Latest / The Knife: A True Crime Podcast / I Know Everything

Transcript

I Know Everything · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
0:06
Speaker 2: One of my friends she said, Honey, it sounds like
0:08
Speaker 2: he's gaslighting you. I didn't know what that word was.
0:12
Speaker 2: She goes look it up when we're off the phone,
0:14
Speaker 2: and I look it up and I'm like, oh, like,
0:17
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, like.
0:18
Speaker 1: Yes, Welcome to the Knife. I'm Hannah Smith. I'm Patia Eyaton.
0:37
Speaker 1: Today we're speaking with a woman named Heather Rivet. In
0:40
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Heather met a man that swept her off
0:43
Speaker 1: her feet. Heather had had success in just about every
0:46
Speaker 1: area of her life, but was still looking for that
0:49
Speaker 1: true life partner, and Jace Peretti seemed to finally be
0:52
Speaker 1: that guy. Over the next three years, Heather and Jace
0:55
Speaker 1: built a life together, but one night in the summer
0:58
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one, learned Jace was lying to her
1:02
Speaker 1: like any modern day detective. She figured out his email
1:05
Speaker 1: password and what she discovered in his inbox. Shocked and
1:08
Speaker 1: terrified her, Jace was not the man he claimed to be.
1:12
Speaker 1: As a note, Heather's story appears in the documentary Who
1:15
Speaker 1: the F Is Jason Porter, which we refer to during
1:18
Speaker 1: the interview. Let's get into it.
1:24
Speaker 2: Well. My name is Heather Rovett and I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
1:31
Speaker 2: I am a real estate broker. I love Toronto. It's
1:34
Speaker 2: a pretty neat city. I have an older brother and
1:37
Speaker 2: a younger sister. I love dogs. I have my little
1:40
Speaker 2: rescue pup, Tommy, who came from Cairo, Egypt. My previous dog, Baxter,
1:45
Speaker 2: is in a lot of the documentary and sadly I
1:48
Speaker 2: had to put him to sleep last summer. You know,
1:50
Speaker 2: I have to say Baxter was a huge part in
1:53
Speaker 2: definitely the healing, but just also surviving. When you have
1:56
Speaker 2: a dog, it forces you to get up and walk
2:00
Speaker 2: the dog. And so even though there were some days
2:03
Speaker 2: where I honestly felt paralyzed, I was just experiencing so
2:07
Speaker 2: much anguish and I didn't know what to do. The
2:11
Speaker 2: one thing I knew that I had to do was
2:12
Speaker 2: walk Backster. We were already so close to start with,
2:16
Speaker 2: but he was just my saving grace through that whole time.
2:20
Speaker 2: Dogs are incredible.
2:22
Speaker 1: So can you give us a little snapshot of what
2:24
Speaker 1: was going on in your life with you personally professionally
2:28
Speaker 1: before you met the con artist in question.
2:31
Speaker 2: Before I met Jase, I had a life. I have
2:35
Speaker 2: a lot of friends, I have a career as a
2:38
Speaker 2: real estate broker. I was quite busy. I had recently
2:43
Speaker 2: renovated my condo and was so enjoying the process of
2:48
Speaker 2: furnishing it and picking out light fixtures, and was really
2:51
Speaker 2: proud of the transformation. I created. One thing that doesn't
2:55
Speaker 2: get talked about in the documentary, but before I met Jason,
2:59
Speaker 2: was actually the victim of a financial con or, a scam.
3:05
Speaker 2: I had invested one hundred and thirty thousand dollars with
3:09
Speaker 2: a financial investors person. You know. He showed me every
3:13
Speaker 2: quarter we would meet and he would show me how
3:15
Speaker 2: my money was doing. But in the fall of twenty seventeen,
3:18
Speaker 2: I started to say, hey, I'm starting this renovation. I
3:21
Speaker 2: need my money or some of my investment back. It
3:24
Speaker 2: just turned into what most people who have been victims
3:27
Speaker 2: of financial fraud, you know, dodging my calls. And eventually
3:33
Speaker 2: he ended up disappearing and going on the run, and
3:37
Speaker 2: I filed a police report, and I also was trying
3:40
Speaker 2: to ssue him civilly. And it wouldn't be for probably
3:43
Speaker 2: about six months later, and I still hadn't met Jason
3:47
Speaker 2: at this point that he was actually caught and arrested,
3:50
Speaker 2: and there were a few victims.
3:52
Speaker 1: How there was granted a restitution order of one hundred
3:55
Speaker 1: and twenty seven thousand dollars, but to this day has
3:58
Speaker 1: never seen a dime. In twenty twenty, she even hired
4:01
Speaker 1: a firm to track down mister Simon how Fun aka
4:05
Speaker 1: how Fun aka Alan Peterson, but they were unsuccessful. This
4:09
Speaker 1: was a big hit to her financially, but still Heather
4:13
Speaker 1: figured out a way to move forward with the renovation,
4:16
Speaker 1: and so in May of twenty eighteen, she moved back
4:18
Speaker 1: into her beautiful, newly renovated condo. This was a fresh start.
4:24
Speaker 2: And I'm settling back in and I started to notice
4:28
Speaker 2: that there was some certain things in the kitchen that
4:31
Speaker 2: weren't quite right, Like there was, you know, one of
4:34
Speaker 2: the cupboard doors didn't quite shut properly, insane with her drawer.
4:37
Speaker 2: So I had the people from the kitchen cabinet company
4:40
Speaker 2: come and look at everything, and they're like, oh, okay,
4:42
Speaker 2: well we have a new service guy. We'll get him
4:44
Speaker 2: to contact you and he'll come and fix everything. And
4:47
Speaker 2: I was like great. I didn't think much about it.
4:50
Speaker 2: A couple weeks later, it's Monday, July ninth. I'll never
4:54
Speaker 2: forget the day Monday, July ninth, twenty eighteen, and it's
4:57
Speaker 2: probably about seven in the morning, and my phone pings
5:02
Speaker 2: that I have a text message, and I thought, oh,
5:04
Speaker 2: who's messaging me so early on a Monday, Because I'm
5:07
Speaker 2: not a super early morning person. He said something like,
5:11
Speaker 2: good morning, Heather. Sorry for the early slash late note.
5:14
Speaker 2: I was hoping I could come by today and fix
5:17
Speaker 2: the things that need fixing. And I replied about half
5:20
Speaker 2: an hour later, and I was like, yeah, sure, come by.
5:23
Speaker 2: This is my address. And I rolled out of bed
5:25
Speaker 2: and took the dog for a walk and told my
5:27
Speaker 2: concierge that I'm expecting somebody from the Kitchen Cabinet company
5:30
Speaker 2: and she could just send him up, no need to
5:32
Speaker 2: call me. And by nine thirty the morning, I heard
5:35
Speaker 2: a knock, knock, knock at the door and back she
5:37
Speaker 2: gave a little woof, and I was very taken aback
5:41
Speaker 2: when I opened the front door and there was this
5:44
Speaker 2: pretty cute guy, very cute guy, i'll say, standing in
5:47
Speaker 2: front of me. He was tanned, and he had a
5:50
Speaker 2: little scruff on his face with just like a little
5:53
Speaker 2: bit of a hint of salt, but more pepper, and
5:57
Speaker 2: he just had this cute grin, and I probably for
6:00
Speaker 2: a minute just got lost in taking in this nice
6:03
Speaker 2: looking guy, and so I let him in and he
6:05
Speaker 2: got to work. I showed him what needed to be done,
6:08
Speaker 2: and I found myself hovering around him because I just
6:11
Speaker 2: was curious, and you know, when you live in a condo,
6:14
Speaker 2: there's only so much space, so I was just being
6:16
Speaker 2: nice and friendly. And in the back of my mind too,
6:19
Speaker 2: I kept thinking I should ask this guy when he's
6:21
Speaker 2: done to help me do a couple other things, because
6:23
Speaker 2: I knew I had to hire a handyman to put
6:25
Speaker 2: up the towel racks and the hooks in the bathroom.
6:29
Speaker 2: So when he finished, I asked him, very poorly if
6:32
Speaker 2: he wouldn't mind helping me please, and he smiled and
6:36
Speaker 2: he said, sure, no problem. And I guess we got
6:39
Speaker 2: so lost in talking when he was doing the second
6:43
Speaker 2: one that by the time he left and he didn't
6:46
Speaker 2: quite finish it, he asked me if i'd be okay
6:48
Speaker 2: finishing and I was like, oh, yeah, how hard can
6:50
Speaker 2: it be? I realized after he left that the whole
6:54
Speaker 2: thing was on a slight angle. I think it was
6:56
Speaker 2: because we were so caught up in chatting, and the
6:59
Speaker 2: whole time we were chatting. It wasn't a very big bathroom.
7:02
Speaker 2: He was sitting on the toilet hanging the towel bar,
7:05
Speaker 2: and I was leaning in. It was a walk in shower.
7:07
Speaker 2: I was leaning in the door jam of the shower
7:10
Speaker 2: talking to him.
7:11
Speaker 1: Can I ask you, what did you guys talk about? Like,
7:14
Speaker 1: how much did you both share when he's there, you know,
7:17
Speaker 1: working on in the shower.
7:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the toower, nothing too too personal. I definitely
7:24
Speaker 2: before he left, had learned that he really was, according
7:28
Speaker 2: to him, a software engineer, that he had gone to
7:31
Speaker 2: the University of Waterloo, which in Canada is the equivalent.
7:36
Speaker 2: It's like our MIT. It's where you have to be
7:38
Speaker 2: very smart to go there, especially for engineering computer sciences.
7:42
Speaker 2: I learned that he had a little son, but him
7:48
Speaker 2: and the ma had separated, and he made it seem
7:52
Speaker 2: like it was an amical separation. But they were going
7:55
Speaker 2: through the family court just to figure out parenting, time
7:57
Speaker 2: and custody and all that stuff. But at that moment
8:01
Speaker 2: I didn't know the gravity of the situation. He at
8:04
Speaker 2: some point said something like blah blah blah, and he
8:07
Speaker 2: dropped what I would Paula a hun. He was like, okayhun,
8:10
Speaker 2: and I must have given him a bed of a
8:12
Speaker 2: look and he said, oh, sorry, I just spent the
8:16
Speaker 2: weekend at my family cottage with my aunt and my
8:18
Speaker 2: female cousins, like a lot of estrogen. Sorry about that.
8:22
Speaker 2: And I kind of giggled and was like, Aha, no worries.
8:25
Speaker 2: So I learned that he had a family cottage and
8:27
Speaker 2: in Ontario in the summer, you know, especially if you
8:31
Speaker 2: live in a big city, it's so nice to get
8:33
Speaker 2: out of the city and go up and spend time
8:34
Speaker 2: on the lake. So I was like, oh, that's nice,
8:36
Speaker 2: like him, like, it's nice to have cottages. My family,
8:39
Speaker 2: we grew up going to a cottage. We had a cottage,
8:42
Speaker 2: and when I was probably first year university, my parents
8:46
Speaker 2: sold the cottage and they ended up buying a more
8:49
Speaker 2: of a country property. We called it a farm.
