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The Professional Homegirl Podcast: My Ex Was A Serial Killer · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome one and all to the Professional Homegirl Podcast. Before
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: we begin today's episode, we want to remind you that
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: of the hosts and guests and are intended for educational
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and entertaining purposes. In this safe space, no question is
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: off limits because you never know how someone's storyline can
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: be your lifeline. The Professional Homegirl Podcast is here to
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: celebrate the diverse voices, stories and experiences of women of color,
• 0:26
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• 0:30
  Speaker 1: be some key king, some tears, but most importantly a
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  Speaker 1: reminder that tough times don't last, but professional Homegirls do
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: enjoy the show.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Hey, professional Homegirls. It Isha girl Ebine here and I hope, okay,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: I hope all is cute because I know we love
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: some cuteness. Now, okay, now, before we dive into this
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: week's episode, let's take a moment for a little bit
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: of housekeeping. So, y'all, I am super excited to share
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: that we are gearing up for the very first annual
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  Speaker 2: no matter how small, will go directly to providing turkeys
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  Speaker 2: the power of kindness and support. Thank you all in
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: advance for your generosity. Also, I received a love letter
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: from our professional homegirl Dana and it reads, I just
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  Speaker 2: found your podcast. I am a rupture brain ANEURYSM survivor
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  Speaker 2: and had to respond, I just survived one in April
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  Speaker 2: and this podcast is what I needed. Crazy good How
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: God helps you find what it is that you need.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Wanted to reach out to both of you and thank
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: you for your words, generosity, and wisdom. We as women
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: need to support so much look forward to listening to more.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: So shout out to our Professional Homegirl Dana. Y'all. I
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: really love when y'all see me love letters, so please
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  Speaker 2: continue to email me at Hello at thephgpodcast dot com. Also,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: we have a lot of listeners here, so don't forget
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  Speaker 2: to follow me on all social media platforms at the
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Professional Homegirl and at the PHG podcast. Hold Me Down,
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Don't hold me up Now. For this week's episode, my
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  Speaker 2: guest life took a dramatic turn when she met her
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: ex on a dating app. Despite a nagging sense that
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: something was wrong, societal precious led her to stay in
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: this relationship. The situation became so tragic when she discovered
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: that not only were her ax a serial killer, but
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: he also took the life of their son, Prince. In
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  Speaker 2: this episode, my guests were revealed the painful details of
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: her journey, including her ex conviction currently serving life without parole.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: We'll also cover her experience as a single mother by
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: choice following this devastating laws and the advice she hopes
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: to pass on to her daughters. We'll discuss how this
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: experience reshaped her views on family courts, trust and forgiveness,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: and how societal expectations influenced her choices. Y'all get ready,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: because my ex was a serial killer. Starts now. So
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: to my guests, thank you so much for being on
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: a show. Thanks for having me of course. How are
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: you doing. How you feeling?
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  Speaker 3: Uh, feeling good. It's you know, the struggle is real.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: It's a Thursday.
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  Speaker 2: So we were just talking about what I was telling her.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: I think they putting something in the air because I
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: was like super tired. And then she was telling me
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: about you know, it's the first week of school, so
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: she's been super busy where her kids.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I have their intwo. They're in two separate campuses
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: this year, so I feel like I'm being stretched into
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: separate directions. So it's been a struggle.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all. Hard to get a drink, Yaga, she
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: like she over it. Yes, Well, how was your vacation.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Uh it was good, it was really good. We go
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: to coastry. You've been going to Costa Rica for like
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: three years now, as at the end of the summer,
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: and it's just like always it's like my happy place
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: because it's such a chill environment and it's like place
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: where you can sort of come off the stress of
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: the United States, and so it's always a really good recharge.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love Coasta Reco. What makes you go there
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: every year?
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  Speaker 3: Like I mean I first went, it was like twenty
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: twenty one, right after things what after they had really
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: just like reopened the border after COVID, and I just, yeah,
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: I just fell in love with it, Like it's just
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: so laid back and a really kid friendly place. And
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: so then I found a summer camp there that that
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: my kids can go to, and so they go to
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: camp and usually it's a local well I don't know
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: about all that, but it's a great it's a great
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: like language camp that they go to for a couple
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: of weeks in the summer, and it allows me to
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: like still work for part of the trip, so I
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: don't have to take off the whole time. Yeah, and
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: they have fun and we all surf and do just
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: like you know, just really fun vacation y type stuff.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: So yeah, and the food there is really good, y'all
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: should Yeah amazing. Now I was telling you this off air,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: but when I was reading your book the whole time,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I was just like, WTF. So do you ever look
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: back in your life and think to yourself like how
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: did all this happen?
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: I have had those moments, for sure, but I try
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: not to be that type of person that's like, oh
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: my gosh, you know, I'm like suck in this victimhood
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: of like all this stuff happening to me. Right, I
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: have learned that, you know, there's just there's scary people
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: out there, and I think this could really happen to anyone.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: And for sure, I think I was fairly naive when
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: I met him, So I think, yeah, there's definitely like
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: risk factors that I had that I probably that at
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: least for me as a parent, I'm trying to teach
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: my daughters recognize those sorts of things so that they
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: do not repeat the same mistakes that I made. But yeah,
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't necessarily feel that I am like
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: highly unlucky or you know, I have because because I
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: don't actually feel that way. I think I am very
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: fortunate and I've had a lot of amazing blessings in
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: my life. But I you know, I just think, yeah,
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: I am a person who had a terrible tragedy happened
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  Speaker 3: to me. But I think that, you know, a lot
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: of people live through really terrible things so I don't
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: necessarily think that, Yeah, I don't. I try not to
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: dwell too much on like, oh, my gosh, this happened
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  Speaker 3: to me, because I also don't want it to be
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: like a defining moment in my life.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Right, you know. That's one of my next question about
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: after all these years, have there been any misconceptions about
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: your story that you like to address? And one of
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: the things that I felt like is very relatable is
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: that this can happen to anyone.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there is a lot of misconception. I
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: think there's it's actually psychologically protect to hear about tragedies
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: like this. You know, hear about women and sometimes men too,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: who fall in love with psychopaths and have horrible things
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: happen to them. It's protective to think that to kind
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: of take this mentality of like, oh, they must have
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: been a bad person themselves, or it must be something
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  Speaker 3: wrong with him that they didn't pick up on this, right.
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  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of people think that way
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: because it helps them feel safe walking through the world
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  Speaker 3: thinking like that could never happen to me. And I
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: think we see like a similar mentality with like school shootings,
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: for example, people know that the United States is very dangerous.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: They know that we have this obsession with violence, and
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: yet every single time it happens, they're like, oh my gosh,
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: I can't believe this happened to me. And I'm like,
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: we're really like can't.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: So I think it's just I mean, I think we
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: have to sort of wake up as a culture and realize, like,
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: you are not immune to this. And typically people who
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: are dangerous and scary like this, they're not going to
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: go pick somebody else who's also dangerous, scary, dangerous and scary.
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  Speaker 3: They're going to pick somebody who is caring, who is empathic,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: and just a good person and a good person, right,
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: They're going to for good people because why would they
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: go back, Why would they go after someone as evil
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: as they are. They don't want to get themselves into it, right, right.
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  Speaker 3: So I do think that there is a common misconception
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: or I don't even know if it's a misconception or
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: really just I think it's this protective mechanism. People have
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: to try and focus on what the person did to
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: get themselves in that situation instead of focusing on what
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: is so society we're doing that is creating these people.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, you also make another good point because
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: my cousin he thinks I'm crazy, but I was like,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I think it's time that we start teaching my niece
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: how to survive, God forbid if there's a school shooting,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: because there was just a school shooting well a day
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: or two ago in Atlanta. And he was like, well,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I don't want to put fear on her. I say, yeah,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: but I also want her to be prepared. Unfortunately, but yeah.
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: And I think that, you know, I think that we
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: also need to start talking about toxic masculinity, we start
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: talking about the culture of violence that we have in
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: this country.
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: Just today at my daughter's school, there was a bunch
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: of little boys that were taking off their shirts and
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: wrestling on the ground right on school grounds, right, and
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: the parents were standing there laughing about it. And I
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: was mortified. I was like, this is not funny. And
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: it's like Lord of the Flies, And I'm like, did
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: you ever read Lord of the Flies? Like Lord of
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: the Fries was literally about like the moral depravity that
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: happens without like parental oversight, right right. And I'm thinking
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: to myself, I'm like, why would you be laughing about this,
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: about your kids sitting here fighting on school grounds with
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: their shirts off, right in the middle of the day,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: like and so I think about these things, and I'm like,
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: I think one of the misconceptions in society is that
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: we don't like to hold ourselves accountable for the culture
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: that we're creating, and then when it happens to us, we're.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Like, oh my god, I'm a surprised.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: I can't believe this, Like, right, we're all contributing to it, right,
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: every single parent who was sitting there looking at that
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: and not saying anything about it. And even my five
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: year old I asked her, I said, you know, did
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: any of the girls take off their shirts and started fighting?
