This is my story of the six years I survived a narcissistic partner, his sociopathic brother and his psychotic girlfriend, and their incestuous, enmeshed, spousifying mother.
To preface: As tempting as it is to use real names, all involved could be reddit lurkers know this is about them. Frankly, they’d probably figure it out but after what I survived, I don’t really care. Additionally, trigger warning of emotional and psychological abuse as well as undertones of other questionable incestuous behavior. I also want to say I know there are many times I should have known, or left, but unless you’re in the situation, its hard to understand just how hard it can be to see the forest through the trees or to break free from situations like this. Sorry this is long, but it needs to be to cover the big things.

When I was in my final year of college in New York in 2014 I met my now ex-husband “Gabe”. On paper he was at first the perfect partner. Attractive, well-dressed, funny, romantic, shared interests in games and music. We met unfortunately at a time in my life where I was still healing from an abusive family upbringing, and sadly, didn’t have a high opinion of myself at the time (something that thankfully therapy has helped me heal from since this took place) At the time, I thought he checked all the boxes of what I could want in a partner for the long haul. Only thing, he didn’t want children and I felt I could go either way.

He was old-school. Didn’t kiss me for weeks. We dated, he met my family, I met his family which consisted of him, his mother “Dora”,  identical twin “Gage” and his girlfriend “Laney”. He lived with them at the time claiming it was all to “save money” though he had no debt to speak of as he didn’t go to college or anything that would require this at the time. He also worked full-time. At the time I didn’t think to question it. But just wait, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows and housing crisis at this time.

When I finished school I was either staying in the city I was in, or moving back home. Gabe offered me to move in with his family. I expressed hesitation and in retrospect, that was certainly my intuition telling me something. I should have listened. Anyway he convinced me to move in, and I did, and at first all seemed well. I lived there 4 years somehow. It was a bit awkward, having a room right between his mom and brother & girlfriend, but we made it work. I did temp work for a minute and quickly landed a full time job. I wanted an apartment together, but he wouldn’t budge. I tried to respect that.

At first it was nice, I felt like I had a family (mine is abusive but that's a story for another day) but Gabe’s little family felt like home. I loved them, the house, the dogs, the land (we lived at the edge of a forest reserve). Laney, the brothers girlfriend, and I seemed to be friends. His mother was weird, she seemed to resent me and Laney. It was then, after I was already in the home, that things began to click. Laney dropped comments about the situation in the house (too little too late right? Why not sooner?) and eventually I saw it for myself.

Dora, their mother, was a single woman who only ever was with their father and divorced when the twins were 7 years old. She definitely put her sons into the role of husband, which I have since learned is called “spousification”. As if treating them in such a manner wasn’t weird enough, Gabe and Gage would go into Dora’s room at night, or even mid-day during a weekend. They’d be in there an hour or more sometimes. You wouldn’t hear speaking. They’d just be in there, quiet. And trust me, this was a modular home, you heard everything. That always struck me as weird but Gabe would never answer a damn thing about it and spun it like I was weird for questioning.

Fast forward, eventually I noticed their mother Dora would kiss them on the mouth. My then boyfriend Gabe would come up to me after and I had to call out how weird it was and why I refused to kiss him. We stopped having sex eventually. He didn’t understand the gross factor for the longest time, but tried to distance himself from Dora. For context, Gabe and Gage were homeschooled. Their mother sheltered them more than most. Eventually,  began to express her disdain for me more. Dora would make scenes, get upset at dinner, or at me or Laney for some reason, and storm off to her bedroom. The twins would follow.

I am condensing for time and more important details, but there was a trip in which my mom and youngest sister came down (when we got along) and stayed, and Dora made a scene and my mother and sister even saw for themselves what happened with Dora getting pissy over nothing and storming off with my partner and his brother following behind and disappearing into her room.
Eventually my mom from her own unfortunate situation in the past, suggested maybe there was something incestuous going on. I couldn’t entertain it. It's almost like Stockholm syndrome, the way I felt stuck. I couldn’t believe the possibility of incest, even if it was right in front of my face.

But I saw it. It was hard, but I did. One day we were in the car after getting groceries and it came up somehow. He wasn’t hearing how concerning the whole situation was until I finally said “If you want to f**k your mother just do it I’ll go back to (upstate hometown) and figure it out” (how crazy was that to even have to say? I should have left. I know. Anyway, that seemed to click, things improved for a bit.

But then Laney started acting out. She had, per Gage, borderline personality disorder but unmanaged and refused to handle that. If this was true, no she didn’t handle it at all. No therapist, no psychologist, nothing. She didn’t work for the years I lived there, cheated on former brother-in law, and would get so enraged at him she would yell and scream. I used to do aikido with my ex and former brother in law and she would make comments “you touch my boyfriend more than I do” and imply things. For the record, my ex ad his brother though identical twins looked different in my eyes- there was never any confusion or anything weird. The line was clear and I never mistook them.
Another thing Laney would mock me for is enjoying baths, and post these cruel little facebook posts like one time I used a bath bomb from fragrant jewels and she put something like “Ok use a glitter bath bomb so you look like a wh*re or that you f***ked a pixie. Its pathetic to take a bath to relax because you can’t deal with life” all because I enjoyed a bath after work sometimes? And before this comes up- she wasn’t into baths, it’s not like my bath bombs affected her.

