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Transcript

Off Record: Knot What it Seems · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Welcome to The Knife Off Record. I'm Hannah Smith.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I'm Patia Eaton.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: And today I have a story for you.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: So excited.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: This is my favorite kind of recording day. You get
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to sit back, listen, react.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: I've got my pillow.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Your hot cocoa.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm ready.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I do have a story for you today, but it's
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the summertime and it's a little bit different. I kind
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: of was looking for something... Slightly lighthearted, a little more fun.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's really the correct way to
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: describe it, but it's not as dark as normal.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Sometimes our feed needs a breather.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: That's right. There's no murder in this story. But I
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: was looking back through, like I have a folder where
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I keep things that I stumble upon. It's interesting. Maybe
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: it could be a story. Maybe it could be an
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: off record. And I stumbled across, so this is not
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: the off record I want to share with you today,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: but I figure I'll just, I want to share this
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: article with you first because I can't remember when I
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: found it. I feel like it was like two years
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: ago and I saved it. I tried to make some calls.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I really couldn't find anything more about this person. It
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: was an article in the Indy Star from 2015. I
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: think the Indy Star is Indianapolis. Yeah.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Sounds right.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: And it was the heading that really caught me. It says,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Indy woman uses medieval combat training sword to stop intruder.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, I already love this person.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I was like, who is this woman? I need to
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: know everything about her.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: And like, is this her sword? Why does she have it?
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Why was it so accessible?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Her name is Karen Doley. And she was at home
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: on a Thursday night in 2015. And a random stranger
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: broke into her house around midnight. She heard the voice
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: of a man. She was 43 years old at the time,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: living in Indianapolis. She leapt out of bed, it says,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: and turned on the lights immediately and saw him standing
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: in her living room. How terrifying.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Stuff of nightmares.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: But immediately I'm just like, yeah, her first reaction is
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: leaping out of bed and turning all the lights on.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, true. Opposite of me. Although maybe I would turn
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: the light on, but I don't know if I'm getting
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: out of bed. I mean, in this scenario, I'm assuming
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: my daughter's not there. Right.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: It's just me. I think she was living alone.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Okay. So if it's just me and I hear a
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: man's voice, first of all, no.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: No, terrifying.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Do I confront them? I don't know. I will say
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: one time when Sam and I first moved in together,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I wasn't expecting him home because he often works late.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And I was like in the living room after I
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: had gone to bed because I like forgot water or
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: something like that. And he walked right through the door.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: And my response was to go, excuse me. He was like, what?
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, that's amazing.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: So, yeah.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I do think that responding in an aggressive way is
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: better because it makes someone think, oh, this person is
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: going to put up a fight.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. It at least has to make them stop
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: and think for a second. Right. Not just like lying
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: there waiting for them to or no one's lying there waiting. But,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: you know, there may be thinking, OK, this is going
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: to be harder than maybe I'd hoped. Right.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: So Karen is about five foot six inches tall. She
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: immediately attacks this man, punching him about 10 times.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Punching him?
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and cornering him in her bedroom.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: How big is he? Do we know?
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: He was 5'10, about. So he is four inches taller
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: than her.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Wow. Does she have training or she's just like best
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: guess throwing punches?
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: She has a gun in a drawer in her bedroom.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: So she reaches for the gun, but she opened the
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: wrong drawer in the chaos, and her gun wasn't there.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: If you keep a gun by your bed, you gotta
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: hate that that happened.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: All the more reason to not keep a gun. In
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: my opinion, that's just me. So she reaches for her
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: backup weapon, a Japanese-style sword called a ninjato, which she
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: also keeps near her bed. Respect. And she got him
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: cornered in the bedroom and held this sword to him,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: and got him in a crouched position and held him
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: at sword point and called the police.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: I have to know, like, is she yelling to her phone? Like,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: I can't even say the S-I-R-I word because, you know,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: my phone will start responding. But is she yelling to
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: her phone? Call the police?
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Like, how does she get her phone?
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, I assume her phone is also right there
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: by her bed. But essentially, she's gotten this man from
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: her living room, punched him, gotten him into the bedroom,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: crouched into a corner and has him at sword point.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: And calls the police and the police arrive and he's
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: still at sword point and they arrest him. Wow. He's
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: 30 years old. He forced his way through the house's
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: back door and then was like later charged. But what's
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: interesting is that this goes on to talk about how
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: was she able to respond this way?
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Why did she have this sword?
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: She has experience in medieval combat fighting. Whoa. When she
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: was 18 years old, she was part of this organization
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: called Society for Creative Anachronism. And they basically kind of,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: it sounds like LARPing, like they would dress up and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: recreate arts and skills from like the 17th century. So
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: she would put on armor like a knight and engage
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: in unchoreographed fights using weapons Rattan swords. So not like
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: real swords, not steel swords.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: The thing that is the face of every cabinet made
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: in the last like three years. Like that wickery kind of.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know. What's it called?