8:52
Speaker 1: The charming and good looking handyman introduced himself to Heather
8:55
Speaker 1: as Jace Peretti. His story was unexpected and they instant chemistry.
9:01
Speaker 1: Heather felt like the universe was balancing the scales. After
9:05
Speaker 1: she'd endured this massive financial fraud. Jay spoke Italian a
9:09
Speaker 1: nod to his heritage, and their banter felt both easy
9:13
Speaker 1: and electric. Time flew and soon he had to rush out,
9:16
Speaker 1: but they'd been so caught up in conversation that he'd
9:19
Speaker 1: actually left the towel rack slightly unfinished and managed to
9:22
Speaker 1: forget his teat measure. But in the moment when Heather realized,
9:26
Speaker 1: she felt lucky. This was door opening, a chance for
9:29
Speaker 1: her to reach out. Maybe she hadn't seen the last
9:32
Speaker 1: of Jace Peretti. So Heather sent him a text and
9:35
Speaker 1: let him know he'd forgotten his teat measure and asked
9:37
Speaker 1: if he might be able to help her with the
9:39
Speaker 1: towel rack.
9:41
Speaker 2: And he said, Hey, I'm about ten minutes away. Why
9:43
Speaker 2: don't I come back and I'll fix it. And I
9:46
Speaker 2: was like, great, thank you, thank you again. Knock on
9:49
Speaker 2: the door. He comes in and within five minutes it's boom,
9:52
Speaker 2: boom boom, I'll fix straight. It must have been about
9:55
Speaker 2: one thirty in the afternoon at this point, going on
9:58
Speaker 2: two o'clock, and I asked him. I'm just like, oh,
10:01
Speaker 2: what are you doing for the rest of the day
10:02
Speaker 2: and he said, well, I was thinking of getting some lunch.
10:04
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, I need to eat some lunch.
10:06
Speaker 2: I said, let me as a thank you for doing this,
10:09
Speaker 2: can I take you out for lunch. There's a place
10:10
Speaker 2: just across the street. And he said sure. So we
10:13
Speaker 2: ended up going out for lunch that day, and over lunch,
10:19
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure. I'm very sure that I did tell
10:25
Speaker 2: him about the financial fraud and that it had made
10:28
Speaker 2: the renovation a lot more stressful than it had to be.
10:33
Speaker 1: So right there, he's hearing that you have savings, like
10:38
Speaker 1: that you are someone who has money in the bank.
10:41
Speaker 2: Well, and I think you can also tell just by
10:43
Speaker 2: the condo itself. Yeah, it's in a very nice part
10:46
Speaker 2: of the city. And the renovation I did it was beautiful,
10:50
Speaker 2: Like I really transformed the space with like really nice
10:53
Speaker 2: finishes and marble. And you know, he worked at the
10:56
Speaker 2: cabinet company. He could see just how nice it was.
11:00
Speaker 2: Asked me about, you know, did you grow up in Toronto?
11:01
Speaker 2: Where did you go to school? And I remember telling him, yes,
11:04
Speaker 2: you know, I went here. I had gone to an
11:07
Speaker 2: all girls private school here in Toronto. And he said,
11:10
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I went to the boys' school. I
11:12
Speaker 2: was like, you did, and he goes, yes, I only
11:14
Speaker 2: but I only went to the junior school like I
11:16
Speaker 2: was done by the time I was in grade seven.
11:18
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, so we would have totally missed
11:20
Speaker 2: each other.
11:21
Speaker 1: It's like such a whirlwind first day, like you meet someone,
11:25
Speaker 1: instant chemistry, he leaves his team, measure, you go to lunch,
11:29
Speaker 1: and so how quickly, you know, does it progress from
11:34
Speaker 1: that to let's go on like a proper date.
11:39
Speaker 2: It probably took us about two weeks. But in between
11:45
Speaker 2: that first day we met and our first date, there
11:48
Speaker 2: was a lot of back and forth, back and forth
11:51
Speaker 2: flirtatious text banter, and I had never in my forty
11:57
Speaker 2: some wad years ever experienced that kind of banter with somebody,
12:01
Speaker 2: that kind of fun, light flirty communication at all, Like
12:05
Speaker 2: I'd never experienced that before. So I was really already
12:07
Speaker 2: getting swept in. And I think we had one quick
12:11
Speaker 2: phone conversation and then he had left me a couple
12:14
Speaker 2: of messages too, and then we ended up going on
12:19
Speaker 2: our first date and he showed up on his motorcycle
12:23
Speaker 2: and I thought, that's really quite hot and sexy. And
12:27
Speaker 2: he came up so he could leave his motorcycle helmet
12:29
Speaker 2: in his backpack, and we went out for dinner to
12:34
Speaker 2: a really cute Italian place just around the corner. I
12:37
Speaker 2: was definitely rusty on first dates, but because I don't
12:41
Speaker 2: find it hard to talk to people, it was easy
12:43
Speaker 2: to keep the conversation going. There was never really a lull,
12:48
Speaker 2: and I felt over dinner, he shared some more big
12:52
Speaker 2: things with me, including he told me the story of
12:54
Speaker 2: his mom dying, and he alluded a little bit more
12:58
Speaker 2: to the situation, you know, with the family court. And
13:03
Speaker 2: I was very taken by the fact that I felt
13:07
Speaker 2: this guy was just being so vulnerable with me and
13:09
Speaker 2: so honest and so sincere. I remember asking him, you know,
13:15
Speaker 2: how do you deal with that kind of lot? You know,
13:17
Speaker 2: you lost your mom and you've gone through this now
13:21
Speaker 2: and that, And he said, I put everything in boxes.
13:25
Speaker 2: So he said, that's how he copes is he just
13:28
Speaker 2: puts things in boxes, and when he needs to deal
13:31
Speaker 2: with it, he'll pull out the box and deal with it.
13:34
Speaker 2: I also thought that was pretty insightful that he had
13:36
Speaker 2: that self awareness.
13:38
Speaker 1: Not only did Heather feel this intense chemistry, but Jace's
13:43
Speaker 1: openness really drew her in. He shared with Heather that
13:46
Speaker 1: he had been a successful software engineer, and in fact,
13:49
Speaker 1: he owned his own software company, which he'd only recently
13:52
Speaker 1: sold to his partner. He said he wanted to get
13:55
Speaker 1: away from that part of the world and have a
13:58
Speaker 1: change of lifestyle. He really liked working with his hands,
14:02
Speaker 1: so it was all making sense, even though it was
14:04
Speaker 1: a little unusual. But in hindsight, Heather can see the
14:08
Speaker 1: red flags that she missed. As Jonathan Walton notes an
14:11
Speaker 1: anatomy of a con artist, revealing intimate details too soon
14:15
Speaker 1: as a classic manipulation tactic, It's an easy way to
14:19
Speaker 1: fast track trust. Most people instinctively respond to vulnerability, but
14:23
Speaker 1: the danger comes when those so called confessions are built
14:27
Speaker 1: on lies. On their very first date, Jayce shared what
14:30
Speaker 1: sounded like raw vulnerability, the story of his own mother's death.
14:35
Speaker 1: He then went on to explain that his modest lifestyle,
14:38
Speaker 1: working as a repairman, living in this small apartment, it
14:41
Speaker 1: was all by design. He claimed he had to appear
14:44
Speaker 1: broke on paper because his vindictive X was trying to
14:48
Speaker 1: bleed him dry. In the midst of a brutal custody battle.
14:52
Speaker 2: He had gone to a lawyer and the lawyer said,
14:55
Speaker 2: dump yourself down, like literally, get rid of your credit cards,
14:59
Speaker 2: go rent something that's not a lot of money, take
15:01
Speaker 2: a lesser job, and that's what he was doing. And
15:05
Speaker 2: the way he told the story, he told in such
15:08
Speaker 2: a way that you're like, oh, that's like, you know,
15:11
Speaker 2: good free. You know. I never felt like he was
15:13
Speaker 2: trying to be a bad person or cheat the system
15:16
Speaker 2: or anything. I just felt like, yeah, you know, you're right,
15:18
Speaker 2: like or he would say things like he didn't think
15:21
Speaker 2: it was fair that he had to pay that much
15:23
Speaker 2: child support when his son was only also so little,
15:27
Speaker 2: it didn't make sense. He's like, a three year old
15:29
Speaker 2: doesn't cost that much money, Like, I don't feel I
15:31
Speaker 2: should have to pay that, especially because she was fighting
15:34
Speaker 2: him for custody, he would have had to pay a
15:37
Speaker 2: lot more child support, he was saying. And as somebody
15:39
Speaker 2: who's never gone through the family court system and I
15:42
Speaker 2: never had kids, I just took him at his word.
15:45
Speaker 2: I have some girlfriends that have gone through some pretty
15:48
Speaker 2: high profile, intense divorces, and I know they drag out
15:51
Speaker 2: and they drag out and they drag out. So I
15:55
Speaker 2: didn't really have any personal experience, so I just took
15:59
Speaker 2: him at his work.
16:01
Speaker 1: Heather and Jays start dating in twenty eighteen, and in
16:04
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen he moves into her condo. Things were going
16:07
Speaker 1: really well. Heather's parents met Jason, everyone got along. Her
16:11
Speaker 1: mom actually loved him. Heather's dad was a little less certain,
16:16
Speaker 1: but we could all chalk that up to most dads
16:19
Speaker 1: are he felt like. Jace told a lot of tall tales.
16:24
Speaker 1: Then in the fall of twenty nineteen, the first incident
16:27
Speaker 1: occurred that made Heather realize, looking back, this was all sinister.
16:33
Speaker 2: At that point, my mom thought he was incredible. My dad,
16:37
Speaker 2: in the first year or so, still liked him, like
16:39
Speaker 2: he thought he was interesting. Jace had tall tales of
16:41
Speaker 2: living in China and living in Japan, and his Italian
16:45
Speaker 2: grandfathers who both fought in World War Two for the Allies,
16:48
Speaker 2: and he just had some crazy, big stories, and he
16:51
Speaker 2: always seemed to want to, you know, engage my dad
16:53
Speaker 2: and try and be helpful in some way, shape or form.
16:55
Speaker 2: So my parents come into the city and my mom
16:59
Speaker 2: goes off to get her nails done and she messages
17:03
Speaker 2: me she said, have you seen my engagement ring? My
17:05
Speaker 2: diamond ring? And I was like, no, I haven't. She
17:07
Speaker 2: goes it's interesting because when she goes away for a weekend,
17:10
Speaker 2: she'll just throw some of her jewelry in one of
17:12
Speaker 2: those little Tiffany blue sash bags. She goes, well, the
17:15
Speaker 2: bag's there, but there's no ring there. She goes, I
17:17
Speaker 2: just I don't know. I don't know where it is.