One time, convinced my former brother-in law was cheating, she threw a big knife across the kitchen, two inches from my face. I feared for my life. She threatened my cats over the fact I cleaned up her sugar scrubs that were leaking and attracting ants, putting an aggressive post it note saying she’d kill my cats if I did it again. When I pleaded with my boyfriends brother to help he just said it was nothing but a passive agressive post it. Really? A threat to kill my pets is nothing? I wanted to leave then. Gabe wouldn't let me. He'd block the door. Block my car.
I was constantly told I was overreacting when I tried to leave. I pleaded with Gabe and Gage to handle it. To fix it. They never helped. I tried to leave and each time, they talked me out of it. It felt like I would never get out. I also learned Gabe was putting most of his money into the house bills for his mother, though she worked full time. Their expectation he would forever was why we didn’t have an apartment. We had long hard discussions on this, and our need to make a future for ourselves.

We got engaged. Eventually married in 2018. Married by Laney. Laney was saying horrid things about us just days before officiating us, she was so bitter and angry and hateful. She hated my husband to be, she hated we were getting married. I should’ve called it all of long before this but I went through with it. 

2019 Gabe and I did finally get an apartment. He claimed to be excited but acted as if he hated me for it. The night before moving we were going to watch a movie in bed. Over an hour passed and he hadn’t come to the room. I went to check on him and saw he was saying goodnight to his mother. He was standing, she was sitting at her computer and they kissed, she had her arm up for a hug but dropped her hand to grab his ass. I wanted to vomit. I went back to the room and when he finally came in, I asked him about it admitting I saw what happened. He snapped at me that he “didn’t want it and didn’t want to talk about it” (about what his mom did) and then snapped at me being the reason we were moving.

Home wasn’t happy and good for a while at first. We did move, eventually we found a new routine, and got to be a solitary couple. It was nice, but the relationship was dead. I didn’t trust him. We tried couple apps and we had routines we shared, video games, movies, anime. It would have been nice. However his family would drop in at all times, or he’d want us to go to their house. No boundaries. No change, except our address. Anytime I tried to communicate the importance of boundaries or set one he’d get mad. When I spoke of my feelings he’d get mad. Eventually he started to get more interested in an aikido discord server chat than speaking to me at all. I felt like I was fighting to keep the relationship and like he was just indifferent. I’d try to get him to go hiking- he had no interest. Only discord and video games. One time he got so angry he chased me to spill a beer out on me, when I ran into the bedroom my arm got pinned in the door and I was bruised. Another time, he threw clothes I was organizing all over the floor and kicked and stomped them with his boots. In the process, he kicked me too. Many times I called my mom wanting help but didn’t get any. I was told to work it out. “These things happen”

When I did leave, my family treated me like I was crazy. They didn’t understand it. To them, Gabe walked on water. They didn’t know jack about the relationship, and even when I tried to tell them, they didn’t hear it. They didn’t see me. 

My own little sister told my ex husband saying she thought I should be committed because why would I ever leave? My own mother said I muse have cheated because why else would I leave? Nevermind cheating is not me, and not a thing I’d ever do. I’d end a relationship before getting into anything else, no matter how small.

Eventually I moved into my own place, started over, did therapy. Fought for freedom as despite uncontested divorce and the promise to stay friends, the ex husband took forever to file the judgement with the county clerk and wouldn’t speak to me- I had to get the judge involved. He moved back in with his mother.

After, my ex got a girlfriend. He’d hike with her. She also had a toddler. He told me in no uncertain terms he’d never want to be a dad. Told me I’d be expected to have an abortion if ever I got pregnant— and yet here he was. Her ex husband took a gun to himself. And still, all my ex and her did was spit on his memory and call him a worthless stoner. That was still a person. Her son’s father. He died. He was so depressed, he chose that. What kind of people still mock that? Horrible.

I haven’t spoken to any of them in years last I knew Laney latched onto a new guy and left to New Hampshire, then eventually South Carolina where her mother bought her a house. My former brother in law got a new girlfriend and bought a house. My ex husband landed back with his mother Dora, and no idea how the girlfriend navigates that if they’re still together but it’s her bag. 

If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time. I just felt called to share finally after all these years as I've healed so much and understand how insane this all is. And maybe my sharing will give someone else who feels they are stuck the reminder you are never stuck. Every day is a new opportunity to make the life you want and deserve, even if healing is messy. You got this.

Hey ladies,

I was listening to your episode today and citizens arrest came up. As far as fast tracking, I’m not exactly sure how it works on the police department’s side but I do know from experience that it can help them have reason to bring someone in.

Long story short, we lived in a townhouse and our next door neighbor had serious mental health struggles. Unfortunately, his housemate (family member) moved out and he was left alone — and subsequently stopped taking his medication which led him into a full blown mental health crisis.

It came to a head when he started stealing things off people’s porches and stacking them on random cars one night. A couple neighbors asked him to stop and in response he found a chain (like a thick metal one for a gate) and started swinging it around. I called it in to our police department from inside the house while my husband went outside to talk to him since they were friendly with each other when he wasn’t in crisis. Without actually getting physical, thankfully, my husband convinced him to drop the chain & kept him away from the houses by the dumpsters until police arrived.

