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Off Record: The Love Rat · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Knight Fop Record. I'm Patia Eton, I'm
0:24
Speaker 1: Hannah Smith, and today I have a story for you, Patia. Okay,
0:30
Speaker 1: but before that, I want to make a little announcement.
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Speaker 1: So coming up very soon, I will be leaving the
0:39
Speaker 1: show temporarily. I am having a human child, so I
0:47
Speaker 1: will be taking off a little bit of time from
0:50
Speaker 1: the show. But Patia and I have been recording furiously
0:53
Speaker 1: in preparation for this, so we have some episodes ready
0:58
Speaker 1: to go for everybody.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we've done some recording in advance. But you know,
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Speaker 2: there will be a few episodes where you hear less
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Speaker 2: of Hannah, which we will all miss you. But you
1:09
Speaker 2: will be back and I will be back. We're all
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Speaker 2: so excited for you.
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Speaker 1: Thank you. It'll be a new a new adventure, new adventure. Yeah, okay,
1:17
Speaker 1: So onto the good stuff. Yes, okay. So this is
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Speaker 1: a story out of Australia. The headline caught my eye
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Speaker 1: because of the term love rat. Have you ever heard this?
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Speaker 2: No, but I like it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. It's an Australian term for like a romance fraudster,
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Speaker 1: a love rat, or someone who is unfaithful. It's used
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Speaker 1: in so many news articles.
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Speaker 2: This is like a technical term love rat, a love rat.
1:47
Speaker 1: This is a story about a love rat.
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Speaker 2: I love the term love rat because I feel like
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Speaker 2: con artist because of the way we portray con artists
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Speaker 2: and like movies or whatever that they're like these smart, sexy,
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Speaker 2: cunning individuals. It's like they're rats.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. But also love rat sort of seems like it
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Speaker 1: could be a stuffed animal. It's kind of cute.
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Speaker 2: Right, like a jelly cat. This is the love rat.
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Speaker 2: This is the love thirty six dollars and your kid's
2:14
Speaker 2: gonna lose them on your next flight.
2:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to have it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So I saw some articles about this and then searched
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Speaker 1: around and I found a short documentary about it. It's
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Speaker 1: actually just one episode of a series that I'd never
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Speaker 1: heard of. Each episode is about a different like romance scam.
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Speaker 1: It's called love Cheats. It's out of the UK and
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Speaker 1: I couldn't find it streaming anywhere, but I watched this
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Speaker 1: on YouTube with ads and I think you can like
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Speaker 1: buy episodes on Amazon and it was really good. So
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Speaker 1: I'm excited actually to watch more of the episodes. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Great, me too.
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Speaker 1: I also heard a radio interview with one of this
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Speaker 1: love rat's victims. So let's get into it. So this
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Speaker 1: takes place in Perth, Australia in twenty sixteen. Perth is
3:01
Speaker 1: a coastal city in Western Australia. Have you ever been
3:04
Speaker 1: to Australia?
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Speaker 2: Never been? But Perth is where Donna Nelson and her family. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: that's right. This was a love rat.
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Speaker 1: This was also a love rat story that ended tragically.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, with Donna and Nelson being in jail in Japan.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Okay, So this takes place in Perth, which
3:22
Speaker 1: is you were saying it's on the coast. It's in
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Speaker 1: Western Australia, Okay, and it is a coastal city. Yeah,
3:30
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. Okay, So Sean, we meet Sean. He
3:34
Speaker 1: is just the nicest man, like danger, danger, so sweet. No,
3:39
Speaker 1: he is so Sean. Oh, I don't want to worry
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Speaker 1: about Sean's the victim of Okay, apologies. He is just like,
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Speaker 1: is such a sweet guy. He works with kids with disabilities.
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Speaker 1: He's like a teacher and a coach, and he's just
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Speaker 1: living his life in Perth. I think probably in twenty
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Speaker 1: sixteen he was in his late twenties maybe and kind
4:02
Speaker 1: of ready for a long term relationship. He really wanted
4:06
Speaker 1: to meet someone. He wanted to be a dad really badly,
4:09
Speaker 1: and so he's on Tinder one day and he matches
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Speaker 1: with someone with the user named Arrow and they start
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Speaker 1: chatting and there's this immediate good conversation, good chemistry, and
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Speaker 1: Aero says that she just got to Australia recently, within
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Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks, and she has her six
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Speaker 1: month old child with her. They are staying in a
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Speaker 1: camper van. She's like a very adventurous spirit type of
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Speaker 1: person and she has this goal to travel around Australia
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Speaker 1: and just sort of live this adventurous van life with
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Speaker 1: her kid. That does sound adventurous, Yeah, I mean just
4:48
Speaker 1: the flight there. She's from the UK, but still I
4:53
Speaker 1: don't know, Okay, Yeah, any flight to Australia alone with
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Speaker 1: a toddler or an infant, I guess a six six
4:59
Speaker 1: month Yeah, just a baby. Yeah, that's you're brave, Michael
5:06
Speaker 1: Is to never bring my child on a plane till
5:09
Speaker 1: their least one. I'm one hundred percent behind you on that.
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Speaker 1: It is it just seems hard. It is really hard.
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Speaker 1: It will test every part of you. Yeah, and she's
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Speaker 1: just she's cruising, living it up in a van with
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Speaker 1: her kid. She seems very laid back and Sean likes this,
5:26
Speaker 1: so they decide to meet up for a drink. Okay,
5:28
Speaker 1: so the documentary says that she has a baby daughter.
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Speaker 1: There was one article that said her son. The documentary,
5:34
Speaker 1: I think change some facts to protect different people. Some
5:39
Speaker 1: of the people's names are not what their real names are.
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Speaker 1: It's unclear, you know, if this is her son or daughter,
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Speaker 1: but doesn't really matter. It's her six month old child,
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Speaker 1: and we'll call her Sarah, just so that it's clear.
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Speaker 1: So Aero and Sarah meet up with Sean and it's
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Speaker 1: just a blast. They have a great time. The conversation
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Speaker 1: is flowing. It's like one of the states he's been
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Speaker 1: on in a long time. He's also not freaked out
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Speaker 1: at all that she has a kid, because he loves
6:04
Speaker 1: kids and he wants to be a family man.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. He works with children.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and Sarah's really cute and so he's like great.
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Speaker 1: Arrow does come clean to him on the first date.
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Speaker 1: Her real name is not Arrow, her name is Rebecca.
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Speaker 1: But she's sort of on the run from an abusive
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Speaker 1: X in the UK Sarah's dad. So she said she
6:24
Speaker 1: finally extricated herself from that horrible situation and left the
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Speaker 1: country and is kind of trying to start over and
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Speaker 1: like turn a fresh page in Australia. And this is
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Speaker 1: endearing to Sean and he's like, I'm sorry I went
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Speaker 1: through that, but I'm glad you're here and hopefully things
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Speaker 1: turn around for you.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So she's living in her van with her six
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Speaker 2: month old just like driving around Perth, or she has
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Speaker 2: like a campsite situation.
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Speaker 1: I don't know if she like always stays in the
6:49
Speaker 1: same place. She has this camper van. He said that
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Speaker 1: over the course of the time that he knows her,
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Speaker 1: sometimes she has an apartment, other times she just wants
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Speaker 1: to live in the van and is this free spirit
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Speaker 1: kind of person.
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Speaker 2: And how old are they? Do we know?
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Speaker 1: I think that she's like thirty okay at the time.
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Speaker 1: They never say his age, but he seemed like he
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Speaker 1: was probably like late twenties, early thirties, and so on
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Speaker 1: her tender profile, she would go by Arrow or sometimes
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Speaker 1: Arrow Anderson.
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Speaker 2: So Aero was not like an avatar name. It was
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Speaker 2: her or like account name, username, whatever, it's called Arrow
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Speaker 2: was her name.
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Speaker 1: She also went by Arrow. He calls her Arrow throughout
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Speaker 1: the documentary.
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Speaker 2: Name.
