May 1, 2025 • 48 mins
Official never expected a simple Facebook post to change her life. What started as a friendship with a man she believed only had a short time left in his bid turned into something much deeper. But a shocking discovery made her question everything she thought she knew: he wasn't locked up for robbery and he didn't only have a few years left...
Through her own research, Official found the evidence of his innocence, but freedom remained just out of reach. As his release day approached, tensions grew and trust wavered, setting the stage for a rocky reunion and further disappointment as his days free increased and the test of their love grew more and more difficult to pass.
In part one of Official's story, hear her open up about love, betrayal, and fighting for what she loved where very few would.
Find Official on TikTok @official_knourworth
Please follow the show to help us grow!
Follow us on TikTok @morethananinmatesgf or Insta @podcast_prisongf
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I was definitely like to this. All this time I thought he was
coming home in 2018 and all thistime I thought he was in there
for robbery. Welcome to another episode of
More Than an Inmates Girlfriend.I'm your host, Jay, and today we
are going back to our series on betrayal.
(00:24):
So we took a little break last week so that we could slip in a
really powerful episode that we recorded with Christopher Life
Willers. If you haven't listened to it, I
highly suggest you go back to last week's episode.
Listen to it. It's amazing.
We've had so many people come and message us like, Oh my gosh,
this has opened so much perspective for me.
(00:47):
And that's exactly how I felt doing the interview.
So I thought it was really cool that a lot of people resonated
the same way I did with his interviews.
So please go back and listen to it if you haven't.
But this week's episode is equally exciting.
We are diving in with Official on her circumstances around her
(01:08):
relationship and the crumbling of it after many, many, many
years. This woman was with Herman for
over I think a decade and then it just fell apart.
So really excited for you guys to listen to this one.
It is heartbreaking. We will talk about her
relationship. It is a long story.
There are a lot of different pieces from lies at the
(01:30):
beginning to lies in the end in the middle, and we have
separated it into two episodes just because it was really long
and it is a very long story. She is on Tiktok also.
We will give you her handle. I will put it in the show notes.
She has pictures of him on social media on Tiktok, so you
can put a face to a name on everything that happened to her.
(01:54):
Before we get into it, just a few shout outs and updates for
you. The first one is we want to give
a really special shout out to a pen pal service that AJ used to
find D. And we want to shout them out
because they do so much work in connecting so many people and
(02:17):
they did such a great job at putting D out there so that AJ
could find him. So I want to give a shout out to
Jammin Match LLC. So that's Jammin JAMMI N Match
MATCH. They're on social media, they
have a website and they essentially spread pen pals
(02:38):
posts all over the Facebook and on their website.
And they're just really integrative and they post in a
lot of places, a lot of different places, which
increases the likelihood of pen pals being found and matches
being made. So really just want to give a
nice shout out to them. They're small business, love to
support small businesses. So check her out, check out her
(02:59):
website, check out her Facebook profile.
She's got tons of people that she is representing right now
and she has been a great supporter of us.
So I really wanted to shut that out.
AJ is forever grateful that she introduced her to Dee.
So yay, thank you, Diamond Match.
Not much going on right now in the last week with Nick and I.
(03:23):
We are preparing to file a lawsuit.
So that's exciting. I will get into it and I'm
working on a special project that I'm also very excited about
and more to come on that. We are taking guests for
September. The season will be ending, just
so you know, at the end of June and then all the ones that we're
recording will be for September.So yay as always, AJ and I
(03:45):
really need your support as we continue to grow.
We would really love it if you could just hit the follow
button. It really makes a difference.
Hit that follow comment on Spotify, share the episodes with
your friends and family. Continue to do that, continue to
support because we want to keep this going for as long as
possible. And we're having a really great
time doing that and expanding our reach and it's working.
(04:07):
And we want to continue buildingthis community.
We've gotten a lot of love and we want more and more people to
be able to hear different people's stories.
And that's really what we're doing here is that as much as I
love sharing Nick and I's story and where we're at and the
journey of our love and AJ and D, it's really about your
stories. I want to hear everybody else's
stories. It just makes us feel a lot more
(04:28):
connected. So let's keep that going.
Please hit follow, post a comment, check out our TikTok at
more than an inmates GF. Check out our Instagram at
podcast under score prison GF. We're also on Facebook.
And with that, we will go into Part 1 of Official.
Enjoy. Welcome, official.
(04:52):
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
No problem, thank you for havingme.
Although it is going to be a sadstory, I am looking forward to
hearing it. Do you want to start from the
beginning and tell me how you met your significant other?
Yes. So I met him on Facebook.
My mutual friend from junior high school had posted a picture
of him. And you know what?
Some girls, they love both men. And he happened to be one of
(05:15):
those men. And it caught my attention to
where I made a comment underneath that picture, not
knowing he had a cell phone to comment back, and it led to him
private messaging me on messenger.
So did you know him before that?I did not know him.
He was already incarcerated. It was a junior high school
friend, so he knew him for a while before incarceration.
(05:38):
And was he looking for a pen pal?
I have. No idea at that time I I did not
leave a comment for him to respond back.
I left the comment just to say he was cute.
I didn't expect it, so I didn't know what he was looking for
actually. So what was that like the first
few messages? It was smooth.
(05:58):
It was smooth. I had also just got out of a
four year relationship so I was not looking for anything big at
the time. It was just conversation for
myself because at that time he was actually in a relationship
too. Did you know his significant
other? I did not know her.
He did tell me about her and I just said I'm not here to break
(06:19):
no one up or anything like that because that's just not the way
I roll. But obviously he was at his end
point when it came to her because when I came into hit the
picture as far as meeting him, he was going through things with
her actually at that time as well.
Oh, so did she know? Was she aware that you and him
were friends? No, I do not think so.
(06:42):
I I know that that after discovering that obviously he
had a Facebook. I know of course they were
friends on there, but IA 100% believed that she did not know
anything about me or if he was even talking to anyone else.
And then how long after did theybreak up?
About two weeks, two weeks afterand it was because he found out
(07:03):
that she became pregnant. Oh, snap.
Yeah, she became pregnant while he was incarcerated.
He was with her for five years and he confined in and I was
confining in him because like I said, I was in a four year
relationship as well and that was at the end point as well.
So we were confining in each other and that's how it all.
Started. It sounds like it was like a
(07:25):
vulnerable time for both of you,and you connected on that level,
so you probably had quite a deepfriendship going.
It definitely was. And as I confining in him, I do,
let me make this clear, I do love to confine in men sometimes
because there's some men that dogive great advice about and
there's some men that will be honest with you when it comes to
(07:47):
it. And so I really did not mind
getting advice from him of what I was going through.
And it did grow a bond. It did grow a tight friendship,
confining in each other. Like I said, that's basically
how that started our foundation,to be honest.
Yeah. And at what point did you feel
like your relationship was progressing past a friendship?
Not till three years later, we actually became best friends.
(08:10):
For three years we were really tight friends.
I knew that I was meeting peopleand hanging out with them and he
would have called me while I waswith them and yes, hanging out
with males, but he knew that I was with them.
He knew I would go out. And of course he's in prison.
So of course you hear prison stories of talking to all kind
of other women and stuff. So of course, yes, I asked those
(08:32):
questions and yes, he did end uptelling me he had pen pals and I
couldn't be upset because he wasno one near to me like that
besides just a friend and someone that I to be there for
as far as him being in those walls.
But yeah, we were great friends.It's three years we were really
great friends. We really kept, we told each
(08:53):
other maybe about after the first second year.
You're my best friend, dude, like you were.
You became my best friend literally out of the first three
years he did. And what happened to make it
more than that? Did you bring it up?
Did he? Was it naturally?
No, no. So the last year, 2014, my great
grandmother, who my mom and my family and I, we had the honor
(09:16):
of taking care of to her last day.
He knew I was going through that, my grandmother living with
us and everything. And I was very just vulnerable
and stuff like that. And he would write me letters
and the bottom of the letters would say stuff like I miss you.
And he would tell me. I would tell him like, oh, you
miss me? No, that's just how the paper
came. And I'm like, OK, OK.
(09:38):
And in December of 2014, when mygrandma came home to be on, this
was the first time he said, I love you.
And I was shocked. I was stuck.
I'm like, what type of love? Like a brother or sister?
And from that moment, it was actually more than a friend.
And that's where it really started.
And I guess that's where he really expressed his feelings.
(09:59):
And I'm not going to lie, beforethat, there have been a few
times where I had slipped up andgave him kind of hints that I
was liking him more than a friend as well.
Like I said, this was my friend.This was my best friend that I
confined it into with a lot of things that I was doing coming
within life and not even a week or two later here comes 2015 and
(10:19):
here goes January 1st to where he asked me at midnight.
Look at the clock and just hear me asking you to be my lady.
It sounds like so common. It's like the trend.
Even with my husband, we were friends 1st and I never saw it
coming until it just hits you like a wall when you're like, oh
I'm in love with this person andwe're about to do this.
(10:41):
Was it your first ever prison relationship?
Did you ever have any experiencebefore this?
Definitely not same for sure my first one first, sure my first.
One and did you have any hesitations to growing from a
friendship to more? Yes and no.
I didn't want to ruin our friendship that we had because
it was amazing, but at the same time, my feelings for him are
(11:03):
starting to grow stronger. I felt myself confining to him
with the deepest things I was going through.
We trusted him and he allowed meto.
He opened that door for me too, and I didn't see it coming, but
it came and honestly, I felt deeply in love and I felt like I
was one of the luckiest woman alive to even be with this man.
(11:25):
Oh my gosh. And then those first few years,
what was it like once you guys were official?
It was amazing. I'm a jokester.
I love to joke and clown and tease and he was the same way.
We would tease each other and pick on each other and have a
great time laughing and buildingup those memories.
Yes, it was over phone and whatnot, but it's still counted
to me and it was great. I couldn't complain.
(11:47):
It was like people looked at himas the man in blue, as a state
number, and I looked at him as aman wearing blue jeans and a
blue T-shirt and as just a humanbeing.
Before the first time that you uncovered a secret, was there
any red flags leading up to thatin any way that your
relationship wasn't as it seemed?
I know no one's perfect and I know life is not as well but as
(12:10):
perfect as he made himself seem,I really did not see no red
flags at all. But unfortunately there was two
big huge red flags. I uncovered a secret and it
wasn't directly from him, it wasdirectly from his
brother-in-law. And so I think that's what made
him harder for me was because I'm from a third party instead
of the man who I was saying I love you too.
