembers hearing anyone talk about the babies
with the medical professionals at all?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Is everything all right? They were like, Yep, everything looks fine.
I never never crossed my mind to say, hey, she's pregnant.
Did you check on them? I asked, is everything all right?
Looking back, maybe I should have been a little more
detail oriented.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
This is yet another time that Jared is looking back
wondering if he should have asked more questions. But hindsight
is twenty twenty. I'm not blaming him. None of this
is his fault, just noting a recurring theme that maybe
he was too trusting. And while Jared doesn't remember hearing
(08:42):
anyone else ask about the babies, we did speak to
a neighbor, Darcy, who was present at the scene.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
She's like no.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Apparently a lot of friends and neighbors gathered while the
firefighters tried to put out the fire, and Darcy clearly
remembers that after Christy was seen by the EMTs, she
was sitting in her grandmother's car when someone mentioned to
them that she was pregnant. They offered to check her again,
but Christy refused.
Speaker 7 (09:13):
She wanted to go over there because they wanted to well,
they were going to try to do your heart being
on the vase.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Jared sent Christy home with his mom. He chose to
stay until the fire finally went out. Family and friends
stuck around to support.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
No. I made her go home with my mom. They
went over to the house. I had somebody sit there
with me, and I sat there and watched.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
The burdener I sted away, even though it was ruined.
Jared had a hard time walking away from the smoldering home.
He spent every penny he had fixing it up, his
memories passed and future disappearing before his eyes.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I did. It was a lot of time, a lot
of energy, a lot of thought into it. I mean
that was it looked almost exactly what I wanted to
look like I had a few more finishing touches and
who four hours, it's gone.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Admittedly, Jared and I had only spoken one time before
we sat down together during that initial phone call right
after all this happened, so I'm learning a lot of
the details that I didn't know about before. Jared had
been working on the house for almost a year, and
he had just put the finishing touches on the house
(10:21):
that day, while Christy had her scheduled C section the
following day. How could these two things be a coincidence? Sure,
I guess it's possible, but is it likely?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
This is probably the worst part is me reliving this part.
You can't bring that back. I can't bring back the
scratches I remember putting in the floor because I screwed
up where I was hitting with a hammer. I won't
ever be able to remember those things and show my
kids that one day it's gone forever. I've had some
nightmares about it, and for probably a week I didn't sleep.
(11:00):
I was afraid that the house is can catch on fire,
and I kept reliving that taste and that smell, and
I really can't emphasize how terrible it was to keep
reliving and smelling that and tasting that, and seeing all
my friends and family kind of stand there.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I've never seen or been near a house fire, so
I can only imagine the sensory trauma that comes with it.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
The smell was I'll never forget that either. It was
a almost I don't recall it a sulfur, but it
was a pungent almost like you burnt sap. I guess
I'm maybe I'm speaking out of term. Maybe people don't
know what that smells like. But if you get an
(11:46):
evergreen tree, you ever been up in the woods or
anything like that, and someone has a campfire, sometimes they'll
throw some pine needles on there when that SAP's burning,
and it actually burns the sap before and it sticks
in your nose.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
It was one of many painful memories that Jared would
have to carry, and others were on their way. Jared
and Christy were young newlyweds, pregnant with twins, living in
a small town. When they're home burned to the ground.
It was a life changing tragedy for them and for
those closest to them. But even in this tragedy, there
(12:24):
was a silver lining. The immediate response to their situation
is an example of the best parts of this community
of small town life. Within twenty four hours of the fire,
GoFundMe accounts are set up by both Darcy and Molly,
and the links to those accounts are being shared via
social media. Jared and Christy are also receiving Vemo payments
(12:46):
from people who wanted to help, and it wasn't just money.
Within forty eight hours of the fire, six truckloads of
donations arrived at the Akron family farm. There were items
for the babies, items for Jared and Christy, even furniture
for their future home. Here's Jared's friends talking about the
community response.
Speaker 7 (13:07):
Oh, it was amazing. Everybody was you know, he got
like thousands of dollars via GoFundMe. Venmo, I mean, people
were wanting to help in any way that they could.
They had they had setups for like diaper drops and
white drops and clothes and donations and all kinds of stuff. Yeah,
(13:28):
the community really was amazing.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Really back to them, Molly thought so too. It was amazing.
Speaker 8 (13:35):
Yeah, like just crazy how many people actually reached out
and like not only gave money, but like possessions of theirs. Honestly,
like he'd be lucky to be a part of this community.
Speaker 9 (13:48):
Yeah, it was an outpouring. I mean it was unbelievable.
The money. The money, I mean, I don't know an
exact number, but I mean, you know, just me and
my partner alone gave him ten thousand dollars. It was
It was really neat to see the community come.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Together for Jared. He was beside himself with the support.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
There's only one word that describes that, and it's overwhelming
love charity. I never realized how many people in the
community New Cared didn't know me or Christy and we're like, hey,
we want to help you. I hope one day that
I can have that impact on someone else. And it's
made me kind of open my eyes to caring about
(14:24):
what happens to people I don't know. Someone I went
to high school with set up a gofund me. I
didn't even know about it for a couple of days.
Looking there's a bunch of money in there, and I
had no idea. I think there was six grand in there,
and then there was some venmos. I couldn't even keep
(14:44):
track of it. It was astronomical what there was, every
bit of forty fifty dollars that were donated, including baby stuck.
It's like you went robbed a target or something of
all their baby stuff. I'm still going through it and
trying to give it to people in need.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And while Jared was overwhelmed by all the donations, both
monetary and material, when I asked him if there was
a particular donation that humbled him the most, his answer
was surprising. It wasn't the ten thousand dollars that his boss,
Henry and his partner gave. It was people's time.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Two days after the fire, I had fifteen guys at
the house helping me tear it down because I was
trying to buy another house, one of the manufactured home
It was in stock. I had to get down to
the foundation to measure it, have a guy come out check,
and had to make sure that joint was still good
in them. I mean having fifteen guys there all day long,
(15:47):
ordered pizza, we worked all night long. Yeah, because they
knew like I didn't have anywhere yet. I mean, it
was supposed to have a kid the next day.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Christy was due to give birth the very next day
to the twins that she was not carrying, and the
night before she is supposed to give birth. Jared and
Christie's house burns to the ground. The day after the fire,
Jared took Christi to the hospital to find out if
the scheduled sea section would happen or if the plan
(16:22):
was going to change due to the fire. Christy told
Jared that her doctor decided to push the date of
the delivery by a week.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
December seventh. I took her to a doctor's appointment, writing
a drop her off sit on the side street. Make
the phone calls to the insurance companies. They were worried
about the stress from the fire and the smoke that
was in her lungs. They were worried about putting her under,
which I found out after they don't actually get put
on her for a sea section. Maybe that's my fault.