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: And she looked at me like I was crazy, and
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: she's like, no, Mama, they know we can't, like we
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: know we can't get away with that. And I'm like,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: you know, at five years old, we have already internalized
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: here that women cannot get away with or you know,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: it's like somehow okay for men to act a certain way,
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: and so it's like it's all fun and games until
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: those little boys become men who as salt and rape people,
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: and we all act like we don't know where it
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: came from. It's like, I know where it came from.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: It came from the playground when we're sitting around watching
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: and not doing anything about it.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: You know, I have a whole section about this. But
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: the other person that was also the coprit in your story,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: I feel like with society, Yeah.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: I mean it's not just so I tell people a
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: lot that. You know, people are like, oh, well, are
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: you angry at your ex or like, you know, do
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: you feel like justice was served? And I think that
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: the thing I tried to get across in my book
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: was like, my son's father is not the demon in
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: the story, right, Like, to me, yeah, it's not that
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: he's not responsible for what he did. He absolutely is,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: and he's a horrible person who deserves to rot in
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: prison for the rest of his life. However, the demon
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: in my story is the system. Yeah, like the like
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: literally injustice system, right, because this man was enabled for
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: over a decade and son wasn't even the first person
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: he killed. So we can look at the situation and
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: be like, Okay, he did this, But the thing that
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: really keeps me up at night is that the people
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: who enabled him are still walking the streets making the mistakes,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: having not learned from what happened.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Still protecting the law. Exactly what was your life like
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: before you met Prince Father? Because I feel like you
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: was lit like you had a good job, You was
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: a CIA agent, you had todt.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: A great job. I was over educated. Yeah, I came
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: from you know, a good family, you know. I think
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I think if I were just to describe me, I
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: was very naive, you know. And I was taught that
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: you don't judge a book by its cover. You know,
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: That's not what I'm teaching my kids. I'm going to
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: teach my kids. If you have a weird feeling in
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: your gut about what books or acts, you know, it's
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: okay to keep it moving. And that's not being mean,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: that's being self protective. And I think, yeah, like, I
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: think there was somebody who, right after my son died,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: had the nerve to say, well, you know, mother Teresa
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: never falls for Saddam Hussein. And I think the whole
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: idea is she was trying to say, oh, there must
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: be something wrong with me, because I think and I
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: was like, actually, mother Teresa is the kind of person
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: who does fall from Saddam Hussein. Because that type of
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: person is going to try to see the good in everybody, right, yeah,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: and so I'm like, that's your flawed, like your logic
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: is flawed.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Now can you share how you first met
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Prince Father and what were your initial impressions of him?
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Because when I was reading, I was like, come on, now,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: come on.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Now, right, I mean, okay, I think I say this
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: in the book, like society is a traitor's bitch, right,
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: society as a traders be.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: No, we ocur because the whole time was like girl
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: like this nigga is trash, Like, oh, he was terrible,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: he was terrible, sounded crazy.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: I think I think that, you know, I won't lie.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: I was not in the best place when I met him.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: I was, you know, I had just returned from serving overseas,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: and anyone who has been in sort of like a
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: US government overseas state department, military, they're also like similar
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: in this way, people get married very young, and it's
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: typically I was at it. I was stationed in a
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: place where everyone was married. It was pretty much just
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: like me and the really young Marines that weren't. Yeah,
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: and I felt like I had just spent years with
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: people being like, why are you still single? Like what's
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: wrong with you? Why are you still single? Mind you?
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: I was still much twenties, so it's not like I was,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: you know, like pushing fifty or anything, right single was
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: I was super young, and so when I came back,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: I think that was weighing on me. You know, I
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: felt like I was running out of time, even though
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: that sounds silly now, you know, like in my early forties,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, like this is ridiculous.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I had a desible society. Will that's how to make
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: you feel?
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I felt like I was rushed And I remember,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: you know, it really was a perfect storm, like we
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: had just had a snowmagedd in in Washington, DC. I
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: was just starting to sort of try to meet people.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: And at the time, internet dating was not that popular.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, everybody was doing it, but nobody was willing
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: to admit that they were doing it right, but there
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: was really it was really hard to organically meet people,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: similar to how it is now, really right, because I
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: wasn't in school anymore. I didn't want to date anyone
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: that I had worked with right, been there, done that,
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: didn't want to do it again. And I was kind
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: of craving a relationship with somebody who was not in
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: my circle. I was like, I want someone out of
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: my circle. In hindsight, I'm like, there is safety and
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: dating someone who like you at least can vet through friends.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: But that's a whole other thing, right, And so another
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: mistake I think I made was that because it was
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: snowing outside and we couldn't actually leave, we had had
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: several phone conversations, and you know, you can't really catch
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: a vibe for someone over the phone, like you're hearing
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: them and like he was a great storyteller, and so
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: we spent several times on the phone, and by the
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: time we met up in person, I kind of had
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: this like false sense of loyalty where I was like, oh,
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: I have to see this through because we had such
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: a good conversation. And again going back to like, you know,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: the first time I saw him, he did not look
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: like his pictures, and I had a feeling in the
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: pit of my stomach, Like I remember talking to my friend.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: I was like, Lisa, he doesn't look like the pictures,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: and Lisa's like, you gotta go go, just leave, and
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: I was like, I can't leave. That's mean, and you know,
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: in hindsight, I'm like, I should have left, right, I
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: should have.
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: Just left, Yeah, But I didn't because I had this
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: feeling of like, oh, well, that's really mean to like
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: look at someone and be like, oh, I don't want
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: to sit and have coffee with you because you like
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: look a.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Certain way, you know. Yeah, But realistically, like when you're dating,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: if you think someone's not your jam, it's not mean.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: You could just be like, okay, like you can't fish
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: me right, Like these pictures are not like right, it
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: looks like him. It just looked like he was much older,
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: and just there was something about his vibe that was off.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: I was like, it just doesn't something's not.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: The way he dressed, the way he described he.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Dressed, that something was off right. But I think the
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: hard part and like anyone who's dealt with a psychopath
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: and I don't even say narcissistic personality, because I feel
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: like there is a difference between psychopath and somebody who's
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: even just on the spectrum. But people like this have
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: a tendency. You know, once they sort of have you
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: in their grasp, they can be so charming that it
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: almost just makes you forget like you just see a
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: different person. Right.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: He definitely love bomb you.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Oh he loved Bombie, but he also you know, it
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: wasn't just me, Like he had people working for him.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: He didn't pay his lawyer more than six hundred dollars
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: the whole year that we were like we were in
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: that whole fight. I spent over one hundred and fifty
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: grand in fifteen months trying to protect my son and
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: he paid six hundred bucks. And it wasn't because like
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: you know, she was doing this pro bono like she
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: she I think she actually fell for him, Like.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: I think they was messing around with each other it.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: You know, I I could not come right out and
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: say what I thought, because you're not supposed to do
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: that in books. You know, you're not supposed to well.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: You're gonna do it on here.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: I didn't want to be dude right right. There was
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: a lot of stuff like even just the police. It's like,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: I I will never know what exactly motivated these people
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: to continue to protect him. You know, I have theories,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: of course, you know, like I think, like I have
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: heard rumors that there were something that he had on
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: the police, right that would certainly make sense given.
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: All the trafficking ring that they did exactly like that
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: would make sense, right, Was it ever proven?