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Like a woven.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: That's what you would think, right? Actually, let me look
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: up rattan sword. It doesn't really feel like you could
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: fight with that very well. Yeah.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: But I mean, I guess if you're not actually fighting,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: you're like play fighting.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Jousting. Practice fighting. Yeah. Yeah, that kind of looks like
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: bamboo or something. Okay.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: So that was her fighting experience. But now she's in
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: her 40s.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. She's talked about this experience because she's 5'6. And
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: during this time, it was like a club that she
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: was part of. And they would do these fights. And
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: you would fight different people in the club. And it
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: was like a sport that you got better at. And
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: she would often fight against men who were taller than
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: 6 feet and had a lot of experience. And she
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: said in the beginning, she wasn't very good at it.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: And her opponents could kind of guess her movements because
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: she was timid. And what she learned, she learned how
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: to become a better fighter by trusting her instincts and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: being like really aggressive and moving quickly. And she also
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: does roller derby.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Roller derby? Wait, is that like the contact roller skating? Yeah.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Okay. First of all, here's something else I'll be terrible at.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I can't roller skate. I'd be worthless in a contact sport. Oh,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I'd break a bone immediately. So, you know, she's involved
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: in some contact sports, but I just love that her
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: 17th century fighting club role playing and armor experience like
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: actually came in handy when this man broke into her
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: apartment in the middle of the night.
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  Speaker 2: And look, I've never broken into someone's apartment. I'm sure
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  Speaker 2: people have all manner of motivations for doing such a thing.
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  Speaker 2: But I'm going to do my research. I am not
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: going to break into an apartment and hope for the best.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: I want to know that I could physically take whoever's
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: living there like in a hand-to-hand combat situation. Or if
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: I know they have a sword, for example, that would
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: be helpful information.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I imagine he was probably... I don't know if
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: he knew... who lived there, but if he had been
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: watching her, he probably saw it was a woman who
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: was about 5'6 in her early 40s and thought, I
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: could take her, you know, this would be easy.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 1: But no.
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  Speaker 2: What a fool.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I tried to reach out to her. Couldn't
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: find her.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Did you ever find out why he was there?
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think he maybe like was going
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: to steal something. He ended up getting charged with residential entry.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: It says a level six felony. I don't know what
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: that means.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Well, hopefully he learned his lesson.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And this person who lives in Indianapolis who teaches
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: self-defense was quoted for the article and he says basically
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: like he's not encouraging people to necessarily attack someone when
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: they've entered their home. He's like, ultimately, it's not worth
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: it to risk your life to protect your TV. Running
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: is a better option if there's like an easy escape.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: But if you're trained.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: But if you're trained and ready to go, then it is,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was pretty badass. So I had to
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: share that.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, I should take a self-defense class.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: I think at some point when I was in, like
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: very recently graduated from college, I was in downtown Seattle.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: And this was nothing like that severe, but it was
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: just an awful moment. But this man... I was just
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: walking in downtown Seattle, broad daylight, right in front of Nordstrom.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: grabbed the back of my tank top and pulled me
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: back against his body.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: He said, your tag's out, baby. Let me put it
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  Speaker 2: in for you. And I didn't know what to do,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: but it was so gross. And I was so like
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: freaked out. And so after that, I did at one
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: point then take like a, some kind of class and,
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  Speaker 2: And what I learned in that class was that the
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: best thing you can do when someone does something like
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: that encroaches on your space, makes you physically uncomfortable or
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: lays a hand on you at all is to yell
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: no as loud and as scary as you can. And
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: just that alone might be enough to give them some pause.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Interesting. So no is better than like stop or help
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: or something. Yeah.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Just to look at them and yell no. Yeah. That's
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: what I remember. not official advice, but that's what I
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: remember from that.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I like that. There's something psychological about looking at someone
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: forcefully and saying no.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I think about that a lot now. And I have actually,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: you know, in Los Angeles, it's an urban environment and
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: occasionally maybe someone is in your space that you're not
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: comfortable with. And I had to do it once pushing
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: my daughter in a stroller where someone got really close.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he wasn't maybe doing all that well,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: but in any matter, it He was too close. And
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I just said that and kept walking and it worked.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Did he respond?