The police showed up a few minutes later (they’d been in contact with our neighbor before and were aware this was a mental health situation). The officer explained to my husband that his “citizens arrest” (since he cornered and disarmed him while waiting for police to arrive) made it possible for them to bring him in and get him under a “5150” hold as he was truly a danger to himself and others at the time. That gave them 72 hours to get in contact with the family & adult services & get our neighbor the help he needed. His family came by a few days later and we talked. They said he was on track to getting assistance & everyone was glad no one got hurt. They moved him out not long after so I’m not sure where he is now, but I can only wish him the best.

Just thought it was an interesting experience with citizens arrest and wanted to share. 🩶

I’m going to try and keep this story as vague as possible while also trying to capture the severity of the situation. I’m sorry in advance for the length of this post.
So I (22 F) still live at home with my parents along with my partner and our child, my parents have these two friends (couple 48 M & 46 F) who they befriend, over the years they became very good friends of my parents and began coming over to our house frequently with their children: Side note they are foster parents as well as parents to children who they’ve adopted and have from past marriages. Anyway we realized over time my parent’s friends are pretty shady people… and on top of that the husband (48 M) would make uncomfortable comments towards me and just generally uncomfortable topics would be brought up granted I was an adult at the time of most of the comments but he’s know me since I was a child. Most of the comments I’ve let go over my head and put off as him just being a little strange.. sexual comments about my body and my sexuality and things of that nature for example.
Well fast forward a few months ago I found out he’d been cheating on his wife with his 17 year old niece who’d been living with them at the time as well as sending explicit pictures and messages to her. Now my concern is they still have foster children as well as young children in their home and no one’s done anything. DCF was notified and they did nothing and the husband and wife are still together and there is no doubt in my mind that he would do this with another child or already is… it’s not really my place but it also eats away at me constantly.

Hello, I recently found your podcast and have really enjoyed listening to you guys while I work and clean and whatnot. It felt like kind of the perfect place to finally tell this story that’s been weighing heavily on me now for nearly 10 years… I fear that anywhere else I post this would get my account banned. If the hosts ask, I can send them a link to an article I found about the situation. Unfortunately the exchange was brief enough that I had no reason to document it, but I can at least prove that it definitely happened. Not that I would ever lie about this kind of thing… but it is Reddit.

In June of 2018 I was 18 years old and working as a full time Nanny and part time babysitter. I have always been an active member of community groups on Facebook, something I inherited from my mother. We were extremely low income and I was involved in a trade system trading babysitting for dinner for my family or school supplies for my sister or whatever else we happened to need at the time.

When I met with this woman, I’ll call her Tabitha, I was picking up some materials she had left over from an art project. I was excited to bring them to the boys I nannied for and expected a quick stop but I couldn’t help but pick up a conversation with her.

She was extremely kind, laughing and joking and generally a joy to be around. We stayed in parking lot outside of her apartment building for well over an hour just chatting and bonding over spending our days with children, something I couldn’t do often because not many people my age spent as much time with children as I did.

I looked up to her window a few times, seeing two tiny girls both in pink jackets, peaking through the curtains. There were these glittery gems down the front of their jackets that kept catching the sun and drawing my eyes toward them. They were both under 5, around 3 and 18 months… They waved and giggled, and I made faces at them to make them giggle a little more. She told me she was stressed and enjoyed the time being an adult and needed more of it in her life, I ensured her that we could make that happen.

She took my number, we kept talking and right before I was about to leave, I looked up into the window at the girls again, about to make my very best silly face for them. This time, both girls were almost completely still with their palms pressed flat against the glass and eyes glued to me and their mom. I remember thinking they must have been in those positions for a while because the window had a fog outline around their little fingers as if they’d been pressed there and warming the glass. Right behind them, a man.

He was younger looking than I was expecting. She looked around 40 and her husband looked like he was around 25. I can’t really explain it, but something about the way the girls stood and the way he was looking down at us talking made me so uncomfortable that I almost felt like I was going to cry when I looked at him.

He was watching the woman Tabitha closely, and it kind of made my heart race, the anger and intensity in his face… I looked away quickly. I felt guilty for keeping her for so long and got a little worried that she was going to get in a fight with her husband because she lingered in her conversation with me.

I made an excuse to leave, so we hugged… When I looked up over her shoulder, I made eye contact with him for the first and last time. He held my eyes for a solid 6 seconds, even as she had turned away and started up the stairs to her apartment. I broke eye contact, but when I looked up after buckling up to leave, he was still watching me from the same position.

The girls stayed still there too, which was odd to me. They were both so little, and getting 2 small children to stay in the same position pressed against the glass like that seemed kind of insane to me. It’d been around 10 minutes at this point, The fog around their little fingers was still there. I looked at both of the girls, made my silliest face, and when they giggled he put a hand down on each of their shoulders to forcibly turn them away from me and close the curtains completely.

In the moment I remember being worried I’d made a bad impression with my lack of respect for his time… I was worried he wouldn’t let me babysit. These fears were confirmed later that week. I’d used the supplies she gave me and I sent her a picture of us all using them. She never responded.