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: No? But it just doesn't Like there's no there's no
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: logical explanation to why they'd be the way that they behaved.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: And knowing what I know from other police officers who
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: were in that department, mostly female officers, who were basically
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: whistleblowing on them, like there was just some shady shit
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: going on. Yeah, I don't know, right, Like, but see
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: that's to me, like those people are the demon in
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: my story because they're still out there and they never
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: had to they never had their day in court, right,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: And so that to me is scarier because he didn't
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: act alone, you know, like he just one single person
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: could not have carried out the death and destruction that
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: he perpetrated for over a decade if it hadn't been
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: for people helping him.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Now I will say this y'all because I don't
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: want y'all think that my guess was just all naive.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Because my guests over here looking like a young Vanessa
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Williams and her prime So.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: I appreciate that.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, I don't want y'all think like, oh, she ugliest
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: men I know like this can really happen to anybody.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: So with that being said, but also I'm so surprised
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: that you said that you were so naive because being
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: at your dad is from the South, and he's like
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: a black man, Like he taught you how to be tough.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: So I'm surprised that you feel.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Like I would see. I mean, even I think, like
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: I think they're there. There is a way and I
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: and I described this in one of my opening scenes
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: in the book, like my dad had this way about
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: him where he raised us as though we were growing
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: up in the sixties in Mississippi, right, and like we
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: obviously weren't right. And I think that, you know, part
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: of the reason I put that in the book is
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: I think that there is a there's probably a deeper
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: discussion that needs to be had about generational trauma.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: A lot of people would read that and be like,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: oh my gosh, it was abusive. I don't I didn't
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: put that in there to say that.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: I put that I didn't get that from them. But
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: I'm also from the South too.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: So exactly. And that's the thing. And it's interesting because
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: black people and white people have had completely different responses
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: to that site. But what I was trying to explain
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: is there was a way, like I was raised that
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: when you are in danger, you don't flip out. You
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: get the composure, right, Yeah, you have a certain level
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: of composure. And I think that some of that is
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: remnants of generational trauma, because like we had to be
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: a certain way, you know, that's what we teach our kids.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: But I think that the interesting way that it played
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: out in my story is that when I was in
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: situations where I had to like talk to the police
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: about what was happening, they had an expectation of a
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: way that I should be acting based on what I
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: was saying, and I wasn't acting the way they expected.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Right Now, I didn't deal with black officers, right, were
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: white officers, And perhaps they just didn't realize they didn't
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: understand what they were seeing, right or there was something
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: else going on possibly, But either way, I think I
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: think even if you're prepared for it, I think there's
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: still a certain level of naivete that you experience. Like,
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: you know, I think many black people or most black
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: people grow up knowing that, like police brutality is a possibility,
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: but there's a difference between like thinking you're prepared for
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: it and then how you act when it actually happens, right,
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: And so I think we also in order to survive,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: we sort of have to live in this like we
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: just we have to have some of this like cognitive
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: diffidence between like what we know could happen and like
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: really feeling like it's going to happen. And so even
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: though I mean part of being trained at the CIA
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: is like you're trained to be aware, but you can't
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: live with the level of hyper vigilance yep, every single day, right,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: And so when you're on us soil and you're feeling
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: comfortable and you're feeling at home, you're not going to
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: be living with that sense of hyper vigilance, and you're
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: not going to expect like I think that you know,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: we all take for granted, like when someone tells you
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: something about themselves and you're dating, like you're not going
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: to be like, oh, I'm gonna just like run his
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: so security number right, right, And we also have to
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: realize like back in twenty ten, twenty eleven, like even
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: just googling somebody wasn't all that yeah, right, you know,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: right now it's like you can changed times have definitely changed,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: and like I did google him, there was nothing there, right,
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: he did change his name, right, so I didn't have
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: his real name. But I think even if I had
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: had his real name, like the police all the other
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: things that he had been involved in, they had never
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: released his name publicly, so like unless I knew more
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: information about him, there was nothing. There was nothing to find, right, right,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: And even ultimately when I hired the private investigator, But
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: that point, I had had his social Security number just
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: based on paperwork we had filed for my son. So
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: like that's not something I would have had, like pre
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: him being born. It's not like he was going to
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: be like, oh and my social Security number is you know, right, right,
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: So I think and I like, like I said, I mean,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: I think we just take for granted, like if you
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: see someone who owns their own house and they have car,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: they have been raising their other son, you know, and
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: presumably they work, like you're not gonna just like I
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: don't think anybody would make exactly, and like I wasn't
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: going to make the exumption that he was living off
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: like social Security death benefits from the people he had murdered,
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: Like yeah, that was crazy, right, And so this just
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: like it was so completely out of my normal construct
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: of like what happens in the world. Yeah that you know,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: it's like so yeah, like he dressed funny, but other
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: than that, like there and then and then for someone
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: to present to you, like you know, everyone's like, oh,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: you should meet their family. I met people who said
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: they were his family.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: But I thought they were all weird too.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: They were all a little of a strange shoe. But like, realistically,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: you know, when someone's like I'm his aunt, I'm his uncle,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: and then you don't find out until you meet his
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: real on uncle, right that these people were not even
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: related to him. You know, it's like, how do you know?
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: It's not like I was doing cheek swabs and like
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: DNA tests to see if they were actually related. So
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: I don't know, it's a mess, Like it's crazy. But
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: I also think that I think that perhaps to the
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: degree that it happened to me, it doesn't necessarily happen
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: to that degree on a regular basis. But I do
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: think that there are a lot of really problematic people
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: in the world. Yeah, and you know, I have heard
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: stories of women who get into relationships and the man
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: steals the money, or you know, like there's just a
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: lot of really bad people out there, and you know,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: I hooked into a particularly terrible one. But I but
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's as abnormal as people think. I
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: think that it's just that people typically like this do
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: not get away for so many years with what he
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: got away with.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Do you think there's a lot of Syracullis walking amongst us?
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Because I think a lot of people do some weird shit.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: I think there are a lot of morally depraved people
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: walking amongst us, and I think there are a lot
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: of people like that who think that who if they
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: thought they could get away with it.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: They definitely do it.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: And I think that people also don't realize that there
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: are many people probably living amongst us who have killed
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: people who have gotten away with it. M hmmm, because
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: if you look at my ex, for example, like you know,
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: I think he probably killed more than three people.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: I think the three I was just about to ask
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: you that, right, But he.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: Lived in New York for a very long time, and
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: and we never found where he came from in New York.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: I mean it was like literally he popped up in Virginia,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: And so you know, I suspect. He had a whole
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: life there, Uh, and a whole bunch of dead bodies
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: that nobody ever him.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Another thing that I thought was weird was that he
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: shared a bank account with a man. And you've mentioned
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: briefly in your book that John spoke about the concept
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: of being bisexual.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: Uh, we spoke, it wasn't It wasn't that he.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Because I'm like, why was he sharing his account with
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: his name?
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: He was he he wanted to he wanted to be
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: a swinger. But it was interesting because he waited until
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: after I was pregnant to be like that was part
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: of his lifestyle. I think that I don't know he
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: calls this man his cousin. This man is not related
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: to him at all. I don't know what he had
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: on this man or what was going on there. But
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: I know why he didn't have a bank account in
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: his name. It was because a lot of people were
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: trying to sue him. He couldn't have any money in
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: his name or else. All other people, all the creditors
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: and everything. You know, he was basically I forget what
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: you call those people. But but like he wanted to
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: make himself to the point where he could do whatever
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: he wanted to people financially because he had stolen money
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: from people, He had done all sorts of crazy stuff,
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: and he just didn't pay a bunch of bills, and
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: so he wanted to make himself basically like Sue Proof.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Man, I'm surprised ain't nobody put him down?