17:19
Speaker 2: And they ended up going to the wedding. They left,
17:22
Speaker 2: and when they left, Jason and I literally like tore
17:25
Speaker 2: the condo apart, like looked under the sofa, looked under
17:29
Speaker 2: the bed looking for this ring. And I was like, God,
17:31
Speaker 2: I hope it didn't fall down the train, like then
17:34
Speaker 2: it would be long gone. So my mom chopped up
17:37
Speaker 2: that missing ring to a loss, and she ended up
17:41
Speaker 2: going through her insurance and getting, you know whatever, some
17:44
Speaker 2: insurance money. But nobody really thought twice about it.
17:54
Speaker 1: Jace confided in Heather about how distraw he was over
17:58
Speaker 1: this ongoing custody battle and how little he got to
18:01
Speaker 1: see his son. Heather watched him leave the house twice
18:04
Speaker 1: a week for supervised visitation with his son, who she
18:08
Speaker 1: was really eager to meet, but it just never seemed
18:11
Speaker 1: like the right time. Then, in November of twenty nineteen,
18:14
Speaker 1: Jase had even more bad news. He said that he
18:18
Speaker 1: and his ex could not come to an agreement and
18:20
Speaker 1: now their custody battle was headed to trial. Heather stepped
18:24
Speaker 1: into help and.
18:26
Speaker 2: I was like, this is terrible. You need to lawyer
18:29
Speaker 2: up because he didn't have a lawyer at this point.
18:32
Speaker 2: He had fired the other one allegedly, and I was like,
18:36
Speaker 2: you know, I'm going to ask my friend, knowing that
18:39
Speaker 2: his ex had a very prominent family lawyer who some
18:43
Speaker 2: of my girlfriends had used, and he's a shark. So
18:45
Speaker 2: I'm like, we have to get you a lawyer. So
18:49
Speaker 2: I arranged for him to meet with a family lawyer
18:52
Speaker 2: in January of twenty twenty. And I went to that
18:55
Speaker 2: meeting and asked a whole bunch of questions and and
19:00
Speaker 2: Jase told her what was going on. We know now
19:02
Speaker 2: he was sitting there lying to everyone. But the lawyer
19:05
Speaker 2: that day said, you've planted distrust in the other side.
19:08
Speaker 2: You know, you've got this big degree and you've got
19:12
Speaker 2: all this like corporate experience, and now you've been working
19:14
Speaker 2: at a kitchen cabinet company. She's like, yeah, you need
19:17
Speaker 2: to like get back into the real world if you
19:19
Speaker 2: want to get this, so it's going to be balanced.
19:22
Speaker 2: She goes, that's the first thing you need to do.
19:23
Speaker 2: She's like, you need to go find a real job,
19:25
Speaker 2: and he was like okay. And then I asked her
19:28
Speaker 2: about me meeting his son, because I hadn't met a
19:30
Speaker 2: son yet, and she said, you know what, Jace, you
19:32
Speaker 2: have every right to introduce your son to Heather. The
19:35
Speaker 2: proper way to do it is to tell your son's
19:38
Speaker 2: mom that you're in a relationship, and if she wants
19:40
Speaker 2: to meet Heather, I would encourage that. But she did say,
19:44
Speaker 2: seeing as the trial is just a couple months away,
19:47
Speaker 2: maybe it's best we just keep it as is and
19:50
Speaker 2: not rock the boat. She goes. In my opinion, I
19:52
Speaker 2: have seen women who can go hysterical over these things,
19:55
Speaker 2: So let's just keep it as is and once we
19:59
Speaker 2: have the decision, than you know, Heather, if you're okay waiting,
20:02
Speaker 2: I would suggest you wait. And I was like, okay, yeah,
20:04
Speaker 2: it's cool. It's just a little couple months away. So
20:07
Speaker 2: then about a week later, I'm getting it blowout and
20:10
Speaker 2: I get text messages from Jase Won. I'm getting my
20:12
Speaker 2: blood that he quit his kitchen job. I was like, great,
20:15
Speaker 2: the lawyer's name happened to be Heather as well. I said, well,
20:17
Speaker 2: that's what Heather told you to do, so great start
20:20
Speaker 2: working startling for a job. So you know, it looked
20:24
Speaker 2: like he was working his connections and whatever, and he
20:26
Speaker 2: started apparently going for interviews and probably by sometime in March,
20:32
Speaker 2: end of March, maybe he had gotten an offer and
20:35
Speaker 2: he was going to start working for Oracle.
20:37
Speaker 1: Jace landing this new job at Oracle made perfect sense.
20:41
Speaker 1: He had a prestigious education and a background as a
20:44
Speaker 1: software engineer. His new job felt like a win for
20:47
Speaker 1: both of them, and they started planning an international vacation.
20:51
Speaker 2: We were going on a trip to Dominican Republic. I
20:56
Speaker 2: had booked us a holiday and used all my MX
20:58
Speaker 2: travel points and I booked us this holiday. We were
21:02
Speaker 2: supposed to be leaving on a Saturday and Friday. I'm down.
21:06
Speaker 2: This is around Valentine's Day in February. So just a
21:09
Speaker 2: few weeks after the lawyer, I'm downtown showing condos and
21:13
Speaker 2: he calls and I send him to voicemail and he's like,
21:15
Speaker 2: call me as soon as you can. And so as
21:17
Speaker 2: soon as I was finished with my clients, I called
21:19
Speaker 2: him and he said, maybe you're never going to believe
21:22
Speaker 2: what happened. My passport hasn't arrived and it's not at
21:24
Speaker 2: the passport office, and I'm like, what what are you saying?
21:27
Speaker 2: He's saying I don't have a passport. I ended up
21:30
Speaker 2: going on this all inclusive, romantic getaway to an adults
21:35
Speaker 2: only resort by myself. I was so upset. It was awful.
21:40
Speaker 1: I do love that you still went.
21:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, because I didn't read, you know, typical of me.
21:45
Speaker 2: I didn't read the fine print and it was non
21:47
Speaker 2: transferable and non refundable. And half the time we were
21:51
Speaker 2: down there, he was apparently like trying to book another flight,
21:54
Speaker 2: and he sent me a picture of him waiting at
21:57
Speaker 2: the passport office, which, for some reason and probably even
22:00
Speaker 2: just as early as like a year ago, I was like,
22:03
Speaker 2: I should put this through Google Image, and I put
22:06
Speaker 2: the Passport picture office through Google Image, in which you know,
22:09
Speaker 2: it's a stock photo. So all of that was lies.
22:15
Speaker 1: Yes, Heather knows now that this was all lies, none
22:18
Speaker 1: of it was true, but at the time she believed
22:21
Speaker 1: Jase's story about his passport just not showing up. It
22:25
Speaker 1: was hugely disappointing, but what could she do. So this
22:28
Speaker 1: was the spring of twenty nineteen. Heather was happy. She
22:31
Speaker 1: believed that Jace had this great job at Oracle and
22:35
Speaker 1: that eventually everything would be resolved with the custody of
22:38
Speaker 1: his son. She had visions of getting married and being
22:41
Speaker 1: a stepmom, but the custody situation just continued to drag
22:45
Speaker 1: on with no resolution in sight.
22:49
Speaker 2: For my birthday in twenty nineteen, which is in October,
22:53
Speaker 2: he gave me plane tickets for Italy. We were going
22:57
Speaker 2: to go to Italy in early March of twenty twenty.
23:01
Speaker 2: I was so excited. I was like, Oh my god,
23:02
Speaker 2: I can't imagine a better person to go to Italy
23:04
Speaker 2: with than you. Like, this is going to be amazing.
23:07
Speaker 2: So life is really good as far as I'm concerned.
23:10
Speaker 2: I'm in love. I'm living my best life with him.
23:13
Speaker 2: Things are amazing. To back it up to March twenty nineteen,
23:17
Speaker 2: when the trial was supposed to happen for his family
23:20
Speaker 2: ort stuff, something happened and it got pushed, and this
23:24
Speaker 2: would be the thing in our relationship that we really
23:28
Speaker 2: only thought about was the family court because it just
23:31
Speaker 2: seemed like it was always getting delayed and pushed and
23:34
Speaker 2: delayed and pushed. Or they'd have a date and something
23:36
Speaker 2: would happen and then they were going to meet again
23:38
Speaker 2: in two months, and I was like, this is like crazy,
23:42
Speaker 2: and I, like I said, didn't have anything to compare
23:46
Speaker 2: it to because I've never gone through family court. So
23:49
Speaker 2: finally it looks like we're heading towards the end of
23:52
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, and he gets his next trial date, which
23:56
Speaker 2: is supposed to be in January of twenty twenty, and then,
24:00
Speaker 2: of course something happens in January twenty twenty and it
24:05
Speaker 2: gets pushed again, and he's waiting to get the new date.
24:08
Speaker 2: In early February, he came home one day from his
24:12
Speaker 2: visit with his son and he was really upset and
24:16
Speaker 2: he said, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry, Like, I
24:18
Speaker 2: just found out that the trial has been pushed to
24:20
Speaker 2: March eighth, and I'm thinking we're supposed to be in
24:24
Speaker 2: Italy then, so how's that going to work. I was like,
24:28
Speaker 2: oh gosh, that sucks. But of course, at this point,
24:31
Speaker 2: I'm so invested in the Family Court. I'm like, don't
24:33
Speaker 2: worry about it. I'll cancel the hotel reservation I've made.
24:37
Speaker 2: We'll go to Italy another time, Like, it's far more
24:39
Speaker 2: important that you get this sorted out with family Court.
24:43
Speaker 2: So he goes to Family Court early March and he
24:45
Speaker 2: comes home and he seems a little optimistic, and he's like,
24:48
Speaker 2: I think things are good. We have to go back
24:51
Speaker 2: in two weeks and the judge is going to make
24:54
Speaker 2: her decision, and I'll know exactly where things stand. I'm like,
24:57
Speaker 2: that's amazing. Well, in that two week window, COVID happened,
25:02
Speaker 2: and so the whole world got shut down. If COVID
25:05
Speaker 2: hadn't have happened, I think we probably would have perhaps
25:08
Speaker 2: broken up sooner, because I don't know if I could
25:10
Speaker 2: have kept living that way, because it was a real
25:14
Speaker 2: problem for me. Like I felt, on one hand, awful
25:17
Speaker 2: for him that he wasn't getting to be the father
25:18
Speaker 2: that he claimed he wanted to be. But I just
25:21
Speaker 2: felt that while that was so unresolved, it was really
25:24
Speaker 2: hindering us from moving forward and living our best life.