(12:32):
Yeah. So how far into your
relationship did you find this out and then tell me about what
happened? I found this out maybe a year
and some change into this relationship.
His brother-in-law and I, we grew a relationship as far as I
got you if you need anything. OK, here's the updates of what's
going on with Tim type thing. So he was my go to person
throughout the whole family throughout his whole time in
(12:53):
there. And one night, we happened to
talk on the phone and he ended up telling, told me that he was
in there for racing concerts. He ended up telling me that he
was in there way longer than what I was told.
And he said, yeah, he has about 10 more years or so.
And I said, huh? Huh.
What? What?
(13:14):
Wait, what? What?
He said, yeah. And I said I was definitely lied
to then. All this time, I thought he was
coming home in 2018. And all this time I thought he
was in there for robbery becausehe told me he was an outside
person looking to see if anyone was coming as far as cops and
stuff. And no, it was a whole different
scenario. Oh.
(13:34):
My gosh, you never thought up until then to look up his
charge. Never.
Like I said in the beginning, itwas my first prison
relationship. I wasn't like too much into the
phone how I am right now and because I knew really nothing
about criminal cases and that you can actually do that because
I'm thinking with the court typeof thing and only court has that
(13:55):
type of information. I never knew but I took the
initiative to just go find aboutthis man.
Yeah, and what'd you find? And.
Girls, I didn't know where to start as far as looking things
up on Google. I had no idea where to start,
how to start. But I didn't know if I put the
first last name, middle name. I didn't know if I put the year.
I didn't know because I didn't know what year this all had took
(14:17):
in place as well. So I put in, I believe I want to
say I put in Valentine's and I put in the state and city and I
put his name and here goes the whole case in front of me.
And let me tell you, when I saw that Case Girl said, my face and
eyes dropped my. Gosh, I can't even imagine.
Yeah. What did you do?
Did you confront him? Definitely.
I waited for that 8:00 phone call, answered it.
(14:40):
I don't even think I let it ring.
I hit that 5 as soon as I was able to hit that. 5.
And I promise you once it connected, I didn't even say
babe or anything. I didn't even say hi.
Hello. Do you have something to explain
to me? He's what?
What are you talking about? I have no idea what you're
talking about because prior to the phone calls earlier we were
fine. And I said I think you have some
(15:01):
explaining to do. Something got brought to my
attention tonight and I really need to know what's going on.
And I was full of emotions. I believe I even had shed some
tears with him. Yeah, which is normal.
I don't know what I would do if I thought someone had robbed
some than one and then only to find out that it was a sexual
assault in nature. That's crazy.
(15:22):
Definitely is crazy. And what did he say?
It took my mind away not to be so personal, but I myself am a
victim of it. And that's what made it like, no
way, Yeah, no way. I can't.
Of course he was quiet. And I'm like, this is not the
time to be quiet here, Sir. I need you to talk.
I need to hear it from your mouth and not from the third
(15:44):
part. And he said, yes, if it's true,
I did not do anything to the victim, I can show you that I
did not. And I'm like, show me how you're
in there. And he said, I will make sure
that I call my godfather and seethe binder.
I said, First off, I thought youwere coming home in three more
years. So you think I'm going to wait
another 10 or so? No, I said, I don't even know if
I could be able to be this long in this relationship.
(16:06):
I was already in my mid 20s. And this is something now that I
need to think about. And his next answer was, I was
really scared to tell you. I had wanted to.
I was scared to tell you becauseI knew you were also a victim.
I did not know how to tell you because I was scared you were
going to leave. And I said I'd rather you tell
me the truth and scare me a little than me find out through
someone other than yourself. So I did tell him I lost trust
(16:30):
in him. I did tell him I need time.
I need to think this over. I do need to see your binder and
maybe that will help me a littlebit.
I do need to talk to the people who were involved, who were
there. I really do need to get to the
bottom of this because I come from a family with a lot of kids
and I just didn't feel good at the time for that.
Yeah, All I can feel is like crushing.
(16:51):
I can't imagine because you would have had no idea up until
this point. And then you're so in love with
this person. It's been years that you've
known him. And then all of a sudden, this
huge secret, all I can think of is just a rushing pain.
And kudos to you because you still were like, hey, I'm going
to give you that benefit of the doubt.
Even though this is huge to me, I'm a victim myself.
(17:15):
I shouldn't even be giving you the time of day, but I'm still
going to do that for you. Yes, I think I only have did
that because not only have I grown onto this man, not only
have this man known my secrets and everything about me.
I'm not saying, and I want to make this very clear, I'm not
saying it's OK to be with someone who has been charged or
(17:36):
does that type of stuff not. But when you have more than just
himself telling you that he did not do anything, you need to see
it also for yourself. You need to look into it also
for yourself. And hearing him and hearing his
family say over and over to me like he did not do it.
I said, OK, I'm going to take your word, but I need to get
(17:58):
professional help. I need to do this
professionally. And I did.
You did and how is your relationship during that time
when you were looking through? You got that binder correct.
I got that binder. I want to tell you that I think
what we He hung up the phone. I swear that next morning he
must have called his godfather because I swear within less than
(18:19):
72 hours, Honey, I have that binder in my hand.
Spiraling down to the binder, what did you find?
I got home that day, I shut the door, I laid in my bed and I
went through every single page as slow as I can.
And keep in mind, I have no ideawhat I'm doing.
I have no idea what I'm looking for.
I have no idea about criminal atall.
And I had to learn, and I did learn.
(18:42):
And I found the victim. There was a a lot of
contradicting out of her mouth. She couldn't even line him up in
the lineup. She couldn't remember what they
had called him as far as his nickname in the streets.
It was a lot of Umm's and a lot of butts in Atlanta and oars and
a lot of all that stuff. So it was like, girl, is you
really making this up or what's going on?
And when it got to the part where it showed the diaphragm,
(19:04):
as far as her being tested in her private area, believe it or
not, there was no semen. There was no proof.
There was no marks. There was nothing of him
whatsoever. I needed to get some
professional to look at this. Just for information, he had Co
defendants right? Yes, he had two, so there was a
total of three of them. And were there DNA on her girl?
(19:29):
Yes, Oh my. I'm talking about semen.
I'm talking about ripping her upin there.
I'm talking about all the above.Yeah.
Sam Temple was very clear in there.
So yeah, that would make me question as well.
You got that professional adviceand you spoke to people and in
the end, what did you come to the conclusion of?
After having so many meetings with lawyers taking that great
(19:52):
big binder, it came to find out that he was actually innocent.
The lawyer looked at me dead into my face and he said your
fiance sadly say is innocent, he's innocent.
And I said why is he in there? I got stuck and he said he's in
there because whoever took over his case, which he had about two
(20:13):
lawyers. That took over.
They did a speedy trial, they speed it up and they didn't
fight Northern into more details.
It was your first experience of wrongful convictions and over
sentencing and the realities of the criminal justice system.
Crazy. My first everything as a child.
I had relatives locked up. I had uncles locked up for drugs
(20:33):
and stuff like that. But I was a child.
I had no idea anything about this until I got with this man.
And I learned a lot. I learned a lot, yeah.
So the emotional wheel over thistime period must have been
insane because you're learning all these things.
He's lied to you. Then you're reading it and
you're like, wait a minute, he'sactually innocent.
What was that process for you emotionally?
(20:56):
I'm going to be honest. It did hurt me to know he was
innocent and he have got in the 19 years.
That's what the judge gave him. And it was like, how could they
not see that there's nothing? How could they just bypass that?
Yeah, when he told me that he wasn't remorseful, saying what
can I be remorseful for something I had never done, it
made me want to fight. I love this man.
(21:18):
I cared about this man. I already gave him some of my
time in years and it made me want to fight a fight that I can
never do. I do not know where to start,
but I started a fight. We started a fight together.
I heard his doubts, I heard his tears, I heard his sorrow, his
sadness, and I was the one to lift him up as being his
partner. And I said, well, we're going to
fight this. I don't know what the hell I'm
(21:40):
doing, but we sure gonna learn something together.
It sounds like a major relationship stronger.
When it came to trying to help him prove his innocence, I felt
just. I needed to do this.
Not for myself. It was more for him and his
family. More importantly, his mom as
well because I know his mom was his world and he was missing out
on a lot. For what?
(22:00):
Yeah, so you didn't all the way forgive him for lying to you,
but you're willing to work on itwith him?
Yes, at that time it it took time to trust him again.
It did. But like I said, I have to put
that away. It's like having pride and
sometimes you got to put that side down and just say I got to
do it. And it was just that in that
moment for me. And I love this guy and this is
(22:21):
someone that I seen life going to waste after I was told he was
innocent. I just, I didn't think it was
fair. It just had to do my part as
being his partner. And I think it's important to
touch on the amount of work thatyou did and what actually came
of it. It was a lot of hard work.
It was a lot of sweat. It was a lot of tears, a lot of
emotions, a lot of I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to
(22:43):
do it. As you guys know, I went to the
lawyer to see about this case. This lawyer connected me with
the private investigator, his family.
I'm very thankful they hired a private investigator, not once
but twice, one here in the Bay Area and also one in San Diego.
We had his case get looked at again by a lawyer.
I dealt with lawyers. I dealt with prison counselors.
(23:04):
Every time he got cheated and robbed from credits and points,
I was calling the prison. I stopped the transfer.
Once Upon a time he was getting transferred and I stopped it.
Don't act out. But by the grace of God, I
stopped it by contacting the city of Sacramento, the
headquarters of CDCR. I've done a lot, I've done a
lot. I've done some things that
(23:24):
prison wise to this day, probably don't even know where
to start or what they're doing. But I did do a lot for this man,
a lot for this man. I was the one who the lawyers
and investigators and counselorsand everyone we're reaching out
to and his family was the one doing it financially.
To me, that was the easy work. I had the hard work.
Yeah, sounds like you really invested a lot of time into him
(23:47):
over those years. Did I?
Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get the case overturned, but
you still learned a lot. Unfortunately, we ended up
getting the same judge who sentenced him when he was 18 and
the judge very much did rememberthe case.
The lawyer that we had, that lawfirm had represented his
(24:08):
brother, which was a Co defendant of him and the lawyer
we had, they remembered the casefrom all those many years and it
was all about new evidence. And I don't know what type of
new evidence they had wanted, but I did get new evidence which
was from a Co defendant who was a family friend.