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, uh, it's it is. It is fairly amazing.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: But then if you think about it, like Pete, there's
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: a reason people like this don't go after bad people, right, yeah,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: Because if you're gonna go after somebody who's gonna who's
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: gonna have have the same you know, moral compass as
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: you obviously mm hmmm, it gets.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: One of those ain't gonna make it right, right, right, And.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: So he knew that he was not, you know, he
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: didn't he didn't go after people who were going to
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: come after him like that.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I also got the sense that you might
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: have felt a responsibility to fixed or saved a relationship
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: because of society will pray. So I mean, I think,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: like I coud you really try.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: I was raised in a in a I was raised
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: with Christian culture, where you know, you stay with the
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: father of your child, and I think that I certainly
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: spent a considerable amount of time feeling responsible and worrying
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: about my son not having a father. I mean, the
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: irony is that I'm a single mom by choice now
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: and like chose my daughters by myself. I have evolved
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: in some ways. Not that I don't think men are important.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: I absolutely do think men are important. I think that
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: kids need, uh, kids need healthy role models. And I
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: think that society's session with children having a mother and
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: a father and it is misguided. And you know, you
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: look at like Barack Obama, who was raised by a woman,
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: became President of the United States, clearly did well for himself.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: You look at Kamala Harris, who like never talks about
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: her dad. I think she mentioned him once, right, there's
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: a reason for that. She turned out just fine. So
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: not to say that, like, you know, I think it's
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: great if people have both parents in their life. But
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: I think that in hindsight, I think what I should
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: have realized is that this man was toxic. But another
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: problem that our society has is that the way our
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: family courts are designed, they aren't looking at making sure
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: that healthy parents are attached to kids. They're making sure
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: that parents have the right to be attached to their child,
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: regardless of whether or not they're healthy. Yeah, I And
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: I also think there was part of me that knew
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: that too, So I felt like, you know, maybe if
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: I save him, maybe if I fix him, you know,
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: which is one of the most dangerous things that women
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: do often, I mean people. I mean I've seen men right.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: Thinking you can change someone or fix someone is just
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: you know, it's it's an exercise and futility.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you make a good point because I feel like,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: as a single woman with no kids, and I do
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: desire to have children and you know, hopefully have a
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: good man that can be my husband. I feel like
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: since I'm so focused in trying to do things, you know,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: the right way, that a lot of people judge me,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: and you know, sometimes it does get to me because
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: it's like, damn, like all my friends are either you know, married,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: or they have kids and stuff. And I just know
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: that what you water will grow, and I water with
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: my business. So I feel like when I was reading
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: your story, it really resonated with me because I just
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: felt like you just wanted love. But yeah, I feel
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: like that time and of it, society just really just
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: it makes us feel like we're not worthy or we're
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: not woman.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: And that's hard about it, you know, because like even now,
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: it's like I don't want to get married because I
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: have feelings about being financially and legally connected to someone.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: But I do want to find a person. I want
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: to feel chosen. I want I want to partner. Right,
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: you're not dated, I that's a whole other can of worms.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I'm much try to get the tea.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, okay, like I am dating. I I am
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: dating in the most casual sense of the word. I
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: think that the hard part is I think you have
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: to be I think you have to be open to
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: finding a needle in a haystack. I don't necessarily think
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: there's one person for everyone only. It's just that, like
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: is you have to go through a lot of badats. Yeah,
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: And at this point in my life, I'm struggling with
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: time and you know, trying to make the time between
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: like my career and my kids and like all the
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: things I want to do.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Right, it's a lot.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: It's a lot. Uh that said, you know, I am
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: hopeful that one day. Plus the caveat is like I
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: really hate app dating, like really really really hate it,
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: and I think it killed dating. I really do.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie, so I mean, my listeners know this.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: I join an online app and I would have never
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: thought at this age that I would be online dating.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Like I hate it, Like I feel like there's no
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: real connection. I feel like the niggas is weird.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: I feel like and they like, if I have another man,
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: text me good morning and that's it.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: I'm in what you're doing.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: I know, I'm just gonna like lose my mind. It's
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: like I don't know, I'm awake in getting dressed, like
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: you have nothing else I'm.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Texting you, right. But then I feel like when I
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: go outside, like men wild stare at me, but I
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: feel like they never come up to me. I'el like
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: they intimidated by me. I feel like once they know
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: who I am and like what I do and who
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: who I'm affiliated with, I got to make sure that
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: they have good intentions. Like I just feel like it's
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: just so fucking ghetto.
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: I think the hardest part though, and this is why
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: I think app dating and internet dating ruined dating, is
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: that before it existed, people had to talk to each other, right,
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: And so we've gotten so accustomed to like being trolls
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: behind screens and like right not taking you know, just
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: like not taking chances and going up to people and
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: saying hello. And it's hard because, you know, unless you're
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: in a social setting with someone like work, you know,
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: your kids' school, whatever, places that you don't necessarily like
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: want to be dating because if it doesn't go well,
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: you're sort of right, it gets weird and it gets
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: all weird. And so I I I don't know how
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: to I don't. I don't really know how to put
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: myself out there at this age, you know, with kids
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: and with a career and like, you know, not all
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: the time in the world unless I go on apps,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: and then the apps are just full of just yeah,
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: you know. And so I every once in a while,
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: I like dip my toe in the water, and then
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: I'm just like, hmm, I'm dipping right back out right right.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Right right right now. I feel like you don't. I
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: feel like, after reading your story, you don't believe in
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: an abortion, but I feel like you was kind of
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: hesitant when once you found out that you was pregnant.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: I believe an abortion. I don't. I'm I'm very much
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: pro choice. Okay, I think that for me, And I
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: don't know whether I put this in my book. I
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: can't remember whether or not I mentioned it. I had
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: had one already.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Oh no, you didn't put that in your book.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: So the first time, my first time was not consensual,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: and it resulted in a pregnancy. And I remember even
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: back then, and I was pretty young, uh, I mean
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: I was out of college, but still pretty young. I
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: remember thinking to myself, like, you know, I'm I am
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: pro choice, but I also like love kids and feel
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: very responsible, you know, for like all of my actions
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: right when I had it, when I when I had
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: the non consensual encounter when I was when I was raped.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: I also was wise enough to know that, like I
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: was like, I cannot, I do not think I can
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: bring a child into this world knowing how it how
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: it happened, and also like potentially continuously being connected to
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: this person I did this thing, and so uh after that,
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: you know, when when I got pregnant with Prince Uh,
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: I guess in my head, I was like, this is
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: not the same situation. I'm old enough and I have,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: you know, a fairly stable career, like I can take
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: care of this child and like I wasn't. I wasn't
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: considering that I wouldn't end up with his dad. Like
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: at that point, I was like, Okay, it felt to
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: me like it would be irresponsible to make that decision.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: In hindsight, I should have, right, Like, I love my
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: son and I'm and I'm grateful that I got to
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: know him for the fifteen months that I got to
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: know him. But I think realistically, like if I had
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: had the option, I never would have wanted him to
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: have to go through what he went through. Yeah, so,
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: but I you know, it's like hindsight's twenty twenty, right, Like,
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: and I think that, you know, part of not making
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: the decision to have an abortion was probably also somewhat
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: trauma based.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was listening to one of your interviews from
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: a different show and you said that your son shouldn't
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: have not been born, and I was like, wow, like
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: that was real.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's it's sad, right, and like I
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: say that just being a complete realist.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Mm hmmm.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: I don't think. I don't think he should have ever
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: been conceived, Like I should never have met his dad.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Hey, you didn't even enjoyed the sex.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: One exactly you know, I feel like, what are we
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: doing here?
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: No, it's terrible. It was just it was a terrible
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: and I think, like, I mean, if you have watched
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: the like the movie get Out, it was like I
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: was in the sunken place. I just yeah, there's no
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: more way to describe it better than like being completely
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: in a sunken place. And I think it, like, I
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: think it's hard. It's really hard to describe what it
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: feels like to be an abusive relationship you haven't been
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: in one, because I think people are often like I
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: can't stand when people are like, well you should just left, right,
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: Well that's like really sweet and like you know, special
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: snowflake of supportive, right, but that's possible, like or that's yeah,
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: you know, it's like by the time someone shows that
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: side of them, it's too late, you know, like just leaving.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, the woman before me tried to just
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: leave and she's dead, Like yeah, you know, so yeah,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's all. It's also really easy
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: for people to make assumptions that, you know, just because
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: of the way someone looks or whatever, that like you're
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: completely secure, right, because I wasn't.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So what was the turning point when things started
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: to go wrong.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: I mean I think that it was probably when I
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: got pregnant. I mean I think he just he realized
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: he had me and he was not wrong, you know,
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: And I think that was sort of when the masks
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: started coming down, and you know, I really just started
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: I felt like I was chasing the person that I
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: thought he was in the beginning, and that person's not
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: who he was, and so I was like trying to
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: bring that person back.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: Remember there was this moment where we were in like
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: a deposition during our court case and he looked at
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: me and it was like this moment where he was
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: like trying to get empathy, and I almost threw up
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: on him. I was like, how could you try? Like
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: how could you now like at this point when I
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: know what I know? And so I turned to him
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, I know who you are now, so
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: fucking knock it off, right. And it was funny because
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: like his face it just like went right back to
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: being a monster. It was like he turned it right off.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: And I remember thinking to myself, like, wow, like that
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: is such like that that is a level of evil talent,
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: that is if you could bottle it up. You know,
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: you could probably like be very effective at warfare because
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: I mean just being able to turn it off just
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: like that was so so cacary and scary. Yeah, because
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: you you know, when he was on he I mean
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: he had people eating out of his hand, and I
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: mean I remember what it looked like in court, and
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, how the hell do
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: you believe him? And then I thought to myself, of
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: course I believed him.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was another part in your story when you
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: was I think he was sleeping and you were pregnant
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: and you felt like you couldn't breathe, and I'm like,
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: is this nigga trying to suffocate her?
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: I think so I think he was.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he when you woke up, he was standing
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: over you.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Like it it felt like you know, and I've
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: had this conversation with his now adult son about what
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: it felt like to be in that house, and it
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: like it felt like one of those like horror movies
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: where there's like a house of mirrors and you're like
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: trapped out of hor and you like can't figure out
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: what is real and what's not, you know, because he
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: would do things that were just evil and then you know,
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: like even like the suffocation incident, like I woke up
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: and he's hovering over me, and I'm just like what
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: the hell man, like uh yeah, and he and he's like, oh,
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: you must have had a nightmare. Oh, it must have
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: been your hormones. Like it just and I remember thinking
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: like I just don't know what's real and what's not real.