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it got his attention. I don't think
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: he was out to hurt me, but I don't think
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: he was fully aware of himself.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, so on to today's story. This is coming to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: you from 2008 on the online platform. world the online
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: world in 2008 that was what myspace facebook was beginning
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: facebook was early yeah beginning facebook at this time i
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: don't think you had to use your real name oh
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: right see i thought it was myspace you could be
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: anybody in facebook i thought you had to maybe you
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: had to yeah yeah MySpace, you definitely did not have
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: to use your real name. You could be anybody on MySpace.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Just a handle. You could have any picture you wanted.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Same with LiveJournal, the online blogging site that was huge
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: at the time. So this was definitely kind of like
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: early days of message boards and online communities, early social
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: media sites. And this is like a very niche community,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: but somehow, sometimes I'm just on Reddit and I'm looking
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: at things. And I came across an early scandal that
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: rocked the knitting community and thought I should look into this.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: I didn't know the knitting community had scandals.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: They actually had quite a few.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I ran into multiple, but this was one that is
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: talked about a lot. And so I thought, okay, yeah.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I'm going to look into what really happened here. So
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: it all took place on this website called Ravelry.com. And
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Ravelry.com is a website for people who are interested in
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: fiber arts. So knitting, crocheting, there's weavers on there. It's
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: a social platform and a marketplace, basically. So, you know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: you can find anything from patterns, like people will just
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: share patterns that they really like, and a lot of
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: them are free. Like I found a pattern for a
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: crocheted tennis ball with cute little eyeballs on it.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Will you be crocheting this?
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I was like, I could probably do that. And then
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: more like today, I was like, I don't think actually
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I could.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: I'm giving myself too much credit. Here's Hannah like about
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: to have a baby in the middle of the move
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: being like, you know what I'm going to do today?
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: I'm going to crochet a tennis ball with little eyeballs.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was like, you know what? I'm going to
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: save my energy, but it is very cute. Like there's
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: so much cute stuff on there. If you're into crafts,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I can see why you would like this website. And
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: it's all like from more simple stuff all the way
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: up to like very complicated sweater patterns. And people will
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: make something and then like post it to show the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: end result. And they'll talk about what kind of tools
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: they use to make it, what kind of yarn they
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: use and how much.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: The hot goss of knitting. Oh, yeah.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: It's a place where a lot of people go to
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: find yarn. I got the sense that if you're like
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: a super beginner person, you're just kind of going and
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: getting yarn at like Walmart or something. Yeah. But not
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: the people on Ravelry. They're looking for really high quality yarn.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: The good shit. Yeah. Yeah. And people that make and
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: dye yarn advertise their stuff on Ravelry. So usually you
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: can't buy directly from Ravelry, but all of these makers
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: will have profiles on there and then links to either
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: their website or Etsy or something you can go buy
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: from their shop. So, you know, specialty yarns, yarn made
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: out of silk, linen, buffalo, fur, vegan yarn. All right.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Buffalo fur yarn. Well, these people are making things to wear.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: They're like good at this because I'm picturing like your
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: basic scarf. But yeah, of course. Okay. So they're looking
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: for the best of the best.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: A hat maybe? A sweater.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, imagine if I can knit my own sweater.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I've spent hours of my life looking for sweaters on
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: the internet that don't even exist.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe this is a wake up call that you need
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: to start knitting your own clothes because you have so
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: much free time.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Long arms, you know, maybe this is a worthwhile hobby.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I've said for years that I should have invested in
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: making my own clothes like years ago. But have I ever?
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: No.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Will we?
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Is that our next venture? Maybe.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: And also this is a community of people who are
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: really like, for the most part, thoughtful about things being
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: ethically sourced and wanting to support other artisans. And that's
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: kind of like what this site is for. So you're
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: not going to the huge stores and buying mass produced yarn.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: You're finding like the person who's making it, you know,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: from their home and doing it in an ethical way.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: So it's pretty cool. So back in like 2006, 2007,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: there was a seller who had a page called Mystical
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Creation Yarns. And they became very popular. Their yarn was
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: highly rated and people really liked it. It was run
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: by this woman named Danielle Glunt who lived in New Mexico.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Her yarns were multicolored and vibrant and people just seemed
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: to really love the colors that she would choose. So
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: like one skein of yarn would have like three or
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: four colors in it. People thought it was really well done,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: high quality yarn. She had an Etsy store, but advertised
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: her work on Ravelry and was really like involved in
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the community.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Okay. And remind me, what was her name again?