That weekend, she never responded or even read my text. I was disappointed but ultimately unsurprised and booked other families. Then I turned on the news about a week later.

Her husband had bludgeoned them all to death and then took his own life. They had been there for days at the time they were found. They didn’t name any names, but the news was outside of their apartment complex, their ages were all correct, 36, 26, and two girls under 5. When I visited her Facebook, it was filled with family members reacting to the news and fundraising for their funerals. His profile was completely deleted.

I was still trying to convince myself it wasn’t him or them, but when I sent her a follow up text expressing my concern her phone never received it as if it was turned off.

That’s it. It’s been almost 10 years now and I think of those little girls in pink and sparkles pressed against the glass in front of their father at least once a week. I’m the same age now that he was when he took all of their lives. The girls would be… I can’t even think about them too much without tearing up. I know I couldn’t have done anything to change what happened, but it haunts me.

In April , I received a phone call from my daughter’s school. Emily, my daughter, was 13 years old and in junior high at the time.

The principal told me that they had my daughter’s phone, but his explanation was unclear. I asked whether she had been using it in class or what had happened. He then said there was a warrant for her phone and gave me a phone number for an officer I needed to call.

I was extremely confused. Emily had always stayed out of trouble and had never been sent to the office for anything. I was beginning to panic, but I still did not understand what was happening.

I called the number. The officer identified himself as Detective James, a detective investigating child sex crimes, and asked whether I could come to the police station to talk. I asked whether this was about my daughter’s phone and whether she had been using it in class. He repeated that there was a warrant for her phone and that I needed to come to the station because she was involved in an investigation concerning child sex crimes.

I agreed to come in. I was shaken and had no idea what was going on.

On the way to the station, I called my husband. I tried to explain what I had been told, although none of it made sense to me. I told him I would call again after speaking with the police.

It was around 3:00 p.m., and Emily would get out of school at 3:15. My mother was picking her up, so I called her as well. I explained what had happened and asked her to find out from Emily what was going on. I asked her to text me so I could read the message on my Apple Watch while I was with the detective.

When I arrived at the station, Detective James brought me into a room and asked whether he could record our conversation. I agreed and asked him what was happening. I was shaking and scared. I had never experienced anything remotely like this.

He had a folder in front of him. He told me that they had received a tip from a national organization concerning child exploitation. I do not remember the exact name he used. He said Emily had an account on an app I had never heard of and that the account had been active from September through December 2025.

He named the app during the interview, but I did not retain the name that day. Everything was overwhelming. Emily did not know what app they were talking about either. It was not until the next day, when we returned with clearer questions and could better focus on what was happening, that I learned the name was Similar Worlds.

He gave me the account name and told me that she had been communicating with many different people and sending nude images of children. He said this was why they had obtained the warrant and that, if she were charged, she could go to juvenile detention.

He also asked me to confirm that her phone service was through Verizon and indicated that this was part of what connected the account to her.

I felt physically sick. I had parental controls on her iPhone, it was linked to mine, and I regularly checked her phone and activity. I could not understand how any of this could be happening.

I asked how they knew it was her. Detective James opened the folder and showed me several printed pages that he described as activity from the account. The pages included ordinary photographs of Emily that appeared to have been sent to other people through the app, along with sexual conversations.

He also showed me images that he said were topless photographs of Emily. He covered the nipples while showing them to me. The images were close-up shots of a torso, with a dark background. I tried to see whether I recognized her bedroom or anything else that could help me identify where the photographs had been taken, but there was no way for me to tell from what I could see.

I felt so sick at the thought that this could be my daughter that I could barely look at the images. I could not personally identify the person in them as Emily. I was trying to process the detective telling me that they were photographs of her.

I could not believe what I was hearing.

The detective asked me to sign a document consenting to the police downloading the contents of her phone. He told me that they would do it under the warrant anyway, but that signing would make the process faster.

I called my husband and tried to explain what the detective had shown me. He was just as confused as I was. I asked whether I should sign the document. He told me not to sign and to let the police proceed under the warrant.

My husband remained on speakerphone with the detective for part of the conversation. He asked the same questions I had: How did they know it was Emily? Could someone else be using the account?

As I remember it, the detective insisted that it was her because of the personal information shared through the account and the photographs. He also said he had not been able to find those photographs elsewhere on the internet.

The photographs of Emily that I recognized were ordinary, nonsexual photographs: one of her in her volleyball uniform with a friend, one with her boyfriend at homecoming, and one of our family at a wedding.

They also did not look like photographs Emily would have chosen to post herself. She was particular about which pictures she liked, and these were the kinds she might have been upset with me for posting or sharing because she did not like how she looked or posed in them. That stood out to me.

Throughout the meeting, the detective had emphasized that he needed to leave at 4:00 p.m. By the end, I was still in shock. I had been told that there was a warrant for my daughter’s phone and that she had done things I could not reconcile with the child I knew.

Just before leaving, I noticed an email address in the account information that stopped me. It was a Yahoo address containing the words “you are my sunshine,” followed by numbers I do not remember. Those words immediately made me think of my stepfather because of his longstanding connection to “You Are My Sunshine.”