25:27
Speaker 2: But COVID happened, family court gets indefinitely delayed. We are
25:33
Speaker 2: living in this condo and the walls start to feel
25:36
Speaker 2: like they're closing in, and he's pretty much his entire
25:39
Speaker 2: time working for Oracle, worked a lot from home because
25:42
Speaker 2: apparently they didn't have room at Oracle for him and
25:45
Speaker 2: his team. And I believed that and they were looking
25:48
Speaker 2: for exterior office space. I sold the condo in I
25:52
Speaker 2: think May or June of twenty twenty, and we decided
25:56
Speaker 2: we were going to rent, and I agreed to try
25:59
Speaker 2: living outside to the city so he could be closer
26:02
Speaker 2: to his son. And so when this adorable house came
26:06
Speaker 2: up for lease an Aurora, which is about forty five
26:09
Speaker 2: minutes north to Toronto, I was like, this is our house.
26:12
Speaker 2: I just knew it right away. This was going to
26:14
Speaker 2: be our house, because as a city girl, the idea
26:17
Speaker 2: of living in a subdivision where everybody's houses looked the same,
26:20
Speaker 2: I was not going to do that. But I was
26:22
Speaker 2: okay living outside of the city if it was a
26:25
Speaker 2: bit more rural ish, more country, more like the farm.
26:29
Speaker 2: And this house came up for lease, and it was
26:31
Speaker 2: on five acres of property, and it was just so
26:34
Speaker 2: private and special and affordable, and I was like, this
26:39
Speaker 2: is our house. This is the one.
26:41
Speaker 1: While Jace had been living with Heather in her condo,
26:44
Speaker 1: he'd been paying her fourteen hundred dollars a month, which
26:47
Speaker 1: was only a small fraction of her mortgage, but Heather
26:51
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily need the money. She also knew that Jase
26:54
Speaker 1: was going through an expensive legal battle with his ex,
26:57
Speaker 1: so in the spring of twenty twenty, they decide to
27:00
Speaker 1: move into this charming country home and put both their
27:04
Speaker 1: names on the lease. Jase told Heather at that point
27:07
Speaker 1: that he wanted an additional job just to get out
27:10
Speaker 1: of the house, so he got a job in construction,
27:13
Speaker 1: which he worked during the day and then did his
27:15
Speaker 1: work for Oracle at night. Everything was fine until Heather
27:20
Speaker 1: got an alarming message from a trusted friend of hers.
27:25
Speaker 2: Around May twenty twenty, when we're in lockdown and he's moonlighting.
27:30
Speaker 2: One day, I get a phone call from a girlfriend
27:32
Speaker 2: and she was like, heay, I have to tell you something,
27:34
Speaker 2: and I'm like what. She goes, I just saw Jason Bumble.
27:38
Speaker 2: I saw his picture on Bumble with a profile, but
27:41
Speaker 2: he's not using his name, He's using a different name.
27:43
Speaker 2: I was like, what, that's impossible. Like he's with me
27:46
Speaker 2: all the time, like I'm the love of his life.
27:48
Speaker 2: Like I'm so confident in my relationship. I said, send
27:51
Speaker 2: me the pictures, and she sent me the pictures. I'm like, well, yeah,
27:53
Speaker 2: that is him. But like, as somebody who has been capfished,
27:56
Speaker 2: I was like, this is impossible and so right away.
27:59
Speaker 2: I get off the phone with her and I send
28:01
Speaker 2: the screenshots to Jace and I'm like, what the fuck
28:04
Speaker 2: is this? And of course it was probably the worst
28:07
Speaker 2: thing I could have done. I probably should have calmed
28:09
Speaker 2: down and like thought about it. But he right away
28:13
Speaker 2: calls me and he's like, I'm coming home. I'm like, well,
28:15
Speaker 2: it's only like one in the afternoon, don't bother, Like
28:17
Speaker 2: it's not a big deal, Like we'll talk about it today.
28:19
Speaker 2: He's like, no, no, no, I'm coming home. And he
28:21
Speaker 2: was like, it's not me. Like you've got to know
28:23
Speaker 2: it's not me. He goes, I know who's doing this
28:25
Speaker 2: to me. I'm like, okay, and he claimed it was
28:28
Speaker 2: his ex's brother in law that was probably doing this
28:32
Speaker 2: to fuck up family court. And of course, you know,
28:35
Speaker 2: when I say it now, it sounds so trite and stupid,
28:40
Speaker 2: but I believed him at the time. But at the
28:43
Speaker 2: same time, that friend, I guess she did a reverse
28:46
Speaker 2: image search of Jace and she did find some stuff
28:52
Speaker 2: from way back, and she sent me this email and
28:54
Speaker 2: I opened one of the attachments she sent me, and
28:57
Speaker 2: it was a family court document from his divorce with
29:01
Speaker 2: his first wife, which had a different name it was
29:06
Speaker 2: Jason Porter and so I asked, like that was one
29:09
Speaker 2: of the things. I'm like, I don't understand what this
29:11
Speaker 2: family court document is. Jas like, first of all, it
29:13
Speaker 2: says you're Jason, and second ball it says you have
29:15
Speaker 2: two kids. And he said, those aren't my kids. When
29:20
Speaker 2: I met her, she already had them and I adopted
29:22
Speaker 2: them as my own. That's what that's referring to. And
29:24
Speaker 2: he said, yes, my name legally is Jace Paroti, but
29:29
Speaker 2: it really is meant to be Paretti. When my parents
29:32
Speaker 2: came over from Italy, immigration messed up the spelling and
29:35
Speaker 2: that's why it's like that on my ID in their system.
29:38
Speaker 2: But I really am a Paretti, not a PARATEI. I
29:41
Speaker 2: was like, okay, but what about Porty? He said, When
29:43
Speaker 2: I was going through the corporate world, I just wanted
29:46
Speaker 2: a very Anglo name. Does that make sense to you?
29:49
Speaker 2: And I was like, I guess so. I mean people
29:51
Speaker 2: change their names all the time. Look at Hollywood, right Like,
29:54
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, again, it's twenty twenty and I'm
29:58
Speaker 2: just so into my life in my relationship. Of course,
30:02
Speaker 2: he's become my world and I'm being unbeknownst to me
30:05
Speaker 2: emotionally abused, so I just I took him at his word.
30:09
Speaker 1: When do things really start going sideways?
30:14
Speaker 2: Things really started going sideways around July twenty twenty one,
30:20
Speaker 2: but there were a couple things that led up to that.
30:23
Speaker 2: Around April of twenty twenty one, my mom would call
30:27
Speaker 2: and ask me, you know, have you seen this bracelet?
30:29
Speaker 2: Have you seen this necklace? Did you borrow it? I'm
30:32
Speaker 2: like no, She goes, oh, maybe I left it at
30:34
Speaker 2: the condo. My grandmother, my mom's mom, died of dementia.
30:38
Speaker 2: And while my mom is a child psychologist neuroscientist, and
30:42
Speaker 2: she's very smart and very alert, I was like, oh gosh,
30:46
Speaker 2: I wonder if my mom's starting to get dementia because
30:48
Speaker 2: she seems really forgetful, Like how can she be misplacing
30:52
Speaker 2: all her things.
31:00
Speaker 1: By the summer of twenty twenty one, the world was
31:02
Speaker 1: starting to open back up after the COVID nineteen lockdowns,
31:07
Speaker 1: and Heather said Jase was gone a lot. Mostly. He
31:10
Speaker 1: said he was in Toronto working, which was about a
31:13
Speaker 1: forty five minute drive away from their rural home and Aurora.
31:16
Speaker 1: In July, it would be their three year anniversary. Heather
31:20
Speaker 1: said Jace came home from his construction job to celebrate,
31:23
Speaker 1: but had to go right back to work afterwards. It
31:26
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly romantic.
31:29
Speaker 2: And so we went out that afternoon. He came home
31:31
Speaker 2: a bit early. We went out, We took the car
31:33
Speaker 2: to get it washed, he got a haircut, you know.
31:37
Speaker 2: He came home, he took a bath, and I helped
31:38
Speaker 2: him pick out it like a nice outfit to go
31:40
Speaker 2: meet these people, and off he goes. And he doesn't
31:43
Speaker 2: end up coming home till really really late. I'm already asleep.
31:47
Speaker 2: And so then the next day we're having this conversation
31:49
Speaker 2: and I was trying to get him to commit to something.
31:53
Speaker 2: The following weekend, my cousins, whose dad actually lives in Aurora,
31:57
Speaker 2: they were having a pool barbecue and I was like,
31:59
Speaker 2: what time do you think you'll be finish with your
32:01
Speaker 2: son so I can let them know when we're going
32:03
Speaker 2: to come. And I just couldn't get a straight answer
32:05
Speaker 2: out of him, and he said, I don't know, I
32:09
Speaker 2: don't know, And I guess I just must have. At
32:11
Speaker 2: this point, you know, the world's opening up. He's never home.
32:16
Speaker 2: When he is home, I feel like we're not doing anything,
32:18
Speaker 2: like I just was starting to feel very isolated, very
32:24
Speaker 2: alone board. You know, I was trying to get him
32:28
Speaker 2: to talk about rebooking Italy. The family court still hadn't
32:32
Speaker 2: been decided, and I just said something to the effect of,
32:37
Speaker 2: you know what, don't worry about it. Jay's you do
32:39
Speaker 2: your family, I'll do mine. And he used that comment
32:43
Speaker 2: essentially to provoke an even bigger fight with me, which
32:47
Speaker 2: led to us taking a little bit of space apart.
32:50
Speaker 2: I went down to the city for a week and
32:52
Speaker 2: then I came home, and then I went the next
32:54
Speaker 2: week to go visit a friend. But I will say this,
32:58
Speaker 2: that Friday night he came home from quoting the job.
33:01
Speaker 2: That was the last night we ever slept in the
33:03
Speaker 2: same bed. So August is here and he's barely around
33:08
Speaker 2: and barely communicating with me. He did agree to go
33:12
Speaker 2: to couple's therapy, and we went to a couple two
33:15
Speaker 2: hour therapy sessions that I paid for with this therapist.
33:19
Speaker 2: I think he is a good therapist. I think it's
33:20
Speaker 2: just impossible he didn't even know the length of what
33:24
Speaker 2: was happening. Nobody did. And then I just I remember
33:28
Speaker 2: talking to a couple of friends and one of my
33:30
Speaker 2: friends when I was telling her what was going on.
33:33
Speaker 2: She said, honey, it sounds like he's gaslighting you. I
33:36
Speaker 2: didn't know what that word was. She goes look it
33:39
Speaker 2: up when we're off the phone, and I look it
33:41
Speaker 2: up and I'm like, oh, like, oh my gosh, yes,
33:45
Speaker 2: this is how I feel. I feel like I'm kind
33:46
Speaker 2: of spinning my wheels and going crazy in that everything's
33:50
Speaker 2: my fault. And one day I just decided to try
33:54
Speaker 2: and crack the code to his computer. We shared a computer.