(16:52):
I didn't look at that further in depth.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
The clock was ticking on Christie's lie, but the fire
and this follow up appointment with Jared again not allowed in,
has bought her another week to figure out exactly what
it is she's going to do next. But for Jared,
especially looking back, clouding that week of waiting was Christie's
(17:15):
demeanor and actions.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
She was so excited to go through all these clothes
that people were giving. But now that I look back
on it, she was throwing out these clothes that were
I think it's three to six months. She was so
focused on these clothes and looking at her next things
were given her. I'll look at these shoes or look
at this necklace. I'm like me personally, I'm like, Okay,
(17:38):
we need a crib, we need car seats, we need
these things. That's what I'm worried about. Where she was
more mute to the community. Where I was in front
of them, Hey, thank you very much. She was in
the house.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And then the inevitable happened just a week later, when
the news began to spread that Christy was never pregnant,
and the community that was so quick to come together
to help a young couple in need turned on Jared completely.
Speaker 9 (18:09):
And then all the shit hit the fandom, all the
wheels fell off, and everybody wanted their money back, and
it turned into a little bit of a shit show.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
I mean, people just drug him through the mud, you know,
said nasty things about his character, said he was after money,
all these different things, and I just, you know, I
was like, you do not know Jared the way that
I know Jared, he would not do that. He had
genuinely no clue that these things are going to happen.
Speaker 9 (18:40):
I would say it was fifty to fifty that people
treated him like he had just had a fire and
bad shit happened to him.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
I mean it was all over social media.
Speaker 6 (18:49):
There were go fund me a setup because like I said,
he had twins on the way she was due. I
don't know how close to it.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
But it was very close.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
And you know, all of us knew were sharing the
fund me, we were donating, and.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
I felt bad afterwards because he got a lot of
meat on.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
The advantage of like a small community when he genuinely
had no clue.
Speaker 9 (19:11):
People that really didn't know. The whole story was there
were some assholes that we want our money back. He
tried to rip us off, and you know that kind
of crap, and you know Africa, And actually it was
a couple of people that I knew. I called him
and I told him what happened, and then they was like, well,
we just don't want her.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Having the money.
Speaker 9 (19:26):
So after they I told him, I said, the guy's
house still burnt down. It wasn't like he was trying
to rip anybody off. I mean his house it burned down.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Jared has lived in this community for his entire life,
and up until now he had a stellar reputation, hard working,
trusting kind. That reputation was flipped upside down through no
fault of his own.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Oh, they were pissed. I mean it was like the
world was in it. They gave their harder money, these donations.
They went and bought things that they thought we would need.
And when you find out we were taking advantage of,
or what was presented from all the rumors that had
started it was, hey, they stole money.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
The first rumor was that Jared was involved in the
attempted baby napping at the hospital. To be fair, his
photograph was up at all of the local hospitals as
a person to be on the lookout for as an
infant security risk. So potentially the BOLO and gossip around
the Bolo informed that rumor.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
The first rumor was that I was involved. I knew
all about the fake pregnancy. I went along with it
and it was all over Facebook, and Molly had sent
them to me. So I started looking into like what's
reading and I get a call from one of the
friends that Molly had set up as Venmo through they
were neighbors there, and they're getting emails and requests. I
take on Venmo, Hey, I want my donation back. So
(20:54):
I'm like, seriously, give it back. I don't want something
that they think that I'm involved in. I don't want this.
If they wanted that, I'm not here to make money.
My house burnt down. I don't care it right now,
I've nothing. My whole life just turned upside down in
the house burnt down. I'm not with my wife anymore,
and I don't have any children.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Jared was willing to do everything he could do to
clear his name and make things right with the people
who donated, so at.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
This point I'm furious, But at the same time, I
want these people to have their money back, their donations.
I don't want to keep these things. And it was
such a tough thing to take in that the community
thought that I was a part of this.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But all of Jared's efforts to give them money back
had to be put on hold when he got a
call from the fire marshal.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Two days later, I get a call from the fire marshal.
He goes, hey, I hate to be the bear and
bad news but we've had multiple people call in here
and say that we think your wife, Christy set the
house on fire. Lou want to ask you some questions.
Rumors started. They were like, Okay, maybe he's not involved,
maybe she set the house on fire.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
The fire Marshall had questions for Jared. Heck, we all
had questions.
Speaker 8 (22:05):
So, like I've gone back and forth. My opinion is
I think she probably did, but I'm only questioning how
she got away with it, because like, you can't just
search on the internet how to start an inconclusive fire.
But then, like I kept thinking and like maybe her
plan was for both of them to die in the fire,
so like the babies would have just died, and then
(22:27):
like it just would have been a tragedy. But at
the same time, if I was letting my house on fire,
I think I would take something like I don't think
I could let it all burn.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Would you keep forward fires and cowboy moods in your suv?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I wouldn't neither unless I get to worch my house
and didn't want them to burn.
Speaker 7 (22:43):
And I think to start the fire.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Was like her escape.
Speaker 9 (22:46):
Oh well, she had been suspected in Washington County here
of two other fires.
Speaker 10 (22:50):
I think she's saying to the point where like if
that happened, if she did light that fire, something clicked
and she and she goes, I.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Gotta wake him up, or otherwise I'm gonna go to
jail for a long fun time.
Speaker 7 (23:03):
This is it, We're done. I'm just gonna end it, right,
which is even harder to think about, like if she
would have actually went through with that.
Speaker 9 (23:12):
She worked at a local farm and one of the
barns burnt down, and the fire investigator they had her
as one of the suspects, but they could never prove it.
Speaker 7 (23:20):
I think she was planning on just ending it for
the both of them, just.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Trying to be done with life. Literally, I don't.