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Speaker 1: He knows that her name is Rebecca. Okay, she goes
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Speaker 1: by either, gotcha? Sean described Arrow. I'll just call her
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Speaker 1: Arrow for the sake of this podcast. Sean described Arrow
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Speaker 1: as engaging and dynamic, and just that things started to
7:45
Speaker 1: move quickly. They started to see each other all the time,
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Speaker 1: and they're dating. Things are going really great. And about
7:51
Speaker 1: two to three months in, he's in deep. He's envisioning
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Speaker 1: a future with her. He's bonded with baby Sarah. Knowing
7:58
Speaker 1: that her dad is this abusive guy. He's sort of like,
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Speaker 1: maybe I could be the guy that steps up and
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Speaker 1: is like the dad in her life.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean she's only six months old. It's like
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Speaker 2: if he's hitting it off with her mom Aaro, I
8:11
Speaker 2: feel like, if you're a single mom, you want to
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Speaker 2: meet someone who's like, immediately not undeterred by you having
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Speaker 2: a child. You don't have to convince them, right totally.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And so things are going really well, and this
8:27
Speaker 1: is when Aaro delivers the bad news to him. Oh no,
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Speaker 1: she says she has terminal liver cancer. She says you know,
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Speaker 1: she's gotten different estimates from doctors, but they think she
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Speaker 1: has about six months to live.
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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Okay, so six months to live. But
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Speaker 2: she's in Australia and her whole family is in the UK. Yeah, okay.
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Speaker 2: Is she going to treatment in Australia?
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Speaker 1: She says she's going to start treatment. She wants to
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Speaker 1: fight it. She says she's had cancer before and she survived,
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Speaker 1: so even though they're saying this is terminal, she's like,
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Speaker 1: you know, I want to do everything I can to
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Speaker 1: fight this. I'm going to start treatment. I have this daughter.
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Speaker 1: And he is like, well, this is a new relationship.
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Speaker 1: But he just makes the decision to commit to her
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Speaker 1: and be a partner with her through this and be
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Speaker 1: on board. So he's like, how can I support you?
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Speaker 1: Can I drive you to your doctor's appointments. She doesn't
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Speaker 1: want him going in with her, but he'll babysit Sarah. Well,
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Speaker 1: she's because.
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Speaker 2: I was going to say someone you can't bring your
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Speaker 2: baby in if you're getting like radiation or something.
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Speaker 1: He steps up in a big way. Wow, he's taking
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Speaker 1: care of Sarah, babysitting her, driving arrow to appointments and
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Speaker 1: knowing you know this could all end terribly for him,
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Speaker 1: like she could die, but he already basically loves her
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Speaker 1: and says, well, if she's only going to live for
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Speaker 1: six more months, I want them to be great and
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Speaker 1: I want to spend them with her. And he's also
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Speaker 1: starting to think about Sarah and think, okay, well one
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Speaker 1: of her parents is this abusive, terrible guy. What if
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Speaker 1: her other parent dies? Like what is my place in this?
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Speaker 1: And kind of preparing himself like I might have to
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Speaker 1: step up and like adopt her or like her dad.
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Speaker 1: You know?
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Speaker 2: Yeah? Is he asking Arrow, doesn't your family want you
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Speaker 2: to come home while you're going through this?
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Speaker 1: They don't talk about her family and I couldn't find
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Speaker 1: anything about her family and articles.
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Speaker 2: Maybe she had her reasons.
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Speaker 1: I don't know what she told him about that, but
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Speaker 1: she didn't say that she had any plans to go
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Speaker 1: back to the UK. She was going to stay in Australia.
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Speaker 1: In the documentary, they show videos and photos of them
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Speaker 1: together going to the beach, like family home video type
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Speaker 1: of stuff, just living their lives, so you know, they
10:39
Speaker 1: continue to be together. Sometimes she would he said, she
10:41
Speaker 1: was seeming really sick and be throwing up and have
10:44
Speaker 1: like eggs and pains. Other times she was better, but
10:46
Speaker 1: that kind of felt normal to him, Like in between
10:49
Speaker 1: these harsher treatments, she starts to feel better and then
10:51
Speaker 1: she goes in for treatments and she says she has
10:54
Speaker 1: to have these series of treatments. At one point she
10:56
Speaker 1: has to have transfusions and that like blood blood transcasion.
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Speaker 2: That sounds intense.
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Speaker 1: She has all these text messages, so she'll update him
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Speaker 1: about like I'm really hopeful that this will work, and
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Speaker 1: then she'll have the bad news of that it really
11:12
Speaker 1: didn't work, but we're gonna try something different. At one point,
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Speaker 1: she said she has to have a spinal tap. And
11:18
Speaker 1: it seems like they text a lot when they're not
11:20
Speaker 1: with each other, and so there's this whole record kind
11:23
Speaker 1: of of everything that they say to each other in
11:25
Speaker 1: this conversation, and it really comes off as this roller
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Speaker 1: coaster where she'll say I think I'm feeling better and
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Speaker 1: the things are going well, and then it'll just be
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Speaker 1: like a down turn of like bad news from the
11:35
Speaker 1: doctor today, it's liver cancer. Did she know what stage?
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Speaker 1: They never say this stage?
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Speaker 2: Did she have like a prognosis of you know, I'm
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Speaker 2: expected to live this long or it was just like.
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Speaker 1: She said it was terminal and that she was given
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Speaker 1: six months. Oh six months, maybe you already said that. Okay, wow, okay,
11:55
Speaker 1: so six months and that's about three months into their relationship.
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Speaker 2: Oh right, Because then he just makes decision, Yeah, like
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Speaker 2: I'm just gonna be with her for those six months,
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Speaker 2: if that's what this is, because I just care so
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Speaker 2: deeply already.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And Sean has a steady job, but he
12:11
Speaker 1: is starting to like help pay for things for Sarah
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Speaker 1: and she needs help with her medical bills sometimes, so
12:18
Speaker 1: he ends up getting like a second job. He starts
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Speaker 1: driving for Uber and the interview his friends, one of
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Speaker 1: his friends and his mom actually in the documentary, and
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Speaker 1: they're again so nice. They talk about what a strain
12:30
Speaker 1: this period of time was on him, like they could
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Speaker 1: tell that he was stressed. He's working more, he's feeling
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Speaker 1: the financial strain. He has this worry about Arrow and
12:39
Speaker 1: if he's going to like lose this woman that.
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Speaker 2: He loves and he's caring for a baby.
12:42
Speaker 1: And he's caring for a baby, so it's very stressful,
12:45
Speaker 1: but he's super committed to her. So then six months
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Speaker 1: into their relationship, so this is like three months after
12:51
Speaker 1: she gets this terrible diagnosis. Okay, she says she wants
12:55
Speaker 1: to do this road trip. It's on her bucket list.
12:58
Speaker 1: It's this sort of famous Australian road trip. It's across
13:02
Speaker 1: the Nullibarlarbor, going from Perth to Adelaide, the Nullabar. I
13:10
Speaker 1: looked this up. It's this sort of there's a lot
13:13
Speaker 1: of like blogs about it, a lot of travel writing
13:16
Speaker 1: about you gotta do the epic Nullibar road trip. And
13:20
Speaker 1: it's basically going like kind of across the southern coast
13:26
Speaker 1: of Australia from like Western Australia going east to Adelaide.
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Speaker 1: And it's described as this very rural stretch of road.
13:36
Speaker 1: If you drove it NonStop, it would take twelve hours,
13:40
Speaker 1: but most people, if you're gonna do the road trip,
13:41
Speaker 1: take three to four days to do it.
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Speaker 2: And if you're gonna do it with a baby, I mean, yeah,
13:46
Speaker 2: how long can you leave your little baby in a
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Speaker 2: car seat? Like you're gonna have to do a lot
13:49
Speaker 2: of stops.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it's this like treeless expanse full of wildlife,
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Speaker 1: super rural. They say to bring your own water because
13:57
Speaker 1: there's not that many fuel stops. You really have to
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Speaker 1: plan this and this is not for me. This is
14:04
Speaker 1: not for me. I immediately clocked pat I would ever do. Yeah,
14:07
Speaker 1: people kept writing, Oh, it's so epic, you have to
14:10
Speaker 1: do it. I assume it's because there's beautiful nature things
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Speaker 1: to see. I did see a picture at one point.
14:17
Speaker 1: It's on the coast and there's like beautiful cliffs and
14:19
Speaker 1: then the ocean. It looked really nice, but I couldn't
14:23
Speaker 1: really tell why it was so epic other than that.
14:25
Speaker 1: Like one blog I read listed the best stops and
14:28
Speaker 1: it was like there's a museum that had some old
14:31
Speaker 1: like flight equipment. Like I was like, what is in this?
14:35
Speaker 2: No, Like, I live in California, I'm from the Northwest.
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Speaker 2: I've seen a cliff. I'd rather not like drive through
14:40
Speaker 2: somewhere where I better bring my own water.