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Danielle Glunt.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Danielle Glunt.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Okay. And her business is Mystical Creation Yarns or MCY.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Around 2007, a podcast mentioned her business. And her business
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: blew up. So even just to time travel back to 2007,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: this podcast doesn't exist anymore. Like I couldn't even find
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: back episodes, but I was reading about it. It's called
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Lime and Violet. And it was hosted by two women
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: friends who were crafty, loved knitting. And I think they
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: were like on their way to a knitting conference somewhere.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: And we're like, we should start a podcast and looked
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: it up. And they said there were only two other
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: knitting focused podcasts on the market at the time.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: These women walked so we could run.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: I don't know that I had ever listened to a
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: podcast in 2007.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: I'm like, how did they not create an empire? I
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: don't know. Some people online said, well, they had some
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: controversy later on and their podcast ended. And like, I
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I didn't find much about that, but they were early
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: to the game and got big really quickly because there
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: were just a lot of people like on Ravelry and
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: on these different websites knitting and really excited about the
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: fact that they could now communicate with other people all
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: across the U.S. and across the world who shared the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: same passion. So Lime and Violet, they were like booking
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: out hotel conference rooms and and women would travel all
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: over to hear them speak, and they realized they had
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of power as far as suggesting different brands.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: One of them loved Mystical Creation Yarns and had ordered
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: from her, so promoted on the podcast, and Mystical Creation Yarns'
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: business exploded as it goes.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But this is where some issues start to arise, seemingly. Uh-oh.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: So this was like the end of 2007 when they
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: were recommended on Lime and Violet. And starting like in
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the beginning of 2008, there's a few posts on Ravelry
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: of people who say they purchased yarn from Danielle and
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: they received it, but they felt like the quality was
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: a little bit subpar. The main complaints were products showing
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: up with knots in it. Felting, meaning like when individual
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: strands kind of mat or fuse together, which you can
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: imagine is not good if you're going to try to
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: knit something. Yeah. And late shipping.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: If you're paying up for yarn, they seem like there's
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: a major quality control issue happening.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're paying for this, you know, bespoke yarn that's handmade,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: ethically sourced, and you have to... I actually couldn't find
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: how much the pricing was in 2008, but it's more
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: than if you're just going to this, you know... Walmart
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: and buying yarn.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: You're not in Joann Fabrics anymore.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: No, you're buying this product and you know, it's going
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: to take a little bit of time to get to you,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: but you're fine with that. But the late shipping kind of,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: it starts to like be a little bit later than
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: people are expecting and they get the product and it's
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: not as great as they expected because It didn't seem
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: like it was happening with every shipment, but some of them.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: And is Danielle responsive to these sort of customer issues?
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Do you know?
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: We don't hear a lot about it. So I imagine
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: maybe she emailed customers directly. Okay. It wasn't an unusual
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: amount of complaints for the website. Like sometimes you would
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: see complaints like that of people's products. And usually then
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the sellers like step in and make it right.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: But in like late January of 2008, someone posted on
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Ravelry that they had bought yarn from Mystical Creation Yarns
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: two months before and had never received it or heard
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: any news about the order. And once they posted, it
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: was like a page and then you could post on
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: someone's page. So there's all these threads of people posting
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: and reposting and commenting. And more and more people are
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: coming forward and saying, you know, that happened to me too, actually.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: And I've reached out to her and I haven't heard
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: anything back. And the thing with these orders is that
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: because it had been like two months, a lot of
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: these orders were past the time period where you could
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: complain on Etsy or PayPal and like request a refund
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: because there's a time limit on that. I see.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: But if you don't get the order, then how would
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: you even know?
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And because this is an individual person running a
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: small business, It wasn't unusual for an order to take
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a month. So people were giving her grace. I'm like, well, okay,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: it's taking a little bit of time. But eventually they're like, okay,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: where is my order? They're reaching out to her, emailing her,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: not hearing anything back. And it's too late to request
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: a refund. And it seems like it's starting to happen
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: to a lot of people.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Not good. Yeah.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Not good. People started to come forward and say that
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the colors in her yarn were running when the yarn
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: got wet, which is like a really big no-no apparently.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, right. Like this has to be a wearable garment. Wearable.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: You don't want to be wearing your scarf out in
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the rain and suddenly there's like dye running on you.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. No.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: So that's pretty bad.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Seems like the quality has really dipped and people aren't
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: really sure why. And the knitters are angry. The knitters
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: are pretty angry. And they're on this message board and
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: rumors are flying.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: You know, there's another website called Knitty. People also start
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: talking about it on there. Some people theorize that Danielle
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: had to hire people because of the increase of demand,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: and she's just not doing a good enough job managing
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the quality, which would make sense. But the fact that
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: people are asking for a refund and not hearing anything
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: back is not okay. Right. Finally, February 8th, someone shares
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: an email that they got about their order. They had
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: requested a refund from Mystical Creations Yarns, and they got
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: an email back I won't read the whole email, but
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: here's part of it. It says, please understand that the
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: family is doing everything they can while Danielle is in
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the hospital. Due to the catastrophic effects of a debilitating illness,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the company doing business as Mistwell Creations Yarn has been
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: forced to permanently shut down operation. It is with deep
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: regret that there are no provisions in which to financially
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: or physically process any outstanding orders in the professional manner.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, so a bid for sympathy, bad sign.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it just keeps saying the family. The family recognizes
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: its inability to fulfill their obligation to the customers in
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: a timely manner. And apologies, you know, please email us.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: We'll do our best. It's just like, it's so strangely
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: written because it keeps saying the family, the family. And
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: then it says, my sister is trying her best to
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: fill the orders. And everything will be sent out at
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the end of February. I'm sure when Danielle gets out
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: of the hospital, she'll want to carry on her passion.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: So please send prayers. Please email me. And I will
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: see that she gets, you know, anything that you send her,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: like send her well wishes, yada, yada, yada.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: So now immediately, if you still complain, you're a jerk. Yeah.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: It's like this email is so vague. It's like, who's
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: writing it? She says, my sister. But then it's like,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the family. And it's signed, the family. Sincerely, the family.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Mystical Creations Yarns.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Like, what is this? The mob?