Speaker 8 (23:28):
Want to say crazy, but you have to be pretty
mentally unstable for someone to just do that and burn
everything that they own and love and possibly die in
the process.
Speaker 7 (23:39):
But I think once it got to an escalated point,
she was freaked out and fight her flight type thing.
But I do think she started with fire and was
trying to end it.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
So many people from the community have their opinions on
the fire, it's overwhelmingly one sided. What about Jarrett, does
he think Christy was capable of doing this. I asked
Jared if he thought Christy started the fire, because we
don't know, I asked him to present a case for
both sides, reasons he thinks she did do it, and
(24:13):
reasons he could come up with as to why she
did not.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I guess the first thing that comes to my mind
is that she she was due the next day. Maybe
there was some her plan wasn't thought out. She didn't
think it would go this far, and she needed some
time to earn an excuse to move the due date
so she could have some more time to plan, or
something like that. And a lot of it comes down
to that night.
Speaker 8 (24:37):
It was weird.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
She did wake me up off the couch the bedtime routine.
I would usually fall asleep on the couch. The reason
being is she was pregnant. She had a tough time sleeping.
I'm a heavy sleeper, I snore. I set my alarm
there always set.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
This had been their routine for months, Jared sleeping on
the couch and Christy in their bedroom, and I would.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Get up in the morning and I was before she
even woke up, so it was just easier. I didn't
wake her up. Rolling out of bed, fumbling around in
the dark. But she made it a point to wake
me up that night Yry, which she never does, to
come into bed. Now, the couch versus where the fire
(25:20):
had started was maybe only six foot apart.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
The night of the fire, she tells him to get
off the couch and come to bed. He obliges her request.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
It was it's like right there. I mean, it's six
feet from that door, whereas when I'm in a bedroom
there's a closed door. I can't hear what's going on.
It was just funky.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The spare room where the fire originated is only six
feet away from the couch on which she's been sleeping,
and it's in a living room, an open space in
the house. Their bedroom is in the back. It's the
room that is the furthest distance from the spare room
and the couch. Jared is now in that room with
(26:05):
the door shut.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
So maybe she wanted to put me in a bedroom,
shut the door and I guess, and get me away
from that door so she could do something in there.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
There are three very large coincidences on that evening. One
Jared had just finished the remodel on the house. Two
Christy was due the next day, and she asked him
to move to the bedroom, which she never usually does.
But there's one more thing. And anyone who's ever owned
(26:35):
an animal, let alone slept with their animal every night
like Jared did with Ada, will understand that this is
a pretty noticeable point that even though Jared told Christy
grab the dog and go outside when she woke him,
Jared doesn't remember ever hearing his dog ate a bark
(26:56):
on that evening.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
But then I also don't remember ever hearing the dog bark,
which that throws in for a carbball when you're When
an animal smells smoke anyhow, they're not gonna stick around.
They're going to bark, make noises, try to get out
of the house. I don't remember ever hearing Ada bark, ever,
clawing at the door, jumping on top of me, or
(27:19):
anything like that.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Where was Ada. I can't imagine a scenario where she
would have been in the house and not alerted Jared
and Christy to the fire. Jared said that when Christy
woke him up, his room was already filled with a gray,
smoky haze. So would Christy have woken up in the
same bed as her husband and realized there was a fire,
(27:41):
taken Ada outside and then come back in to wake
him up. Is that scenario likely at all? And if
she did take Ada outside, which accounts for Jared never
hearing her bark, when did she take her out? And
why there's another side to this coin because at the
end of the day, we just don't know. I asked
(28:02):
Jared if he could come up with reasons why he
thinks Christy did not start the fire.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
She lost everything in the house that she had. There
was a complete loss. Nothing was saved.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
That's a great point and one that Molly mentioned. But
that assumes if Christy started the fire, which I'm not
saying she did, that she started the fire in her
right mind. Is that what a rational person in their
best mind would think. Was there anything else?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
The insurance back come out, They checked for accelerants, all
this stuff, and nothing was Ever it was closed as
an electrical fire, which there was some old wiring in
there that was kind of jerry rigged, which very well
could have been the cause of it. And that's what
it was determined, was it was an electrical fire that
burnt the house.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Now the fire chief had his own theories. They are
very experience and expertise, Do you believe that the source
of the fire is faulty electrical?
Speaker 5 (28:58):
I will say though it was burnt in such a
way so far that the investigators really couldn't get in
to make a real good determination due to some of
the circumstances surrounding that fire that he really.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Asked to question.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Jared never knew of his wife's suspected arson activity until
he was approached by the fire marshal.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I don't know if it was the fact that there's
been multiple fires she's been involved in before, not involved,
but she was around them, that there was a couple
of things that were caught on fire and nothing was
ever proven. It really makes you think, like, hey, do
I really know who I'm married to.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Jared's father, David, was convinced that there were no babies
by this time.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
I'm convinced there's no babies, but I can't be one
hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Sure or anything in that like that.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
But in my mind, I'm like, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
There was any of my wife's calls and says her
mother and stepdad want to want to talk about it, Well,
I had just about enough talk, you know. By then,
I've got a lot of doubts in my mind.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
So they're sitting there. Finally said that she's done this.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Before, and I said, what nobody said anything, you know?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
And I'm sure more people knew, but they'd never mentioned anything,
never pulled us aside before the wedding, any of that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
David is upset here reliving the memory, and rightfully so.
But I asked him about what he meant when he
said Sheila and her husband told them that Christie's done
this before on a different occasion with the previous boyfriend.
Christie told her mom she was pregnant, but for whatever reason,
Sheila didn't believe her, and she hired a private investigator
to follow Christy to see if she would learn the truth.
(30:38):
The private investigator followed Christy to the hospital and watched
Christy as she parked in the hospital parking lot. Christy
called her mother from the parking lot and told her
she was in the er having a DNC because she
had just miscarried that child. The private investigator told Sheila
that Christy, well technically at the High hospital, never got
(31:01):
out of her car. Here's Sarah, And that was the.