14:43
Speaker 1: One of the big attractions is an enormous kangaroo statue
14:48
Speaker 1: that's holding a jar of vegamite.
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Speaker 2: Okay, see you Now, my kid would love this. She
14:53
Speaker 2: would love to take a picture, to take a picture
14:56
Speaker 2: of it. If they had a gift shop, she'd go, Ham,
14:59
Speaker 2: I don't know that there's a shop.
15:01
Speaker 1: It might just be a statue in the desert.
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Speaker 2: If I am traveling to a destination, I need a
15:06
Speaker 2: gift shop.
15:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know how many gift shops are along
15:09
Speaker 1: the Nula Bar. I think very few.
15:11
Speaker 2: Well, okay, So they're doing this with a six month
15:14
Speaker 2: old and it's going to take them at least four days.
15:18
Speaker 1: Probably like three or four days, it's depending. Okay, And
15:22
Speaker 1: so Sean likes this idea because he's like, well, he's
15:25
Speaker 1: on your bucket list. This will be an adventure. Let's
15:27
Speaker 1: do it together. Also, his family lives in Adelaide, that's
15:30
Speaker 1: where he's from, and so they're in Perth, so they're
15:32
Speaker 1: going to drive to Adelaide and then they'll see his
15:35
Speaker 1: family and she can meet his family. So they do this.
15:38
Speaker 1: They go on this road trip and it's really fun.
15:41
Speaker 1: They take a lot of pictures, do all the stops
15:43
Speaker 1: and get to Adelaide and this is where he introduces
15:46
Speaker 1: Arrow and Sarah to his mom, the big step. Yeah,
15:50
Speaker 1: and he's already told his mom all about them. She's thrilled,
15:54
Speaker 1: she loves them. She basically feels like she's meeting her
15:56
Speaker 1: grandchild and her potential daughter in law. And everyone gets
16:00
Speaker 1: along super well. It's like this very happy, emotional thing,
16:04
Speaker 1: and they're going to be there for like eight days
16:07
Speaker 1: or something. But then one day while they're there, Aero
16:12
Speaker 1: leaves her phone on the table and Sean sees a
16:15
Speaker 1: message pop up on it, and it is from someone
16:18
Speaker 1: named Matt, not his real name. I'm just calling him that,
16:21
Speaker 1: and it says hi baby with a heart emoji.
16:25
Speaker 2: Okay. See, leaving your phone on a table if you
16:29
Speaker 2: are up to no good unfathomable to me. Like the
16:33
Speaker 2: stress that I would live with, even if I was
16:36
Speaker 2: so committed to doing something like that, The stress that
16:39
Speaker 2: I would live with clocking where my phone was at
16:41
Speaker 2: all times. I also like, I don't even get important
16:45
Speaker 2: text messages or secret of text messages, and I have
16:48
Speaker 2: it set up where the text doesn't show up. It's
16:51
Speaker 2: just a name.
16:52
Speaker 1: What are you hiding, Patia?
16:53
Speaker 2: I just feel like, what if my you know, what
16:56
Speaker 2: if my friend texting something she doesn't want the whole
16:58
Speaker 2: room to see. This is true just for that reason alone.
17:01
Speaker 2: So to be so confident to just like, yeah, set
17:04
Speaker 2: your phone down and walk away. Okay, So really Matt.
17:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this was in twenty sixteen, but I still
17:10
Speaker 1: feel like that was the case. Then yeah, you know,
17:14
Speaker 1: so Sean is sort of freaking out. Who is Matt
17:16
Speaker 1: is a good question, he confronts Arrow. She says, Oh, Matt,
17:22
Speaker 1: he's my gay friend. He's always texting me things like
17:24
Speaker 1: that classic. He's like so loving, but it's not romantic
17:28
Speaker 1: or anything. You know, he's gay. So Sean is sort
17:31
Speaker 1: of like, okay, but you know again, it's that thing
17:35
Speaker 1: where he has so much invested in this. They're at
17:38
Speaker 1: his mom's house. He's like, okay, all right.
17:42
Speaker 2: You know, sounds like they're spending every waking moment together,
17:45
Speaker 2: So that's got to be a little bit reassuring.
17:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they just did this epic road track.
17:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's meeting his family.
17:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they still have like a week left there
17:54
Speaker 1: and his birthday is coming up. So on his birthday,
18:04
Speaker 1: she has another big thing to tell him, and she
18:08
Speaker 1: tells him, I'm pregnant. Okay.
18:13
Speaker 2: I have so many questions because I don't know everything
18:17
Speaker 2: there has to know about cancer treatment. I know very little,
18:19
Speaker 2: but like I would imagine that you're on some pretty
18:22
Speaker 2: heavy medication that might make that difficult one hundred percent
18:28
Speaker 2: not to mention or even dangerous, dangerous right like to
18:32
Speaker 2: her to the fetus. You know, she already is looking
18:36
Speaker 2: at possibly dying, dying when her daughter's a baby.
18:40
Speaker 1: She has only three months left of her six month
18:43
Speaker 1: prognosis to live, but announces that she's pregnant.
18:47
Speaker 2: Right that, Like that is so bizarre because I would
18:49
Speaker 2: think that would be heavy on your mind to just
18:52
Speaker 2: situate your daughter that you already have in your life.
18:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So but she says it with like she's
19:00
Speaker 1: really happy. He's really happy. He's thrilled because he's like
19:03
Speaker 1: because he loves her. He loves her, he's like family guy. Yeah,
19:06
Speaker 1: he's like, great, let's have another kid. This is amazing.
19:09
Speaker 1: When he tells his friends and his mom, they both
19:12
Speaker 1: like sort of say, yeah, I was sort of concerned
19:16
Speaker 1: because I thought, well, she has cancer. They had the
19:18
Speaker 1: reaction that we just did. Yeah okay, but they also
19:22
Speaker 1: didn't want to be too invasive, and we're like, well,
19:24
Speaker 1: I don't know, like fully what's going on with her health.
19:26
Speaker 1: And obviously you guys are really excited, so I don't
19:29
Speaker 1: want to rain on your parade here.
19:32
Speaker 2: Right, Like, there's only one acceptable response to someone telling
19:37
Speaker 2: you they're pregnant, and that is congratulations, like truly, Yeah.
19:42
Speaker 1: So they really bond over this. It's interesting that she
19:45
Speaker 1: tells him this like shortly after she gets this text
19:47
Speaker 1: from Matt and he's kind of like, what's going on,
19:50
Speaker 1: and then suddenly, but I'm pregnant. We're gonna have another
19:52
Speaker 1: baby and it's gonna be amazing.
19:54
Speaker 2: Suspect.
19:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, So they tell his mom, you're gonna be a grandma.
19:59
Speaker 1: Then tells him, you know what, you should stay in
20:01
Speaker 1: Adelaide a few more days with your family because you're
20:04
Speaker 1: having such a good time here. I really wanted to do,
20:07
Speaker 1: Like when I first moved to Australia, my goal was
20:09
Speaker 1: to travel around in this campra van with Sarah and
20:12
Speaker 1: my daughter and just like have some mother daughter you know,
20:17
Speaker 1: road tripping and adventuring. So now that we've done the
20:19
Speaker 1: Nu Lahmar, like, I want to do the return trip
20:22
Speaker 1: by myself.
20:23
Speaker 2: Which it's like, on the one hand, I guess I
20:25
Speaker 2: understand any mom wanting one on one time with their baby,
20:29
Speaker 2: especially in a situation like this where you might not
20:32
Speaker 2: be living for very long. But on the other it's
20:35
Speaker 2: like if you're in a country that you're not from
20:38
Speaker 2: and you are living out of a van and you're
20:42
Speaker 2: living with cancer, that you're actively treating, I would think
20:45
Speaker 2: you would want all hands on deck. Yeah, like what
20:48
Speaker 2: if I'm sick tomorrow and I need someone to change
20:52
Speaker 2: a diaper or run out and get more food for
20:54
Speaker 2: her or whatever it is. That's like, yeah, it just
20:58
Speaker 2: sounds really unsafe on it.
21:00
Speaker 1: That's what he thought too. But it's sort of like
21:03
Speaker 1: sounds like she was very convincing, and also his mom
21:07
Speaker 1: said something like it didn't seem like a good idea,
21:10
Speaker 1: but also she just seemed so brave, so adventurous, and
21:14
Speaker 1: like nothing could stop her. And I wonder if that's
21:17
Speaker 1: also how they're sort of looking at this cancer diagnosis,
21:20
Speaker 1: Like she's kind of like I can beat it, you know,
21:23
Speaker 1: they say, I have it's terminal, but I'm going to
21:25
Speaker 1: live my life. Like she kind of had this unstoppable
21:28
Speaker 1: quality to.