I got his letter. He wrote a letter stating the
whole entire story and the storyhimself.
(24:29):
He even said that my ex fiance had nothing to do with what had
happened. I paid for it to get notarized
and to me that was new evidence because that Co defendant of the
family friend had never spoken in trial at all whatsoever.
So they didn't take that as new evidence.
They wanted new evidence which would have been from the victim.
That's BS but whatever I heard you say ex fiance.
(24:53):
At what point did that happen? Yes, girl, we put rings on it.
When was that? We did, we had a matching ring
sick. I had purchased for both of us
of course. But anyways, yes, I have felt so
in love with this man. He told me the word and he told
me things that I had always wanted to hear from of course
(25:16):
previous exes and stuff like that.
And he I felt did it and said it.
And about a year and some changelater after being with him in
2016, sometime I had asked him to marry me because I was a
joke. He thought I was playing.
He's like what? A woman asking yes, I'm asking
you, I'm not playing, yes, I love you, I'm in love with you
(25:37):
and you are who I want to be with for the rest of my life.
And he still had never believed me.
And in 2018 is when he finally asked me to marry him and it was
face to face. When I asked it was over the
phone and. How'd you feel when he proposed?
Girl, I have butterflies like crazy.
My palms were sweating, his palms were sweating because I
(25:59):
obviously was holding his hand too.
And I just couldn't stop smiling.
I felt like I was the luckiest. I love cotton candy, but let me
tell you, it was it was beyond me loving cotton candy.
It's beyond and I just felt I felt great.
I felt good. I said damn, it's about time.
And finally, he's taking me serious and right when he asked
me, I asked him right back and we both said yes to each other.
(26:22):
And yeah, they went from there. In that moment, did you have any
doubt or were you fully certain that this was the man you were
going to spend the rest of your life with?
No, I had no doubt at all. No doubt at all.
And although he didn't come out in 2018, he did have an out date
that was coming up, correct? What?
When was that supposed to be? His out date was it was supposed
(26:44):
to be in 2020 and they ended up moving it for whatever
reasonings were and he ended up getting out in August of 2021.
And leading up to him coming out, what was that like?
I hear a lot of people talk about people who do long beds,
how leading up to that date can be a little bit more stressful
(27:04):
and things can change a little bit.
What was it like for you guys? It's.
Hard. All those years that I held it
down, by the way, I held it downfor 10 years and we were
together 7 out of that and we were engaged since I had
accidentally 16 to 18, so about three years.
So it was hard the last year only because I felt he knew he
(27:24):
was coming home. You know, when he went in there,
he was a big guy when he came out, he sticks pack and bust
now. So I knew he felt I'm going to
get attention. I knew he felt, I'm sure things
were going through his head. And yes, and it was becoming
really rough that last two yearsand it got to a point where I
was just like, dude, we came so far and I'm not going to say I
(27:48):
was in a, I'm not going to say he was innocent.
We were having problems obviously, because time's
getting closer. So I felt like he was starting
to switch on me and I felt a little pushed away.
And I'm not going to lie, I started hanging out with the Co
worker. Nothing crazy at the time, but
it was like, I don't know what else to do.
I've given you everything I've done, everything in my power I
(28:09):
felt I could do. And yes, I'm hanging out with a
Co worker. And at the time, if you want me
to be honest with you, the Co worker was making me smile.
I wasn't stressed, nothing. I wasn't nothing.
But don't get me wrong, I still communicated with them, I still
answered his calls, I still talked to him even sitting with
the Co worker. So I started messing around with
the Co worker and I was open about it.
(28:30):
I did not hide it from him. I never hid anything from him.
All these years I have been 100%faithful to him.
And we did take a little break from each other where he did
stop calling me and I said I can't stay here and I'm already
waiting all these years and whatmore can I wait?
So it's OK, fine, I can't call you.
You have to call me. There's no way I can get a hold
(28:52):
of you besides writing. When he took that break from me
and whatnot, I was doing me, I was working and I was hanging
out with the coworker more and he knew like I said, but I
missed him. I, I was in love with him and he
was my heart and I missed him. And I reached out and I'm like,
dude, we need to talk contact meor I will contact another person
wise. Can you please have him call me
and stuff like that. And he did and we did miss each
(29:14):
other. We worked through it when I was
hanging out with the coworker. We worked through it and all of
a sudden he switches up on me now and he's telling me like,
oh, are you having this coworkerright?
What? No, I have no one writing you.
Why would I give your address out?
Come to find out, a female was writing him that I actually knew
as well. But you didn't find out at the
(29:35):
time. No, he did not see.
I was so blunt, direct to him and not him.
He was more like, play the guessing game.
They're from this city, you've talked to them before and that's
it. I'm like, what's the name,
Homeboy? What's?
The name. But it was so obvious that I put
it together. And when I put it together, he
(29:56):
still denied it. And I'm like, why are you
denying? And I'm here being so blunt and
real with you about everything. So it was starting to crumble
right before he got out. Starting to crumble.
I'm going to be honest with you.He ended up doing 15 1/2 years,
by the way, not a full 19. And I could tell how many times
that I've spent him money and I could tell how many times on one
hand I sent him packages. And when he told me that he has
(30:18):
gotten $500 from someone, he hadno idea that was bullshit
because on the receipts it showswho sends you stuff.
Yeah, I played dumb with him, but I was not dumb.
He ended up reading me her letters.
Keep in mind he wasn't reading me what he was also responding.
So some of these letters did sound like it was a response
(30:38):
letter. Oh, you're still with her.
Oh, damn, I didn't know that. Oh, damn, you're engaged.
Oh, damn. It was that type of letter.
So I know you for sure wrote herback, but you were playing as
you didn't just keep it real with me.
I had always kept it real with you.
And that was one thing we alwaystold each other was to be blunt
with each other, be open whetherwe want to hear or not, whether
it's going to hurt us or not. I'd rather know then find out
(31:00):
later. And yeah, so like I said, I
ended up knowing the girl. I did.
How did you know her? In 2015, 2016 when he was
incarcerated at one of the firstprisons I ever met him at or I'm
sorry, second prison I met him at because he had gotten
transferred when I first met himand we I sat at a visiting table
with her while she was visiting her man.
(31:21):
He was my ex's dorm roommate andshe confided in me about their
relationship and her personal stuff and I confided the same
thing back. And she would tell me how the
pose and send pictures and like we we couldn't find it.
We talked every single day. We talked every night when the
phones were when they were on lock up, we were talking to each
other. And she learned a lot about him
(31:43):
and I learned a lot about hers and Herman.
And we would do visits together and there was no way in hell at
the time that I would see her ever reaching out to my ex
because I didn't see her lookingat him at any visits any type of
way. But some way somehow she found
them. And I said, what the hell did
she find you after all these years later?
And he's no hard. I do have a CCR number and I'm
(32:04):
like, how would she know your CCR number?
I never got that answer by the way.
I think you can Google it. You can go on.
Yeah, she started writing him the last year to a few months
before him coming home. So the day he came home, were
you guys together or no? Yeah, the day he came home, no,
I did not go to pick him up. I was supposed to, but with all
(32:24):
that going on, it was unfinishedbusiness.
And he decided I'm going to havemy family pick me up.
So his cousins and his brother-in-law and his nephew
went and pick them up and he came to my house.
That was the first stop that he made when he came.
And I of course, got ready, got dolled up.
Yeah, I had butterfly and palms.Yeah.
(32:45):
So you were engaged at that point.
How did you feel? Not going to pick him up.
It sucks. I think that every girl's dream
is I held it down for you and wemade all these plans and I want
to be the one at the gate, but instead I've seen a video of him
coming out with you. Wow, You know, it did suck, but
at the same time I was thankful and finally just happy that that
(33:06):
became the past behind us and now we were able to move
forward. Exactly, the chapter was still
ending regardless and it was going to be a better chapter up
to him being released because you guys were so rocky.
So I didn't have no fears, I just didn't know what was going
to happen. I didn't know how things were
going to be. I was just happy that he was
(33:27):
home. Even though I did not pick him
up at the gate, I still got to be with him.
And that also had me thinking aswell because ladies, make sure
if you pick him up at the gate, he's riding with you in the same
car as well. For me, it wasn't that way
either. This is when I really start
seeing red flags. I'm talking about triple,
quadruple red. Flags.
They just started coming in waves.
(33:49):
At that point, let me tell you, I've seen more red flags and
being home the very first day, the very first few hours, than I
ever seen, I think, in prison. And it kills me hearing this,
like we talked about before we started, my relationship is so
good. And as much as people say you
just don't know when they come home what it's going to be like
(34:10):
and what the reality is. But he even met your parents
that day, correct? Yes.
And what was that conversation like?
Oh Lord, they finally met. They did talk to each other a
few times on the phone while he was incarcerated.
He used to boast himself up. Oh, I'm the favorite son-in-law
and this and that. And my dad used to always say
we'll see. My family always had told me to
(34:30):
be careful and just never know. And so when I brought him
upstairs to my parents room to introduce him to my father and
for him to look into my father'sand to say, I'm in love with
your daughter. I'm going to be with her.
I'm going to marry her. And she's an amazing woman.
It made me feel great inside andwas smiling, hugging, looking at
(34:50):
him with my arm around him. And to hear my dad say that's my
baby. She's been through a lot.
She is a good woman. You do have a great woman.
She loves heart and she has beenhurt multiple times.
And you better not hurt my daughter.
And to hear him say, no, I will not.
You don't have to worry about that.
I'm going to forever take care of her.
It was like, OK. And my mom, she's more of the
quiet ones. She'll let my dad do that type
(35:12):
of talking. But of course she also doesn't
want her daughter to be hurt. From that moment I thought, OK,
cool. But the moment we left the
house, it was not like that. So what happened?
So like I said, ladies, make sure you drive in the same car.
He made me follow him in his carthat he was in.
I drove by myself while I followed him.
Yes, I had many thoughts in my hand.
(35:34):
Yes. I was like, whoa, damn, they
picked you up, but why can't youride with me?
OK, cool. Our first stop was at his aunt's
house and I got out the car and assuming I was going to get
introduced, I didn't know that some of the cousins that lived
there, but I didn't know the aunt and the uncle.
But no, I never got introduced. We hopped back in the car, I
hopped back in by myself and we drove to where the party was at
(35:57):
and came out of the car by myself as I watched him get out
and hugged his sister and his mom.
And yeah, that's how my first rodeo went with him.
What do you even do in that situation?