Speaker 7 (31:04):
One other thing why I questioned it too, is because
the previous relationship, she said she was pregnant and he
either he proposed or said he didn't want to get
married until the baby was here, and then she.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Said she had a messcaret Yet another reason why Sarah
was suspicious of Christy and Jared's pregnancy that Christie herself,
not Sheila, who Sarah doesn't even know, told her somewhat
in passing that she was engaged and pregnant before and
they were going to marry, but they didn't because she
lost that child. I don't know the specifics of what
(31:39):
made Christy tell Sarah that information. Chock it up to
female bonding. Oh you're pregnant, I've been pregnant too. I
can only guess that she wasn't trying to plant a
seed of suspicion in Sarah, which is what happened. Nor
did she ever anticipate that Sheila would have cause to
have the conversation she had with Jared's father. Jared learned
(32:01):
on Saturday afternoon that Christy was never pregnant, and he
decides that he has no other option but to keep
his knowledge a secret for two reasons. First, he was
very concerned about the money from the donations that they
had put in the bank. It was his intention to
get that money out of the bank and return it
back to anyone who was upset about their donation once
(32:23):
they discovered the truth about Christie's pregnancy. Second, he wanted
out of his marriage to Christy, and he needed to
find a lawyer who practiced family law. This is where
Melissa will enter the picture. But it's the weekend and
he can't do either one of those things. That Saturday
night and the following Sunday we're going to be the
(32:45):
longest thirty six hours of Jared's entire life.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I knew I had to make it through the weekend
without her finding out that I knew everything that was
a lie. I mean, it was a little tough. It
was almost unsurreal. I mean the feelings of, hey, I know,
I have to be a better actor and liar than
she was to make sure I could end up making
it to the lawyers and to the bank in time.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Not only was Jared going to have to keep this
light up until Monday, he was going to have to
hide some fear because when he was cleaning up the
debris from the fire, he noticed that something was missing.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
At this point I'm feeling a little uneasy, and the
reason being is I'm still missing a firearms. I'm thinking
back into I open my safe, I count all my firearms,
and I realize one's missing. After the fire, when all
the smoldering goes down, I go and count my firearms
because I have to call the state police and say, hey,
here's serial numbers of the registered guns that I have
(33:44):
that are lost. It was just a blackened mess. There
was no wood, no stalks, nothing like that. It was
gun barrels just melted. There was one pistol missing. It
has no safety. It's thirteen shells and if you hold
a trigger, it's going off. So in the back of
my mind, I'm thinking, hey, is there possibility that she
has it in my life could be in danger?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Next time on the Unborn, I say, yes.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I think my account's been jeopardized. Come up to my office.
We need to go over to the courthouse.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
And I'm going to try to resolve this for him
with at least amount of pain possible.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
And then I guess that's where our friendship began. There
are sometimes where I was like, what is happening?
Speaker 9 (34:32):
This bitch is.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Crazy, because I mean that that gun is still missing.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
That's next time on The Unborn. The Unborn is a
production of iHeart Podcasts, Audio Up and Jess We Pressed Productions.
Speaker 11 (34:47):
Created by trishla Fotch and Frank Rodriguez. Mal produced by Alvin.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Cohen and Rachel Foley.
Speaker 11 (34:54):
Executive produced by Jimmy Jellinek, David Dwaits and Jared Gusta.
Edited by Gerard Hower and Preston Dawson. Sound design and
mixing by Jeremiah Zimmerman.
The morning of December sixth, twenty twenty was a day Jared,
We'll never forget because it was the day of the fire.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Christy, my wife, ended up waking me up. I remember
seeing smoke hovering above the bed. It was like a hazy,
almost a fog looking smoke. It was see through gray.
I don't know why I remember that vivid detail. I
tell her, go get the dog, get Ada, take her outside,
(00:30):
make sure you're safe away from the house. I'm gonna
grab a few things, see if it's a small fire.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
But it wasn't a small fire.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I opened that spare bedroom door that was shut. There
was a huge cloud of black smoke that just kind
of engulfed me. And when I as soon as I
opened that door, it took the breath bright out of me.
And I haven't been exposed to a heavy fire before,
so I'm thinking, okay, I'll be fine to see if
I can walk in here and spray. I had a
(00:58):
bucket of water to myself, Okay, I can walk in
your furnace on her. No. As soon as that smoke
hit me, it was like there was nothing left to
my lungs. I wanted to collapse. Looking back, it was
probably a terrible idea. I even open that door, but
it's still my home. I knew what was going to happen. Then,
all that fresh air, the cold morning, all that oxygen
(01:18):
rich air is going to get in there. And after
that the flames took off.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Jared realized he was not going to be able to
extinguish this fire on his own. He had to call
nine to one one. He went outside to join Christy
and their dog ad Up, but Christie was gone.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
When I shut the door to try to contain it.
I run outside and when I go outside, her car's gone.
Like I'm like, where did she go? I didn't see
the car. I knew I saw the car going up
the drive and I could hear it, but then it
was gone. On refond, what if you're a emerger?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Darn called nine one one and reported that his house
was on fire. He would eventually see Christy and ate
it again at the house as the fire trucks began
to arrive. But where was Christie when he came out
of the house. He says that even though his driveway
was five to six hundred feet long, if she was
parked at the top of the driveway waiting for him
(02:21):
as he asked her to do, he would have seen
their car. Why would you leave in the middle of
a fire. I'm Tricia la Fog. I'm a writer, director, actor,
(02:42):
and federal criminal defense attorney. I'm going to tell you
a story that's all too real about love, lies, and
the lens people will go to for attention. It's a
story that will leave you questioning everything you thought you
knew about truth, about reality, and about what happens when
the two collide in the most unimaginable way. From Audio
(03:02):
Up and just Sweep Press Productions, this is the Unborn.
Jared's house is located in a rural area. He's surrounded
by farms and forests. It's also located out past the
final fire hydrant that is closest to town.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
And the big thing that's running through my head is
when is the fire department to get here? It takes them.
It seemed like an eternity. They got to my house
in six minutes. Ends up, there were four, actually there
were five fire stations that actually came to the house
because there was no we don't have fire hydrants or
(03:42):
anything like that. You have to go haul water in
to spradies, so there's spring set up for collecting water
for fire trucks and things like that on probably a
mile and a half away. I think I want to
say there was twenty trucks of water had to come through.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
With the fire chief Carl, along with Tyler, one of
the firefighters from his house. Their department was first to
arrive on the scene, and they both participated in putting
out the fire. Coincidentally, Jared knew Tyler as a classmate.