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: Like I felt like I was going crazy?
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: But how did you not feel like that?
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was just it was it was
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: it was just crazy like it it was a whole
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: it was a whole crazy Ah, it was a whole
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: crazy situation. And you know, I think similar to a
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: lot of abusive situations. You know, like they'll they'll punch
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: you in the face and then they'll make you think
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: that like you somehow punched yourself, right, you did some
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: where you like, yeah, you fell out his fist, like
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: you deserve it or whatever. And I mean, so it's
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: I think back to that time and I'm just like,
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: you know, and it's interesting because it's like I feel
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: like it was a different lifetime. I feel like I
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: was a different person. I know that I'm like the
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: essence of me right, like the essence of me is
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: the same. But I feel I feel like I just
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: feel like I feel woke, right, I feel.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: Like I am you found yourself.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: I also like I understand the world. I feel like
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: I understand the world in a way that I never
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: could have imagined pre him, and I think it's impossible.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: Like I think sometimes I'm like, Okay, did I did
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: growing up in this like sheltered Christian community like harm
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: me in some way because I didn't see this part
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: of the world, like even from I don't know if
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: I put this in the book, but like I remember
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: being in elementary school and then bringing police officers in
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: and being like they're here to help you and this
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: and that and the third right, and like that's not
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: what I tell my kids, Like sorry all police officers, right,
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: But like what I'm trying my kid is, if you
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: ever need help, you call me, right, because it might
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: be dangerous for you to call the police because they
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: might get there and they may actually not be on
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: your side. And it's like, yeah, harsh reality, but it's
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: but it's real, right, Like when you start thinking about
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: like the way our systems work, and I guess like
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: in some ways it's scary, you know, because like the.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: But it's a reality.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: It's the reality, right, So I feel like I'm I
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: feel like it's impossible to survive a situation like that
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: and still walk around like somebody who doesn't know what's
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: going on in the world, you know, like it just
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: starts to make you question, like okay, like what are
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: all these things for?
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Right? But I also feel like given that you was
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: a CIA agent, I feel like your expectations of the
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: legal system is of course is going to be high
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: because of you technically is a part of that world.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: No, I mean FBI is like their law enforcement, but like.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: I still like you still have some type of dealings
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: with them, right, I.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: Mean yes, and no, Like I think it's different though,
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: Like I think that you know, a lot of my
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: job was was around like researching like international threats, right right,
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: And that's like or like international threat intelligence and things
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: like that. Like that's that's very different than like homegrown terrorism,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: right right. Like I think that's yeah, Like I I
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: I just I think it is a very it's it's
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: a very unique situation to be keenly aware of the
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: type of crime that occurs on our home soil, like
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: I was not trained in that, right, Like I wasn't
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: trained to be looking for it like right, you know.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: And and I also so it like it wasn't enough
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: of my experience to even be thinking that it was
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: at my front door. Yeah, and I and I also
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: don't know. I mean I I don't I honestly don't
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: know how you prepare you know, kids, kids for that.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: Like yeah, I think I'm hopeful that I can talk
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: to my kids about my experience without trying to transfer
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: anxiety onto them just to be like, hey, like you
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: you can't trust people, right, Yeah. But I mean I
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: say this knowing that even after my ex like I
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: I've I've had trust your gut, trust.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: Your gut, right like I But I think, Yeah, I
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: mean it's not it's not just romantic relationships either, you know.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Oh no, definitely platonic too, Yeah, like you know, bitches
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: be weird.
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: I had a former business partner that turned out to
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: be like completely horrible. Yeah, and so it's like you
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: just I don't know, like we we all continue to
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: make mistakes or whatever, and people continue to do this thing.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: But I do think that I think that with this
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: level of trauma. It's like it's it's hard to go
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: back to like that kind of like naive. You know, no,
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: you can't go back happy person, not necessarily, not like
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: I'm a very happy person, but like I think, I'm
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: just I'm just aware of how the world really is,
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: which maybe makes me cynical and perhaps why I'm single.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: But I also think, I mean, given the journey that
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: you've been on, I think it's normal for you to
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: feel this way because what you've been through would have
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: broke a lot of people, like you don't look like
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: what you've been through.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad about that.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because what you've been through was a lot. Because
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: even thank God for your dad because when y'all discovered
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: that your ex raped your sister, and I have never
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: wanted your dad to like like pop off on him
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: because I was I could not believe that that was
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: the next part of the story.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: I actually am very thankful that he didn't kill him
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: that night.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: Because because I couldn't imagine.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: I think that would have been terrible and it it
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: just I mean I think that I don't know, it
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: would have been heartbreaking, it would have been terrible, and
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: it would have ruined many people's lives, and.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: I I'm just glad he was there because I also
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: feel like, if you didn't have your dad presence, I
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: think that your ex probably would have tried it even more.
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, I think so too. I think he was Yeh,
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: I think he. I think he thought my dad was
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: going to I think he thought my dad was capable
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: of killing him.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, I've said I've said this
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: to his older son before. I'm like, you know, fifty
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: percent of the people who lived with this man in
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: his adult life are dead. We're the lad We're the
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: only two that survived.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the son barely survived.
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: Like, I mean, he literally is like the boy who lived. Like,
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't know, It's it's crazy. I think
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: that though, Like I think choosing to survive. And I've
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: known a lot of people who've gone through really terrible
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: things and and similarly terrible things like people who've who've
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: had I've met a lot of people who've who've who've
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: had children murdered by their ex.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: Sadly, it's a club that no one ever wants to
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: be in, but we're in it, Okay, And what I
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: typically tell people is, I'm like, it's a choice to
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: keep living. It's a choice to decide that you're going
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: to live your best life. And if you if you
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: decide like if you if you can't get past it,
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: or you like you know, continue living in that misery,
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: understand that that's also a choice. Right. I think sometimes
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: people choose to remain a victim, Like, yeah, they don't
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: want to get out of it. They don't they feel
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: like sort of some some sort of comfort in that
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: or what have you? For me, Like, I choose to
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: live my best life because I know that that's the
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: only way my son keeps living. Like if I chose that,
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: like I could have also chosen to die with him, right, Yeah,
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: but I think if that if I had done that,
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: then he would have then he then there'd be no
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: part of him that was still living. And and also
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: like I think I think that in many ways, like
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: my ex, it would be it winning for him, right.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: But yeah, he wanted to destroy my life. He wanted
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: to destroy me, and he didn't succeed.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: Now, when you hired the private investigator, what was some
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: of the things that you found out on top of
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: him kill and to other people.
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: I mean business had stolen money from multiple people. You know.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: He had changed his name to his son's. Oh that's
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: I didn't even put that in the book because it
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: was hard to explain. So six months before his ex
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: girlfriend died, the mom of his older son, he changed
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: his name to his son's name, and then when she died,
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: tried to claim that her life insurance policy was for
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: him and not for her son. Wow. Yeah, it was crazy,
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: like when you like when I when I read, when
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: I poured through all the information because part of like
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: taking a decade to write the book was like I
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: wanted to be the reason it took so long, is
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: like I wanted to hold myself accountable. I wanted to
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: make sure I told the story in an authentic way,
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: and I also wanted to make sure that I, like
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: got the facts right.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: So I was.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: Pouring through all this data trying to make sure that,
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: like I had the chain of events and like all
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: the things that happened, and it was just crazy, like
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: and just looking at the autopsy reports from his own mom,
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: like you can't suffocate yourself to death, right, Like the
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: bag was not tied to her head, It wasn't like
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: you know, like you if you press a bag to
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: your head, you will pass out and then you will
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: start breathing, right, So like it's actually physically impossible to
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: kill yourself the way that they said she killed herself.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: And I have since had police officers tell me that
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: her suicide note and I put that in quotation marks
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: was not in her handwriting. Yeah, And I'm like they
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: had all of this and like, why did no one
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: charge him with that?
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Even when y'all went to the police and you told
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: them about the situation with your sister, And I'm like
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: the fact that they charge y'all yeah because they thought
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: you was lying. And I'm like, where is this, Like
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: where are y'all at? Because this cannot be real.