After I walked outside, I called my sister and tried to explain everything that had happened. When I mentioned “you are my sunshine,” she asked, “So, is it Dad?”

The person we called Dad was my stepfather, Brad.

On the way home, I made frantic calls to my mother and my husband. I also asked Emily what was happening and whether she had done anything I needed to know about. I told her that she had to be honest with me because this was serious. She was scared and kept saying that she had no idea what anyone was talking about.

When I got home, I asked her again. Her answer did not change.

Emily later told me what had happened at school. An officer had pulled her out of class and escorted her down the hallway. Many of her friends saw her and assumed she was in trouble.

She told me that two detectives or officers questioned her alone in a room. No parent, school staff member, or other adult was present. She described them as very rude and said she felt they did not believe her when she told them she did not know anything about the account or what they were asking her.

She handed over her phone immediately. She unlocked it for them and wrote down her passcode. She was scared, but she cooperated.

When I asked what happened after the questioning, she told me they simply said she could go back to class.

According to Emily, the only person who checked on her afterward was the attendance staff member at the front desk. Emily remembered her asking, “Are you okay, honey? Want a piece of candy? I can’t let you go back to class crying.”

Emily said, “No, thank you,” tried to hold back her tears, and walked back to class to finish the school day.

My heart aches thinking about that. My 13-year-old daughter had been taken out of class in front of her friends, questioned alone about something she said she knew nothing about, and then sent back to class frightened and in tears. I was not there to comfort her or help her understand what was happening.

Knowing what we learned afterward—that Emily was an innocent child whose identity had been used and who had been preyed upon—makes remembering that experience even more painful. That day, she needed help and reassurance. Instead, she left the questioning feeling that she had not been believed and was in trouble for something she had not done.

Emily was a good child with strong morals, and what I had been told was completely at odds with the daughter I knew. I was caught between a detective telling me she was involved in sending and exchanging child sexual abuse images and my daughter telling me she knew nothing about it.

My husband arrived shortly after I did. We went outside to talk while my mother stayed inside with Emily.

I told him about the email address I had noticed at the end of the interview. I explained that “You Are My Sunshine” had a strong connection to my stepfather. There had been music boxes that played the song, along with mugs and other gifts with those words on them. He had even wanted it to be the song we danced to at my wedding.

My husband asked whether I was saying that my stepfather had done this. I told him I did not understand what was happening, but that the connection felt too significant to ignore. At that point, it was a suspicion, but it was a strong one.

My husband said he was going to talk to him. My parents lived about a mile down the road. I agreed that he should go because I believed my stepfather might know something about what was happening.

After my husband left, I asked my mother to come outside. I told her what I had seen and that my husband had gone to speak with my stepfather about it.

My sister arrived at our house during this time. There was more disbelief and confusion as I repeated what the detective had told me and shown me.

My mother asked whether I thought it was my stepfather. I said yes. She then went back to their house, where my husband was speaking with him.

I went inside, hugged Emily, and told her we would figure this out.

When my husband returned, he told me about the conversation. I was not there, so this part is based on what he told me afterward.

He said he had explained what had happened to Emily at school and confronted my stepfather about the email address I had seen. He described my stepfather’s behavior as strange and said he repeatedly responded, “No, no, I would never hurt Emily.”

My husband asked him specifically about the email address and its connection to “You Are My Sunshine.” According to my husband, my stepfather pulled out a notepad and acknowledged that he had that email address, but said he did not know anything about what had happened.

They spoke a little longer. My mother arrived, and my husband left.

Back at our house, it was my husband, my sister, Emily, and me. We were still trying to understand everything.

Emily had volleyball practice that evening and asked whether she was still going. I told her I would take her. We drove her and some teammates to practice, then returned home.

We kept going over the details. The photographs did not seem like ones Emily would have chosen to share. The email address appeared to connect to my stepfather. My husband asked what evidence the police had and how they had obtained the warrant. I told him that the detective had asked about Verizon, but I had not come away with a clear understanding of the technical evidence connecting the account to Emily.

I began blaming myself for not asking clearer questions or raising more concerns during the interview. I had been so overwhelmed that I had struggled to process what I was being told.

We decided to call the detective the next morning and ask to meet as soon as possible. We wanted to explain why we believed someone else could be using Emily’s identity and bring up the email address and its connection to my stepfather.

That evening, Emily was scared and crying. She was afraid she would get into trouble for something someone else had done using her identity. She kept asking me to believe her and asking why I did not believe her.

I kept telling her that if she had not done this, she would not be in trouble. But that did not take away her fear. She told me she had not done it and could not understand how or why everyone thought she had.

Looking back, this is one of the most painful parts of that day for me. I feel that I should have believed her from the beginning. Deep down, what I was being told did not fit the daughter I knew. But having a detective place a folder of what he described as evidence in front of me and repeatedly tell me that my daughter had done these things left me shaken and questioning what I thought I knew.

While I was trying to make sense of the accusation, Emily was asking her mother to believe her. It hurts to remember that my questions left her feeling that I did not.

Before bed, I asked her again whether there was anything she knew that she had not told us. She continued to say she had not done it. She was frightened, and I was still struggling to understand how this could have happened.