He was a couple of years ahead of Tyler in school.
This is Tyler.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
We did the first ones on scene, and I'm pretty
sure the old.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
House was engulfed.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Everybody was out of house, and we just start cone
lines and working on.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I asked the chief about the level of difficulty involved
in having to bring in water. I was impressed. Carl
shrugged it off like it was no big deal.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
No, it's what we did for years before we had hiders.
Speaker 5 (04:41):
We were one of the first fire companies to do
tanker shovels here in this area. So and then I'd
caught on on the rough surrounding community. So we're all
equipped to do the same thing. Once we passed that
last tiger, we go way back to the old fashionedly
tanker shovels, and we have additional dry heide.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
In the area teams.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Jared said that the first trucks arrived on the scene
within six minutes of him placing the call. Since Carl
and Tyler were there first, I wanted to know their
opinion of the level of engulfment that the house was
in when they arrived.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I'd say it's about seventy five percent involved.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
When week there.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Seventy five percent involved. I honestly don't know a lot
about fires, but seventy five percent involved seems like a
lot to me, and the chief felt the same way.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
This seemed unusual in that amount of time, the short
response time that it would be that far long.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
Either it wasn't reported and it's early stages and nobody
saw it, or of course I wouldn't have thought it
at the time that there could have been an accelerant
involved to make it progressive before There's lots of things
that goes into the fire.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Makes thinks it either progressed further or world off.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
It was surprising he brought this up, especially because I
didn't mention it. So I asked him what some natural
accelerants would be open doors.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
For basic accident mostly just win you know air.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
Somebody opens the door, could be open doors throughout the
doors between room the room, or shut it slans the
fire down to let progressing from.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Room the room.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Jared did open doors. So we know for a fact
that there were natural accelerants involved. But what about man
made accelerants?
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah, I mean you could use paper. You don't have
to use an accelerant.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Some stack up a bunch of garbage and closed waste paper?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Is it like that?
Speaker 5 (06:46):
If you can get that sofa, See that's a good
one there too, You can get that sofa, burn.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Them things go up like an accelerant. That yellow phone it's.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
In It burns fast and quick and very poisonous.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
So there was when they get hot too, Because I
remember that Paull the guns in a safe was going
off the whole time, remember, yeah, all the shells and
a safe was going off.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Well, it's hard to tell her what she did.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
In the end, there was nothing left of Jared's childhood home.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Ruins, absolutely nothing. There was nothing left of it. There's
nothing saladar from it. My whole my childhood home that
I grew up in. I bought off my parents was
stopping planks, literally gone.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
When Jared first left his house after being unable to
put out the fire himself, he did not see Christy
or their dog Ada, but in the chaos of the moment,
Jared does recall Christy returning. The next time he saw her,
she was being examined by the EMTs. I asked him
if he ever asked the EMTs specifically, are the babies okay?
(07:58):
Or if he remembers hearing anyone talk about the babies
with the medical professionals at all?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Is everything all right? They were like, Yep, everything looks fine.
I never never crossed my mind to say, hey, she's pregnant.
Did you check on them? I asked, is everything all right?
Looking back, maybe I should have been a little more
detail oriented.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
This is yet another time that Jared is looking back
wondering if he should have asked more questions. But hindsight
is twenty twenty. I'm not blaming him. None of this
is his fault, just noting a recurring theme that maybe
he was too trusting. And while Jared doesn't remember hearing
(08:42):
anyone else ask about the babies, we did speak to
a neighbor, Darcy, who was present at the scene.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
She's like no.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Apparently a lot of friends and neighbors gathered while the
firefighters tried to put out the fire, and Darcy clearly
remembers that after Christy was seen by the EMTs, she
was sitting in her grandmother's car when someone mentioned to
them that she was pregnant. They offered to check her again,
but Christy refused.
Speaker 7 (09:13):
She wanted to go over there because they wanted to well,
they were going to try to do your heart being
on the vase.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Jared sent Christy home with his mom. He chose to
stay until the fire finally went out. Family and friends
stuck around to support.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
No. I made her go home with my mom. They
went over to the house. I had somebody sit there
with me, and I sat there and watched.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
The burdener I sted away, even though it was ruined.
Jared had a hard time walking away from the smoldering home.
He spent every penny he had fixing it up, his
memories passed and future disappearing before his eyes.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I did. It was a lot of time, a lot
of energy, a lot of thought into it. I mean
that was it looked almost exactly what I wanted to
look like I had a few more finishing touches and
who four hours, it's gone.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Admittedly, Jared and I had only spoken one time before
we sat down together during that initial phone call right
after all this happened, so I'm learning a lot of
the details that I didn't know about before. Jared had
been working on the house for almost a year, and
he had just put the finishing touches on the house
(10:21):
that day, while Christy had her scheduled C section the
following day. How could these two things be a coincidence? Sure,
I guess it's possible, but is it likely?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
This is probably the worst part is me reliving this part.
You can't bring that back. I can't bring back the
scratches I remember putting in the floor because I screwed
up where I was hitting with a hammer. I won't
ever be able to remember those things and show my
kids that one day it's gone forever. I've had some
nightmares about it, and for probably a week I didn't sleep.
(11:00):
I was afraid that the house is can catch on fire,
and I kept reliving that taste and that smell, and
I really can't emphasize how terrible it was to keep
reliving and smelling that and tasting that, and seeing all
my friends and family kind of stand there.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I've never seen or been near a house fire, so
I can only imagine the sensory trauma that comes with it.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
The smell was I'll never forget that either. It was
a almost I don't recall it a sulfur, but it
was a pungent almost like you burnt sap. I guess
I'm maybe I'm speaking out of term. Maybe people don't
know what that smells like. But if you get an
(11:46):
evergreen tree, you ever been up in the woods or
anything like that, and someone has a campfire, sometimes they'll
throw some pine needles on there when that SAP's burning,
and it actually burns the sap before and it sticks
in your nose.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
It was one of many painful memories that Jared would
have to carry, and others were on their way. Jared
and Christy were young newlyweds, pregnant with twins, living in
a small town. When they're home burned to the ground.