33:59
Speaker 2: We had a big desktop Mac that I had bought
34:00
Speaker 2: for us, and he was the primary user. And I
34:04
Speaker 2: asked him what his password was because we shared everything,
34:06
Speaker 2: and he told me what it was and it wouldn't work.
34:09
Speaker 2: Then I was on my computer and I went to
34:12
Speaker 2: a website and it said do you want to save
34:14
Speaker 2: this password? I said okay, and then this whole other
34:16
Speaker 2: sheet pops up, and I didn't really pay attention. I'm
34:18
Speaker 2: not super computer savvy, but I guess Chrome saves all
34:21
Speaker 2: your passwords. So I went in and he was always
34:23
Speaker 2: using my computer, and so I found a theme in
34:27
Speaker 2: his password, so I typed it into the desktop Mac
34:30
Speaker 2: and boom, I'm in and I get in the computer
34:33
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh my god, what am I seeing?
34:36
Speaker 2: Like it was just so crazy in one of his
34:39
Speaker 2: several Gmail accounts, and it's like, you're a match, You're
34:42
Speaker 2: a match. You're a match, You're a match.
34:43
Speaker 1: I'm like, what, So you're logging on You're now on
34:47
Speaker 1: the desktop that you guys share under his username. You're
34:50
Speaker 1: saying many Gmail accounts and many emails that you can
34:55
Speaker 1: tell her from online dating websites.
34:58
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I keeped them, and I went and I
35:00
Speaker 2: went right to the dating site. It takes you right there,
35:02
Speaker 2: and so I'm in his profile on this one. I
35:04
Speaker 2: think it was bad dude, be a do. Oh, I
35:08
Speaker 2: don't know it. I know the big ones, even though
35:10
Speaker 2: you know I know Tinder bumble Match. Yeah, I'm like,
35:13
Speaker 2: bad dude, what's bad do? And I'm in there and
35:15
Speaker 2: it's not like he's talking to a handful of women.
35:18
Speaker 2: There's hundreds of women he's talking to. And I'm like
35:22
Speaker 2: what I'd asked him like a couple weeks prior, I'm like,
35:26
Speaker 2: are you cheating on me? And he would say things
35:28
Speaker 2: like how dare you say that to me? Like you thinking, well,
35:31
Speaker 2: I s day of mind right now. I could be
35:34
Speaker 2: with anyone, like I'm better off just being alone, Like no.
35:38
Speaker 2: And then this one time, the first time I've asked him,
35:40
Speaker 2: he actually said to me, and I say this in
35:42
Speaker 2: the documentary, is like, do you want to smell my dick?
35:44
Speaker 2: And I was like, I don't want to smell your dick?
35:46
Speaker 2: Like ros He just made me so confused all the time,
35:49
Speaker 2: and he made me feel like it was all in
35:51
Speaker 2: my head and it was all my fault. But now
35:53
Speaker 2: I'm in the computer and I'm seeing he's on every
35:55
Speaker 2: dating platform there is, and it's not like this just started.
35:59
Speaker 2: It went back and it went back and it went back,
36:03
Speaker 2: and I was like, holy.
36:04
Speaker 1: Shit, And what kind of messages were you seen? Were
36:07
Speaker 1: you seen like uh, chat boxes or like messages between
36:11
Speaker 1: him and other women?
36:13
Speaker 2: Yes, And some of them they were exchanging photos, and
36:16
Speaker 2: some were like here's my number, here's my number, let's
36:19
Speaker 2: take this offline. I remember there was ones from Valentine's
36:23
Speaker 2: Day where he was sending messages to some women just
36:25
Speaker 2: saying how he wishes he had somebody he could kiss. Meanwhile,
36:29
Speaker 2: he's so creepy. I'm sound asleep in the bed with
36:32
Speaker 2: like a silk eyemask and Baxter by my side, and
36:35
Speaker 2: he comes and he puts a single rose and my
36:38
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day card on the pillow beside me and takes
36:40
Speaker 2: a picture of it.
36:41
Speaker 1: Well, he's messaging all of these other women on all
36:44
Speaker 1: of these other apps, yes.
36:46
Speaker 2: Or it's Christmas, and he's saying to women how he
36:48
Speaker 2: just spent you know, Christmas with his family at the
36:50
Speaker 2: family farm. I'm like, that's my family, that's my family farm.
36:55
Speaker 2: He even like sent messages to a woman in French
36:57
Speaker 2: in Italian and they were all full with lies. They
37:00
Speaker 2: were all filled with lies, these messages, and I don't know,
37:04
Speaker 2: there was that portion of the emails, and then I
37:06
Speaker 2: just kept scrolling and scrolling through the emails, and then
37:09
Speaker 2: I started seeing things like Tiffany necklace for sale. I'm like,
37:13
Speaker 2: oh my god, that's my mom's necklace.
37:19
Speaker 1: Wow.
37:20
Speaker 2: When I first got into the computer, it's like my
37:22
Speaker 2: stomach came up to my throat, and then my throat
37:25
Speaker 2: went back to my stomach, and the like, I think
37:28
Speaker 2: at that point the room was almost kind of spinning,
37:32
Speaker 2: And I'm sure that's like the early stages of some
37:35
Speaker 2: sort of shock, because I just honestly really couldn't make
37:40
Speaker 2: sense of what I was dealing with, Like what I
37:43
Speaker 2: was looking at this was just crazy.
37:47
Speaker 1: I mean, that makes so much sense. It's so much
37:49
Speaker 1: information that you're trying to take in in a matter
37:52
Speaker 1: of moments. That's very contradictory to all of the information
37:55
Speaker 1: that you've had over the past three years about who
37:58
Speaker 1: you thought he was and all of the ways that
38:00
Speaker 1: he'd reinforced that idea that he was this really nice
38:03
Speaker 1: guy that in fact, you know, he was going to
38:06
Speaker 1: take you to Italy someday, he was gonna you know,
38:08
Speaker 1: you talking to Doc about you were gonna get married,
38:10
Speaker 1: like you weren't engaged, but you had talked about that.
38:12
Speaker 1: You know, you believed that this was your life partner,
38:15
Speaker 1: and obviously things had started to go downhill. But I
38:18
Speaker 1: think that's really strong, and that there's so much time
38:21
Speaker 1: and so much evidence in your life that shows you
38:24
Speaker 1: that he is this good person, And even though that's eroding,
38:29
Speaker 1: it still must be incredibly shocking to suddenly have all
38:33
Speaker 1: this evidence in front of your face that actually, oh
38:35
Speaker 1: my gosh, he's been talking with all these other women
38:38
Speaker 1: the whole time, And not only that, but he's stolen
38:40
Speaker 1: your mother's jewelry. Even though he helped you look for
38:43
Speaker 1: your mother's jewelry, and you guys had talked about that
38:45
Speaker 1: so many times. I mean, I don't know how a
38:48
Speaker 1: person takes in that information and is able to process it.
38:53
Speaker 1: What are some of the first things that you learn
38:55
Speaker 1: about Jase that come out right away as far as
38:59
Speaker 1: like KOI is or what lies he's told to you.
39:03
Speaker 2: I'm in the computer and i go back and open
39:06
Speaker 2: that friend's email because I'm like, oh shit, what did
39:10
Speaker 2: I miss? Like what did I not look at? And
39:14
Speaker 2: then I googled Jason Porter. And if you google Jason
39:17
Speaker 2: Porter or Toronto, fraud because it is a pretty common name,
39:21
Speaker 2: right sad to say, there's actually a couple of really
39:23
Speaker 2: bad Jason Porters out there in the world. But I
39:25
Speaker 2: googled Jason Porter Toronto. I didn't even google fraud at
39:28
Speaker 2: that point. I just googled Jason Porter Toronto and up
39:31
Speaker 2: comes all these It's like Jace was all over the
39:35
Speaker 2: six o'clock news because there was a warrant out for
39:37
Speaker 2: his arrest in twenty eleven citing you know, online romeo.
39:44
Speaker 1: At this point, Heather had known the name Jason Porter
39:47
Speaker 1: for about six months, since her friend had tipped her off,
39:51
Speaker 1: but until this moment she had trusted him, so she'd
39:54
Speaker 1: never googled his name. When she finally did, his face
39:57
Speaker 1: appeared in old news reports going all all the way
40:00
Speaker 1: back to twenty twelve. Jason Porter, dubbed the Online Romeo,
40:04
Speaker 1: had been sentenced to thirty months in prison after pleading
40:08
Speaker 1: guilty to fifteen different criminal charges. The stories, though, all
40:13
Speaker 1: sounded eerily familiar. Women who'd met him on dating sites.
40:16
Speaker 1: One off of Plenty of Fish and twenty ten described
40:19
Speaker 1: how he'd move in under the pretense of finding his
40:22
Speaker 1: own place and then defraud them allegations including stolen credit
40:26
Speaker 1: cards and identity theft. It turns out Jason Porter had
40:30
Speaker 1: served his time and then gotten right back to his
40:33
Speaker 1: old tricks.
40:34
Speaker 2: He was doing things like taking out credit cards in
40:37
Speaker 2: their name. He would like go on a date with
40:39
Speaker 2: them and I guess steal their idea or take pictures
40:41
Speaker 2: of their idea. So he was able to open these accounts.
40:44
Speaker 2: One woman he just all right out stole from her.
40:46
Speaker 2: He stole a car, He did some breaking, like he
40:48
Speaker 2: had all these charges, but they were all little amounts.
40:50
Speaker 2: They were in Canada. It's like there's zero to five
40:54
Speaker 2: thousand is one kind of level of crime, and then
40:56
Speaker 2: five thousand and above is more serious. So there were
41:00
Speaker 2: all these charges for things under five thousand dollars. So
41:03
Speaker 2: he was caught in late twenty eleven, and there were
41:06
Speaker 2: a couple news articles and even like an interview with
41:09
Speaker 2: the woman who came forward, although she's blacked out, like
41:13
Speaker 2: her face is all fogged out, and I'm just like,
41:17
Speaker 2: oh my god. And he ended up doing a plea deal.
41:20
Speaker 2: So he gets out of federal prison in twenty fourteen
41:24
Speaker 2: and starts all over again. And that's where he met
41:27
Speaker 2: this woman who ended up becoming the mother of his child.
41:30
Speaker 2: He met her on match dot com.
41:33
Speaker 1: Wow, you're finding this out, Like he's not at home,
41:37
Speaker 1: you have logged in, You've figured out his password, and
41:41
Speaker 1: now there's just like a series of things that you're
41:43
Speaker 1: finding out. And then you google him and you find
41:44
Speaker 1: out his criminal history as well.
41:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I start looking through all this and I'm
41:49
Speaker 2: just like, oh my god. But the crazy thing is
41:52
Speaker 2: when I first, first first got in and I started
41:55
Speaker 2: seeing all these you're a match, you're a match, and
41:57
Speaker 2: I'm taking screen I'm taking hundreds of screens. The very
42:01
Speaker 2: first thing I did was I actually called him because
42:05
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And I was like,
42:07
Speaker 2: this is impossible. And I called him and he didn't answer,
42:12
Speaker 2: and hours went by, and I just kept taking screenshot
42:15
Speaker 2: after screenshot after screenshot. I did manage to get a
42:17
Speaker 2: whole bunch off on a little thumb drive thing. But
42:21
Speaker 2: then my friend Kristen called me, probably around eight on Friday,
42:26
Speaker 2: and I don't even know how to begin explaining what
42:30
Speaker 2: is going on. And she's like, holy shit. And then
42:35
Speaker 2: we're talking. I'm like, oh my god, it's him calling.
42:37
Speaker 2: Let me take I'm going to take his call and
42:39
Speaker 2: I'll call you right back. There were so many things. Now,
42:42
Speaker 2: if I could travel back in time and redo differently,
42:45
Speaker 2: I would have done things a lot differently. But anyhow,
42:48
Speaker 2: I end up talking to him, and I must have
42:53
Speaker 2: in my voice. I don't know given something away, but
42:56
Speaker 2: I do remember two things from that conversation. I remember
43:00
Speaker 2: hearing crickets in the background, and he claimed he was
43:04
Speaker 2: in Toronto. He had just finished you know, it's nine
43:06
Speaker 2: o'clock on a Friday of a long weekend. He just
43:08
Speaker 2: finished his kitchen job, this renovation job. He'd just gotten
43:11
Speaker 2: back to the office and I was like, that's weird.
43:14
Speaker 2: You know, I grew up in Toronto, Like I don't
43:17
Speaker 2: ever recall hearing crickets in the city, but whatever, and
43:20
Speaker 2: then we talked a bit more about what we were
43:22
Speaker 2: going to do that weekend, and he said he would
43:24
Speaker 2: come by on Sunday and we could have a talk,
43:26
Speaker 2: and I was like okay, and then I just probably
43:29
Speaker 2: said something like, you know, Jace, I just feel like
43:33
Speaker 2: I don't even know who you are anymore. And he goes, well,
43:36
Speaker 2: what do you mean, and he got defensive, and I said, well,
43:39
Speaker 2: you know, I went from spending every day, day and
43:42
Speaker 2: day out of my life with you being told I'm
43:44
Speaker 2: the love of your life, and now it's like we
43:46
Speaker 2: haven't done anything together, and like since July, like this,
43:49
Speaker 2: I just I missed my life. And he said, oh,
43:53
Speaker 2: don't worry, it'll be over soon. I said over soon,
43:56
Speaker 2: like you're coming home or we're breaking up, and he said, no, no,
43:59
Speaker 2: I'll be home. Don't worry. I'll come by Sunday. Well,
44:02
Speaker 2: you know, we'll make dinner and we'll talk about stuff.
44:04
Speaker 2: I'm like okay, and then we hung up, and I
44:09
Speaker 2: kid you, not within minutes, I'm still in the dating
44:14
Speaker 2: app site, and all of a sudden, it pops up
44:16
Speaker 2: on the window. We're sorry to see you, go, sorry
44:18
Speaker 2: to see you, shut down your profile and I'm kicked
44:21
Speaker 2: out of all the gmails. So he somehow, I don't know,
44:25
Speaker 2: maybe he was able with the dating app to see
44:27
Speaker 2: when he was last logged in or something, and that's
44:31
Speaker 2: how he figured out I was onto him. But all
44:34
Speaker 2: of a sudden, I'm like shut out of everything.
44:38
Speaker 1: It was almost like this digital game of cat and mouse.
44:41
Speaker 1: The more Heather discovered, the more quickly Jason was working
44:44
Speaker 1: to shut her out of everything. Heather's friend Kristen came
44:47
Speaker 1: to stay with her and Aurora, and Heather's sister had
44:50
Speaker 1: already planned to come visit her as well, so while
44:53
Speaker 1: they were all together, they collectively decided Jason's fraud needed
44:57
Speaker 1: to be reported to authorities.
45:00
Speaker 2: So we called nine one one and the local police came,
45:05
Speaker 2: and I proceeded to tell them basically almost exactly what
45:08
Speaker 2: I've told you, and I'm showing them these screenshots, and
45:12
Speaker 2: the police look at me and go, what do you
45:15
Speaker 2: want us to do? I'm like, what do you mean?
45:19
Speaker 2: What do I want to do? I'm like, I want
45:20
Speaker 2: a restraining order. I don't want this guy ever coming
45:22
Speaker 2: back here again. They're like, but ma'am, he hasn't hurt you,
45:26
Speaker 2: or has he hurt you? And I said, do you
45:28
Speaker 2: mean physically and they said yes, and I was like, well, no,
45:31
Speaker 2: not on purpose. At that point, I wasn't even thinking
45:34
Speaker 2: of any of those crazy tickling videos that are throughout
45:39
Speaker 2: the documentary, which he literally used to sit on me,
45:42
Speaker 2: right on my esophagus and torture tickle me, and he
45:46
Speaker 2: would always grab my phone and record it.
45:49
Speaker 1: Those are so disturbing to watch. Really, they're so disturbing
45:54
Speaker 1: you can't breathe, and like your face is turning red
45:57
Speaker 1: and he's laughing the whole time.
45:59
Speaker 2: It's so crazy. But this truth is, even if I
46:05
Speaker 2: told the police, yeah he was hurting me, look at
46:08
Speaker 2: these videos, I don't think that would constitute for abuse.
46:11
Speaker 2: So the cops come on Saturday, we tell them everything.
46:15
Speaker 2: They just look at me like I'm a crazy girlfriend.
46:19
Speaker 2: And I said, what about my mom, Like she's missing
46:23
Speaker 2: all her jewelry and I can show you he like,
46:26
Speaker 2: this is her jewelry, and they said, well, she'll have
46:28
Speaker 2: to go to her own police station, because that's how
46:30
Speaker 2: it works. Here like you go to your local police station.
46:33
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, well, you know he hasn't been here,
46:36
Speaker 2: he hasn't slept in this house in like over a month.
46:38
Speaker 2: I'm going to change all the locks. And they're like, ma'am,
46:41
Speaker 2: you really shouldn't do that. He is your co tenant.
46:43
Speaker 2: And I was like, is he though? Like his name's
46:45
Speaker 2: not real and the name he signed on the lease
46:48
Speaker 2: isn't real. And they're like, we can't tell you what
46:50
Speaker 2: to do in that respect to what you want. So
46:52
Speaker 2: they left a locksmith's comes I changed the lock, and
46:55
Speaker 2: there must have been at least twelve of them at
46:57
Speaker 2: that house. It was so big. I was like, well,
47:00
Speaker 2: what if he shows up, Like what do I do?
47:01
Speaker 2: They're like, well, if he shows up and you feel
47:03
Speaker 2: scared or unsafe, just call nine one one and we'll
47:06
Speaker 2: come over. So they leave. I'm just distraught, and I
47:11
Speaker 2: look at my sister and I'm like, Jenny, you have
47:14
Speaker 2: to tell him Mom, Like I can't tell her. I
47:16
Speaker 2: can't tell her it's Jase that's stolen all her stuff
47:18
Speaker 2: like that, Oh my god. My sister calls my mom,
47:21
Speaker 2: and my mom, who is so compassionate, she pops in
47:25
Speaker 2: her car and comes and drives. It's almost an hour
47:28
Speaker 2: drive from her house to my house. And I'm at
47:31
Speaker 2: that point I think lying down in bed because I
47:33
Speaker 2: just don't know what to do. And she crawls into
47:35
Speaker 2: bed and just holds me, and I start bawling, and
47:40
Speaker 2: it's just my whole family is kind of now in
47:41
Speaker 2: this chaos.
47:44
Speaker 1: The very next day, Heather's parents filed a police report
47:47
Speaker 1: for the missing jewelry with the Ontario Provincial Police. Jace
47:51
Speaker 1: had also been driving Heather's dad's car, a Mercedes SUV,
47:55
Speaker 1: but Jase had never paid for it or bothered to
47:58
Speaker 1: transfer the title. No one knew exactly how Jace would react,
48:02
Speaker 1: but Heather's dad was advised to still go ahead and
48:05
Speaker 1: ask for the car to be returned.
48:08
Speaker 2: Send him a message and say you want your car
48:10
Speaker 2: back by such and such a day and time, and
48:12
Speaker 2: if you don't get it back, you're going to call
48:14
Speaker 2: the police. So my dad sends that note to Jace,
48:18
Speaker 2: and right away Jace's messages me. And keep in mind,
48:21
Speaker 2: he said he was supposed to be coming home Sunday
48:22
Speaker 2: night for a visit. It's now Sunday night and he
48:24
Speaker 2: hasn't called or anything. I get this text message from
48:27
Speaker 2: him saying, like, what the hell's going on? I'll be
48:30
Speaker 2: home in twenty minutes.
48:31
Speaker 1: Heather and her friend Kristen are terrified. Jace has a
48:35
Speaker 1: lot to lose by being exposed. Heather and Kristen race
48:39
Speaker 1: through the house, locking every window, every door, and then
48:42
Speaker 1: they go and hide in the closet and call nine
48:45
Speaker 1: one one. The call is in the documentary. Heather's voice
48:48
Speaker 1: is frantic. She sounds genuinely afraid for her safety. The
48:52
Speaker 1: man with complete access to her life isn't who he
48:56
Speaker 1: said he was, and he's angry that Heather knows it.
48:59
Speaker 1: The only thing bringing Heather any sense of safety in
49:03
Speaker 1: this moment is that she'd had the locks changed.
49:08
Speaker 2: At this point, I don't know what he's capable of,
49:10
Speaker 2: and we all know you hear those awful stories like
49:13
Speaker 2: you push somebody just one step too far and you
49:15
Speaker 2: don't know. And in the nine one one call, she
49:17
Speaker 2: at one point asked us like does he have weapons?
49:20
Speaker 2: We're like, how the fuck are we supposed to? Like?
49:21
Speaker 2: We are freaking out? And where I lived in Aurora,
49:25
Speaker 2: it was semi rural. My next door neighbors were another
49:29
Speaker 2: five avre piece of property right, So if I were
49:33
Speaker 2: to stand on my front door and scream as loud
49:36
Speaker 2: as I could scream, no one's going to hear me.