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Right. And so people are like, some people feel really bad. Like, oh, wow. Okay.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: She's in the hospital. This makes sense. Of course.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I feel bad, too.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Other people are like, this is BS.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, good, good.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: You know, the comment section is raging. And some people
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: are saying, just give her time. Obviously, she's going through
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: a crisis. You know, the knitting community should be supportive
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: of each other. Right. But then some people start kind
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: of sleuthing around. Someone comments that they've discovered that Mystical
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Creation Yarns is not even registered as a business in
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the state of New Mexico.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Oops.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: So it's like, that's an oops. Is that a smoking gun?
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know. She's just like a lady selling yarn
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: from her house. Maybe she never registered as a business.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know. She should have.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: It's enough that you're like, okay, what else do I
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: need to find out?
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Right. Then March 2nd, 2008. So you can imagine she
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: promised that everything will get sent out end of February.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: It's not.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: March 2nd, this woman who calls herself Susan announces on
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: the forum that Danielle has been in the hospital for
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: six months with leukemia and is not expected to recover.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: No one knows who Susan is. We never heard of Susan.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: How does she know this? How does she know? Does
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: she know Danielle? People start to question her. Who are you?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: And then she kind of backpedals and says, I'm not
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: part of the family. I don't even know them. I'm
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: just passing along a message.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: What?
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: So weird.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Also, if she's in the hospital, why are you taking orders?
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Why haven't you shut down the ordering?
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Shut down the website. Say we can't fulfill orders right now.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Reach out here if you have an order that you're
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: waiting for because we don't know when we can get
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: it to you.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And what's even more suspicious about this post, supposedly
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: done by this woman named Susan, she says, without Danielle's attention,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the business has gone, quote, to heck in a handbasket.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Not heck in a handbasket. That's a worst case scenario.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: And she says, now that the end is near, because again,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: she's saying she has leukemia and she's not expected to
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: recover from And she says, now that the end is near,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: her sisters, Danielle's sisters, Margaret and Jean, have stepped in
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to try to get the back orders filled. There is
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: a fire sale right now, and the prices are great.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: So if you want to go take advantage, they're selling
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: yarn they have to get rid of. So go buy
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: their yarn. This is so bad.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: A fire sale because someone is dying, unexpected to recover.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we can't fulfill your orders, but we're going to
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: like sell off our stock. So actually just go buy
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: our yarn.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: No, that's madness.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Written by Susan, who then sort of backtracks and says,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not associated with this.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Well, Susan, you're pretty involved for not being associated. Yeah.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: And again, it's like, this is before Instagram. This is
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: a different internet, right? So you don't have to verify
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: your identity or anything to create an account. Obviously you
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: don't really have to with Instagram either, but it's not
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: as easy to look at a profile and say, that
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: seems fake as it is now. You know, a lot
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: of people have, like a picture of a butterfly as
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: their profile picture. And they're a real person. They just like,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: they don't want to put their picture or their name
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: on the internet, but they want to be part of Ravelry,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: you know? Yeah. So it's not like a super red flag,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: but people are kind of like, who's Susan? So we
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: have heard though that Margaret and Jean, supposedly her sisters
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: are now taking over the business, running this fire sale,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: trying to handle things while also their sister, Danielle is
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: in the hospital and apparently like on her deathbed. So
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a few days later, there's another post from a woman
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: named Claudine. Claudine claims to work directly with Danielle. She's
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: her European distributor, and she's, I don't think she's met
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Danielle in person, but she's talked with her on the phone.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: So she's like a real contact, supposedly. And she basically says, hey,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: I've spoken with Danielle recently, and none of this is true.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: She's not in the hospital. She doesn't have cancer.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Oh, so Claudine is like, I am associated and now
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: I want to be unassociated.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: She's just like, basically, I buy yarn. In the past,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I've bought yarn from Danielle and I resell it to
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the European market. But I've seen all this stuff happening
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: online and I want to set the record straight that
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's true. Like, I don't know why
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: she's not shipping things out, but I don't think she
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: has leukemia. I've talked with her recently.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: So she's kind of validating all of the people that
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: are like, wait a minute.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But also it's like, how can we trust that
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Claudine is real? Probably. But again, she's just another profile
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: on Ravelry.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Well, and what incentives? would this person have to be like, no,
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: I'm not buying it? Like, they're not asking for money
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: or a leeway with orders.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: That's true. So Claudine says, I don't even think Danielle
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: has a sister.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, no.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: But Margaret, supposedly Danielle's sister, is undeterred. She keeps posting.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: She's trying to convince everyone, no, Danielle is sick. But
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the internet knitting mob wants the truth. But it's like
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: very hard to know what's real and what's people sort
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: of saying. I did this. Again, it's just very hard
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: to fact check this in 2008 on a knitting thread
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: on the internet. But someone claims to have tricked Margaret
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: into sharing her IP address online. And figuring out that
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: it's the same IP address as Danielle.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: But then again, maybe Margaret is using her sister's computer
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: to conduct business. We don't know.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, I guess in those days, maybe not everyone
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: had a laptop at their house or something. I mean,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: it's not, it's a red flag, but it's not a
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: smoking gun. Right.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: So then on March 9th, 2008, Mystical Creation Yarns Probably
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Margaret writes an update. We just got word that Danielle
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: has passed away. I can hardly talk right right now.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I am crying so hard. Mom just called from the
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: hospital and Danielle has just passed away. I want to
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: say thank you to all of you who have showed
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: your support, sent prayers, all of your kindness, and just
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: being there for us. The family is going to need it.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: She has left behind a loving husband and two loving boys. Margaret.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, devastating.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Some people are immediately like, this isn't true. But
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: other people are like, well, what if it is true?