It was a life changing tragedy for them and for
those closest to them. But even in this tragedy, there
(12:24):
was a silver lining. The immediate response to their situation
is an example of the best parts of this community
of small town life. Within twenty four hours of the fire,
GoFundMe accounts are set up by both Darcy and Molly,
and the links to those accounts are being shared via
social media. Jared and Christy are also receiving Vemo payments
(12:46):
from people who wanted to help, and it wasn't just money.
Within forty eight hours of the fire, six truckloads of
donations arrived at the Akron family farm. There were items
for the babies, items for Jared and Christy, even furniture
for their future home. Here's Jared's friends talking about the
community response.
Speaker 7 (13:07):
Oh, it was amazing. Everybody was you know, he got
like thousands of dollars via GoFundMe. Venmo, I mean, people
were wanting to help in any way that they could.
They had they had setups for like diaper drops and
white drops and clothes and donations and all kinds of stuff. Yeah,
(13:28):
the community really was amazing.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Really back to them, Molly thought so too. It was amazing.
Speaker 8 (13:35):
Yeah, like just crazy how many people actually reached out
and like not only gave money, but like possessions of theirs. Honestly,
like he'd be lucky to be a part of this community.
Speaker 9 (13:48):
Yeah, it was an outpouring. I mean it was unbelievable.
The money. The money, I mean, I don't know an
exact number, but I mean, you know, just me and
my partner alone gave him ten thousand dollars. It was
It was really neat to see the community come.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Together for Jared. He was beside himself with the support.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
There's only one word that describes that, and it's overwhelming
love charity. I never realized how many people in the
community New Cared didn't know me or Christy and we're like, hey,
we want to help you. I hope one day that
I can have that impact on someone else. And it's
made me kind of open my eyes to caring about
(14:24):
what happens to people I don't know. Someone I went
to high school with set up a gofund me. I
didn't even know about it for a couple of days.
Looking there's a bunch of money in there, and I
had no idea. I think there was six grand in there,
and then there was some venmos. I couldn't even keep
(14:44):
track of it. It was astronomical what there was, every
bit of forty fifty dollars that were donated, including baby stuck.
It's like you went robbed a target or something of
all their baby stuff. I'm still going through it and
trying to give it to people in need.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
And while Jared was overwhelmed by all the donations, both
monetary and material, when I asked him if there was
a particular donation that humbled him the most, his answer
was surprising. It wasn't the ten thousand dollars that his boss,
Henry and his partner gave. It was people's time.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Two days after the fire, I had fifteen guys at
the house helping me tear it down because I was
trying to buy another house, one of the manufactured home
It was in stock. I had to get down to
the foundation to measure it, have a guy come out check,
and had to make sure that joint was still good
in them. I mean having fifteen guys there all day long,
(15:47):
ordered pizza, we worked all night long. Yeah, because they
knew like I didn't have anywhere yet. I mean, it
was supposed to have a kid the next day.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Christy was due to give birth the very next day
to the twins that she was not carrying, and the
night before she is supposed to give birth. Jared and
Christie's house burns to the ground. The day after the fire,
Jared took Christi to the hospital to find out if
the scheduled sea section would happen or if the plan
(16:22):
was going to change due to the fire. Christy told
Jared that her doctor decided to push the date of
the delivery by a week.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
December seventh. I took her to a doctor's appointment, writing
a drop her off sit on the side street. Make
the phone calls to the insurance companies. They were worried
about the stress from the fire and the smoke that
was in her lungs. They were worried about putting her under,
which I found out after they don't actually get put
on her for a sea section. Maybe that's my fault.
(16:52):
I didn't look at that further in depth.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
The clock was ticking on Christie's lie, but the fire
and this follow up appointment with Jared again not allowed in,
has bought her another week to figure out exactly what
it is she's going to do next. But for Jared,
especially looking back, clouding that week of waiting was Christie's
(17:15):
demeanor and actions.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
She was so excited to go through all these clothes
that people were giving. But now that I look back
on it, she was throwing out these clothes that were
I think it's three to six months. She was so
focused on these clothes and looking at her next things
were given her. I'll look at these shoes or look
at this necklace. I'm like me personally, I'm like, Okay,
(17:38):
we need a crib, we need car seats, we need
these things. That's what I'm worried about. Where she was
more mute to the community. Where I was in front
of them, Hey, thank you very much. She was in
the house.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And then the inevitable happened just a week later, when
the news began to spread that Christy was never pregnant,
and the community that was so quick to come together
to help a young couple in need turned on Jared completely.
Speaker 9 (18:09):
And then all the shit hit the fandom, all the
wheels fell off, and everybody wanted their money back, and
it turned into a little bit of a shit show.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
I mean, people just drug him through the mud, you know,
said nasty things about his character, said he was after money,
all these different things, and I just, you know, I
was like, you do not know Jared the way that
I know Jared, he would not do that. He had
genuinely no clue that these things are going to happen.
Speaker 9 (18:40):
I would say it was fifty to fifty that people
treated him like he had just had a fire and
bad shit happened to him.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
I mean it was all over social media.
Speaker 6 (18:49):
There were go fund me a setup because like I said,
he had twins on the way she was due. I
don't know how close to it.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
But it was very close.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
And you know, all of us knew were sharing the
fund me, we were donating, and.
Speaker 5 (19:02):
I felt bad afterwards because he got a lot of
meat on.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
The advantage of like a small community when he genuinely
had no clue.
Speaker 9 (19:11):
People that really didn't know. The whole story was there
were some assholes that we want our money back. He
tried to rip us off, and you know that kind
of crap, and you know Africa, And actually it was
a couple of people that I knew. I called him
and I told him what happened, and then they was like, well,
we just don't want her.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Having the money.
Speaker 9 (19:26):
So after they I told him, I said, the guy's
house still burnt down. It wasn't like he was trying
to rip anybody off. I mean his house it burned down.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Jared has lived in this community for his entire life,
and up until now he had a stellar reputation, hard working,
trusting kind. That reputation was flipped upside down through no
fault of his own.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Oh, they were pissed. I mean it was like the
world was in it. They gave their harder money, these donations.
They went and bought things that they thought we would need.