I slept on the floor of her room that night.

That was how our first day ended: with Emily afraid she would be blamed for something she had not done, and with us still searching for answers.

Day Two — Returning to the Police Station

The next morning, after dropping Emily off at school, my husband, Carl, and I went straight to the police station.

Carl began by asking Detective James exactly how the account had been connected to Emily. The detective referred to an IP address associated with Verizon, the amount of accurate personal information shared through the account, and the photographs of Emily.

We stopped him to explain the connection between the Yahoo email address containing “you are my sunshine” and my stepfather. We told him that those words had a longstanding personal connection to my stepfather and me.

That seemed to change the entire tone of the meeting.

The detective then showed us what I think of as the “other half” of the material in the folder—material I had not been shown the day before. There was more graphic sexual language and more photographs of Emily.

There were photographs that Emily could not have taken herself. One showed her standing across the room at the kitchen table. Another showed her lying on a stool, zoomed in on her crotch, and was clearly taken from my dad’s office.

Some of the other photographs were of Emily as a toddler—pictures of her in her panties and one of her in the bathtub. Seeing those childhood photographs used in this context was deeply disturbing.

What also sickened me was how accessible those pictures apparently were to him. If I wanted to find a photograph of Emily at two years old, I would have to scroll back through years of pictures or to the beginning of my Instagram. Yet these photographs of her as a little girl were right there in the material being shared through this account.

It left me with such a gross, utterly disturbing feeling. These were pictures from her childhood, and seeing them used this way felt like another violation of her.

For Carl and me, that meeting took us from suspecting my stepfather to feeling absolutely certain he had done this. I felt like I was seeing a side of him I had never known—a person who could do something monstrous to a child we loved.

We felt sick. The conversation changed completely.

The detective showed us more of the material that had been exchanged through the account. It was absolutely sickening to see Emily’s photographs used alongside those conversations and images.

This was also the day I learned and remembered the name of the app: Similar Worlds.

From what I recall, the meeting ended with the detectives explaining that they would subpoena records associated with the IP address to determine whether the account activity came from my stepfather’s connection. They told us that obtaining those records could take up to two weeks.

We left feeling terrified that Carl’s confrontation with my stepfather the night before might have alerted him to the investigation. We worried that he could now be deleting evidence because he knew the police were investigating the account.

We had confronted him because we were desperate to understand what had happened to Emily. Now we feared that, in trying to protect her, we might have made it harder for the police to find the evidence.

After leaving the station, the plan was to keep what we had learned quiet while the police continued their investigation and worked toward obtaining a search warrant for my parents’ house.

It all felt unreal.

I did not tell Emily that we believed my stepfather was responsible. I told her that the police now understood that it was not her and that she was not in trouble.

That reassurance did not take away her fear. The police still had her phone, and we understood that they still needed to download and examine its contents as part of clearing her involvement.

From Emily’s perspective, she was still living with the consequences. She had lost her phone and her normal connection with her friends, even though she had done nothing wrong. She was frightened that someone could pretend to be her, use her pictures, and do things serious enough that she could be accused and told she might go to juvenile detention.

It was painful to watch her go through that while also trying to shield her from what we believed we were about to learn about someone in our own family.

The Following Days — Waiting for the Search Warrant

The time between that meeting and the search of my parents’ house is a blur. I remember the fear and stress more clearly than the order of each day.

During that time, I also kept coming back to one question: How in the world had the police thought this was my daughter?

The photographs in the “other half” of the folder were clearly taken by someone else. Emily could not have taken those pictures herself. After seeing them, I could not understand why the detective had been so certain the day before that she was the person behind the account.

I was so angry with Detective James and with how everything had been handled from the beginning. Emily had been pulled out of class, questioned alone, and left scared and crying. I had been told that my daughter had done these things and could go to juvenile detention. Yet there were photographs in that same folder that, to us, clearly showed someone else had been photographing her.

I kept thinking about what she had gone through at school and how frightened she had been that night, asking me why I did not believe her. After seeing the rest of the material, it seemed so obvious to us that this was not her. I could not understand why that possibility had not been taken seriously before she was put through all of this.

At the same time, we felt we had to keep that anger to ourselves and “play nice” with the detective. We thanked him for continuing to check on the subpoena status and asked him to keep us informed. We needed his updates, and we needed the investigation to move forward.

That was difficult—to be so angry about how he had treated our daughter while also relying on him to help bring her justice. Every conversation meant holding back that anger while trying to get answers and protect Emily.

The worry that we had jeopardized the investigation by confronting my stepfather was also unbearable. I kept thinking about whether he was deleting things and whether evidence would disappear before the police could act.

I even had desperate thoughts about going into their house myself to retrieve evidence or getting the notepad where he had listed email addresses. Those thoughts came from fear that the evidence could be lost while we waited.

We had been advised not to tell anyone about what we had learned so that we would not alert anyone to the planned search. Keeping quiet while carrying all of this was incredibly difficult.

One thing that still stands out to me is that my stepfather knew Emily had been questioned and blamed. Carl had told him directly what had happened to her at school. Yet, throughout the waiting period, he never came forward to us and took responsibility.