Because I would be so shocked that this has happened.
And it's already surreal that after 15 years he's out and 10
years of you holding him down and then all this is happening
(36:17):
at once. It must have been so
overwhelming in your head. I don't even know.
It was, but I also didn't want to show too much of my
irritation. I didn't want to show too much
of my being bothered because it was his moment at the end.
His family had waited all these years.
He went in at 18, came home at 34.
His family waited. And I didn't want to take that
(36:38):
shine from him. I didn't want to take that
moment because I felt even though it wasn't how I had
expected, it was still his time.It was his moment.
I wanted to respect that as muchas I can.
I just remember sitting there bymyself as he had gotten home and
went and showered and stuff because he didn't shower coming
out of the prison. So he showered when we got to
(36:59):
the family function. But I just remember sitting
there by myself. I remember a couple people
coming up and thanking me for holding it down and never giving
up on him and everything I had done as far as the and stuff
like that within the prison stuff as well.
And me just telling them I just did what I needed to do and it
was because I love them. And I just remember that.
And I just remember he was really nervous, not seeing a lot
(37:22):
of these people ever meeting newpeople, his nephews, nieces,
everyone. And I just remember him being
nervous and just sitting next tome as he got out when he came
out of the shower, like he was sitting with me at the table and
stuff, but then started to warm up and it just went I guess from
there and. Then what was the plans after
that Were you guys? We got a hotel room.
(37:42):
OK. We were planning on getting the
place together eventually. Yes, we were.
We had everything planned. But that night, we went to a
hotel, and I lived 45 minutes away from him.
But I ended up taking the week off to just be with him and his
presence and help him out and take him here and do that.
And let me tell you, it's some work when they come home, too.
It doesn't end, I will tell you that.
(38:03):
Yeah. And we went to the hotel room
and we got in the room and he seen a real bed.
He was tripping out and I'm tripping out because he's
tripping out and my dude, it's just a bed.
But then I did it. He slept on metal for so long
and do for them. And that's where the magic
supposed to happen, I guess. I heard, I think, I don't know.
But yeah, we got to the room andwe took a shower together and we
(38:28):
got out the shower and we laid in the bed and he was looking at
his phone and like tripping out,how the phones are touched now
and everything is touched. So he's tripping out and I'm
like, well, he's like, it's justa phone, but again, to me is
old. Yeah.
And then I became a phone teacher for a little bit and
yeah, just from there it went bad again.
It's. Like a roller coaster.
(38:49):
It was because when the men are in prison, a lot of them are
like, oh, when I come home, I'm about to lay the pipe.
And he was one of those. And he was a big talker when it
came to that moment. I'm the one who had to persuade,
I guess you could say, damn, 15 1/2 years.
I thought that you would be the one like a monkey all on me.
But no, it was the other way around.
(39:10):
It was more of him telling me he's tired, he didn't want none,
and he wanted to go to sleep. And I was like, Nah, hell no.
I waited 10 years for this very moment.
I heard you talked a good one all these years, and I want to
see what you're talking about. And when I initiated, it still
wasn't what I expected at all. It was more like, boom, boom,
(39:34):
I'm done, I'm going to bed. Goodnight.
And that's exactly what it was. That's when I knew it was a lot
of red flags coming my way. Oh, really?
Because I've heard mixed things about this.
Because you're right. Like, we all anticipate it.
We're all waiting for it. We all talk about it like it's
going to be a big deal. And I've heard so many times
women say that it doesn't go as you think it's going to go.
(39:55):
And we have to remember, I don'tknow how old he was when he was
incarcerated, but Nick was 20. He was 18.
Yeah, so 18 year olds like the experience level is a little.
Bit different, he was 18 but he always told me that when he he
was in the streets he was a ladies man.
Even though he was this big chunky boy, he was always this
ladies man and he always had it going on.
(40:17):
And all these years I dealt withhim in prison.
He always said I can't wait to lay the pipe and I said shit I'm
clogged so let's go. But that pipe wasn't like I
thought it would be. And would you say it was
downhill from there? Oh man, it just keeps going.
The next day it's time to go through the parole officer and
he wanted to dress as twins so we did.
(40:39):
He dressed as twins. I said OK cool, I never done
that with anyone. We did and he wanted Starbucks.
We go and try some Starbucks andwe're having a cool time
chilling inside waiting for the coffee until we walk out.
This is day #2 and the moment wewalk out something just looks so
weird and suspicious and it happens to be that my back
(41:00):
passenger left the side window is bust.
And I'm like babe, like in a scared type of way.
And he's what happened baby. And I'm like my windows busted.
He's like what? And it was his first night at
home so I had all his belongingsin my car.
I'm talking about all this expensive clothing and shoes and
nothing of his was taken besidesmy purse and my wallet, my ID
(41:25):
and everything else. And I panicked a little.
I am in East Oakland at the timeand East Oakland for those that
are from the Bay Area that's going to hear this.
Y'all know what's up with East Oakland already?
And I'm crying when I get mad upset and whatnot.
I cry. And I cried and he didn't know
what the heck to do because it was the first time really seeing
me in person crying like that. He felt bad and he instantly
(41:47):
called his brother-in-law and his brother-in-law was like
don't trip. I got you guys.
And I was more panicking as welltoo because he can't be late to
see Pearl. And we were down there almost
late and I was like, oh, Laura, we have to go back to Princeton.
But we paid it. And I thank God that he was
understanding. And he came out and looked at
the car and stuff as well. And, and from there we went to
(42:09):
get my window fixed. And then the red flags just
continue after that. What happened?
We get the window fixed and his brother-in-law drives follows me
and of course I'm driving by myself to get it fixed when he's
in the car with his brother-in-law and I just, I
don't know, he just couldn't be with me.
It was just so crazy. But we're getting it fixed.
We go to pick it up hours later mind you, we go back to the
(42:32):
sister's house and he leaves me in the living room.
I'm uncomfortable because I don't know them as much.
I only knew the brother-in-law really well and the mom and I
didn't know his sister that much.
I just knew that she's the only girl.
And man I swear like older sisters just stare at you like
they want to beat you up themselves and texting his phone
come in here and he's outside and he left me for hours inside
(42:54):
the house. And so that was something I was
also bothered by. Now when it was time to go get
my car, he paid for it. I will say that he paid for it
with the money that people gave him when he got home.
And he didn't come home with me.And he went back with his friend
in law in the car. So on purpose, I wanted to see
how much he cared about me. Yeah.
I wanted to see if he was going to reach out to me and ask me if
(43:15):
I'm OK because I had an emotional day that day.
So window being busted unexpectedly.
So what I did was I left the shop and I let them go ahead.
And I went and made a different turn than they did.
I went in, parked in a shopping Center for 2:00 to 3:00 by
myself, just in the shopping center sitting in my car on
purpose. I did this.
(43:36):
Not one time did he call our text and that's where I was, why
I didn't come back straight to the house and if I was OK, Not
one time. Oh.
My. Gosh, and I had thoughts, I had
emotions going through my head. Damn.
I spent 10 years and not even one call.
So what I did was when I felt I was there long enough, I ended
up just going to the sister's house.
Right when I get there, they're all getting ready to leave to
(43:58):
their restaurant. So you mean to tell me that you
knew I was going with you to therestaurant but you had no balls?
Call and tell me that you guys were getting ready to leave.
No, he did not. He told me to go in my own car.
And as I was getting into my owncar, his brother-in-law was
like, what are you doing by yourself?
Oh, I was told to go into my owncar.
He said if you don't get into mytrust there is room.
(44:19):
And I said Are you sure? He said I'm sure.
And yes, I went into the car with him.
It was like he just wanted to bewith his family and whoever
else. I don't know what else was going
on in his head, but we got to the restaurant at this point, it
was all over my face. You could tell I was bothered.
You could tell I was annoyed. You could tell I was upset.
You can tell I just did not evenwant to be near him now.
(44:40):
Yeah. And I barely ate my food and
they were taking pictures and I just.
I didn't want to be involved in nothing.
And we leave the restaurant. I went to the sister's house.
I got my car and I went to the hotel room that I was staying
in. And yes, I was by myself because
now he's ankle monitored and he had curfew and he couldn't go
with me and stay with me. Before I went to the I went to
(45:01):
his house to drop off his stuff I had in the car.
And I stopped there for a while with him.
And I just told him how I felt. And that's when the argument
started. I started seeing his attitude.
I started seeing his temper and his aggressiveness for my first
time. And he was upset that I was
telling him how I felt. And I said I'm sorry you were
having me ride by myself. What you're with?
(45:22):
We're together and he just told me.
I dealt with people telling me what to do all my life,
basically talking about fields and I don't need to come home
and have someone else tell me what to do.
I'm a grown man. And I said OK, that's what you
want. I said I'm not telling you what
to do, but I'm telling you how Ifeel.
And if my feelings are not validand my feelings don't matter,
then I don't know what to tell you because my feelings very
(45:43):
much were bothered. And that's when some of the
arguments. Started when you were sitting in
that shopping center. Did you think about going home?
I did what made you. I did because at the end of the
day it did hurt, but I had my room paid for.
I had everything already settledand done, and I was just trying
to have it. Excuses.
Maybe he's overwhelmed. Maybe he needs his family time.
(46:06):
Or I was trying to have so much excuses in my head as far as
like, why I really didn't drive all the way 45 minutes back to
my house. Maybe tomorrow will be a better
day. I just had all these excuses.
And like I said, when you love somebody, you're gonna go hard.
Yeah. And that's my heart.
Like, he really had my heart at the time.
And I was just hoping for bettertimes and better days as I took
(46:27):
that week off. Did you confide in anyone?
I didn't at the time. At the time I did not.
I held it in because everybody was cheering for us by posting
when he was incarcerated, our pictures and how happy that I
had looked and how great things were, like everyone was really
cheering for us and I didn't want no one to be like I told
you. So at that moment, I'm the type
(46:49):
of person that I hear you, but let me learn.
And that's where I was. I said I got to learn if this
isn't what it is and then let melearn if I know it will hurt me,
but let me learn. That's so sad.
I'm so sorry, I can't even imagine how lonely that must
have felt. Oh, it was definitely lonely
because people are quick to judge nowadays.
They say we listen and don't judge.
(47:09):
People are so quick to still judge.
And I didn't want to open up so soon about having issues already
when he had just been home. Yeah, 48 hours or whatnot, but I
held it in. Eventually I knew I was going to
end up talking to someone, I just didn't know how soon.