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: It was like, I mean, it was literally like the
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: Twilight Zone, right, And you know, I was just telling
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: someone today they were like, oh, oh yeah, I know,
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: like I dated someone from Gainesville, Virginia, which is Prince
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: William County, And I was like, man, they can cut
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: Prince William County off of the out of the United States,
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: let it float off to sea, and I would be like, peace,
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: what's going on in that county? But it is like
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: I mean just I know that in our country we
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: refuse to believe that women get raped. It happens a lot.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: And frank, yeah, like back to what I said earlier
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: with the little boys on the playground, Like I think
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: we have this tendency to be like boys will be boys,
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: and they that's just how they are. And like, what
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: did you do to like make him want to rape
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: you or whatever? And so like, I know that it
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: is common for police not to prosecute rapes or people
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: not to believe women. But when someone like this comes
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: in and you know that he's killed multiple people, you
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: know they knew who he was in this town. And
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: I remember a police officer saying like, yeah, he's not
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: a good guy, but he's not rapist. And I'm like,
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: are you kidding? Like so what he's a killer but
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: not capable of rape? Like come on, and.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: Why would you supposed to lie about that?
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: She wouldn't. It's crazy, Like the whole situation is is
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: is crazy. It's just crazy. But but they also thought
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: I was lying. They were like, oh, that never happened.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I have two witnesses, Like two witnesses, and
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: if my son could speak, he'd be a third.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: Do you think that if you weren't black, that the
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: alcohol would be different.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: I think about that a lot, and I think perhaps,
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: you know, I do think that I do think racism
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: played a part both in what happened with us with
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: the police and what happened in family court. I do
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: think it played a part. But I also think that
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: you can't ignore just how this police department acted and
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: and the lengths that they went to to sort of
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: like cover up their misbehavior.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: To protect them.
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so you know it, it leads me to wonder, Look,
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: my accident kill people who weren't black. We all had
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: something in common, right, And so I think I think
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: there is something to that, right, Like he didn't date people,
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: he didn't date women that weren't black. And I think that,
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: you know, even though he liked to walk around saying
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: he was Dominican, motherfucker, was not Dominican, like he was
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: white Puerto Rican.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: He was white Porto Rican. Because I google him, I'm like, yo,
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: he's not right.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: And when when it came down to it, and it
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: was his word against mine, you know, And I think
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: that was another thing that that made me that I
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: have learned I think, you know, as as black people,
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: we have a tendency to like, you know, kind of
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: like try to wear our degrees as like like like like.
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: A badge of honor.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or it's gonna protect you from something, right, right, right,
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: So I I thought I had the misguided idea that
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: because I'm educated and because I had a good job
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: and all this stuff, that somehow I could like come
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: into a police station and be believed. I think at
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, like we cannot wipe our
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: blackness from our skin. Yeah, it's like you can. You
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: can have a whole you know, like you can you
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: can drape yourselves in your diploma, and that's not going
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: to protect you because it doesn't it doesn't matter. Like
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: when they look at you, they see a black person,
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: a black person, right and like and and so you know,
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: but then again, like I can't. I do think that
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: there was something with my ex and the police. There's
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: too many people in the system that have told me
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: that there's something with my ex and the police. I
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: think it got to a point if I hadn't gone
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: to the media and blown it up, I don't think
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: he would have ever gotten arrested, even for killing my son.
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: I think they would have been like, oh, you know,
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: he died of natural causes and just like brush it
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: under the carpet.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: Listen, I'm not gonna lie. When I was reading a
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: story and I felt like you were starting to find
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: your voice, I was like, come on, that's what I'm
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: talking about, Like you was not playing, and I was
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: just so proud and so happy for you because it
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: was evident from where we first started in the beginning
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: of your book to where we at towards the end
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: or even now, like you really stood up for yourself
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: and you wasn't afraid no more.
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I had nothing to lose at that point.
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: Like that's why I told people. I tell people all
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: the time, I'm like, I am the system's worst nightmare because.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: My because you was giving them hell.
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: Right, So I'm like, you can you can say or
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: do whatever you want. I'm not going to be in
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: family court. And that's one of the reasons I had
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: my kids via donor, because yeah, I feel like I
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: can't be quiet. I feel like part of parenting my
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: son is continuing to speak out about this, and I
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: think if I had to worry that like one day
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: my kids could be in family court again. Even if
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: I like loved the person and thought they were great,
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: like I think, there would always be this fear in
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: the back of my mind, like, oh my gosh, what
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: if this happens, if this happens again? Right, And so yeah,
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: now I'm at the point where I'm just like, you
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: know what, I can say whatever because I'm not in
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: that system anymore and I'm not gonna be.
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, can you share how much you into the pain
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: and legal fees throughout the entire party?
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: It was like a little bit more than one hundred
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: and fifty thousand, because it was a lot. It was
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: a lot. I felt like, I mean, I'm thankful that
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: my parents, you know, my parents let us live with them,
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: which was you know, I don't know how, I don't
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: know how I would have like afforded to to rent
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: anywhere because I was using my entire salary towards legal
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: fees and and I liquidated all of my four one
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: K and all that stuff. Yeah, just because I was like,
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: I can't I can't not fight, you know, like I
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: have to, And and these attorneys, I mean, they're like,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: you know, two hundred and fifty to four hundred thousand
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: dollars a year, yeah, or I'm sorry, two hundred and
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: fifty to four hundred dollars an hour. And so when
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: you like what people don't realize, like even sending your
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: attorney an email, they'll charge you a half an hour
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: just to read the email. So like, think about every
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: time you send an email. That's like two hundred dollars
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: right there, and it just it adds up. You know,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: it's like it's so expensive.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: But you also made a good point in your book
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: about the importanness of having a therapist, so you can
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: avoid all those fees.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: Oh totally. And I think I made a lot of
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: mistakes early on because I was so I mean I
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: was just like a walking trauma bond or a walking
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: trauma bomb. You know, It's like I would just I
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: would just pour out everywhere, and you know, I really
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: really people need to separate, like that is your attorney,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: and you need to have a therapist for you, you know,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: to kind of process what you've been through because if
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: you try, you know, look, your attorney will let you.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: They'll just be like sure, I'll charge you four hundred
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: dollars to keep talking.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: But they didn't even do nothing it's like, where's the
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: integrity yet, I.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: Don't know, like that's part of but see that's part
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: of I think that if we took the money out
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: of family court, I think kids would be safer anything.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: People in the system don't want to hear that, right,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: But it should never come down to like how much
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: money someone has to be able to protect the kids, right,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: because it sets up a system of inequity, and it
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: also it it puts people in the game with false motivations, right,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: So like they let him go pick his own therapist
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: to give his psychological datls crazy, and so he picks
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: this woman who's not even licensed, right, And it's like
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: I feel like people are just you can pay these
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: people to say whatever the whatever you want. And if
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: you had licensed therapists that worked for the courts that
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: didn't have like you know, skin in the game for
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: like honesty, and you take the money out of it,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: like you take the private money out of it, it
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: becomes like a more equitable process and it becomes more
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: authentic because you aren't going to have a situation where
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: someone's like, oh, I'm going to say this because they
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: paid me, And now I feel weird about like you know,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: calling him.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: So path Yeah. Throughout the custody battle, you advocated so
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: strongly for supervised visits, as if your spirit knew something
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: terrible was going to happen. Did you ever feel like
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: a deeper, deeper, spiritual intuition guiding you, warning you for
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: what's to come? Because I feel like when I was
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: reading that part about your son and like you was
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: going so hard, Like it's like you kind of knew that.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: I knew you were preparing. Yeah, I knew.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: I remember. So when they lifted the supervised visitation, I
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: called an organization called Child Justice and I and I
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: and the first thing I said to them is, I
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: think he's going to try to kill him. I need
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: to try to appeal this. And I'm fortunately my son
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: never lived long enough for us to do an appeal, right.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: And I think, you know, I think it's like, how
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: could you not worry about that after learning all that
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: I learned, you know, And I mean I remember this,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: this supervised visitation provider. She was like, oh, do you
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: think he has a policy on him?
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: And I thought that was crazy.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: I was like, why would you say that unless you
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: know something?
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: And I remember calling like I called insurance companies asking,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: and the reality at the end of the day is
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: unless you have the policy number, you can't get that information.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: And the fact that he said that I was dead,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: you know, and no one checked, Like these insurance companies
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: just took out like hundreds of thousands of dollars on
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: my son under this false reality that I was dead,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: and I didn't even get a right to know, because like,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: if I had known, I could have taken that to police.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: Not to say that they would have done anything, because.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: But here's the motive.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: But yeah, but at least it would have been clear,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: like I could have taken it to the court to
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: be like like, hey, look like you know, we see
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: here two other people who he killed for life insurance policy,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: or at least we suspected, and now he's got a
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: policy on him. Like I mean, I wish I hadn't
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: had that information because at the end of the day,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: like having a suspicion isn't going to be something that
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: holds up in court. And I didn't find out about
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: the policies until two weeks after he died and the
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: police gave it me.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: Wow, is there a place for forgiveness in your journey?