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, going so far as to say someone died
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: because people like we just did the recently Lisa Tickmeyer story.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: She said she had cancer, but no one said that
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: she died. Right. Because how can you you can't fake that?
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Because she was this was in person, not online.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: This was in person. Yeah.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's tricky. Anytime someone says someone has died, you
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: have to, like, take a step back and consider, like, okay,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: but is that real? You know, because that's a serious thing.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: But it kind of feels like most people don't believe
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: that it's real at this point. Oh, okay. There's a
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: lot of people that are upset and don't believe it's real.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: It's interesting to think about because, I mean, fair to
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: be upset that you've made an order of yarn and
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: it didn't come through.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: But, like.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: So you spent $ 20 or $ 40 on yarn and you
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: never got it. Yeah, of course you want to get
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: your order, but... But you're going to be all right.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: You're going to be all right. And I mean, maybe
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: some people had made really big orders, but I get
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: the sense that most of these are in the $ 20
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: to $ 40 range. And so the internet mob that is
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: created of these knitters on Ravelry, it feels like almost
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: overblown for like the reality of what people have lost,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: which is like 20 to $ 40. It feels like such a,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, we see that a lot today, right? Like
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: commenters on the internet can be so ruthless, but it's
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: just like early, early social media, all of these knitters are, who,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: you know, have sort of this reputation of being like
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: community oriented, people who care about the earth and care
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: about creativity are now just out for blood.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Well, it's one thing to lose. $ 20, $ 40. It would
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: annoy me. Believe me, I'd be making phone calls if
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: I could.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: But like if someone's like kind of a flake or
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: gives you a half-baked apology of some kind or even
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: just kind of blows it off and you're like, all right, well,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: I'm not doing business with that person again. They suck.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: But if someone then turns it on you and says, well,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I have cancer, then I'm like, okay, now you've made
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: me feel guilty. So the next red flag that goes up,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: now if I find out you're lying, it's a whole
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: other ballgame.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: It's personal. Now it's not just my $ 40. It's like
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: psychological warfare. Yeah, that's such a good point. If everybody
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: believed that this was really happening, I think the response
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: would be really different. But the fact that there's been
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: people like clotting the European context saying, I don't think
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: this is true. Coming forward, I think people feel like,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: how dare you? lie to us and try to emotionally
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: manipulate us like this. And it only gets worse because
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: about a week later, someone posts that they have seen
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Danielle at Walmart.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: She has risen from the dead.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: She's risen from the dead and she's at Walmart. This
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: is someone who claims to have been an employee of
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Danielle's for a short period of time. And then they
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: had already parted ways, but they live in the same
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: town and she claims she saw her at Walmart and
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: she posts on there. And then a little bit later,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: another woman posts. This is May 1st, 2008. She says,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a woman claiming to be Danielle Glunt presenting Danielle Glunt's
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: driver's license with proof of ID was seen and overheard
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: today depositing checks at a neighborhood branch bank. She was
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: driving a brand new car with dealer stickers and tags
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: on it, I might add. was seen it just like
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: the way it's written is so funny like did you
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: see her or like what are we talking about and she.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Says like were you following her like were you right
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: there next to her but it's like if you're gonna
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: fake your own death presumably you gotta drive to the
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: walmart in the next town you gotta bank somewhere else
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: over in the next town yeah minimum.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: And this lady who's writing that danielle was seen at
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: the bank with a brand new car and says, I
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: am not a defrauded customer, but I do live in
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: the same town as Danielle. And she's also a knitter.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: And I have the misfortune to be named Margaret.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, no. The good Margaret. Yeah.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: She's like, need I mention how much your nefarious business
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: scams have cost my business? Yeah.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Margaret, who lives in the same town. has been having
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: people comment at her and her business. And so she's
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: upset because she's like, I don't want to be associated
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: with this anymore. Anywho, at this point, a lot of
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the customers who have not received refunds are gathering together
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: to report her to the Better Business Bureau. And a
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: few days later, someone posts on the thread that they
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: have made a complaint to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: And other people say, I'm going to do that too.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: So now you have all of these knitters reporting Danielle
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: to the FBI. Now, I could not figure out if