And that is a wrap on Part 1 of 2 of officials episode on her
(47:33):
relationship and how it broke down.
Crazy, right? Are you listening to it?
Like I cannot believe the seriesof events that happened and what
she went through. It's crazy.
And it just continues on. So Part 2 will have kind of the
end. We'll have some reflections.
And I think it's just super interesting.
(47:53):
I think you guys are really likeit.
In the meantime, if you do want to get to know her a little bit
better, she is on Tiktok and shedoes have the pictures, like I
said, of her and Herman that she's Speaking of.
Her handle is official, OFFICIALunder score Know your worth.
(48:14):
KNOURWORTHI will have that in the show notes as well.
So if you do want to check out official and on her Tiktok and
see her stories, I encourage youto do that because we want to
support her and that'll be it. So we'll see you next week.
Take care. Bye.
I was definitely like to this. All this time I thought he was
coming home in 2018 and all thistime I thought he was in there
for robbery. Welcome to another episode of
More Than an Inmates Girlfriend.I'm your host, Jay, and today we
are going back to our series on betrayal.
(00:24):
So we took a little break last week so that we could slip in a
really powerful episode that we recorded with Christopher Life
Willers. If you haven't listened to it, I
highly suggest you go back to last week's episode.
Listen to it. It's amazing.
We've had so many people come and message us like, Oh my gosh,
this has opened so much perspective for me.
(00:47):
And that's exactly how I felt doing the interview.
So I thought it was really cool that a lot of people resonated
the same way I did with his interviews.
So please go back and listen to it if you haven't.
But this week's episode is equally exciting.
We are diving in with Official on her circumstances around her
(01:08):
relationship and the crumbling of it after many, many, many
years. This woman was with Herman for
over I think a decade and then it just fell apart.
So really excited for you guys to listen to this one.
It is heartbreaking. We will talk about her
relationship. It is a long story.
There are a lot of different pieces from lies at the
(01:30):
beginning to lies in the end in the middle, and we have
separated it into two episodes just because it was really long
and it is a very long story. She is on Tiktok also.
We will give you her handle. I will put it in the show notes.
She has pictures of him on social media on Tiktok, so you
can put a face to a name on everything that happened to her.
(01:54):
Before we get into it, just a few shout outs and updates for
you. The first one is we want to give
a really special shout out to a pen pal service that AJ used to
find D. And we want to shout them out
because they do so much work in connecting so many people and
(02:17):
they did such a great job at putting D out there so that AJ
could find him. So I want to give a shout out to
Jammin Match LLC. So that's Jammin JAMMI N Match
MATCH. They're on social media, they
have a website and they essentially spread pen pals
(02:38):
posts all over the Facebook and on their website.
And they're just really integrative and they post in a
lot of places, a lot of different places, which
increases the likelihood of pen pals being found and matches
being made. So really just want to give a
nice shout out to them. They're small business, love to
support small businesses. So check her out, check out her
(02:59):
website, check out her Facebook profile.
She's got tons of people that she is representing right now
and she has been a great supporter of us.
So I really wanted to shut that out.
AJ is forever grateful that she introduced her to Dee.
So yay, thank you, Diamond Match.
Not much going on right now in the last week with Nick and I.
(03:23):
We are preparing to file a lawsuit.
So that's exciting. I will get into it and I'm
working on a special project that I'm also very excited about
and more to come on that. We are taking guests for
September. The season will be ending, just
so you know, at the end of June and then all the ones that we're
recording will be for September.So yay as always, AJ and I
(03:45):
really need your support as we continue to grow.
We would really love it if you could just hit the follow
button. It really makes a difference.
Hit that follow comment on Spotify, share the episodes with
your friends and family. Continue to do that, continue to
support because we want to keep this going for as long as
possible. And we're having a really great
time doing that and expanding our reach and it's working.
(04:07):
And we want to continue buildingthis community.
We've gotten a lot of love and we want more and more people to
be able to hear different people's stories.
And that's really what we're doing here is that as much as I
love sharing Nick and I's story and where we're at and the
journey of our love and AJ and D, it's really about your
stories. I want to hear everybody else's
stories. It just makes us feel a lot more
(04:28):
connected. So let's keep that going.
Please hit follow, post a comment, check out our TikTok at
more than an inmates GF. Check out our Instagram at
podcast under score prison GF. We're also on Facebook.
And with that, we will go into Part 1 of Official.
Enjoy. Welcome, official.
(04:52):
Thank you so much for joining metoday.
No problem, thank you for havingme.
Although it is going to be a sadstory, I am looking forward to
hearing it. Do you want to start from the
beginning and tell me how you met your significant other?
Yes. So I met him on Facebook.
My mutual friend from junior high school had posted a picture
of him. And you know what?
Some girls, they love both men. And he happened to be one of
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those men. And it caught my attention to
where I made a comment underneath that picture, not
knowing he had a cell phone to comment back, and it led to him
private messaging me on messenger.
So did you know him before that?I did not know him.
He was already incarcerated. It was a junior high school
friend, so he knew him for a while before incarceration.
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And was he looking for a pen pal?
I have. No idea at that time I I did not
leave a comment for him to respond back.
I left the comment just to say he was cute.
I didn't expect it, so I didn't know what he was looking for
actually. So what was that like the first
few messages? It was smooth.
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It was smooth. I had also just got out of a
four year relationship so I was not looking for anything big at
the time. It was just conversation for
myself because at that time he was actually in a relationship
too. Did you know his significant
other? I did not know her.
He did tell me about her and I just said I'm not here to break
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no one up or anything like that because that's just not the way
I roll. But obviously he was at his end
point when it came to her because when I came into hit the
picture as far as meeting him, he was going through things with
her actually at that time as well.
Oh, so did she know? Was she aware that you and him
were friends? No, I do not think so.
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I I know that that after discovering that obviously he
had a Facebook. I know of course they were
friends on there, but IA 100% believed that she did not know
anything about me or if he was even talking to anyone else.
And then how long after did theybreak up?
About two weeks, two weeks afterand it was because he found out
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that she became pregnant. Oh, snap.
Yeah, she became pregnant while he was incarcerated.
He was with her for five years and he confined in and I was
confining in him because like I said, I was in a four year
relationship as well and that was at the end point as well.
So we were confining in each other and that's how it all.
Started. It sounds like it was like a
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vulnerable time for both of you,and you connected on that level,
so you probably had quite a deepfriendship going.
It definitely was. And as I confining in him, I do,
let me make this clear, I do love to confine in men sometimes
because there's some men that dogive great advice about and
there's some men that will be honest with you when it comes to
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it. And so I really did not mind
getting advice from him of what I was going through.
And it did grow a bond. It did grow a tight friendship,
confining in each other. Like I said, that's basically
how that started our foundation,to be honest.
Yeah. And at what point did you feel
like your relationship was progressing past a friendship?
Not till three years later, we actually became best friends.
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For three years we were really tight friends.
I knew that I was meeting peopleand hanging out with them and he
would have called me while I waswith them and yes, hanging out
with males, but he knew that I was with them.
He knew I would go out. And of course he's in prison.
So of course you hear prison stories of talking to all kind
of other women and stuff. So of course, yes, I asked those
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questions and yes, he did end uptelling me he had pen pals and I
couldn't be upset because he wasno one near to me like that
besides just a friend and someone that I to be there for
as far as him being in those walls.
But yeah, we were great friends.It's three years we were really
great friends. We really kept, we told each
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other maybe about after the first second year.
You're my best friend, dude, like you were.
You became my best friend literally out of the first three
years he did. And what happened to make it
more than that? Did you bring it up?
Did he? Was it naturally?
No, no. So the last year, 2014, my great
grandmother, who my mom and my family and I, we had the honor
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of taking care of to her last day.
He knew I was going through that, my grandmother living with
us and everything. And I was very just vulnerable
and stuff like that. And he would write me letters
and the bottom of the letters would say stuff like I miss you.
And he would tell me. I would tell him like, oh, you
miss me? No, that's just how the paper
came. And I'm like, OK, OK.
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And in December of 2014, when mygrandma came home to be on, this
was the first time he said, I love you.
And I was shocked. I was stuck.
I'm like, what type of love? Like a brother or sister?
And from that moment, it was actually more than a friend.
And that's where it really started.
And I guess that's where he really expressed his feelings.
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And I'm not going to lie, beforethat, there have been a few
times where I had slipped up andgave him kind of hints that I
was liking him more than a friend as well.
Like I said, this was my friend.This was my best friend that I
confined it into with a lot of things that I was doing coming
within life and not even a week or two later here comes 2015 and
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here goes January 1st to where he asked me at midnight.
Look at the clock and just hear me asking you to be my lady.
It sounds like so common. It's like the trend.
Even with my husband, we were friends 1st and I never saw it
coming until it just hits you like a wall when you're like, oh
I'm in love with this person andwe're about to do this.
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Was it your first ever prison relationship?
Did you ever have any experiencebefore this?
Definitely not same for sure my first one first, sure my first.
One and did you have any hesitations to growing from a
friendship to more? Yes and no.
I didn't want to ruin our friendship that we had because
it was amazing, but at the same time, my feelings for him are
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starting to grow stronger. I felt myself confining to him
with the deepest things I was going through.
We trusted him and he allowed meto.
He opened that door for me too, and I didn't see it coming, but
it came and honestly, I felt deeply in love and I felt like I
was one of the luckiest woman alive to even be with this man.
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Oh my gosh. And then those first few years,
what was it like once you guys were official?
It was amazing. I'm a jokester.
I love to joke and clown and tease and he was the same way.
We would tease each other and pick on each other and have a
great time laughing and buildingup those memories.
Yes, it was over phone and whatnot, but it's still counted
to me and it was great. I couldn't complain.
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It was like people looked at himas the man in blue, as a state
number, and I looked at him as aman wearing blue jeans and a
blue T-shirt and as just a humanbeing.
Before the first time that you uncovered a secret, was there
any red flags leading up to thatin any way that your
relationship wasn't as it seemed?
I know no one's perfect and I know life is not as well but as
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perfect as he made himself seem,I really did not see no red
flags at all. But unfortunately there was two
big huge red flags. I uncovered a secret and it
wasn't directly from him, it wasdirectly from his
brother-in-law. And so I think that's what made
him harder for me was because I'm from a third party instead
of the man who I was saying I love you too.
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Yeah. So how far into your
relationship did you find this out and then tell me about what
happened? I found this out maybe a year
and some change into this relationship.