21:29
Speaker 2: Her, which sounds like, you know, one of the reasons
21:32
Speaker 2: that he was so drawn to her is that she
21:34
Speaker 2: had this adventurous spirit and seemed to have like a
21:38
Speaker 2: positive demeanor and outlook on life. But on the other
21:41
Speaker 2: it's like, I don't know, do doctors going around giving
21:43
Speaker 2: terminal diagnoses to people who weren't terminal. It seems like
21:47
Speaker 2: a that would not be the doctor I would want no.
21:51
Speaker 1: So anyway, she does it, And so the whole time
21:55
Speaker 1: that she's on the way back, he's getting text Some
21:57
Speaker 1: of them are like, oh, the van broke down and
22:00
Speaker 1: I'm so stressed out. So he's like sending her money
22:02
Speaker 1: to get it repaired. But then he's also getting great
22:05
Speaker 1: text messages pictures of her and Sarah, like on the road,
22:09
Speaker 1: and she's texting in all this stuff about how excited
22:13
Speaker 1: she is to have this kid with him, and so
22:15
Speaker 1: he's basically just thrilled. He's just like, Wow, I can't
22:18
Speaker 1: believe that we're gonna have a baby together. So then
22:22
Speaker 1: he flies back to Perth. They're back in Perth together.
22:24
Speaker 1: This is about four weeks later, and again she wants
22:28
Speaker 1: to go on an adventure. She has a holiday coming
22:31
Speaker 1: up from It sounds like she doesn't really have a
22:34
Speaker 1: steady job, but she'll get jobs here and there, and
22:37
Speaker 1: there's a national holiday coming up and so she says, Hey,
22:40
Speaker 1: I'm going to go camping with some of my girlfriends.
22:43
Speaker 2: So she really is not having a lot of early
22:45
Speaker 2: pregnancy symptoms. That must be the case, because that is
22:49
Speaker 2: already challenging.
22:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, and plus like having to go through treatments. I
22:54
Speaker 1: don't know how that was all working. Yeah, he wasn't
22:57
Speaker 1: really included in that, like she would keep him abreast
22:59
Speaker 1: of but he never met her doctor or like went
23:03
Speaker 1: to any of her doctor's appointments with her. So she says,
23:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to go camping with some girlfriends again. He's like,
23:10
Speaker 1: this doesn't seem like a great idea, like what if
23:12
Speaker 1: you get sick or what if you're not feeling well.
23:14
Speaker 1: She's like it'll be fine. So over the weekend, she's
23:18
Speaker 1: somewhere else, camping in a rural location with her girlfriends,
23:23
Speaker 1: and he gets a text from her late at night
23:27
Speaker 1: one night that says like I'm really not feeling well.
23:31
Speaker 1: Something's wrong. He's like, Okay, where are you. I'll come.
23:34
Speaker 1: She's like, no, no, no, don't worry, Like I'm already
23:37
Speaker 1: on my way to the hospital, Like you don't have
23:39
Speaker 1: to come, but I just want to let you know.
23:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like sending a text like that, but don't worry.
23:45
Speaker 2: I mean, how could someone not worry at that point? Yeah,
23:49
Speaker 2: And he's watching Sarah while she's camping.
23:51
Speaker 1: It's unclear, Okay, so he's texting her, texting her Okay,
23:56
Speaker 1: what's going on? Calling her, She's not responding for a
23:58
Speaker 1: long time, and then she finally text him that she's
24:03
Speaker 1: had a miscarriage.
24:05
Speaker 2: Do we know how many weeks she says she is.
24:08
Speaker 1: This was a month after she told him.
24:11
Speaker 2: So presumably like this would be on the earlier side,
24:14
Speaker 2: but you know, still could be a very difficult experience.
24:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so she said she's in the hospital. She's devastated.
24:22
Speaker 1: He's devastated, you know, but he says, you know, this
24:26
Speaker 1: is a really hard thing to hear and go through. Yeah,
24:30
Speaker 1: but it also makes him just feel more bonded to
24:34
Speaker 1: her and like it's okay, We're going to get through this.
24:36
Speaker 1: And he also felt like, well, I want to have
24:39
Speaker 1: a kid with you someday, Like we have a future
24:41
Speaker 1: together and we'll get through all of this. He seems
24:44
Speaker 1: like such a good guy.
24:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's so sweet. And it's also like,
24:48
Speaker 2: from what I know about cancer treatment, your advice to
24:52
Speaker 2: freeze eggs.
24:53
Speaker 1: I know, I'm like, but you should have been in
24:56
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen.
24:57
Speaker 2: I mean, but yeah, and maybe this is just things
25:01
Speaker 2: have changed a lot, even in the last five years.
25:03
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm hearing so much more about egg
25:05
Speaker 2: freezing than ever before, and not just obviously for people
25:09
Speaker 2: with cancer, but for women who want to just preserve
25:14
Speaker 2: that option for later in their life. I mean, I
25:16
Speaker 2: don't know, yeah, but I have heard that some cancer
25:19
Speaker 2: treatments will affect your fertility. So yeah, that's yeah, it's
25:23
Speaker 2: a potentially a pretty big issue. I mean, yeah, in
25:26
Speaker 2: miscarriage is no small thing, no matter when it happens, obviously,
25:29
Speaker 2: but just thinking about her fragile health, that's terrible.
25:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so they get through this, she's, you know,
25:37
Speaker 1: starting to feel better, and then a few weeks later
25:41
Speaker 1: it's like it's just like one thing after the other.
25:43
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, she tells Arrow tells Sean that
25:46
Speaker 1: Sarah's dad, the abusive guy in the UK, has started
25:50
Speaker 1: a custody battle over Sarah. And this ends up being true,
25:56
Speaker 1: and Sarah's dad supposedly has put a lot of money
25:58
Speaker 1: into this, gotten really good lawyer. Now Arrow is sort
26:02
Speaker 1: of freaking out, like I need to also put money
26:05
Speaker 1: into this. I need to not let him take my child.
26:10
Speaker 1: And Sean obviously feels very invested in this as well.
26:14
Speaker 1: So now he's just giving her more money because the
26:17
Speaker 1: court costs are adding up. She needs to get an attorney.
26:20
Speaker 1: She has to like pay all these fees. He starts
26:23
Speaker 1: asking his parents for money. They give him like multiple
26:27
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars toward Arrow's court battle and court case.
26:32
Speaker 2: This is such an intense start to their relationship. Yeah,
26:36
Speaker 2: to be dealing with a custody battle, a terminal illness,
26:41
Speaker 2: and a miss message.
26:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think that maybe like a year in now,
26:47
Speaker 1: and she's obviously still alive, and this is like a
26:51
Speaker 1: random thing that they talked about, but it will be
26:53
Speaker 1: important for later. So Arrow tells him that her gay
26:57
Speaker 1: best friend Matt is going out of the country and
27:01
Speaker 1: he's purchased this house, but she has offered to help
27:04
Speaker 1: him decorate it and kind of get it nice looking,
27:08
Speaker 1: and that he might give them some money for this,
27:11
Speaker 1: and so this would be a good idea to help
27:13
Speaker 1: with the costs. So Sean, who's already working like multiple jobs,
27:17
Speaker 1: agrees to come help her do this for like a week,
27:20
Speaker 1: and he's like, she kind of would help sometimes, but
27:23
Speaker 1: then she's feeling sick. So he's like painting the walls
27:26
Speaker 1: in Matt's house and doing all of this work. Has
27:29
Speaker 1: he Matt never met Matt? I want to meet Matt
27:32
Speaker 1: and he's never met Matt.
27:34
Speaker 2: Okay, so he's never met Matt. I mean the energy
27:38
Speaker 2: level here is really impressive, like caring for a baby, working,
27:42
Speaker 2: caring for Arrow who's terminally ill. I mean Sean, he
27:48
Speaker 2: has a lot of like stamina.
27:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sean could use some self care probably, Yeah, and
27:55
Speaker 1: then like you know, redoing Matt's house, who he's never met.
27:58
Speaker 2: It's awfully nice.
28:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know, time goes by. When Sewn and
28:03
Speaker 1: Arrow have been together eighteen months, so.
28:06
Speaker 2: A year and a half, so she's outlived her. She's
28:08
Speaker 2: outlived her six months, six months.