49:39
Speaker 2: And I'm feeling okay because I know I've changed the locks,
49:41
Speaker 2: like he can't get in. So we hear him pull
49:45
Speaker 2: up and he goes to the door closest to the
49:48
Speaker 2: garage that leads into the mudroom, and I can hear
49:51
Speaker 2: him putting his key in and it's not working. I've
49:53
Speaker 2: also double bolted the locks. And then I hear him
49:56
Speaker 2: come to the front door and hear the key going
49:58
Speaker 2: in and he can't get in. And next thing I know,
50:01
Speaker 2: he's come in through a window. Somehow he managed to
50:05
Speaker 2: pry open one of those crank windows that cranks from
50:09
Speaker 2: the inside. I don't know how he did it because
50:12
Speaker 2: everything was locked down. So he's coming in through the
50:15
Speaker 2: window and I'm I'm not even on the phone. I
50:18
Speaker 2: think Kristen's in the closet still giving the play by play,
50:21
Speaker 2: and I go running out of the bedroom hysterical like
50:26
Speaker 2: I'm in full surging adrenaline terror. And you hear a
50:32
Speaker 2: little bit in the nine to one one call, like
50:34
Speaker 2: you can hear the screaming and I'm basically, I think,
50:36
Speaker 2: screaming at him, saying, I know everything. I know you're
50:40
Speaker 2: Jason Porter. I know what you've been doing. Da da
50:43
Speaker 2: da da da da da. And he looks at me
50:44
Speaker 2: and is like so and goes and makes a coffee
50:47
Speaker 2: and he makes himself a coffee, and I'm like, the
50:49
Speaker 2: cops are going to be here any minute. So the
50:51
Speaker 2: cops come. It's a male cop and a female cop,
50:55
Speaker 2: and the mail cop takes Jase outside and the female
50:58
Speaker 2: cop talks to me, and I'm hysteric, like I'm out
51:02
Speaker 2: of my mind, and I'm trying to like just like
51:05
Speaker 2: tell her what's going on. I'm like, you guys were
51:07
Speaker 2: here yesterday, just read the report. Read the report. He's
51:08
Speaker 2: Jason Port. And next thing I know, the two cops
51:12
Speaker 2: are talking. He's outside still I'm inside. Kristin and I
51:15
Speaker 2: are both freaking out. And the female cop comes back
51:18
Speaker 2: in and she's like, we're just waiting for the sergeant.
51:21
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, he was here yesterday, Great, he knows
51:23
Speaker 2: exactly what's going on. And she's like, well, no, Jason
51:26
Speaker 2: is now saying you assaulted him. That's why he hasn't
51:29
Speaker 2: been coming home. I'm like what I'm like, Am I
51:32
Speaker 2: getting a rest like this? It was so crazy. So
51:36
Speaker 2: now you know, Kristen's off nine one one, but she's
51:38
Speaker 2: on the phone with my parents. She's giving them a
51:40
Speaker 2: play by play, and they're like, what the f is?
51:43
Speaker 2: This is crazy? So I don't know. Within five minutes,
51:48
Speaker 2: somehow I'm now talking to a criminal lawyer because thanks
51:52
Speaker 2: to my family being you know, my dad was a lawyer,
51:55
Speaker 2: my cousin, we have lawyers in the family, were able
51:57
Speaker 2: to get a criminal lawyer on the phone on a
52:00
Speaker 2: Sunday night of a long weekend, and I'm talking to
52:03
Speaker 2: Laura and like, none of this is making sense, like
52:06
Speaker 2: the fact that the cops were even thinking of pressing
52:09
Speaker 2: charges against me. Apparently he had some sort of evidence,
52:14
Speaker 2: but we all know that Jason is a master at
52:17
Speaker 2: photoshopping and editing, so who knows what he had concompted
52:21
Speaker 2: and probably had thought this through at some point in
52:25
Speaker 2: time and had this already ready to go.
52:29
Speaker 1: Heather and Jace both spoke to the cop separately, and
52:33
Speaker 1: ultimately the cop decided that because Jace's name was on
52:36
Speaker 1: the lease, he was allowed to re enter the house,
52:38
Speaker 1: and Jay said as long as Heather gave him McKee
52:41
Speaker 1: he wouldn't press charges. Heather was afraid of him, and
52:45
Speaker 1: she had good reason to be. She'd found a document
52:48
Speaker 1: from his criminal past that had even shown he'd once
52:51
Speaker 1: been physically aggressive.
52:53
Speaker 2: When I said I can't stay here. I don't feel safe,
52:55
Speaker 2: they said, ma'am, if you don't feel safe, we suggest
52:58
Speaker 2: you leave. And I'm like, but why should I leave.
53:00
Speaker 2: I'm the one who's been paying the rent. If not me,
53:02
Speaker 2: it's my company that's paying the rent. My business is
53:05
Speaker 2: downstairs and there's about three hundred thousand dollars worth of
53:08
Speaker 2: furniture down there that I'm trying to sell. Like, how
53:11
Speaker 2: am I supposed to if I leave? Feel safe that
53:14
Speaker 2: he's not going to pull up with a U haul
53:15
Speaker 2: truck and just rob me blind. And the sergeant said,
53:18
Speaker 2: you can only take in and out of the house.
53:20
Speaker 2: What is yours? I was like, what anyway? I had
53:24
Speaker 2: to give him a key to the house, and he
53:27
Speaker 2: said he'd be back the next day. But the cops leave.
53:30
Speaker 2: They don't even ask him about my dad's car. And
53:32
Speaker 2: then the cops leave, and within minutes of them leaving,
53:37
Speaker 2: Jase goes into the front room, which was an office
53:41
Speaker 2: again closes the two French doors, takes a phone cord,
53:44
Speaker 2: wraps it around so I can't get in, and he
53:47
Speaker 2: proceeds to erase the computer. And I hadn't gotten all
53:50
Speaker 2: the screenshots off yet, so the computer's erased, the cops
53:53
Speaker 2: are gone, and then he just looks at me and
53:55
Speaker 2: he's like, I'll be back tomorrow early and leaves. So
53:58
Speaker 2: that night, I stayed up all night and packed as
54:00
Speaker 2: much as I could into boxes and suitcases and like
54:03
Speaker 2: loaded it into my car and left, like I'm just
54:08
Speaker 2: in this data shock. And a couple days later, I
54:11
Speaker 2: talked to the detective who was assigned to my case,
54:13
Speaker 2: and I said, I really want a restraining order, like
54:15
Speaker 2: this is crazy. Meanwhile, the opp for my mom's stuff
54:21
Speaker 2: feels comfortable that there's enough stuff that he can arrest Jase.
54:25
Speaker 2: So within a week of all this, Jase is arrested
54:29
Speaker 2: for stealing my mom's stuff. But because he erased all
54:33
Speaker 2: those screenshots, I'll say like twenty things were stolen from
54:36
Speaker 2: her and we only had evidence for two, so they
54:41
Speaker 2: were able to press charges. But he wasn't kept on,
54:45
Speaker 2: like he didn't have to post bail, he didn't have
54:47
Speaker 2: to do anything, but that would have been around September
54:51
Speaker 2: thirteenth of twenty twenty one, and that's when he would
54:55
Speaker 2: begin going through the criminal justice system for my mom.
55:00
Speaker 1: Legal battle just to get Jace Peretti aka Jason Porter
55:05
Speaker 1: actually prosecuted for stealing Heather's mother's jewelry would be long
55:09
Speaker 1: and it would be draining. Today, Heather believes that almost
55:13
Speaker 1: everything Jason Porter told her was a lie. She doesn't
55:17
Speaker 1: believe that he's Italian, or that he speaks Italian, or
55:20
Speaker 1: that he's ever even been to Italy. She doesn't believe
55:23
Speaker 1: he was ever an employee Oracle, and she certainly doesn't
55:27
Speaker 1: believe that he has the prestigious educational pedigree that he
55:30
Speaker 1: claimed to. Throughout their three year relationship, Jace said he
55:34
Speaker 1: was in the midst of a custody battle. Heather had
55:37
Speaker 1: decorated a room for their home for Jace's son, and
55:40
Speaker 1: after he was arrested, she went back to the house
55:43
Speaker 1: to clear it out. Under the bed that she had
55:46
Speaker 1: bought for his son, she found legal documents regarding this
55:50
Speaker 1: parental custody battle, and there was no trial. The custody
55:54
Speaker 1: arrangement had already been settled. He'd been lying to her
55:57
Speaker 1: for years. She'd also discovered why he kept delaying the
56:01
Speaker 1: Italy trip and failed to join her on their romantic
56:03
Speaker 1: getaway to the Dominican Republic.
56:07
Speaker 2: So hidden under the bed was a plastic bag filled
56:11
Speaker 2: with stuff, and then a stack of all these family
56:14
Speaker 2: court documents. And one of the things inside the plastic
56:17
Speaker 2: bag was a letter from the Family Responsibility Office basically
56:21
Speaker 2: saying he's denied a passport because what I didn't know
56:25
Speaker 2: then though, he was denied his passport because he was
56:29
Speaker 2: behind in child's port. The fact that for over three
56:31
Speaker 2: years I thought I was in a loving, committed relationship
56:34
Speaker 2: with Jace Peretti, but he really, in fact was by
56:38
Speaker 2: birth Jason Porter, who when he got out of federal prison,
56:41
Speaker 2: changed his name and the name Parati. He literally took
56:46
Speaker 2: his mom's maiden name and added an eye. Jace is
56:50
Speaker 2: short for Jason. It was his first wife's nickname for him, Jace.
56:54
Speaker 2: So he wasn't even that creative, and I guess he
56:57
Speaker 2: had time in prison to come up with this whole persona.
57:00
Speaker 2: He never stopped online dating. I think what he realized
57:04
Speaker 2: when he got out of prison is it's great to
57:06
Speaker 2: have a home base and a long term relationship which
57:09
Speaker 2: looks to the outside world and his son and his
57:12
Speaker 2: son's mom that you're a decent guy, or that you've
57:15
Speaker 2: changed your ways, but behind our backs, he never stopped
57:20
Speaker 2: online dating because he was posted in that one Facebook
57:24
Speaker 2: group a few times.
57:25
Speaker 1: Did you ever speak with the mother of his son? Yes,
57:29
Speaker 1: and what you know, what did you learn?
57:32
Speaker 2: She actually knew he was Jason Porter, and she had
57:34
Speaker 2: found stolen stuff all through their house, and I think
57:37
Speaker 2: she was in her own state of shock and survival
57:42
Speaker 2: and she had a child to care for, so I
57:46
Speaker 2: do remember. It was a few weeks after the arrest.
57:49
Speaker 2: I messaged her on Facebook and I just said, you know,
57:52
Speaker 2: I don't know what you know about me or my relationship,
57:56
Speaker 2: but I told her a little bit and she's like,
57:57
Speaker 2: i'll call you in an hour. So she called me.