His brother-in-law and I, we grew a relationship as far as I
got you if you need anything. OK, here's the updates of what's
going on with Tim type thing. So he was my go to person
throughout the whole family throughout his whole time in
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there. And one night, we happened to
talk on the phone and he ended up telling, told me that he was
in there for racing concerts. He ended up telling me that he
was in there way longer than what I was told.
And he said, yeah, he has about 10 more years or so.
And I said, huh? Huh.
What? What?
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Wait, what? What?
He said, yeah. And I said I was definitely lied
to then. All this time, I thought he was
coming home in 2018. And all this time I thought he
was in there for robbery becausehe told me he was an outside
person looking to see if anyone was coming as far as cops and
stuff. And no, it was a whole different
scenario. Oh.
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My gosh, you never thought up until then to look up his
charge. Never.
Like I said in the beginning, itwas my first prison
relationship. I wasn't like too much into the
phone how I am right now and because I knew really nothing
about criminal cases and that you can actually do that because
I'm thinking with the court typeof thing and only court has that
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type of information. I never knew but I took the
initiative to just go find aboutthis man.
Yeah, and what'd you find? And.
Girls, I didn't know where to start as far as looking things
up on Google. I had no idea where to start,
how to start. But I didn't know if I put the
first last name, middle name. I didn't know if I put the year.
I didn't know because I didn't know what year this all had took
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in place as well. So I put in, I believe I want to
say I put in Valentine's and I put in the state and city and I
put his name and here goes the whole case in front of me.
And let me tell you, when I saw that Case Girl said, my face and
eyes dropped my. Gosh, I can't even imagine.
Yeah. What did you do?
Did you confront him? Definitely.
I waited for that 8:00 phone call, answered it.
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I don't even think I let it ring.
I hit that 5 as soon as I was able to hit that. 5.
And I promise you once it connected, I didn't even say
babe or anything. I didn't even say hi.
Hello. Do you have something to explain
to me? He's what?
What are you talking about? I have no idea what you're
talking about because prior to the phone calls earlier we were
fine. And I said I think you have some
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explaining to do. Something got brought to my
attention tonight and I really need to know what's going on.
And I was full of emotions. I believe I even had shed some
tears with him. Yeah, which is normal.
I don't know what I would do if I thought someone had robbed
some than one and then only to find out that it was a sexual
assault in nature. That's crazy.
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Definitely is crazy. And what did he say?
It took my mind away not to be so personal, but I myself am a
victim of it. And that's what made it like, no
way, Yeah, no way. I can't.
Of course he was quiet. And I'm like, this is not the
time to be quiet here, Sir. I need you to talk.
I need to hear it from your mouth and not from the third
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part. And he said, yes, if it's true,
I did not do anything to the victim, I can show you that I
did not. And I'm like, show me how you're
in there. And he said, I will make sure
that I call my godfather and seethe binder.
I said, First off, I thought youwere coming home in three more
years. So you think I'm going to wait
another 10 or so? No, I said, I don't even know if
I could be able to be this long in this relationship.
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I was already in my mid 20s. And this is something now that I
need to think about. And his next answer was, I was
really scared to tell you. I had wanted to.
I was scared to tell you becauseI knew you were also a victim.
I did not know how to tell you because I was scared you were
going to leave. And I said I'd rather you tell
me the truth and scare me a little than me find out through
someone other than yourself. So I did tell him I lost trust
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in him. I did tell him I need time.
I need to think this over. I do need to see your binder and
maybe that will help me a littlebit.
I do need to talk to the people who were involved, who were
there. I really do need to get to the
bottom of this because I come from a family with a lot of kids
and I just didn't feel good at the time for that.
Yeah, All I can feel is like crushing.
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I can't imagine because you would have had no idea up until
this point. And then you're so in love with
this person. It's been years that you've
known him. And then all of a sudden, this
huge secret, all I can think of is just a rushing pain.
And kudos to you because you still were like, hey, I'm going
to give you that benefit of the doubt.
Even though this is huge to me, I'm a victim myself.
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I shouldn't even be giving you the time of day, but I'm still
going to do that for you. Yes, I think I only have did
that because not only have I grown onto this man, not only
have this man known my secrets and everything about me.
I'm not saying, and I want to make this very clear, I'm not
saying it's OK to be with someone who has been charged or
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does that type of stuff not. But when you have more than just
himself telling you that he did not do anything, you need to see
it also for yourself. You need to look into it also
for yourself. And hearing him and hearing his
family say over and over to me like he did not do it.
I said, OK, I'm going to take your word, but I need to get
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professional help. I need to do this
professionally. And I did.
You did and how is your relationship during that time
when you were looking through? You got that binder correct.
I got that binder. I want to tell you that I think
what we He hung up the phone. I swear that next morning he
must have called his godfather because I swear within less than
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72 hours, Honey, I have that binder in my hand.
Spiraling down to the binder, what did you find?
I got home that day, I shut the door, I laid in my bed and I
went through every single page as slow as I can.
And keep in mind, I have no ideawhat I'm doing.
I have no idea what I'm looking for.
I have no idea about criminal atall.
And I had to learn, and I did learn.
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And I found the victim. There was a a lot of
contradicting out of her mouth. She couldn't even line him up in
the lineup. She couldn't remember what they
had called him as far as his nickname in the streets.
It was a lot of Umm's and a lot of butts in Atlanta and oars and
a lot of all that stuff. So it was like, girl, is you
really making this up or what's going on?
And when it got to the part where it showed the diaphragm,
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as far as her being tested in her private area, believe it or
not, there was no semen. There was no proof.
There was no marks. There was nothing of him
whatsoever. I needed to get some
professional to look at this. Just for information, he had Co
defendants right? Yes, he had two, so there was a
total of three of them. And were there DNA on her girl?
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Yes, Oh my. I'm talking about semen.
I'm talking about ripping her upin there.
I'm talking about all the above.Yeah.
Sam Temple was very clear in there.
So yeah, that would make me question as well.
You got that professional adviceand you spoke to people and in
the end, what did you come to the conclusion of?
After having so many meetings with lawyers taking that great
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big binder, it came to find out that he was actually innocent.
The lawyer looked at me dead into my face and he said your
fiance sadly say is innocent, he's innocent.
And I said why is he in there? I got stuck and he said he's in
there because whoever took over his case, which he had about two
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lawyers. That took over.
They did a speedy trial, they speed it up and they didn't
fight Northern into more details.
It was your first experience of wrongful convictions and over
sentencing and the realities of the criminal justice system.
Crazy. My first everything as a child.
I had relatives locked up. I had uncles locked up for drugs
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and stuff like that. But I was a child.
I had no idea anything about this until I got with this man.
And I learned a lot. I learned a lot, yeah.
So the emotional wheel over thistime period must have been
insane because you're learning all these things.
He's lied to you. Then you're reading it and
you're like, wait a minute, he'sactually innocent.
What was that process for you emotionally?
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I'm going to be honest. It did hurt me to know he was
innocent and he have got in the 19 years.
That's what the judge gave him. And it was like, how could they
not see that there's nothing? How could they just bypass that?
Yeah, when he told me that he wasn't remorseful, saying what
can I be remorseful for something I had never done, it
made me want to fight. I love this man.
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I cared about this man. I already gave him some of my
time in years and it made me want to fight a fight that I can
never do. I do not know where to start,
but I started a fight. We started a fight together.
I heard his doubts, I heard his tears, I heard his sorrow, his
sadness, and I was the one to lift him up as being his
partner. And I said, well, we're going to
fight this. I don't know what the hell I'm
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doing, but we sure gonna learn something together.
It sounds like a major relationship stronger.
When it came to trying to help him prove his innocence, I felt
just. I needed to do this.
Not for myself. It was more for him and his
family. More importantly, his mom as
well because I know his mom was his world and he was missing out
on a lot. For what?
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Yeah, so you didn't all the way forgive him for lying to you,
but you're willing to work on itwith him?
Yes, at that time it it took time to trust him again.
It did. But like I said, I have to put
that away. It's like having pride and
sometimes you got to put that side down and just say I got to
do it. And it was just that in that
moment for me. And I love this guy and this is
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someone that I seen life going to waste after I was told he was
innocent. I just, I didn't think it was
fair. It just had to do my part as
being his partner. And I think it's important to
touch on the amount of work thatyou did and what actually came
of it. It was a lot of hard work.
It was a lot of sweat. It was a lot of tears, a lot of
emotions, a lot of I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to
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do it. As you guys know, I went to the
lawyer to see about this case. This lawyer connected me with
the private investigator, his family.
I'm very thankful they hired a private investigator, not once
but twice, one here in the Bay Area and also one in San Diego.
We had his case get looked at again by a lawyer.
I dealt with lawyers. I dealt with prison counselors.
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Every time he got cheated and robbed from credits and points,
I was calling the prison. I stopped the transfer.
Once Upon a time he was getting transferred and I stopped it.
Don't act out. But by the grace of God, I
stopped it by contacting the city of Sacramento, the
headquarters of CDCR. I've done a lot, I've done a
lot. I've done some things that
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prison wise to this day, probably don't even know where
to start or what they're doing. But I did do a lot for this man,
a lot for this man. I was the one who the lawyers
and investigators and counselorsand everyone we're reaching out
to and his family was the one doing it financially.
To me, that was the easy work. I had the hard work.
Yeah, sounds like you really invested a lot of time into him
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over those years. Did I?
Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get the case overturned, but
you still learned a lot. Unfortunately, we ended up
getting the same judge who sentenced him when he was 18 and
the judge very much did rememberthe case.
The lawyer that we had, that lawfirm had represented his
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brother, which was a Co defendant of him and the lawyer
we had, they remembered the casefrom all those many years and it
was all about new evidence. And I don't know what type of
new evidence they had wanted, but I did get new evidence which
was from a Co defendant who was a family friend.
I got his letter. He wrote a letter stating the
whole entire story and the storyhimself.
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He even said that my ex fiance had nothing to do with what had
happened. I paid for it to get notarized
and to me that was new evidence because that Co defendant of the
family friend had never spoken in trial at all whatsoever.
So they didn't take that as new evidence.
They wanted new evidence which would have been from the victim.
That's BS but whatever I heard you say ex fiance.
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At what point did that happen? Yes, girl, we put rings on it.
When was that? We did, we had a matching ring
sick. I had purchased for both of us
of course. But anyways, yes, I have felt so
in love with this man. He told me the word and he told
me things that I had always wanted to hear from of course
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previous exes and stuff like that.