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: the FBI actually looked into this. I would be shocked.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Look, no one should be taking money from people, I mean,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: stealing money from people, lying about things like cancer or death.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: But I would like to think the FBI is working
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: on other things.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But some people, and this could just be hype,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: claimed that after... She was reported to the FBI that
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: they got refunds from her. Okay.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: So maybe they passed it to an intern. They're like, look,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: we do need to help these people. But yeah.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Scare her. Get her to give refunds.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: All right. I like that.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, that's basically kind of the end of
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: this saga. But the FBI part was interesting because I
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: just recently actually... spoke with someone at the FBI, not
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: about this, about something else. And then I was looking
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: at this case and I was like, wow, 2008 was
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: such a different time. I was calling the FBI to
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: get more information about reporting scams to them, like what
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: the best avenue is to go about, not for me
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: to report, but because you and I have been working
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: on this story for like a couple of years now
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: where we're following a- Serial scammer. Yeah, serial scammer. And
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: we've interviewed a bunch of his victims at this point.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: And there are many.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: And there are many. Keep an ear out for that podcast,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: that story that will be on the knife in the future.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: But basically, I was just trying to gather information on
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: behalf of the victims. Some of them have asked us, like, well,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: how would I report this to the FBI? So I
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: was just trying to gather information, like what is the
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: best way? And the person I spoke to, she was
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: really nice. But I have to say that she seemed overwhelmed.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Like when I started talking about reporting a scam, she
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: kind of was like, well, you would not believe how
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: many reports we get all the time.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Well, that should tell you that this is a massive problem.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Massive. And she was just like, you know, we're doing
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: the best we can. You should definitely tell people to
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: report always. But it was just like, she was just
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: being honest that the amount of scam, both internet scams
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: and in-person scams, particularly online scams that get reported to
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: the FBI on like a monthly basis is more than
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: they could possibly attack with the resources that they have. Gosh.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: The idea that you could wake up and all your
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: money's gone and you thought you were just talking to
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: someone at your bank or whatever it is, or like
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: in the scam story you and I have been working on,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: you know, you trust the wrong person and all of
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: a sudden your whole life is just upside down. Yeah.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe part of her overwhelm was like in
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: this case with Danielle. Yeah. You can figure out getting
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: $ 40 back to someone, hopefully, you know, because I don't
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: want to trivialize $ 40. Like that could be groceries for someone,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: but it's also... 100%.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: And she's doing it to so many people. Like, this
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: is a scam. Right.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: But it's an amount of money that hopefully we can
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: recover from, or you can at least see that there
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: might be a way.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: And because she's using a website like Etsy, which uses PayPal,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: so it's trackable, right?
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. But then you have these other scams, and
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: it's like, I can see if you're the FBI, and
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: I'm not excusing the fact that we don't have better
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: recourse for this, but When that money is gone because
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: you gave it to someone in crypto or you handed
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: cash to a stranger, it's over.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's gone.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: They might track that person down and arrest them and whatever,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: follow them to the ends of the earth. The money
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: is gone. Yeah. And that is, I imagine, a lot
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: of the overwhelm here is like we can spend all
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: of our resources arresting these people, but there will be more.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: And if we can't get people's money back, How much
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: good are we doing? I mean, look, I'm all for
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: justice and them going after these people, but I can
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: see how the problem would be overwhelming. Yeah.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: And it's not that they're not trying. I think that
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: they are. They're taking on a ton of cases and
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: they're trying. And she did say they have success, like
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: they get people's money back and they do find perpetrators.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: But it just, it takes a lot of effort and
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: resources and it's happening so rapidly now that, you know,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: if you can try to stop it before it happens
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: to you, that's obviously the best case scenario. But she
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: did say, which I thought was interesting, but not surprising,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: by far the worst and most difficult is when people
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: give money through cryptocurrency sites. She said, It's not like
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: they've never gotten money back from that because they actually have,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: but it's incredibly difficult. And it really depends on the
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: cryptocurrency host or site, whether or not they're willing to
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: work with them to give them like that backend information.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: That gets into what are they legally required to do?