58:00
Speaker 2: We talked, and she did say to me, we thought
58:04
Speaker 2: he changed with you, which on one hand makes me
58:07
Speaker 2: think when he would show up for his kid visits,
58:09
Speaker 2: he was probably being a great dad because I would
58:11
Speaker 2: make sure he would go off with snacks and like
58:13
Speaker 2: all the things that the lawyer told him to do,
58:15
Speaker 2: like be a good dad, and you show up with
58:17
Speaker 2: a backpack with a change of clothes and snacks and
58:19
Speaker 2: da da da. So I can see where she might
58:22
Speaker 2: have thought he maybe had changed. But the truth is
58:24
Speaker 2: people like him don't change, and he never will change,
58:27
Speaker 2: and he never did change. So when we spoke that
58:32
Speaker 2: fall of twenty twenty one, it was a little cathartic
58:36
Speaker 2: because I could tell her what I experienced, and she
58:38
Speaker 2: would share with me what she went through, and she'd
58:40
Speaker 2: be like, you're just at the beginning, believe me, like
58:43
Speaker 2: you're still going to learn more, And so we were
58:45
Speaker 2: able to kind of give each other a little comfort,
58:47
Speaker 2: because the only people who are going to understand what
58:49
Speaker 2: you truly went through are other people. But her story,
58:53
Speaker 2: except for the fact that they'd met on match and
58:57
Speaker 2: it wasn't an organic meetup, just there's a lot of similarities.
59:02
Speaker 2: And it's the same with like Leslie and even Tiffany.
59:06
Speaker 2: And it's like he has a playbook. I call it
59:09
Speaker 2: the Jase Playbook, and he knows his moves and he
59:12
Speaker 2: knows his lines, and he knows who he can play
59:15
Speaker 2: who's going to work on and those are like nice, empathetic,
59:20
Speaker 2: caring women who just want love, and he uses that
59:25
Speaker 2: as a weapon. He's perfected it. He's done it over
59:28
Speaker 2: and over.
59:30
Speaker 1: The criminal proceedings against Jase took about two years, and
59:34
Speaker 1: he tried over and over again to delay them even further,
59:37
Speaker 1: but eventually, in April of twenty twenty five, he was
59:41
Speaker 1: sentenced to almost two years in prison, followed by three
59:44
Speaker 1: years of probation after his release. Additionally, one of the
59:49
Speaker 1: things that happened is he tried to frame Heather and
59:53
Speaker 1: he placed flyers on the cars belonging to the jurors,
59:56
Speaker 1: but it all came back to him and he was
59:59
Speaker 1: just given an additional charge of jury tampering.
1:00:03
Speaker 2: He ended up getting arrested about five weeks after that
1:00:06
Speaker 2: for obstruction of justice, jury tampering, and some other charge
1:00:12
Speaker 2: which I'm not exactly sure what it is. But the
1:00:14
Speaker 2: opp detective, the same one who my parents went to
1:00:17
Speaker 2: that first day, said, compared to theft and crime, these
1:00:20
Speaker 2: are very serious charges. So I hope this is where
1:00:25
Speaker 2: I feel like I have a little window of opportunity
1:00:29
Speaker 2: to expose him for the coresion for that fraudulent behavior
1:00:34
Speaker 2: because he lied to a superior court judge, a crown
1:00:39
Speaker 2: attorney like that has nothing to do with stealing my mom. Well,
1:00:43
Speaker 2: its results from stealing her jewelry. But that's pretty twisted
1:00:48
Speaker 2: criminal behavior.
1:00:50
Speaker 1: And it's like, we hear this a lot with victims
1:00:54
Speaker 1: of scams like this, where they have to go seeking
1:00:58
Speaker 1: the justice they want through these other sort of you know,
1:01:03
Speaker 1: maybe more peripherally related wrongdoings or crimes, because it's like
1:01:09
Speaker 1: you're saying, you know, you you were in an intimate
1:01:11
Speaker 1: relationship with someone, Yeah, but they had light about every
1:01:14
Speaker 1: aspect of themselves, so were you No? Not really, there
1:01:18
Speaker 1: needs to be more more of a place for this
1:01:20
Speaker 1: in our justice system where we can really name it
1:01:22
Speaker 1: and call in what it is because we're seeing it
1:01:24
Speaker 1: all the time.
1:01:26
Speaker 2: It's interesting you say that because my mom, when all
1:01:28
Speaker 2: this first started happening, she was like, it's kind of
1:01:31
Speaker 2: like in vain and I say this and I hope
1:01:35
Speaker 2: it doesn't rub anyone the wrong way. But like when
1:01:37
Speaker 2: the Me Too Light movement came to light and all
1:01:40
Speaker 2: these women started talking about their experiences. Since the documentary
1:01:45
Speaker 2: came out, I have received I can't even tell you
1:01:48
Speaker 2: how many messages through Facebook and Instagram and personal emails
1:01:54
Speaker 2: from women and men around the world sharing stories with
1:02:00
Speaker 2: me about what they went through. So it's you're right,
1:02:03
Speaker 2: it's happening. It's like, right now, intimate partner violence is
1:02:06
Speaker 2: very big in the news here and they're passing acts
1:02:08
Speaker 2: to make it they're calling it at epidemic, like it's awful.
1:02:12
Speaker 2: But we need to recognize the coersion and the emotional
1:02:15
Speaker 2: abuse of all this. And you know, I remember so
1:02:19
Speaker 2: clearly one day in Aurora. You know, every time I
1:02:22
Speaker 2: had to go back to the house after I was
1:02:24
Speaker 2: forced out, I had to be escorted him by police,
1:02:27
Speaker 2: and that was traumatizing. But this one cop, he was
1:02:30
Speaker 2: so nice actually, and he said, you know, it's it's
1:02:33
Speaker 2: just unfortunate, Heather. It's not against the law and a
1:02:36
Speaker 2: lie and be an asshole. You're right, And that's essentially
1:02:41
Speaker 2: what he does though, right, Like I guess there is
1:02:44
Speaker 2: a big difference. This is a whole other conversation, but
1:02:46
Speaker 2: there is a difference between like deception and fraud versus
1:02:49
Speaker 2: just lying right and his deception of fraud.
1:02:57
Speaker 1: So I first heard Heather's story because you recommended this
1:03:01
Speaker 1: documentary to me. I did. Yeah, I actually came across
1:03:04
Speaker 1: it just by chance. I hadn't heard of it or
1:03:07
Speaker 1: I didn't read about it. I was just like, ooh,
1:03:09
Speaker 1: romance scam documentary. Yes, I'll absolutely be watching that and
1:03:13
Speaker 1: I did, and I was blown away. And you know,
1:03:16
Speaker 1: like documentaries, it's hard to do everything in a matter
1:03:20
Speaker 1: of two episodes to really fully cover a story. And
1:03:24
Speaker 1: I reached out to Heather because I just had a
1:03:26
Speaker 1: feeling like we could really dive in and Heather was
1:03:30
Speaker 1: game to do that, and I just so enjoyed hearing
1:03:34
Speaker 1: it directly from her. Yeah, and she definitely was able
1:03:38
Speaker 1: to dive into similar details that they probably just had
1:03:41
Speaker 1: to cut out of the documentary for the sake of time,
1:03:43
Speaker 1: as well as there's more voices in the documentary. We
1:03:46
Speaker 1: don't really talk too much about that in this interview,
1:03:49
Speaker 1: but there are other women interviewed in the documentary who
1:03:52
Speaker 1: also were victims of Jay slash Jason Porter. So definitely
1:03:56
Speaker 1: it's worth going and watching. Yeah, totally mean. One thing
1:04:00
Speaker 1: that I just kept thinking about learning about Jason Porter,
1:04:04
Speaker 1: Jace Parati, whatever you preferred to call him, is you
1:04:08
Speaker 1: know this started for him back and at least I
1:04:10
Speaker 1: was able to track it from like research back to
1:04:13
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine where he was dating women and
1:04:17
Speaker 1: you know, stealing from them, and I imagine like when
1:04:20
Speaker 1: the online dating landscape really took shape. It was like
1:04:24
Speaker 1: this oh wow, this aha moment, Like, now I don't
1:04:28
Speaker 1: have to go on a dozen different coffee dates to
1:04:32
Speaker 1: like start these new relationships. I can just fire off
1:04:35
Speaker 1: messages and like that had to just really ramp things up. Yes,
1:04:40
Speaker 1: Like when Heather said she opened up his email, she
1:04:43
Speaker 1: said he was chatting with like hundreds of women at
1:04:45
Speaker 1: the same time. Obviously, that's so much easier to do
1:04:48
Speaker 1: digitally than back in you know, two thousand and nine,
1:04:53
Speaker 1: when I imagine he was probably just meeting people in person.
1:04:56
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly how he was, but that would
1:04:58
Speaker 1: be my guess. But also probably easier to be caught
1:05:02
Speaker 1: nowadays than previously, because there is a digital trail for everything,
1:05:09
Speaker 1: and it's probably easier for like Heather to want discover
1:05:14
Speaker 1: this is happening, and also to connect with other victims
1:05:17
Speaker 1: than maybe it was in the past. So it's like
1:05:20
Speaker 1: both probably easier to perpetuate these crimes and also potentially
1:05:25
Speaker 1: easier to get caught. Yeah. Absolutely, so you know, he
1:05:29
Speaker 1: uh maybe got a little too big for his breeches. Yeah,
1:05:33
Speaker 1: And such a bone chilling moment when she finally confronts
1:05:40
Speaker 1: him and he just says so, and then goes and
1:05:42
Speaker 1: makes a coffee that just says it all. You know,
1:05:47
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, wow, he was playing a part. Yeah,
1:05:51
Speaker 1: so confident, so brazen, and you're just like, oh, that's
1:05:54
Speaker 1: even scarier that, like you don't care that, I know,
1:05:57
Speaker 1: you'll just move on to the next person. Yeah, And
1:06:01
Speaker 1: you know, Heather obviously doesn't understand that yet, and so
1:06:04
Speaker 1: she is reacting like anyone would if you think that
1:06:07
Speaker 1: you're in a relationship with someone who's like reasonable and
1:06:11
Speaker 1: has been telling you the truth. Like there's that instinct
1:06:13
Speaker 1: to argue your case and be like hey, no, no,
1:06:16
Speaker 1: like this is really wrong, and he is just like
1:06:19
Speaker 1: so so wild. Yeah, he's just on another planet, like unreachable. Yeah, emotionally. Yeah.
1:06:27
Speaker 1: So totally recommend this documentary. It's called Who the F
1:06:31
Speaker 1: Is Jason Porter and it's available on Amazon Prime or
1:06:34
Speaker 1: at least that's where I watched it. So yeah, great
1:06:38
Speaker 1: to hear from Heather, and we'll see you guys next week.
1:06:44
Speaker 1: If you have a story for us, we would love
1:06:46
Speaker 1: to hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactlyrightmedia
1:06:49
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram at
1:06:52
Speaker 1: The Knife Podcast or a Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
1:06:55
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production. Hosted and produced
1:06:58
Speaker 1: by me Hannah Smith and Patia Ety. Our producers are
1:07:02
Speaker 1: Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi. This episode was mixed by
1:07:05
Speaker 1: Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme
1:07:09
Speaker 1: music is by Birds in the Airport. Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
1:07:13
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.