28:10
Speaker 1: And I don't know exactly how that's getting explained or
28:13
Speaker 1: if she's in remission or what. One day she just
28:17
Speaker 1: ghosts him. They've been in basically daily contact for a
28:21
Speaker 1: year and a half.
28:22
Speaker 2: And that also means like over that year and a half,
28:26
Speaker 2: Sarah has become a toddler. Yeah, that he's been probably
28:30
Speaker 2: very bonded to and vice versa.
28:32
Speaker 1: She's like two now and she just.
28:34
Speaker 2: Ghosts And how does do you know how it happened?
28:37
Speaker 2: Like he goes home and she's not there. They weren't
28:40
Speaker 2: living together, okay, right right? Right?
28:42
Speaker 1: Ever, I think that she she was either in the
28:44
Speaker 1: van or would have apartments here and there, so she
28:46
Speaker 1: would stay with him a lot, but they were never
28:48
Speaker 1: like officially living together, it sounds like.
28:51
Speaker 2: And then she's just gone.
28:52
Speaker 1: So he's texting her. He can't get a hold of
28:54
Speaker 1: her for I don't know, a day. It's like not
28:56
Speaker 1: a ton of time, but when you're usually in contact
28:59
Speaker 1: all the time, and there's all these questions about her health. Yeah,
29:03
Speaker 1: he starts to really worry, like, oh my gosh, this
29:05
Speaker 1: going to happen. Is she in a hospital?
29:08
Speaker 2: Right?
29:15
Speaker 1: He's texting her, he's calling her. Nothing. Eventually he gets
29:20
Speaker 1: so worried. The only place he can think of to
29:23
Speaker 1: go is Matt's house, because he knows where Matt liss Right,
29:28
Speaker 1: he painted the inside of his house, he renovated it. Yeah, Okay,
29:31
Speaker 1: he's never met Matt, but he's like, maybe Matt knows
29:34
Speaker 1: something about where she is or whatever. So he drives
29:37
Speaker 1: to Matt's.
29:37
Speaker 2: House because surely, if he knows about Matt, Matt must
29:40
Speaker 2: know about him. He assumed, so, right, reasonable assumption. He
29:45
Speaker 2: drives to Matt's house, knocks on the door. A guy comes,
29:48
Speaker 2: answers the door, and he's like, are you Matt guy's
29:51
Speaker 2: like yeah. He's like, is Arrow here? And he says yeah,
29:56
Speaker 2: and Sean just busts through the door and it's like
29:59
Speaker 2: looking for her, like freaking out, and he finds her
30:02
Speaker 2: in Matt's bedroom in bed. Oh no no, no, no, no, no.
30:06
Speaker 1: No, and he's like, what the hell, So Matt is
30:11
Speaker 1: not her gay friend. Arrow explains her way out of
30:15
Speaker 1: this one how he is like, it was like a
30:18
Speaker 1: magic trick. I don't know how she convinced me that
30:21
Speaker 1: everything was fine. But she's like, let's go out to
30:25
Speaker 1: the car. So they go, so we.
30:26
Speaker 2: Put my clothes, Let's go out to the car. Okay.
30:29
Speaker 1: She's like, look, I guess Aero and Sean had been
30:33
Speaker 1: in like a little bit of a disagreement before she
30:36
Speaker 1: goes sim She was like, I was really upset and
30:39
Speaker 1: I just called Matt and was like I need to
30:41
Speaker 1: come over and bring a bottle of wine and just
30:43
Speaker 1: like have some friend time. She's like, we stayed up
30:46
Speaker 1: all night chatting. I was ignoring you know, your messages.
30:49
Speaker 1: I was upset, and then he slept on the couch.
30:53
Speaker 1: I just like passed out in the bedroom.
30:55
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
30:56
Speaker 1: And somehow Sean accepts this story.
31:00
Speaker 2: Where is Matt. Is Mat just in the house, like
31:02
Speaker 2: the house, I guess, go have your conversation.
31:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, She's like, I'll take care of this to Matt,
31:07
Speaker 1: and then is telling Sean all the stuff.
31:10
Speaker 2: Do I know where Sarah is in this moment?
31:12
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that Sarah is there too.
31:14
Speaker 1: Look at the house.
31:15
Speaker 2: Wow.
31:16
Speaker 1: So somehow Sean accepts this enough to leave the house
31:20
Speaker 1: and she's like, I'll talk to you soon. He's like, okay.
31:24
Speaker 1: But here's where things all start to come together, because
31:27
Speaker 1: you know, as much as Sean has accepted this story,
31:32
Speaker 1: there's also Matt's version of things, where a random guy
31:35
Speaker 1: shows up at his house and busts through his door,
31:38
Speaker 1: and it's clearly upset that Arrow is there.
31:41
Speaker 2: Arrow has described Matt as her gay friend. Does he
31:44
Speaker 2: have any inkling? Like? Are they just friends?
31:49
Speaker 1: I mean it seems like his first initial impression was no,
31:52
Speaker 1: they've been sleeping together, But then she convinces him right,
31:56
Speaker 1: But Matt is not gay and he is, in fact
31:59
Speaker 1: all so dating the Arrow. Okay, shocker. Yeah. So when
32:04
Speaker 1: Arrow comes back into the house, Matt has questions for her,
32:07
Speaker 1: who is that guy? What is going on?
32:10
Speaker 2: I'm glad. He's asking some questions the hard hitters, Yeah, how.
32:15
Speaker 1: Does he know where I live? And I don't know
32:18
Speaker 1: exactly what she tells Matt, but he seems to be like, Okay,
32:23
Speaker 1: that makes sense, but really he's quite suspicious, but he
32:28
Speaker 1: lets it go. And then a couple days later, she's
32:31
Speaker 1: having like a bad spell from her I guess like
32:35
Speaker 1: cancer treatment that she's still going through, and is like,
32:38
Speaker 1: I gotta go lead down. And again I don't know
32:40
Speaker 1: if she leaves her phone out or what, but he
32:44
Speaker 1: is like, I'm going through her phone. So he takes wait,
32:47
Speaker 1: this is mass still right, this is Matt. Okay, Matt's
32:49
Speaker 1: going to go through the phone. Yeah.
32:51
Speaker 2: Just the fact that that phone isn't locked down like
32:54
Speaker 2: Cia level I can't imagine.
32:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, because what happens is her phone again is
33:00
Speaker 1: like on the counter and he sees a text pop
33:02
Speaker 1: up from Sean and he's like, this is this is
33:05
Speaker 1: the guy that she's in house?
33:07
Speaker 2: My gay friend?
33:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so he sees it pop up and he's like,
33:12
Speaker 1: this is the guy that was just at my house
33:13
Speaker 1: or whatever, and then he asks her, oh, who was
33:16
Speaker 1: that and she says, oh, it was my mom or
33:18
Speaker 1: something she clearly lies.
33:20
Speaker 2: Oh, so he knows that it's Sean because he's.
33:22
Speaker 1: Seen the screen or like he saw I think Sean
33:25
Speaker 1: texted you, and so he's like, okay, she's lying to me.
33:29
Speaker 1: So whenever she goes and lays down, he takes her phone,
33:33
Speaker 1: and I guest knows her password or something. He gets
33:34
Speaker 1: into her phone and he starts looking through it and
33:38
Speaker 1: he finds Sean and he looks through their text message
33:42
Speaker 1: history and he sees everything. He sees like, okay, this
33:48
Speaker 1: whole thing about the pregnancy and the miscarriage and that
33:51
Speaker 1: they're in a relationship, and I mean, he's just reading
33:55
Speaker 1: all of it. He's like, I can't believe this. And
33:59
Speaker 1: the first thing he does is he contacts Sean directly.
34:03
Speaker 2: I love that.
34:04
Speaker 1: Yeah. Immediately he's texting Sean from his number, like what's
34:09
Speaker 1: going on. Are you in a relationship with Arrow? Sean's
34:12
Speaker 1: like yes, and Matt says, so am I.
34:16
Speaker 2: He's like, I thought you were gay.
34:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did say that. She told me you were gay.
34:21
Speaker 1: And he's like, no, I've been dating her. And it
34:23
Speaker 1: turns out they have both been dating her about the
34:26
Speaker 1: same amount of time, and unfortunate they both see themselves
34:31
Speaker 1: as like an adopted dad to Sarah. No, that's devastating.