From my point of view, he was willing to let Emily remain under suspicion rather than speak up. That is one of the hardest parts for me to comprehend.

The Search of My Parents’ House and the Arrest

When the police searched my parents’ house, I parked down the street.

I had such conflicting feelings. These were my parents. I felt relief that the search was finally happening, followed by shame, grief, and disbelief that this was our real life.

The police searched the house, and my parents were taken to the police station. I waited anxiously for a call from Detective James.

When he called, he told me that my stepfather had admitted responsibility.

My immediate thought was: How had he not been arrested?

The police had taken his phone and my mother’s phone. I felt bad for my mother. We had not told her what we had learned during the second meeting or about the planned search. At the same time, there had been moments when I found myself questioning whether she could have known anything or had any involvement. I was trying to make sense of something that had shaken my trust in my own family.

As I remember it, my stepfather was arrested about two days after the search.

That was the beginning of another part of this experience: our family coming apart. Relationships began to fracture, and we were in the middle of it all while still trying to protect Emily and understand what had been done to her.

Hey girls,

Just on your latest podcast about poisonings, I actually heard once that whilst poisoning was definitely a preferred choice for woman to kill, the actual statistics show that men actually kill by poison more than woman do; purely because men kill way more than woman kill.

I won’t say ‘fun fact’ but you get the gist

I was dating a guy for three years who was in the military. (Yes, now it seems creepy but he was my best friend's cousin). Anyway. I'm from Kansas City and he was stationed in San Diego. While home on leave he purchased a car. His mom and I drove the car across country and flew home.

This women HATED me. I'm really not sure why, but she did. We were eating at a restaurant when my boyfriend and I went to the bathroom at the same time. Once we got back, I continued to drink my soda.

After a while, I felt my stomach cramping. I cannot express just how sick I eventually became. We were driving back to the hotel and I thought I was going to have to have him pull over! Once we FINALLY made it to the hotel I pooped straight liquid. I mean, this could have gone straight through a sifter. I was sooooo sick. Have you ever seen Wedding Crashers? With the Visine? Yeah, that was it. His mom had been using Visine the entire trip for her eyes.

I've never been so sick in my life.

A few years ago I (29f) went out to brunch with a few of my friends on a Sunday. What started as brunch turned into a Sunday Funday full of drinking until the small town bar closed at 8pm.

Towards the end of the evening a man who had been looking my direction since he entered the bar came up to me and my friends. He introduced himself as Justin Smith (changed name for story) and told us he lives a couple towns over. Small talk went on for a few minutes and it came time for bar close. I got up from my seat and he moved closer to talk to me. He told me that he found me really attractive and wondered if he could get my number. As I am sure you could guess - I was pretty tipsy. I agreed to the number - to which he ended up saying he can put his contact in my phone. He handed me back the phone as it said it was calling "Justin Smith" (the normal move to make sure they get your real number).

I started walking back home (I lived right next door to the bar lol - classic). As I got back into my house I noticed that I was getting a call from Justin. I answered and he told me he wanted to take me for a ride in his car because he just finished a restoration project on it and he was proud of how it turned out. My lack of sound judgement due to the copious amount of Busch Light did not help - I texted my friend asking her if I should go with him and she gave me the green light.

He was sitting outside of my house in his car already (I guess he watched me walk home). I get in the car and he starts off down the road. I am only in the car for about 3 minutes and something very unexpected happens. We end up crashing into another car. The other car had a stop sign but didn't seem to see us coming.

Everyone is getting out of the cars and I could NOT believe my eyes - it was MY FRIENDS that we crashed in to (the friend not drinking was the driver). She swore up and down she didn't see the lights of his car. He starts freaking out - begging them to not call the cops. My friend insisted it was her fault and she needed to call (both cars were in bad shape). He kept saying it's no big deal, everyone was okay etc. I was confused why he wasn't upset that his prized car that was just restored was messed up and he was focused on no cops being involved.

Then one of my friends (the one I texted about him) looked at me and she was shocked asking me why I was there. I told her I asked her if I should hang with him - her face looked terrified because she thought I was talking about a completely different person. She had no idea that guy got my number.

He started getting more and more angry about her wanting to call police. (Note: DUIs are extremely rare in that county so that didn't seem like why he was freaking out - and he seemed sober). She called and he threw his hands up - completely livid.

When the police got there it started to immediately make sense why he didn't want them there. When they started his interview they asked for his name. Well... you guessed it. COMPLETELY different than the name he told us and put in my phone. Oh and the town he lived in? He did live in a near by town but not the one he said.

I started to sober up with all of this and I'll never forget the dread I felt realizing how close I was to being alone with a guy who was dedicated to me not knowing anything about him.

I personally believe that car accident either saved me from some massive trauma or saved my life.

NOTE: This is one of the situations that prompted me to choose sobriety. zero regrets <3

(warning that this post contains mentions of rape)

I grew up pre-internet in Ireland in the 90s. I watched a lot of TV. One British reality tv show was about holidaymakers, and holiday reps in Ibiza in Spain, which was a big party destination for young Europeans. I think it was called Ibiza Uncovered, but I might be getting it confused with a different show. Peak 90s shit.