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: And then so what does that look like just with
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: the and not just with your ex but just with
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: the people who were supposed to partake good questions.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: So I remember right after I think I put this
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: in the book. Actually, so like right after my son died,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: I remember being at the funeral and I was talking
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: to the priest and I said to him, I said,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: I don't understand the I don't understand how somebody could
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: like I hate when people say, oh, you should forgive,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: you should forgive, and like somehow it's like gonna set
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: you free, right right, And so he said something was
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: really wise and he was like, forgiveness should be should
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: be only for people who have the capacity or understanding
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: what they did wrong and truly feeling something about it. Right,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: And so he was like, right now you're angry, and
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: he was like, you hold on to that anger, because
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: it's that anger that's going to get you justice. And
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: I appreciated him so much because I made the assumption that, like,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: because he was a man of God, he would be
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: like you have to forgive and he's like, fuck that, right,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: like goes it is not like he was like it's
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: a waste of your energy, because he was like, look
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: forgive yourself, right, But like, if I think my ex
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: is useless for me to ever even think about, like
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: spending the energy required to even consider what forgiveness of
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: him would look like, I do feel bad for him, right,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: There is a part of me that like it is
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: sad for him because I think somebody who is incapable
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: of connecting to even his own son, that's just a
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: that's a very sad human condition, right, Yeah, And so
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: I do feel bad for him. I think his mental
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: capacity or whatever was going on in his head, that's
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: just that's a sad existence. I don't forgive him because
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: I just don't think he's capable, Like I don't think
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: he is. I don't think his brain is capable for
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: to really have like attrition for what he did. So
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: I think that's never gonna happen. As far as other
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: people in the system, I think I think I would
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: have forgiveness, but it would require what the priest said, right,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: he would It would require them to acknowledge the harm
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: that they did and actually do something to work towards
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: making sure that doesn't happen again. And I haven't received
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: that from anyone in the process, And so I think
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: like that is something that for me, it would be
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: required to extend that, like I can think about like,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: for example, the judge, I think in many ways he.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: Was, Oh he was disgusting, Oh he was.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: He was.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: He was a fucker, Like yeah, a piece of shit,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: Like oh the way he talks to y'all in that
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: coom was.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: And he's never he has never apologized publicly or privately,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: has never apologized. He's talking to he's talked to third
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: parties and I've heard back from him. He retired after
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: like you know, he resigned or whatever. But like I'm like,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: you know, if you can't be man enough to just
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: say I'm sorry, even privately, right right, nothing said has
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: said zero words to me since my son died. And
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: so I'm like, do I forgive him? No, because even
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: though this is a man who goes to church every Sunday, right,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: I don't think I think he is. I think he's
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: a lost cause you know, like if he if he look,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: he's gonna have to be on his deathbed, he's gonna
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: have to go and deal with.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: His own like, you know, he know he fucked up.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: Though of course he knew he fucked up, I'm just
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: saying that, Like, I would like to believe that if
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: I had committed the same atrocity, I would at least
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: have the decency to say, I'm sorry for right, I'm
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: sorry for what I said to you, I'm sorry for
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: how this turned out, I'm.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: Sorry how I made you feel.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: Right, Because like, really, at the end of the day,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: I can't sue him. He's completely unsuable. Right, So it's like,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: what are you gonna lose by just being decent and
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: saying I'm sorry, right?
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: But how can we hold the legal system accountable? Because unfortunately,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: your story is very common. So what can we do,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: especially in the family course? Because the one good thing
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: about your book is you definitely gave a playbook on
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: this is what you need to do and avoid when
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: it comes to being a family course.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's I had two reasons for writing
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: the book. One of them is I wanted to write
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: the book that I needed while I was going through
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: it and to I wanted to give a playbook for
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: you know, people who want who want to understand all
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: the things that are wrong and want to make changes.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: You know, I really think that there are so many things,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: there are so many things that can be done on
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: the state level. I think many of the laws that
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: need to change are the state level. But I also
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: think the federal government needs to take a stand because
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: I think that what's happening to kids in this country
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: is one of the biggest civil rights crisises since the
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: Civil Rights movement with black people, and I think the
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: sad reality is that kids can't vote, and so politicians
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: aren't thinking about the kids. They're thinking about making parents happy, right,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: And so what I think the federal government needs to
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: take a stand on is I think they need to
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: hold states accountable for not having child protective policies in place.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: And there are ways to do it. We've done it before,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: like when you didn't integrate the schools, the federal government
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: was like, well, okay, we won't pave your roads, right, right,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: And so there are ways that the federal government can
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: hold the states accountable. They just choose not to. And
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: I think that it's gotten to a point where I
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: think as society, you know, I say this all the time,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: that so many people choose to ignore this because they're like, well,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: I don't have a kid in family court, and my
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: kid is safe and fine but what I always say is, like,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: what happens when that kid who's been terrorized for the
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: last sixteen years knocks on your door and wants to
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: take your daughter to prom? Yeah, right now, it's your problem.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: And we don't live in a bubble, you know. It's
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: like you work with these people, you encounter them at
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: the grocery store. And so I really think we need
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: to as a society invest in protecting our kids. And
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: the way we do that is instead of thinking about
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: parental rights and how much time a parent should get,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: I think we really need to think about, like what
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: is in the best interest of child safety, especially when
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: there's like a safety risk at play, Like no kid
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: is going to die by having to have supervised visitation
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: with their like you know, derelict parent. Like it's like, okay,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: they get access to this person. Like I was not
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: fighting Prince getting to know this man. I just wanted
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: to make sure that it was in a safe environment
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: and that he wasn't going to be able to kill him.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: Because realistically, like you know, Prince could have been in
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: supervised visitation for his entire childhood and he would have
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: been just fine. He probably would have eventually figured out
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: his dad was effing crazy, right, but he wouldn't have
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: been dead, right.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: Do you ever think about what your life will look
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: like if he was still if he was still alive.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: I do, And it's really hard because I often wonder
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: if there was a world in which both he and
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: my daughters could exist, which is a really hard thing
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: to think about. Like I wish there was, Like I
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: sometimes think about, like, you know, would they be fighting
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: with him? Would would my oldest be like, ah, like
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: Princes coming into my room again and like being annoying
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: and be like, ah, she stole my computer or whatever, like,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: you know, I would love to imagine that world, but
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: I think the you know, the sad reality is I
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: also cannot imagine a scenario in which that was sustainable
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: because I think that my ex was so deranged, you
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: know that I don't know. It feels very much like
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: Prince never had a chance, which is part of the
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: reason I go back to like he should never have
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: been born, because I think that it was horrible to
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: put him through that. Like I would like to believe
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: that I gave him the best life possible, but I
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: also am realistic enough to know that I was not
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: the best version of myself for him, Like, yeah, my
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: daughters see a very different mom. Like I am a
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: better mom to them because I can be because I'm
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: not you know, Like I think what's hard is like
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: when you're in this like heightened state of a cute trauma,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: you can never heal from it, right, because you're constantly
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: in it. And yeah, for his yeah, like for his
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: entire life. I was afraid that he was going to
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: die and I and I was like, I think back
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: to like the moments that I was on an email
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: or a phone with an attorney and not spending time
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: with him, and I'm like, gosh, I wish I could
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: have those moments back because it didn't matter, you know,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: like it's still ended up the way it ended up,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: and I would have anything to like hug him again.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: And and I don't have the you know, I don't
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: have that opportunities, not here anymore.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: Do you still keep in contact with his older brother?
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: I do. Yeah, he is a great kid. I mean
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: he's a guy now, so I can't call him kid.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: And I'm always he's a man now, right, I'm always
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: going to.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: See him as a ten year old. I don't care
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: how old I told him this before. I'm like, look,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: you're ten. I know you're twenty five, but you're ten.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: You know, I think I I want the best for him,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: and you know, I tell him a lot, like you know,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: you're I call him Mysuno because he.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: Was like my your first son, Like.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: I feel like he's the kid that you know I
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: I he made he made me feel like a mom,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: which was also really hard because I think my attachment
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: to him made it harder for me to leave his
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: dad when I should have, because I couldn't take him
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: with me. I mean, even in the end, it was
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: a decision where I was like, I can't save him,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: but I can try to save Prince. But it's still,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: you know, it's still weighs on me having had to
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: make to make that decision to leave.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: What do you hope that he takes away from this journey.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: For my book or just the journey?
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think just overall, because I wanted to.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: Does he ever talk to you about how he he
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: thought it?