And when you find out we were taking advantage of,
or what was presented from all the rumors that had
started it was, hey, they stole money.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
The first rumor was that Jared was involved in the
attempted baby napping at the hospital. To be fair, his
photograph was up at all of the local hospitals as
a person to be on the lookout for as an
infant security risk. So potentially the BOLO and gossip around
the Bolo informed that rumor.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
The first rumor was that I was involved. I knew
all about the fake pregnancy. I went along with it
and it was all over Facebook, and Molly had sent
them to me. So I started looking into like what's
reading and I get a call from one of the
friends that Molly had set up as Venmo through they
were neighbors there, and they're getting emails and requests. I
take on Venmo, Hey, I want my donation back. So
(20:54):
I'm like, seriously, give it back. I don't want something
that they think that I'm involved in. I don't want this.
If they wanted that, I'm not here to make money.
My house burnt down. I don't care it right now,
I've nothing. My whole life just turned upside down in
the house burnt down. I'm not with my wife anymore,
and I don't have any children.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Jared was willing to do everything he could do to
clear his name and make things right with the people
who donated, so at.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
This point I'm furious, But at the same time, I
want these people to have their money back, their donations.
I don't want to keep these things. And it was
such a tough thing to take in that the community
thought that I was a part of this.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But all of Jared's efforts to give them money back
had to be put on hold when he got a
call from the fire marshal.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Two days later, I get a call from the fire marshal.
He goes, hey, I hate to be the bear and
bad news but we've had multiple people call in here
and say that we think your wife, Christy set the
house on fire. Lou want to ask you some questions.
Rumors started. They were like, Okay, maybe he's not involved,
maybe she set the house on fire.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
The fire Marshall had questions for Jared. Heck, we all
had questions.
Speaker 8 (22:05):
So, like I've gone back and forth. My opinion is
I think she probably did, but I'm only questioning how
she got away with it, because like, you can't just
search on the internet how to start an inconclusive fire.
But then, like I kept thinking and like maybe her
plan was for both of them to die in the fire,
so like the babies would have just died, and then
(22:27):
like it just would have been a tragedy. But at
the same time, if I was letting my house on fire,
I think I would take something like I don't think
I could let it all burn.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Would you keep forward fires and cowboy moods in your suv?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I wouldn't neither unless I get to worch my house
and didn't want them to burn.
Speaker 7 (22:43):
And I think to start the fire.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Was like her escape.
Speaker 9 (22:46):
Oh well, she had been suspected in Washington County here
of two other fires.
Speaker 10 (22:50):
I think she's saying to the point where like if
that happened, if she did light that fire, something clicked
and she and she goes, I.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Gotta wake him up, or otherwise I'm gonna go to
jail for a long fun time.
Speaker 7 (23:03):
This is it, We're done. I'm just gonna end it, right,
which is even harder to think about, like if she
would have actually went through with that.
Speaker 9 (23:12):
She worked at a local farm and one of the
barns burnt down, and the fire investigator they had her
as one of the suspects, but they could never prove it.
Speaker 7 (23:20):
I think she was planning on just ending it for
the both of them, just.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Trying to be done with life. Literally, I don't.
Speaker 8 (23:28):
Want to say crazy, but you have to be pretty
mentally unstable for someone to just do that and burn
everything that they own and love and possibly die in
the process.
Speaker 7 (23:39):
But I think once it got to an escalated point,
she was freaked out and fight her flight type thing.
But I do think she started with fire and was
trying to end it.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
So many people from the community have their opinions on
the fire, it's overwhelmingly one sided. What about Jarrett, does
he think Christy was capable of doing this. I asked
Jared if he thought Christy started the fire, because we
don't know, I asked him to present a case for
both sides, reasons he thinks she did do it, and
(24:13):
reasons he could come up with as to why she
did not.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I guess the first thing that comes to my mind
is that she she was due the next day. Maybe
there was some her plan wasn't thought out. She didn't
think it would go this far, and she needed some
time to earn an excuse to move the due date
so she could have some more time to plan, or
something like that. And a lot of it comes down
to that night.
Speaker 8 (24:37):
It was weird.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
She did wake me up off the couch the bedtime routine.
I would usually fall asleep on the couch. The reason
being is she was pregnant. She had a tough time sleeping.
I'm a heavy sleeper, I snore. I set my alarm
there always set.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
This had been their routine for months, Jared sleeping on
the couch and Christy in their bedroom, and I would.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Get up in the morning and I was before she
even woke up, so it was just easier. I didn't
wake her up. Rolling out of bed, fumbling around in
the dark. But she made it a point to wake
me up that night Yry, which she never does, to
come into bed. Now, the couch versus where the fire
(25:20):
had started was maybe only six foot apart.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
The night of the fire, she tells him to get
off the couch and come to bed. He obliges her request.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
It was it's like right there. I mean, it's six
feet from that door, whereas when I'm in a bedroom
there's a closed door. I can't hear what's going on.
It was just funky.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
The spare room where the fire originated is only six
feet away from the couch on which she's been sleeping,
and it's in a living room, an open space in
the house. Their bedroom is in the back. It's the
room that is the furthest distance from the spare room
and the couch. Jared is now in that room with
(26:05):
the door shut.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
So maybe she wanted to put me in a bedroom,
shut the door and I guess, and get me away
from that door so she could do something in there.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
There are three very large coincidences on that evening. One
Jared had just finished the remodel on the house. Two
Christy was due the next day, and she asked him
to move to the bedroom, which she never usually does.
But there's one more thing. And anyone who's ever owned
(26:35):
an animal, let alone slept with their animal every night
like Jared did with Ada, will understand that this is
a pretty noticeable point that even though Jared told Christy
grab the dog and go outside when she woke him,
Jared doesn't remember ever hearing his dog ate a bark
(26:56):
on that evening.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
But then I also don't remember ever hearing the dog bark,
which that throws in for a carbball when you're When
an animal smells smoke anyhow, they're not gonna stick around.