34:36
Speaker 1: They're both really involved in helping raise Sarah, like taking
34:41
Speaker 1: care of her, buying things for her. They start to
34:44
Speaker 1: put stuff together and they realize they both think that
34:48
Speaker 1: they're sharing costs of living with Arrow, but.
34:52
Speaker 2: They're sharing with each other.
34:54
Speaker 1: Yes.
34:55
Speaker 2: No.
34:56
Speaker 1: So it's like I'm gonna buy Sarah this thing, and
34:59
Speaker 1: Aara's like, yeah, I want to get her this other thing,
35:02
Speaker 1: like a tricycle on something else.
35:04
Speaker 2: But that's stuff that like Sean bought her.
35:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she's not really paying for anything. Yeah, half
35:11
Speaker 1: of the expenses even like for her van Sean said,
35:15
Speaker 1: she paid for the registration, but I decided I would
35:18
Speaker 1: do like upkeep like oil changes. Oh no.
35:20
Speaker 2: And Matt's like, I paid for the regils, I paid
35:22
Speaker 2: for the registration.
35:23
Speaker 1: Oh no. She has these men splitting all of the costs.
35:28
Speaker 2: Which like if everything's out in the open, yeah, for sure,
35:31
Speaker 2: go for it. What do I care? But you can't
35:33
Speaker 2: lie to people.
35:34
Speaker 1: No, So they start to go back through each of
35:37
Speaker 1: them their year and a half relationship with Arrow and
35:40
Speaker 1: start to like talk about dates and things that happen,
35:43
Speaker 1: and it's all coming together.
35:45
Speaker 2: And is Matt also under the impression that Arrow has cancer.
35:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, So here's I'm going to tell you Matt's timeline. Okay,
35:53
Speaker 1: Matt's story. What comes out? So Matt met Arrow two
35:57
Speaker 1: weeks about before she met Sean, also on Tinder. Also,
36:02
Speaker 1: you know she was going by Arrow. Matt had just
36:05
Speaker 1: gone through a major breakup, like not married, but was
36:09
Speaker 1: engaged and broke up, decided to get back online on Tinder,
36:14
Speaker 1: he meets Aero very similar things like they meet up.
36:18
Speaker 1: He says, it just felt like instant connection. He was like,
36:22
Speaker 1: it looks like she was like looking into my soul.
36:24
Speaker 1: We just had this like immediate connection. Also, I loved
36:28
Speaker 1: her daughter, like I thought that was cool. So we
36:30
Speaker 1: started dating and for three months everything was great, and
36:34
Speaker 1: then she dropped the news that she had terminal cancer.
36:37
Speaker 1: Oh no again Matt. He commits to support her through this.
36:43
Speaker 2: So do all single women need to move twaus Chelia
36:46
Speaker 2: because I feel like the men there just sound so kind,
36:50
Speaker 2: truly generous.
36:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean both of these men are like, you
36:54
Speaker 1: know what I got you?
36:55
Speaker 2: Wow.
36:56
Speaker 1: So he's also taking her to her appointments, dropping her off,
37:00
Speaker 1: picking her up when she's getting chemo she never wanted
37:03
Speaker 1: him to come into the appointment. Same thing. He remembered
37:06
Speaker 1: multiple instances of her saying things like like showing him
37:10
Speaker 1: a comb and saying, look how much hair has come
37:12
Speaker 1: out of my head? Oh my god, look at this
37:14
Speaker 1: hair on my pillow, Like my hair is starting to
37:16
Speaker 1: fall out. He said. It was really distressing and he
37:19
Speaker 1: was like so sad and worried for her. Yeah, And
37:22
Speaker 1: then about three months later, she said, you know, I
37:25
Speaker 1: want to do this road trip across the Nulaboor, but
37:29
Speaker 1: I want to do it by myself. You know, me
37:31
Speaker 1: and Sarah we're going to do this and then we're
37:33
Speaker 1: going to like spend time at Adelaide, but you know what,
37:35
Speaker 1: you should fly there and then we can road trip
37:38
Speaker 1: back together.
37:39
Speaker 2: Wow wow Okay, So she was really like scheming here, yes, okay.
37:44
Speaker 1: So when she left Sean and his mom that day
37:47
Speaker 1: and was like, okay, bye, I want quality one on
37:50
Speaker 1: one time with my baby. She drove on an Adelaide
37:53
Speaker 1: airport and picked up Matt who had just flown in.
37:58
Speaker 1: That is like diabolical, and then they road tripped back
38:01
Speaker 1: to her.
38:01
Speaker 2: After she's in Adelaide meeting who Sean thinks are his
38:07
Speaker 2: girlfriend's future in laws, Like he's introducing her to the family.
38:11
Speaker 1: She's just told them all that she's pregnant. Yeah, oh
38:14
Speaker 1: my gosh, okay, and then she goes picks up Matt.
38:17
Speaker 1: Matt of course has no idea, right right, and they
38:20
Speaker 1: road trip back together. You know. Matt said, yeah, I
38:23
Speaker 1: did go to Scotland on a work trip and I
38:26
Speaker 1: didn't ask her to do anything to my house, but
38:28
Speaker 1: she was like, I really want to do this for you.
38:31
Speaker 2: And at what point is Sean like, well that was me.
38:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. Sean's like, I painted your house.
38:39
Speaker 2: I mean it's horrible. It's actually it's horrible, but that
38:42
Speaker 2: is like.
38:45
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Yeah, and he was like I didn't even
38:48
Speaker 1: need her to do that. I mean it was nice.
38:50
Speaker 1: But I came back and he's like, my house looked great.
38:52
Speaker 2: What is with these fraudsters also simultaneously being people pleasers,
38:57
Speaker 2: where it's like, yeah, all of these like grandy gestures
39:01
Speaker 2: that no one asked for.
39:02
Speaker 1: Ye, it's also just a con. Like you told a
39:06
Speaker 1: story recently. I can't remember what story it was. It
39:08
Speaker 1: was a Lisa tick right, right, Yeah, we just did
39:12
Speaker 1: that story recently about Lisa Tickmeyer and.
39:14
Speaker 2: She has similar tendencies, according to the people we spoke with,
39:17
Speaker 2: where it was like with Pete, she's like, I'm going
39:19
Speaker 2: to get your daughter a job. I'm going to get
39:21
Speaker 2: your daughter a car. He never asked her to do.
39:22
Speaker 1: I didn't need any of that.
39:24
Speaker 2: I don't need any of this. I just want like
39:25
Speaker 2: dating you and wanted to be in a relationship. And
39:29
Speaker 2: then yeah, yeah, okay.
39:30
Speaker 1: So it's kind of similar there. And I don't know
39:33
Speaker 1: who paid for the paint and the supplies and everything.
39:34
Speaker 1: San ever went into that. But when he got back
39:37
Speaker 1: from her, not Arrow, but probably not Arrow, right, Yeah,
39:40
Speaker 1: when he got back from Scotland, he was like, my
39:42
Speaker 1: house looks amazing. And he paid her like four thousand
39:45
Speaker 1: dollars for her time, and of course she didn't give
39:47
Speaker 1: that to Sean, so she took that money. And then
39:52
Speaker 1: it's the weekend of the holiday where she was supposedly
39:54
Speaker 1: camping with her girlfriends. The weekend she said she had
39:57
Speaker 1: a miscarriage at the hospital. They lined up the dates
40:01
Speaker 1: and Matt said, no, I went camping with her that weekend. Wow,
40:06
Speaker 1: And I was with her the whole time. He remembered
40:09
Speaker 1: waking up in their tent one night late and she
40:11
Speaker 1: was on her phone and he said, what are you
40:13
Speaker 1: doing and she said, I just can't sleep. I'm just
40:16
Speaker 1: on the internet. He didn't think much of it and
40:18
Speaker 1: went back to sleep, and they lined it up and
40:20
Speaker 1: it was like that's when she was texting Sean that
40:22
Speaker 1: she was at the hospital having the miscarriage.
40:25
Speaker 2: Which is so I mean, it's an awful lie to
40:29
Speaker 2: tell someone that you're pregnant and then that you're miss carrying.
40:32
Speaker 2: But it's like the timing is interesting. It's like, does
40:35
Speaker 2: she get some sort of rush from doing it literally
40:38
Speaker 2: while she's sleeping next to the other person. I don't know,
40:43
Speaker 2: Like can you not wait till you're in the bathroom
40:44
Speaker 2: with the door closed to send it text message? Like
40:47
Speaker 2: that it has to be next to the person that
40:49
Speaker 2: you're also lying to.
