True Stories #425 - Bail Money

How far would you go to get a lover out of jail?

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-stories-with-seth-andrews--5621867/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Seth Andrews, and what you're about to hear is
a true story. March of twenty thirteen, in the small
town of Salasaw, Oklahoma, population about nine thousand, twenty two
year old Misty van Horn was desperate to get her

(00:24):
boyfriend out of jail, and so she started listing items
for sale on Facebook, things she was not supposed to sell,
and she got herself in real trouble. Now, this situation
revolves around a couple that was a couple before the
boyfriend got locked up. The news accounts don't say why
the boyfriend was in jail. But this thing got me

(00:46):
wondering about people who become infatuated with, in love with,
and even obsessed with violent criminals behind prison bars. And
this is a thing. How many documentaries in lifetime movies
about those gazing through jail bars and seeing someone who
is actually either really good or they get excited about

(01:09):
those who are really good at being bad. And this
has been studied. There are names for the various scenarios.
Hybristophilia relates to a strong attraction to societal deviants, criminals
and prisoners. The interested parties or the already partners get
aroused by those who have cheated, stolen, beaten, or even murdered.

(01:34):
Those who demonstrate passive hybristophilia never really act on their inclinations.
They just have the attraction. They might offer some kind
of compassionate advocacy. Many are also attracted to books, films,
and other media relating to bad boys and bad girls,
jail birds and prison breaks. Aggressive hybristophelia gets messy because

(01:59):
those people get proactive, and not just with people already
in jail, but with active criminals who have not yet
been caught. They might lure in potential victims for their partners,
cover and lie for them, and ultimately try to help
them escape from jail or prison. It is not surprising

(02:20):
that doing this assisting a violent criminal is extremely dangerous,
and many have paid with their lives. We try to
imagine what's going on in the brains of people like
Misty van Horn. Life must be extremely complicated. Maybe for
them it's just another riff on the long distance relationship.

(02:42):
Maybe it's a respite from a tumultuous home life as
a potentially turbulent partner gets put away for months or
even years. And for others still there's an obviously deep
yearning to see a lover set free, for the couple
to be together again, starting a new chapter that is

(03:02):
hopefully happier, better without coffs, chains, or bars. It is
their dream, and perhaps it was a dream like that
that Misty held when she listed on Facebook the items
that were not legally for sale, items which exposed her
as a deeply troubled and twisted human being, somebody who

(03:26):
was herself deserving of a guilty verdict and legal consequence
which explains that forty thousand dollars bonds and eight years
in prison, a sentence that many say is still too
short for a woman so desperate to get her boyfriend
out of jail that she listed for sale online. Her

(03:53):
two children, ages ten months and two years. Those kids
given over to the States. One is now an adult,
the other is fourteen, and for the rest of their
lives they must deal with the reality that their birth
mother once tried to trade them in exchange for an

(04:18):
Oklahoma inmate. And that's a true story. True Stories podcast
dot Com