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: And it's super tricky. And even then it's very hard
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to track down. And then what if you track someone
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: down and then they're in another country? You know, there's
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: only so much you can do. So she was like, crypto,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: the worst. Like, do not ever give someone money through cryptocurrency.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: It's so scary. I mean, all of it. Like, I
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: have nightmares about that. Like, I'm not going to keep
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: every dollar I've ever made in my closet because I
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: know it's not safe there. But like, then it's, you know,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: it's just like digital thing. And you log in and
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: you're like, OK, cool. Yeah. Yeah.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: And I mean, she wasn't saying don't have cryptocurrency, but
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: just don't give someone, you know, the key to your
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: wallet or don't give a stranger money through crypto.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: And if your bank is flagging something for you, like
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: if you call your bank and I'm like, I want
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: to make this big withdrawal and they say, we're flagging
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: this as fraud. We want you to not do this transaction.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that banks are all good and we
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: should just give them absolute trust, but Like, take a minute.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Those people are there to try to help.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So it was such a juxtaposition from this conversation
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: that I just had with someone at the FBI to
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: reading this story from 2008, thinking, wow, the FBI may
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: actually have made calls about this.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: This scam. It's just it was 2008 wasn't that long ago,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: but it just it's a completely different world on the Internet. Yeah.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Well, it doesn't feel like it was that long ago,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: but it was almost, you know, 20 years.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I guess that's true. It was kind of a long
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: time ago.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: I graduated high school in 2006. We were listening to
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: that like vitamin C song and the what's it called?
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: The gymnasium. As we go on, we remember. Oh, my gosh. Yes.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: The slideshows of photos. And you're like, we're all going
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: to be super close for the rest of our lives. Yeah.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: We're all definitely going to become Facebook friends. And now
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: I'm still Facebook friends with those people. Yeah, we'll be
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: in touch forever.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: I love to know about lesser known little pockets or
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: worlds of hobbyist gathering. And so I'm glad that Danielle's
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: not dead and I hope she never does it again.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Me too. Okay, I do have a quick recommendation.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Let's hear it.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: As a caveat, we are recording this ahead of time
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: before I go on leave. So all of our recommendations
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: lately are just sort of like they're evergreen. You know,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: you can listen to them at any time.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: They're evergreen. Yeah, I like that.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: It's a good spin. If you missed it when it
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: came out and you're looking for something to listen to,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: go back and listen. I listened to The Last 12 Weeks.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: It's from Serial Productions. Did you happen to listen to
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: that one?
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: No, I haven't listened.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: It basically follows a defense team that is trying to
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: stop the execution of this man named David Wood. The
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: host and producer starts following this team 12 weeks before
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: this man is scheduled to be executed. He's on death row.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: He was convicted of a series of murders in El
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Paso in 1992.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: Do they think that he's innocent or they're just trying
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: to say, we don't think he should be executed?
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: The podcast host and producer never takes a stance on that. Okay.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: David Wood's defense team, I think, believes that he's, some
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: of them probably believe he's innocent. They at least think
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: there's enough reason to question this conviction that he shouldn't
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: be put to death.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, no one should.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: There's definitely people who believe that he's innocent, but they
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: also interview people who are convinced that he's guilty. And
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: he also is guilty of other crimes, but it really
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: focuses on these murders. So he has been basically charged
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: as a serial killer, and they look at all of
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: the compelling reasons why that might not be true. I
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: don't know if I want to say evidence. Okay.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: And I thought it was interesting. You know, it's very
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: much like serial productions. It's very journalistic, where you're sort
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: of a fly on the wall to just witness what
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: goes on. And he doesn't bring a lot of personal
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: opinions into it, which I think is kind of nice
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: to listen to sometimes. It's not like anyone's trying to
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: convince you of anything. And he doesn't shy away from
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the messiness of this, of someone being on death row
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: and of someone who has committed... like horrific crimes in
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the past that no one is really questioning if he
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: did or not. But they're looking at these murders and
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: questioning if he did and what all goes into someone
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: getting a capital punishment sentence and the process of trying
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: to fight that. And so I thought from that perspective,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: it was a really well done, really interesting podcast. If
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: you like that kind of thing and you missed it,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: I would recommend going back and listening. It's only five episodes.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: It's pretty easy to get through.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: I'll have to go back and listen. Yeah.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Well, I hope you all are having a great summer.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: If you are a crafter, a knitter, and you have
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: a project you're proud of, email us.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: Tell Hannah if she should do the tennis ball in
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: all her free time.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: I'm really just trying to get people to email us
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: with anything.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: You guys, tell a friend about the show.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And thank you for listening. We'll be back next week.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: If you have a story for us, we would love
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: to hear it. Our email is thenife at exactlyrightmedia.com. Or
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: you can follow us on Instagram at The Knife Podcast or.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Blue Sky at The Knife Podcast. This has been an
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Exactly Right production. Hosted and produced by me, Hannah Smith.
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: And me, Patia Eaton. Our producers are Tom Breifogel and
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: Alexa Samorosi.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Tom Breifogel.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.