40:51
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess she waited till he was asleep,
40:53
Speaker 1: and also she waited until she wasn't physically in the
40:56
Speaker 1: same city as Sean to tell him true that, like
41:00
Speaker 1: he couldn't come to a local hospital. And she also
41:03
Speaker 1: was probably thinking there's a timeline on this because ultimately
41:07
Speaker 1: they come to the conclusion that she was never pregnant
41:10
Speaker 1: most likely, so you know, she had to figure out
41:13
Speaker 1: some period of time where she could have a miscarriage.
41:16
Speaker 2: That's just so traumatic.
41:18
Speaker 1: It's horrible.
41:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, to think that you're going to have a baby
41:21
Speaker 2: and then to know that your partner that you were
41:24
Speaker 2: excited to have a baby with is miscarrying. Of course
41:26
Speaker 2: you're worried about them and what they're going through physically
41:29
Speaker 2: and emotionally, but I'm sure that the other person is
41:31
Speaker 2: also mourning not loss in their own way. And I
41:34
Speaker 2: mean it's all terrible though, Like cancer. I mean, I
41:37
Speaker 2: don't know where the cancer is going, but I imagine
41:40
Speaker 2: there's mora lies.
41:41
Speaker 1: Probably moralizes are eminent. So Matt, to his credit, after
41:47
Speaker 1: he talks with Sean for several hours, he confronts Arrow
41:52
Speaker 1: and says, look, I just talk with Sean. We know everything.
41:56
Speaker 1: We're done. You need to leave my house. He kicks
41:58
Speaker 1: her out. He never talk to her, and she immediately
42:01
Speaker 1: runs to Sean and is like Matt's line.
42:04
Speaker 2: It's like, well, then what's he lying about? Why would
42:07
Speaker 2: your gay friend be incentivized to lie, yeah, and say
42:11
Speaker 2: that you guys were in a relationship with all of
42:14
Speaker 2: these similarities to ours.
42:16
Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense. At
42:18
Speaker 1: this point, Sean has seen the receipts. Yeah. He's like,
42:22
Speaker 1: I can't believe you, like I know that you've done
42:25
Speaker 1: all these things, and he says, you probably don't even
42:27
Speaker 1: have cancer, and she says, no, I do have cancer.
42:31
Speaker 1: Sean says that he felt like he was having a
42:33
Speaker 1: mental breakdown. He was like losing touch with reality almost
42:37
Speaker 1: at that point, because he couldn't believe that everything was
42:41
Speaker 1: a lie and that he thought he was building a
42:43
Speaker 1: future with this person and this whole time she'd been
42:46
Speaker 1: doing the same thing with someone else, it had all
42:49
Speaker 1: been a lie. He was like, I couldn't like figure
42:50
Speaker 1: out what was real.
42:52
Speaker 2: Isn't it interesting? It's like this physical I don't know
42:55
Speaker 2: what the word is, like phenomenon we when we're in
42:58
Speaker 2: a moment like that, if we're ever in a moment
43:00
Speaker 2: like that, Like Pete with Lisa described the same feeling
43:03
Speaker 2: when the detective was telling him no, all of this
43:07
Speaker 2: has been a lie. He said, it just went black,
43:09
Speaker 2: like his vision just went.
43:10
Speaker 1: Black, like your brain can't compute.
43:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you and I have worked on so
43:14
Speaker 2: many like cult stories or fraud stories where it's a
43:16
Speaker 2: very similar reaction where you're still even like days, months, weeks,
43:21
Speaker 2: years later, Like you know, I said that all out
43:23
Speaker 2: of order, but like, yeah, you're remembering things like oh
43:27
Speaker 2: that wasn't really there.
43:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, slowly processing it over time.
43:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, terrible.
43:33
Speaker 1: So Sean also distances himself from her, and he decides
43:41
Speaker 1: to start investigating. First thing he thinks is what's really
43:47
Speaker 1: going on with Sarah's father in the UK. And one
43:51
Speaker 1: of my favorite parts of the story is that Matt
43:52
Speaker 1: and Sean become friends.
43:54
Speaker 2: I do love that. I mean, the guy painted your
43:56
Speaker 2: whole house.
43:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, and they sod together. We got to
44:00
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of this.
44:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, And thinking of Aarro's daughter, Sarah being bonded to
44:05
Speaker 2: these people and then just her mom being the reason
44:09
Speaker 2: that she's then ripped away from them, is like, that's
44:11
Speaker 2: so traumatic, horrible.
44:13
Speaker 1: So they track down Sarah's dad, who's not named in
44:16
Speaker 1: any of this, and of course the things that Sarah
44:19
Speaker 1: has said about him are not true. He describes that
44:23
Speaker 1: he so he's in the UK. He and Sarah are
44:26
Speaker 1: together for four and a half years, and he nursed
44:29
Speaker 1: her through a terminal cancer diagnosis.
44:32
Speaker 2: Okay, see, I mean I'm not surprised to hear this
44:36
Speaker 2: in one sense, But I'm like, you would think that
44:39
Speaker 2: if you're going to lie about having cancer, you're not
44:42
Speaker 2: going to say it's terminal, because how do you convince
44:46
Speaker 2: someone that you have terminal cancer if you don't eventually die?
44:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, because they then have a child together, right,
44:53
Speaker 1: But she's still saying she has terminal cancer, and eventually
44:56
Speaker 1: I guess to the point where he says to her,
44:59
Speaker 1: I need to talk with your oncologist. I need you
45:01
Speaker 1: to bring me into the doctor's office, like I need answers.
45:05
Speaker 1: You've been saying for four and a half years that
45:07
Speaker 1: you're dying of cancer. We've had a child together, Like,
45:10
Speaker 1: what is going on? And that is when she just
45:12
Speaker 1: fled to Australia and left him behind with no answers. Wow,
45:17
Speaker 1: and that's so reasonable. Like you have a kid with
45:20
Speaker 1: someone and they're telling you they have a terminal illness,
45:23
Speaker 1: you need to be ready to help advocate for them
45:26
Speaker 1: in like the later stages of their disease. Of course,
45:29
Speaker 1: you need to be able to speak with their oncologists. Like,
45:32
Speaker 1: you know, it sounds like they were married or were
45:34
Speaker 1: they not. I don't know if they were married, Well,
45:35
Speaker 1: they at least had.
45:36
Speaker 2: A child together, and like that's I mean, how much
45:39
Speaker 2: more involved with so? Can you really be?
45:41
Speaker 1: So then she just leaves the country with their six
45:44
Speaker 1: month old child, and I imagine he's like searching for her,
45:46
Speaker 1: doesn't know where she is. So whenever he started that
45:49
Speaker 1: custody battle, it actually was true. He is at this
45:52
Speaker 1: time was like fighting for their daughter because he had
45:54
Speaker 1: located her and was like, I'm her dad, I want
45:57
Speaker 1: her in my life. And also I think you've been
45:59
Speaker 1: lying to me about all this stuff.
46:00
Speaker 2: How did he find her? Did she tell him where
46:02
Speaker 2: she was going? No?
46:04
Speaker 1: I don't think that he's wanted his identity out at all.
46:06
Speaker 1: So there's very little details about him as well as
46:10
Speaker 1: like their child. But Sean and Matt get this information
46:14
Speaker 1: and speak with him, and then Sean even tracks down
46:18
Speaker 1: a previous boyfriend. I don't know if he hears about
46:20
Speaker 1: him from Sarah's dad. You know, he also knows Okay,
46:25
Speaker 1: she had a boyfriend before Sarah's dad in the UK,
46:27
Speaker 1: and somehow he's able to track this guy down. So
46:31
Speaker 1: this is like seven years prior or something. And that
46:35
Speaker 1: boyfriend also said, yeah, I was with her, and she
46:38
Speaker 1: said she had terminal liver cancer. And that same thing.
46:42
Speaker 1: I was never allowed to go to the doctor's appointment
46:43
Speaker 1: with her and they eventually broke up. And that guy
46:47
Speaker 1: never like kept up with her, so he didn't know
46:50
Speaker 1: what was going on.
46:51
Speaker 2: He probably didn't even know she was actually a lot alive.
46:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, So at this point Sean is like, Okay, this
46:58
Speaker 1: is clearly a pattern. I also don't think that she
47:01
Speaker 1: has or has ever had cancer, and she's just been
47:04
Speaker 1: doing this to guy after guy and using it to
47:09
Speaker 1: manipulate them and getake their money. And also he thinks
47:13
Speaker 1: for the drama. He's like, there was always some drama
47:16
Speaker 1: all the time, and she created that, you know. So
47:19
Speaker 1: Sean is like, Okay, I want to warn other people.