And he I felt did it and said it.
And about a year and some changelater after being with him in
2016, sometime I had asked him to marry me because I was a
joke. He thought I was playing.
He's like what? A woman asking yes, I'm asking
you, I'm not playing, yes, I love you, I'm in love with you
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and you are who I want to be with for the rest of my life.
And he still had never believed me.
And in 2018 is when he finally asked me to marry him and it was
face to face. When I asked it was over the
phone and. How'd you feel when he proposed?
Girl, I have butterflies like crazy.
My palms were sweating, his palms were sweating because I
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obviously was holding his hand too.
And I just couldn't stop smiling.
I felt like I was the luckiest. I love cotton candy, but let me
tell you, it was it was beyond me loving cotton candy.
It's beyond and I just felt I felt great.
I felt good. I said damn, it's about time.
And finally, he's taking me serious and right when he asked
me, I asked him right back and we both said yes to each other.
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And yeah, they went from there. In that moment, did you have any
doubt or were you fully certain that this was the man you were
going to spend the rest of your life with?
No, I had no doubt at all. No doubt at all.
And although he didn't come out in 2018, he did have an out date
that was coming up, correct? What?
When was that supposed to be? His out date was it was supposed
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to be in 2020 and they ended up moving it for whatever
reasonings were and he ended up getting out in August of 2021.
And leading up to him coming out, what was that like?
I hear a lot of people talk about people who do long beds,
how leading up to that date can be a little bit more stressful
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and things can change a little bit.
What was it like for you guys? It's.
Hard. All those years that I held it
down, by the way, I held it downfor 10 years and we were
together 7 out of that and we were engaged since I had
accidentally 16 to 18, so about three years.
So it was hard the last year only because I felt he knew he
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was coming home. You know, when he went in there,
he was a big guy when he came out, he sticks pack and bust
now. So I knew he felt I'm going to
get attention. I knew he felt, I'm sure things
were going through his head. And yes, and it was becoming
really rough that last two yearsand it got to a point where I
was just like, dude, we came so far and I'm not going to say I
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was in a, I'm not going to say he was innocent.
We were having problems obviously, because time's
getting closer. So I felt like he was starting
to switch on me and I felt a little pushed away.
And I'm not going to lie, I started hanging out with the Co
worker. Nothing crazy at the time, but
it was like, I don't know what else to do.
I've given you everything I've done, everything in my power I
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felt I could do. And yes, I'm hanging out with a
Co worker. And at the time, if you want me
to be honest with you, the Co worker was making me smile.
I wasn't stressed, nothing. I wasn't nothing.
But don't get me wrong, I still communicated with them, I still
answered his calls, I still talked to him even sitting with
the Co worker. So I started messing around with
the Co worker and I was open about it.
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I did not hide it from him. I never hid anything from him.
All these years I have been 100%faithful to him.
And we did take a little break from each other where he did
stop calling me and I said I can't stay here and I'm already
waiting all these years and whatmore can I wait?
So it's OK, fine, I can't call you.
You have to call me. There's no way I can get a hold
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of you besides writing. When he took that break from me
and whatnot, I was doing me, I was working and I was hanging
out with the coworker more and he knew like I said, but I
missed him. I, I was in love with him and he
was my heart and I missed him. And I reached out and I'm like,
dude, we need to talk contact meor I will contact another person
wise. Can you please have him call me
and stuff like that. And he did and we did miss each
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other. We worked through it when I was
hanging out with the coworker. We worked through it and all of
a sudden he switches up on me now and he's telling me like,
oh, are you having this coworkerright?
What? No, I have no one writing you.
Why would I give your address out?
Come to find out, a female was writing him that I actually knew
as well. But you didn't find out at the
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time. No, he did not see.
I was so blunt, direct to him and not him.
He was more like, play the guessing game.
They're from this city, you've talked to them before and that's
it. I'm like, what's the name,
Homeboy? What's?
The name. But it was so obvious that I put
it together. And when I put it together, he
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still denied it. And I'm like, why are you
denying? And I'm here being so blunt and
real with you about everything. So it was starting to crumble
right before he got out. Starting to crumble.
I'm going to be honest with you.He ended up doing 15 1/2 years,
by the way, not a full 19. And I could tell how many times
that I've spent him money and I could tell how many times on one
hand I sent him packages. And when he told me that he has
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gotten $500 from someone, he hadno idea that was bullshit
because on the receipts it showswho sends you stuff.
Yeah, I played dumb with him, but I was not dumb.
He ended up reading me her letters.
Keep in mind he wasn't reading me what he was also responding.
So some of these letters did sound like it was a response
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letter. Oh, you're still with her.
Oh, damn, I didn't know that. Oh, damn, you're engaged.
Oh, damn. It was that type of letter.
So I know you for sure wrote herback, but you were playing as
you didn't just keep it real with me.
I had always kept it real with you.
And that was one thing we alwaystold each other was to be blunt
with each other, be open whetherwe want to hear or not, whether
it's going to hurt us or not. I'd rather know then find out
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later. And yeah, so like I said, I
ended up knowing the girl. I did.
How did you know her? In 2015, 2016 when he was
incarcerated at one of the firstprisons I ever met him at or I'm
sorry, second prison I met him at because he had gotten
transferred when I first met himand we I sat at a visiting table
with her while she was visiting her man.
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He was my ex's dorm roommate andshe confided in me about their
relationship and her personal stuff and I confided the same
thing back. And she would tell me how the
pose and send pictures and like we we couldn't find it.
We talked every single day. We talked every night when the
phones were when they were on lock up, we were talking to each
other. And she learned a lot about him
(31:43):
and I learned a lot about hers and Herman.
And we would do visits together and there was no way in hell at
the time that I would see her ever reaching out to my ex
because I didn't see her lookingat him at any visits any type of
way. But some way somehow she found
them. And I said, what the hell did
she find you after all these years later?
And he's no hard. I do have a CCR number and I'm
(32:04):
like, how would she know your CCR number?
I never got that answer by the way.
I think you can Google it. You can go on.
Yeah, she started writing him the last year to a few months
before him coming home. So the day he came home, were
you guys together or no? Yeah, the day he came home, no,
I did not go to pick him up. I was supposed to, but with all
(32:24):
that going on, it was unfinishedbusiness.
And he decided I'm going to havemy family pick me up.
So his cousins and his brother-in-law and his nephew
went and pick them up and he came to my house.
That was the first stop that he made when he came.
And I of course, got ready, got dolled up.
Yeah, I had butterfly and palms.Yeah.
(32:45):
So you were engaged at that point.
How did you feel? Not going to pick him up.
It sucks. I think that every girl's dream
is I held it down for you and wemade all these plans and I want
to be the one at the gate, but instead I've seen a video of him
coming out with you. Wow, You know, it did suck, but
at the same time I was thankful and finally just happy that that
(33:06):
became the past behind us and now we were able to move
forward. Exactly, the chapter was still
ending regardless and it was going to be a better chapter up
to him being released because you guys were so rocky.
So I didn't have no fears, I just didn't know what was going
to happen. I didn't know how things were
going to be. I was just happy that he was
(33:27):
home. Even though I did not pick him
up at the gate, I still got to be with him.
And that also had me thinking aswell because ladies, make sure
if you pick him up at the gate, he's riding with you in the same
car as well. For me, it wasn't that way
either. This is when I really start
seeing red flags. I'm talking about triple,
quadruple red. Flags.
They just started coming in waves.
(33:49):
At that point, let me tell you, I've seen more red flags and
being home the very first day, the very first few hours, than I
ever seen, I think, in prison. And it kills me hearing this,
like we talked about before we started, my relationship is so
good. And as much as people say you
just don't know when they come home what it's going to be like
(34:10):
and what the reality is. But he even met your parents
that day, correct? Yes.
And what was that conversation like?
Oh Lord, they finally met. They did talk to each other a
few times on the phone while he was incarcerated.
He used to boast himself up. Oh, I'm the favorite son-in-law
and this and that. And my dad used to always say
we'll see. My family always had told me to
(34:30):
be careful and just never know. And so when I brought him
upstairs to my parents room to introduce him to my father and
for him to look into my father'sand to say, I'm in love with
your daughter. I'm going to be with her.
I'm going to marry her. And she's an amazing woman.
It made me feel great inside andwas smiling, hugging, looking at
(34:50):
him with my arm around him. And to hear my dad say that's my
baby. She's been through a lot.
She is a good woman. You do have a great woman.
She loves heart and she has beenhurt multiple times.
And you better not hurt my daughter.
And to hear him say, no, I will not.
You don't have to worry about that.
I'm going to forever take care of her.
It was like, OK. And my mom, she's more of the
quiet ones. She'll let my dad do that type
(35:12):
of talking. But of course she also doesn't
want her daughter to be hurt. From that moment I thought, OK,
cool. But the moment we left the
house, it was not like that. So what happened?
So like I said, ladies, make sure you drive in the same car.
He made me follow him in his carthat he was in.
I drove by myself while I followed him.
Yes, I had many thoughts in my hand.
(35:34):
Yes. I was like, whoa, damn, they
picked you up, but why can't youride with me?
OK, cool. Our first stop was at his aunt's
house and I got out the car and assuming I was going to get
introduced, I didn't know that some of the cousins that lived
there, but I didn't know the aunt and the uncle.
But no, I never got introduced. We hopped back in the car, I
hopped back in by myself and we drove to where the party was at
(35:57):
and came out of the car by myself as I watched him get out
and hugged his sister and his mom.
And yeah, that's how my first rodeo went with him.
What do you even do in that situation?
Because I would be so shocked that this has happened.
And it's already surreal that after 15 years he's out and 10
years of you holding him down and then all this is happening
(36:17):
at once. It must have been so
overwhelming in your head. I don't even know.
It was, but I also didn't want to show too much of my
irritation. I didn't want to show too much
of my being bothered because it was his moment at the end.
His family had waited all these years.
He went in at 18, came home at 34.
His family waited. And I didn't want to take that
(36:38):
shine from him. I didn't want to take that
moment because I felt even though it wasn't how I had
expected, it was still his time.It was his moment.
I wanted to respect that as muchas I can.
I just remember sitting there bymyself as he had gotten home and
went and showered and stuff because he didn't shower coming
out of the prison. So he showered when we got to
(36:59):
the family function. But I just remember sitting
there by myself. I remember a couple people
coming up and thanking me for holding it down and never giving
up on him and everything I had done as far as the and stuff
like that within the prison stuff as well.