They're going to bark, make noises, try to get out
of the house. I don't remember ever hearing Ada bark, ever,
clawing at the door, jumping on top of me, or
(27:19):
anything like that.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Where was Ada. I can't imagine a scenario where she
would have been in the house and not alerted Jared
and Christy to the fire. Jared said that when Christy
woke him up, his room was already filled with a gray,
smoky haze. So would Christy have woken up in the
same bed as her husband and realized there was a fire,
(27:41):
taken Ada outside and then come back in to wake
him up. Is that scenario likely at all? And if
she did take Ada outside, which accounts for Jared never
hearing her bark, when did she take her out? And
why there's another side to this coin because at the
end of the day, we just don't know. I asked
(28:02):
Jared if he could come up with reasons why he
thinks Christy did not start the fire.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
She lost everything in the house that she had. There
was a complete loss. Nothing was saved.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
That's a great point and one that Molly mentioned. But
that assumes if Christy started the fire, which I'm not
saying she did, that she started the fire in her
right mind. Is that what a rational person in their
best mind would think. Was there anything else?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
The insurance back come out, They checked for accelerants, all
this stuff, and nothing was Ever it was closed as
an electrical fire, which there was some old wiring in
there that was kind of jerry rigged, which very well
could have been the cause of it. And that's what
it was determined, was it was an electrical fire that
burnt the house.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Now the fire chief had his own theories. They are
very experience and expertise, Do you believe that the source
of the fire is faulty electrical?
Speaker 5 (28:58):
I will say though it was burnt in such a
way so far that the investigators really couldn't get in
to make a real good determination due to some of
the circumstances surrounding that fire that he really.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Asked to question.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Jared never knew of his wife's suspected arson activity until
he was approached by the fire marshal.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I don't know if it was the fact that there's
been multiple fires she's been involved in before, not involved,
but she was around them, that there was a couple
of things that were caught on fire and nothing was
ever proven. It really makes you think, like, hey, do
I really know who I'm married to.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Jared's father, David, was convinced that there were no babies
by this time.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
I'm convinced there's no babies, but I can't be one
hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Sure or anything in that like that.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
But in my mind, I'm like, I don't think.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
There was any of my wife's calls and says her
mother and stepdad want to want to talk about it, Well,
I had just about enough talk, you know. By then,
I've got a lot of doubts in my mind.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
So they're sitting there. Finally said that she's done this.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Before, and I said, what nobody said anything, you know?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
And I'm sure more people knew, but they'd never mentioned anything,
never pulled us aside before the wedding, any of that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
David is upset here reliving the memory, and rightfully so.
But I asked him about what he meant when he
said Sheila and her husband told them that Christie's done
this before on a different occasion with the previous boyfriend.
Christie told her mom she was pregnant, but for whatever reason,
Sheila didn't believe her, and she hired a private investigator
to follow Christy to see if she would learn the truth.
(30:38):
The private investigator followed Christy to the hospital and watched
Christy as she parked in the hospital parking lot. Christy
called her mother from the parking lot and told her
she was in the er having a DNC because she
had just miscarried that child. The private investigator told Sheila
that Christy, well technically at the High hospital, never got
(31:01):
out of her car. Here's Sarah, And that was the.
Speaker 7 (31:04):
One other thing why I questioned it too, is because
the previous relationship, she said she was pregnant and he
either he proposed or said he didn't want to get
married until the baby was here, and then she.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Said she had a messcaret Yet another reason why Sarah
was suspicious of Christy and Jared's pregnancy that Christie herself,
not Sheila, who Sarah doesn't even know, told her somewhat
in passing that she was engaged and pregnant before and
they were going to marry, but they didn't because she
lost that child. I don't know the specifics of what
(31:39):
made Christy tell Sarah that information. Chock it up to
female bonding. Oh you're pregnant, I've been pregnant too. I
can only guess that she wasn't trying to plant a
seed of suspicion in Sarah, which is what happened. Nor
did she ever anticipate that Sheila would have cause to
have the conversation she had with Jared's father. Jared learned
(32:01):
on Saturday afternoon that Christy was never pregnant, and he
decides that he has no other option but to keep
his knowledge a secret for two reasons. First, he was
very concerned about the money from the donations that they
had put in the bank. It was his intention to
get that money out of the bank and return it
back to anyone who was upset about their donation once
(32:23):
they discovered the truth about Christie's pregnancy. Second, he wanted
out of his marriage to Christy, and he needed to
find a lawyer who practiced family law. This is where
Melissa will enter the picture. But it's the weekend and
he can't do either one of those things. That Saturday
night and the following Sunday we're going to be the
(32:45):
longest thirty six hours of Jared's entire life.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
I knew I had to make it through the weekend
without her finding out that I knew everything that was
a lie. I mean, it was a little tough. It
was almost unsurreal. I mean the feelings of, hey, I know,
I have to be a better actor and liar than
she was to make sure I could end up making
it to the lawyers and to the bank in time.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Not only was Jared going to have to keep this
light up until Monday, he was going to have to
hide some fear because when he was cleaning up the
debris from the fire, he noticed that something was missing.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
At this point I'm feeling a little uneasy, and the
reason being is I'm still missing a firearms. I'm thinking
back into I open my safe, I count all my firearms,
and I realize one's missing. After the fire, when all
the smoldering goes down, I go and count my firearms
because I have to call the state police and say, hey,
here's serial numbers of the registered guns that I have
(33:44):
that are lost. It was just a blackened mess. There
was no wood, no stalks, nothing like that. It was
gun barrels just melted. There was one pistol missing. It
has no safety. It's thirteen shells and if you hold
a trigger, it's going off. So in the back of
my mind, I'm thinking, hey, is there possibility that she
has it in my life could be in danger?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Next time on the Unborn, I say, yes.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
I think my account's been jeopardized. Come up to my office.
We need to go over to the courthouse.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
And I'm going to try to resolve this for him
with at least amount of pain possible.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
And then I guess that's where our friendship began. There
are sometimes where I was like, what is happening?
Speaker 9 (34:32):
This bitch is.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Crazy, because I mean that that gun is still missing.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
That's next time on The Unborn. The Unborn is a
production of iHeart Podcasts, Audio Up and Jess We Pressed Productions.
Speaker 11 (34:47):
Created by trishla Fotch and Frank Rodriguez. Mal produced by Alvin.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Cohen and Rachel Foley.
Speaker 11 (34:54):
Executive produced by Jimmy Jellinek, David Dwaits and Jared Gusta.
Edited by Gerard Hower and Preston Dawson. Sound design and
mixing by Jeremiah Zimmerman.
Host
Trisha La Fache
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