47:23
Speaker 1: He doesn't really know how to do it, but he
47:24
Speaker 1: goes on Facebook. He knows some people that he can
47:27
Speaker 1: tell she's been in contact with. I don't know if
47:29
Speaker 1: he's making posts or he's messaging people, but he starts
47:32
Speaker 1: to spread the word. Look, this is what this one
47:35
Speaker 1: Rebecca who goes by arrow is doing and everyone needs
47:38
Speaker 1: to be aware, I think. Because he starts trying to
47:42
Speaker 1: warn people, she then, in retaliation, claims to the local
47:48
Speaker 1: police department that he's stalking her. Right. So a detective
47:53
Speaker 1: gets in contact with Sean and it is basically like,
47:56
Speaker 1: I have accusations that you've been stalking this woman and
47:58
Speaker 1: I need you to come in and talk with us.
48:01
Speaker 1: And Sean is like, yeah, okay, okay, I'll tell you everything.
48:06
Speaker 2: So the men in Australia are confident, chivalrous.
48:11
Speaker 1: Open to I just want to be like that family. Yeah,
48:14
Speaker 1: want to be good DUTs okay, and so he goes in.
48:18
Speaker 1: He also talks with Matt because their buddies, and is like,
48:21
Speaker 1: will you also come in and give your statements?
48:23
Speaker 2: Smart?
48:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, Matt our numbers right. So it's very quick that
48:28
Speaker 1: the detective drops this stocking charge and starts investigating arrow
48:32
Speaker 1: Slash Rebecca for fraud. Matt gave her over seven thousand
48:37
Speaker 1: Australian dollars and Sean gave her like over four thousand.
48:41
Speaker 1: I think together collectively it was like eleven thousand dollars.
48:44
Speaker 1: So there's like some things you could use for a
48:47
Speaker 1: fraud charge and they start investigating her. She's charged in
48:52
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. Rebecca Gray is her name.
48:56
Speaker 2: Still living in Australia, Okay.
48:58
Speaker 1: And in December of twenty eighteen, she pleaded guilty to
49:02
Speaker 1: three counts of fraud. She's given an eight month sentence
49:07
Speaker 1: suspended for twelve months, so basically twelve months of probation. So,
49:12
Speaker 1: I mean it was her first charge. She had a
49:14
Speaker 1: clean record, and technically, you know, it's like, okay, so
49:17
Speaker 1: you defrauded these men of eleven thousand dollars. It's not nothing,
49:22
Speaker 1: but like the emotional toll was so much bigger, yeah,
49:25
Speaker 1: than like what was provable to be a crime in court. Right,
49:29
Speaker 1: So essentially just like twelve months of probation. Wow. But
49:33
Speaker 1: because she has this you know, criminal charge, now it
49:35
Speaker 1: impacted the custody battle and Sarah's dad ended up getting
49:39
Speaker 1: custody of her. Awesome.
49:40
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, oh I.
49:42
Speaker 1: Have to say too. When she shows up in court
49:44
Speaker 1: December of twenty eighteen, first she comes in a wheelchair,
49:48
Speaker 1: and then another day she's on crutches. Perfect.
49:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's amazing. Like these people they get caught,
49:54
Speaker 2: you would think, Okay, I've been caught, the act is up.
50:00
Speaker 2: I'm going to be on my best behavior right now.
50:02
Speaker 2: It's like, no, I can probably still manipulate this somehow,
50:06
Speaker 2: some way.
50:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. And she said that she had some unspecified you know,
50:12
Speaker 1: tailment that she is unclear about right right, and so
50:17
Speaker 1: her whereabouts now are like there's speculation that she's left Australia,
50:21
Speaker 1: but she's just free and wandering around. She's out there.
50:24
Speaker 2: Wow, I cannot believe that. Yeah, meaning people online, it's
50:29
Speaker 2: the norm now, there's nothing wrong with that at all.
50:32
Speaker 2: But you really can reinvent yourself totally because you might
50:36
Speaker 2: not have any other social connection to the person your
50:40
Speaker 2: meeting and you can just lie.
50:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, change your name, move to a different country. Yeah. Yeah.
50:47
Speaker 1: So anyway, Yeah, she's out there. And Sean said she
50:51
Speaker 1: never admitted to him or Matt or any of the
50:54
Speaker 1: guys that she never had cancer, but I do believe
50:57
Speaker 1: they were able to like prove that in court. So
51:00
Speaker 1: the positive thing of this story is that I said
51:03
Speaker 1: Sean and Matt became friends. They also became friends with
51:05
Speaker 1: Sarah's dad in the UK. So Sean and Matt are
51:10
Speaker 1: still in Sarah's life. All the ex boyfriends, all the
51:13
Speaker 1: X friends now are friends and are all part of
51:15
Speaker 1: Sarah's life. That is so sweet, not great. Yeah, that
51:20
Speaker 1: was a nice ending to the story. So that's the
51:22
Speaker 1: love rat.
51:24
Speaker 2: Wow, amazing. I love the term a love rat. I know,
51:28
Speaker 2: you know, I don't think I knew this whole story,
51:31
Speaker 2: but I feel like at some point I reached out
51:34
Speaker 2: to someone with a similar story and I wonder if
51:37
Speaker 2: it was Sean because I reached out to him on
51:40
Speaker 2: Australia book. Yeah, I think so, I'm going to see
51:44
Speaker 2: if I reached out to him. But I did not
51:45
Speaker 2: know like the scope of it at all. Okay, well,
51:48
Speaker 2: I have a recommendation. It's not true crime. So this
51:53
Speaker 2: is a documentary from HBO and it's called The Dark
51:56
Speaker 2: Wizard and this is about life of Dean Potter, who
52:02
Speaker 2: was a climber and base jumper and it's a docuseries
52:08
Speaker 2: about his life and what drove him to do these
52:12
Speaker 2: extreme climbs and jumps and he I'm not going to
52:18
Speaker 2: say anything else about it. I don't want to give
52:20
Speaker 2: away the documentary because I wasn't familiar with him at all,
52:22
Speaker 2: but I have watched like Free Solo and.
52:25
Speaker 1: Love that type of stuff.
52:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's really just incredible. I mean, the things
52:29
Speaker 2: that these people are capable of doing, even just mentally, right,
52:34
Speaker 2: Like obviously it's a huge physical feat to climb something
52:39
Speaker 2: like El Capitan, right, but just to think about the
52:43
Speaker 2: headspace that they have to be in. I thought it
52:45
Speaker 2: was really a great documentary. You know, I recommend it.
52:48
Speaker 2: What is it called again, the Dark Wizard? Dark Wizard,
52:51
Speaker 2: and that has nothing to do with his last name
52:53
Speaker 2: being Potter, Harry Potter, you know what. I had never
52:56
Speaker 2: thought about that, But no, I don't know, I don't know.
53:00
Speaker 1: I don't know.
53:00
Speaker 2: Why I thought it was called the Dark Wizard.
53:04
Speaker 1: Maybe because that is doing all of these wild things, Like,
53:07
Speaker 1: I don't know, that's interesting.
53:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it says an unflinching portrait of Dean Potter, one
53:12
Speaker 2: of the world's most influential and controversial climbers, base jumpers,
53:16
Speaker 2: and highline walkers. Oh yeah, he was also doing like
53:19
Speaker 2: the tightrope across King and it's like yeah, no.
53:23
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, yeah, that sounds right up my alley. I'll
53:26
Speaker 1: watch it.
53:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would definitely recommend cool. Yeah, a little like
53:31
Speaker 2: postpartum watch list for you getting ready? Yeah, thanks for listening.
53:37
Speaker 2: We'll be back next week episode Bye. If you have
53:42
Speaker 2: a story for us, we would love to hear it.
53:44
Speaker 2: Our email is The Knife at exactly Rightmedia dot com,
53:47
Speaker 2: or you can follow us on Instagram at the Knife
53:49
Speaker 2: Podcast or a Blue Sky at the Knife podcast.
53:52
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production, Hosted and produced
53:55
Speaker 1: by me Hannah Smith and me patia E. Our producers
53:58
Speaker 1: are Tom Bryvogel and the Lexis Samarosi. This episode was
54:02
Speaker 1: mixed by Tom Bryfogel.
54:03
Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
54:06
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
54:08
Speaker 2: Artwork five Vanessa Lilac.
54:10
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstark, and Daniell Kramer.