And me just telling them I just did what I needed to do and it
was because I love them. And I just remember that.
And I just remember he was really nervous, not seeing a lot
(37:22):
of these people ever meeting newpeople, his nephews, nieces,
everyone. And I just remember him being
nervous and just sitting next tome as he got out when he came
out of the shower, like he was sitting with me at the table and
stuff, but then started to warm up and it just went I guess from
there and. Then what was the plans after
that Were you guys? We got a hotel room.
(37:42):
OK. We were planning on getting the
place together eventually. Yes, we were.
We had everything planned. But that night, we went to a
hotel, and I lived 45 minutes away from him.
But I ended up taking the week off to just be with him and his
presence and help him out and take him here and do that.
And let me tell you, it's some work when they come home, too.
It doesn't end, I will tell you that.
(38:03):
Yeah. And we went to the hotel room
and we got in the room and he seen a real bed.
He was tripping out and I'm tripping out because he's
tripping out and my dude, it's just a bed.
But then I did it. He slept on metal for so long
and do for them. And that's where the magic
supposed to happen, I guess. I heard, I think, I don't know.
But yeah, we got to the room andwe took a shower together and we
(38:28):
got out the shower and we laid in the bed and he was looking at
his phone and like tripping out,how the phones are touched now
and everything is touched. So he's tripping out and I'm
like, well, he's like, it's justa phone, but again, to me is
old. Yeah.
And then I became a phone teacher for a little bit and
yeah, just from there it went bad again.
It's. Like a roller coaster.
(38:49):
It was because when the men are in prison, a lot of them are
like, oh, when I come home, I'm about to lay the pipe.
And he was one of those. And he was a big talker when it
came to that moment. I'm the one who had to persuade,
I guess you could say, damn, 15 1/2 years.
I thought that you would be the one like a monkey all on me.
But no, it was the other way around.
(39:10):
It was more of him telling me he's tired, he didn't want none,
and he wanted to go to sleep. And I was like, Nah, hell no.
I waited 10 years for this very moment.
I heard you talked a good one all these years, and I want to
see what you're talking about. And when I initiated, it still
wasn't what I expected at all. It was more like, boom, boom,
(39:34):
I'm done, I'm going to bed. Goodnight.
And that's exactly what it was. That's when I knew it was a lot
of red flags coming my way. Oh, really?
Because I've heard mixed things about this.
Because you're right. Like, we all anticipate it.
We're all waiting for it. We all talk about it like it's
going to be a big deal. And I've heard so many times
women say that it doesn't go as you think it's going to go.
(39:55):
And we have to remember, I don'tknow how old he was when he was
incarcerated, but Nick was 20. He was 18.
Yeah, so 18 year olds like the experience level is a little.
Bit different, he was 18 but he always told me that when he he
was in the streets he was a ladies man.
Even though he was this big chunky boy, he was always this
ladies man and he always had it going on.
(40:17):
And all these years I dealt withhim in prison.
He always said I can't wait to lay the pipe and I said shit I'm
clogged so let's go. But that pipe wasn't like I
thought it would be. And would you say it was
downhill from there? Oh man, it just keeps going.
The next day it's time to go through the parole officer and
he wanted to dress as twins so we did.
(40:39):
He dressed as twins. I said OK cool, I never done
that with anyone. We did and he wanted Starbucks.
We go and try some Starbucks andwe're having a cool time
chilling inside waiting for the coffee until we walk out.
This is day #2 and the moment wewalk out something just looks so
weird and suspicious and it happens to be that my back
(41:00):
passenger left the side window is bust.
And I'm like babe, like in a scared type of way.
And he's what happened baby. And I'm like my windows busted.
He's like what? And it was his first night at
home so I had all his belongingsin my car.
I'm talking about all this expensive clothing and shoes and
nothing of his was taken besidesmy purse and my wallet, my ID
(41:25):
and everything else. And I panicked a little.
I am in East Oakland at the timeand East Oakland for those that
are from the Bay Area that's going to hear this.
Y'all know what's up with East Oakland already?
And I'm crying when I get mad upset and whatnot.
I cry. And I cried and he didn't know
what the heck to do because it was the first time really seeing
me in person crying like that. He felt bad and he instantly
(41:47):
called his brother-in-law and his brother-in-law was like
don't trip. I got you guys.
And I was more panicking as welltoo because he can't be late to
see Pearl. And we were down there almost
late and I was like, oh, Laura, we have to go back to Princeton.
But we paid it. And I thank God that he was
understanding. And he came out and looked at
the car and stuff as well. And, and from there we went to
(42:09):
get my window fixed. And then the red flags just
continue after that. What happened?
We get the window fixed and his brother-in-law drives follows me
and of course I'm driving by myself to get it fixed when he's
in the car with his brother-in-law and I just, I
don't know, he just couldn't be with me.
It was just so crazy. But we're getting it fixed.
We go to pick it up hours later mind you, we go back to the
(42:32):
sister's house and he leaves me in the living room.
I'm uncomfortable because I don't know them as much.
I only knew the brother-in-law really well and the mom and I
didn't know his sister that much.
I just knew that she's the only girl.
And man I swear like older sisters just stare at you like
they want to beat you up themselves and texting his phone
come in here and he's outside and he left me for hours inside
(42:54):
the house. And so that was something I was
also bothered by. Now when it was time to go get
my car, he paid for it. I will say that he paid for it
with the money that people gave him when he got home.
And he didn't come home with me.And he went back with his friend
in law in the car. So on purpose, I wanted to see
how much he cared about me. Yeah.
I wanted to see if he was going to reach out to me and ask me if
(43:15):
I'm OK because I had an emotional day that day.
So window being busted unexpectedly.
So what I did was I left the shop and I let them go ahead.
And I went and made a different turn than they did.
I went in, parked in a shopping Center for 2:00 to 3:00 by
myself, just in the shopping center sitting in my car on
purpose. I did this.
(43:36):
Not one time did he call our text and that's where I was, why
I didn't come back straight to the house and if I was OK, Not
one time. Oh.
My. Gosh, and I had thoughts, I had
emotions going through my head. Damn.
I spent 10 years and not even one call.
So what I did was when I felt I was there long enough, I ended
up just going to the sister's house.
Right when I get there, they're all getting ready to leave to
(43:58):
their restaurant. So you mean to tell me that you
knew I was going with you to therestaurant but you had no balls?
Call and tell me that you guys were getting ready to leave.
No, he did not. He told me to go in my own car.
And as I was getting into my owncar, his brother-in-law was
like, what are you doing by yourself?
Oh, I was told to go into my owncar.
He said if you don't get into mytrust there is room.
(44:19):
And I said Are you sure? He said I'm sure.
And yes, I went into the car with him.
It was like he just wanted to bewith his family and whoever
else. I don't know what else was going
on in his head, but we got to the restaurant at this point, it
was all over my face. You could tell I was bothered.
You could tell I was annoyed. You could tell I was upset.
You can tell I just did not evenwant to be near him now.
(44:40):
Yeah. And I barely ate my food and
they were taking pictures and I just.
I didn't want to be involved in nothing.
And we leave the restaurant. I went to the sister's house.
I got my car and I went to the hotel room that I was staying
in. And yes, I was by myself because
now he's ankle monitored and he had curfew and he couldn't go
with me and stay with me. Before I went to the I went to
(45:01):
his house to drop off his stuff I had in the car.
And I stopped there for a while with him.
And I just told him how I felt. And that's when the argument
started. I started seeing his attitude.
I started seeing his temper and his aggressiveness for my first
time. And he was upset that I was
telling him how I felt. And I said I'm sorry you were
having me ride by myself. What you're with?
(45:22):
We're together and he just told me.
I dealt with people telling me what to do all my life,
basically talking about fields and I don't need to come home
and have someone else tell me what to do.
I'm a grown man. And I said OK, that's what you
want. I said I'm not telling you what
to do, but I'm telling you how Ifeel.
And if my feelings are not validand my feelings don't matter,
then I don't know what to tell you because my feelings very
(45:43):
much were bothered. And that's when some of the
arguments. Started when you were sitting in
that shopping center. Did you think about going home?
I did what made you. I did because at the end of the
day it did hurt, but I had my room paid for.
I had everything already settledand done, and I was just trying
to have it. Excuses.
Maybe he's overwhelmed. Maybe he needs his family time.
(46:06):
Or I was trying to have so much excuses in my head as far as
like, why I really didn't drive all the way 45 minutes back to
my house. Maybe tomorrow will be a better
day. I just had all these excuses.
And like I said, when you love somebody, you're gonna go hard.
Yeah. And that's my heart.
Like, he really had my heart at the time.
And I was just hoping for bettertimes and better days as I took
(46:27):
that week off. Did you confide in anyone?
I didn't at the time. At the time I did not.
I held it in because everybody was cheering for us by posting
when he was incarcerated, our pictures and how happy that I
had looked and how great things were, like everyone was really
cheering for us and I didn't want no one to be like I told
you. So at that moment, I'm the type
(46:49):
of person that I hear you, but let me learn.
And that's where I was. I said I got to learn if this
isn't what it is and then let melearn if I know it will hurt me,
but let me learn. That's so sad.
I'm so sorry, I can't even imagine how lonely that must
have felt. Oh, it was definitely lonely
because people are quick to judge nowadays.
They say we listen and don't judge.
(47:09):
People are so quick to still judge.
And I didn't want to open up so soon about having issues already
when he had just been home. Yeah, 48 hours or whatnot, but I
held it in. Eventually I knew I was going to
end up talking to someone, I just didn't know how soon.
And that is a wrap on Part 1 of 2 of officials episode on her
(47:33):
relationship and how it broke down.
Crazy, right? Are you listening to it?
Like I cannot believe the seriesof events that happened and what
she went through. It's crazy.
And it just continues on. So Part 2 will have kind of the
end. We'll have some reflections.
And I think it's just super interesting.
(47:53):
I think you guys are really likeit.
In the meantime, if you do want to get to know her a little bit
better, she is on Tiktok and shedoes have the pictures, like I
said, of her and Herman that she's Speaking of.
Her handle is official, OFFICIALunder score Know your worth.
(48:14):
KNOURWORTHI will have that in the show notes as well.
So if you do want to check out official and on her Tiktok and
see her stories, I encourage youto do that because we want to
support her and that'll be it. So we'll see you next week.
Take care. Bye.
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