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I think it's I mean I think that I
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: can't even imagine what it would be like to be
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: a kid in that environment, right, And I think right,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: I think he has a lot more to unpack than
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: even me, because I think what is hard is that
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think I think even dealing with him,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: like I've realized, kids want to love their parents. Yeah,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: no matter what, they want to love their parents. Which
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: is why I think this whole Like when people say
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: parental alienation, I'm like, that's bullshit. Like kids want to
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: love their parents. So if you're if your kid is
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: telling you something about a parent that's negative, like trust them.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: So I think that what's hard is that it's still
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: his dad, right, Yeah, you know, he's he's certainly aware
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: that his dad is who he is, and he's not
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: you know, he doesn't have rose colored glasses to think
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: that he didn't do what he did, right, But I
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: think it's a very different struggle, you know, And I
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: would have had it with my own son, right, Like
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: if Prince had survived, I think that there is there
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: is something he would have carried knowing that this person
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: who was capable and who had like perpetrated such such
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: terrible things on people was related to him, you know. Yeah,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I think you know, he's he's going to
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: have a lifelong struggle with with that. When I I
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: gave him a copy of the book, and before I
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: gave it to him, I said to him, I was like,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: I want you to protect your peace. I'm getting you
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: this because I love you, and I want and I
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: want you to have it, and I want you to
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: like have the opportunity to one day like read what
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: I what I what I felt during that situation. But
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: I also, you know, want you to know that if
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: you don't read it, it's going to be okay, Like
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: if you and and and to be conscious of how
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: you're feeling, because I think it's very different for him
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: him having lived his own version of it. Yeah, you know,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: and he was super little. I mean he was only ten. Yeah.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: And seeing my oldest right now, who's ten, Like, I mean,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: I cannot imagine her having to kind of deal with
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: all that.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're almost finished. But one of the most beautiful
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: things that you said about your son, Prince, I don't
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: know if I've read it or you said it in
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: one of your interviews, but you said, even at fifteen
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: months old, he was able to do something impactful, which
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: was he was able to stop a serial killer. Yeah,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, and I thought that was so beautiful. I
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: was like, Wow, I think that.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, I have long held the belief that our
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: kids find us, and so I talk to parents about
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: this all the time, you know, parents who are like
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: struggling to have kids or parents who have lost a kid,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, you know, I think they find us. Yeah,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: and you know, either via adoption or whatever, like they
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: find us. And I think that my son came here
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: for a reason. I think he chose me because he
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: was like, this woman is not gonna stop, right, She's
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: gonna do what needs to be done. And yeah, I'm
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: gonna put a finish to this man, and I'm gonna
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: do it where nobody can say that like I did anything,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: because I'm just a kid, right, And so I didn't
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: feel very strongly that he chose me and he came
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: for a reason, you know, Prince, I still wish that
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: maybe you had chosen someone else or like, thank you
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: for this honor. But it also, you know, helps me
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: feel like he chose I feel like he had a
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: part in choosing my daughters to come to me, and
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: so like it makes me feel like connected. It makes
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: me feel like there's someone also connected to him, which
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: is which is special and powerful and yeah, I mean
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: he was he was the boy that finally, you know,
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: put this man behind bars. And I have to believe,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: like I do think that he would have kept killing.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: I think he would have kept doing terrible things to people.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, it is it is a comfort
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: knowing that like that, even though my son is not
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: here anymore, like at least this man is in jail
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: and he can't hurt anybody else.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the most important lessons you want to
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: impart to your daughters about relationships.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: I think that I want them to realize that they
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: are important and that they don't have to settle for
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: you know, they don't have to settle and they can
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: choose their own destiny. And like, you know, some people
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: in my family got in my case because they're like, oh,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: like my oldest has said she's like I'm just gonna
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: get a donor, and they're like, you should teach them that,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: like there's all these other things. I was like, you know,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: I love that she says that because she knows that
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: it's an option, right, right, And I'm like I also
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: tell her, like, hey, look like there's beauty and any
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: type of way that you create a family, right, But
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: I want her to know that she doesn't have to
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: she doesn't have to feel like she's settling, right. I
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: hope for them that they find very like healthy, happy relationships.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 3: I certainly want grand babies right one day, but I
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: like that they, at least in that way, are sort
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: of like freed from societals like what is right? Yeah,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: because I think that is. I think that is the
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: most toxic thing, like feeling like you as a woman
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: have to be like the property of a man. And
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 3: it's part of the reason why I'm in my feelings
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: about marriage in general these days, because I'm like, it
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: made sense in the seventies and we couldn't have bank accounts, right,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: But now I'm like, you know, I want my daughters
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: to know that when they're in a relationship, they can
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: They should wake up every day choosing that person, and
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: they should make sure that person wakes up every day
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: choosing them, choose them, and not just because they have
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: to be legally attached with them, but just because, like
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: I choose to be with you because you treat me
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 3: well and because I love you, and because you're a
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: good person and all those things.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And last, but not least, if Prince were here today,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: what would you want him to know about the work
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: you're doing.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: I told him the day that the day I buried him,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: I like a crazy person had a conversation with the corpse,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: and I remember, it's not crazy. I was like, Prince,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: you were not the first, but I want you to
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: be the last. And I'm gonna do whatever I can
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: to make sure that I contribute to making sure this ends.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: And so yeah, I I hope that he knows that
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: I'm carrying this on for him. I hope he feels
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 3: vindicated and choosing me, like, oh, I did the right
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: thing because she like did what I wanted. But I
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 3: also hope that he you know, I've I've tried to
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: work really hard on forgiving myself, and I think one
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: of the things that I'm very sad about is just
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: I feel like I feel in many ways I failed
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: him by not not making it so that it never happened.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 3: And that's yeah, I mean, I would tell him, I'm sorry.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: Have you forgiven yourself?
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know, that's a good question, Like I think
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: I have in some ways.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: Because I feel like you it's a wave.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: I think it's hard to completely feel like I don't
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 3: have any accountability right because I think that there's still
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 3: a part of me that is like I actively made
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: the choice to be with this person, right right, And
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: I think it's more it's not necessarily I blame myself.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: I just feel like a level of sadness that I
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: wasn't able to protect him, Like I tried really really
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: hard and I wasn't able to do it, and it
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: and it. I think the thing that bothers me the
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: most is like I go over and over and it
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: was part of the book too. It's just like all
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: these things happen and I and I still feel like
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: if one thing had been different, he'd still be Yeah,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: And so that's the hard part. That's hard, Like I
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 3: think part of the trauma, and like the acute trauma
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: of going through it is like you kind of you
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: always feel like you have to be a step ahead
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: of the crazy person, but it's like there's no there's
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 3: no knowing, you know. Yeah, but it still doesn't feel
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: good because you're like, damn, like if I could have
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: just done one thing different, if I could known this thing.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: So I don't know. I mean, I think I have
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: forgiven myself, but it's still I think I still hold
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: a certain level of just like anger and disappointment that
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: I'll probably always hold because I couldn't do anything. I
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: couldn't do. I couldn't I couldn't save them.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, listen, I'm proud of you. I think that
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: your story is definitely inspiring, and I know that it
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: is saving a lot of people. So you know, I
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: think that if it makes sense, this wasn't in vain,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: and I think I think you're doing it like I
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: think that Prince came here for a reason because he
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: knew that you was gonna fight, and you fought a
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: really good fight, like God forbid, something wants to happen.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: I got my money on you.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 3: Well I agree. I mean, I'm hoving like I want
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 3: to start a movement and I'm hoping that people will
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 3: get you.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: You did start a movement. I'm surprised have anybody reached
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: out to make this a movie or something or like not.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 3: Yet, But I'm still, like I joke with friends, I'm
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: just like, I feel like I've lived a bad lifetime movie.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: So I feel like, you know, yeah.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: Because we need a movie, like we need something, because
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: I think that a lot of women and men can
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: relate to your story.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I I would certainly love for the
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 3: opportunity to have more people be aware and not just
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: for you know, like I said in the book, like
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: not just for trauma porn, but really awareness people understand,
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 3: you know, like I want people to walk around as
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: woke as I am, Like so they start to think
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: about like, Okay, you know, like I let's stop trusting
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 3: people with the same level of trust you know.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, thank you so much for being on the show.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 2: I'm really excited to have you on, y'all. I've read
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: her book literally like two days, so I'm just I'm
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: looking forward to keep it in contact with you because
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: I definitely want to have you involved in some of
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: the things that I'm working on, because I'm really big
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 2: on people sharing a story because you never know how
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: your storyline could be someone else's lifeline. So I really
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: appreciate you coming on.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and to the listeners, if you have any questions
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: tom It's concerns, please make sure to email me a
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: hello at the pahgpodcast dot com. And until next time,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: everyone later, Bye bye. The Professional Homegirl Podcast is a
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows. Don't forget to subscribe
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: and rate the show, and you can connect with me
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: on social media at the PHG podcast