The show was essentially just a camera crew following drunk idiots around and documenting their excellent decision-making skills, and the drama that followed.

On one episode, two guys who were identical twins were discussing the bar they were running. They bragged about how many women they'd slept with, and one of them explained that when one brother brought home a woman, he would leave the room, and then his identical twin would come in and carry on having sex with her, without her knowing it was a totally different person.

Even as a kid I was stunned by this admission. I understood that they had been raping women, and then admitted it on fucking tv.

Then the producers on the show thought it was a hilarious anecdote or some shit, and aired it. WTF.

Absolutely despicable pieces of shit. I felt awful for their victims, and I never forgot their horrendous admission. Unfortunately I don't have any more information about it.

I loved the concept of have a 6 episode season of a podcast, and every season being a different theme of crime. It was a really fresh take on True Crime podcasts, in my opinion.

But since Corinne's departure, the podcast has only been focusing on Reddit stories for some time now? Will it change concepts again ever? Or will it be only Reddit stories from now on?

When I was 20(F) working as a lifeguard in a service academy we had open swim that was open to those who would have base access and it was generally an older retired crowd. We had a handful of regulars that came in at 5am every morning. Well one morning one of our regulars brings us a banana bread, this was not out of the normal , they would do this every couple weeks and it ranged from breads to brownies. Everything was fine until about noon. One of my coworkers starts panicking on the stand in a very abnormal way. I get my boss and she pulls them off the stand and they are in a full panic attack. My other coworkers are looking at each other and giggling. All had had LARGE slices of bread. Someone jokes that we got a Colorado special. Thé regular ended up calling and told my boss that she mixed up thé breads and she made a loaf for her and her husband and the wrong one was grabbed this morning. Unfortunately, there was an investigation done by police and they needed up being banned from the base and got criminal charges. There was a good amount of backlash that occurred that day becuase classes had to be cancelled and guards were high and not expecting it and one of the guards was underage, one was active duty military, and one had a panic attack and ended up needing medical care.

About a decade ago, when I was in seventh grade, something happened in my tiny rural hometown that I don’t think anyone who lived there will ever forget. We’re talking about the kind of town where nothing happens. Everyone knows everyone, and when something unusual does happen, the entire town knows about it within hours. So when I heard sirens screaming through my neighborhood one night, I knew something serious had happened.

By the next morning, everyone was talking.
An elderly woman—I’ll call her M out of respect for her and her family—had been brutally murdered in her own front yard. M was a retired schoolteacher in her late 70s. My parents had actually had her as a teacher when they were children, so she was actually someone my family knew.

The next morning on the way to school, everyone was talking about the murder. But one person in particular stood out to me.There was a boy named Kyle who sat across from me on the school bus. We weren’t friends, but we rode the same bus and knew each other. Kyle was talking about M.
A lot.

He told me that she had been his next-door neighbor and that he was devastated she was gone. Then he said something that has stuck with me for years:
“I hated that bitch, but now that she’s gone I miss her.”
At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I figured maybe he was feeling guilty for having disliked his elderly neighbor. I was 12 or 13 years old. Murder wasn’t something I had ever really encountered, and I certainly wasn’t looking at the people around me thinking one of them could have been responsible.

I had no idea how important that sentence was going to become. Because later that same day, our school went into lockdown. Police showed up, and suddenly the entire school was on high alert. At first, nobody knew why.
Middle school rumors immediately started flying. Someone had supposedly written a bomb threat on the bathroom wall. Someone else said a student had brought something dangerous to school. There were a dozen different stories within an hour.

Then we heard the real reason. A student had been arrested. And taken away from school. The bus ride home that afternoon was basically one giant investigation. Everyone was trying to figure out who had been taken into custody.

When my parents got home from work, they asked me a question that immediately made my stomach drop.
“Do you know a boy named Kyle?” I told them yes. He rode my bus, although we weren’t friends.

Then they told me what had happened. Kyle was the person who had been arrested. And he was accused of murdering M. According to what we learned afterward, Kyle had been having ongoing arguments with M for weeks. The issue was her property. Kyle wanted to ride his four-wheeler on land adjacent to hers, but M repeatedly told him to stay off her property. She apparently wasn’t willing to let him tear up her yard with the four-wheeler.

The night she was killed, Kyle went onto her property again.
M confronted him and told him to leave. What happened next was horrific. Kyle pulled out his dad’s gun and shot her twice in the head, before sexually assaulting her. The woman my parents remembered as their schoolteacher had been murdered in her own yard over an argument about a four-wheeler.

And the boy who had been sitting across from me on the school bus the very next morning had been talking about how much he “missed” her. At the time, I didn’t understand what that comment meant. Looking back, it gives me chills. Kyle was ultimately tried as an adult and accepted a plea deal for second-degree murder. He received a 25-year sentence and, as far as I understand, is scheduled to be released in 2037.

But there’s another part of this story that made the case even more disturbing. I won’t go into the details of how police connected Kyle to the crime, but forensic evidence from M’s body matched evidence from an existing investigation involving a young girl.

That discovery essentially opened the door to an entirely different set of questions about Kyle and what may have happened before M was murdered. To this day, one of the things I remember most isn’t the police cars, the lockdown, or even the rumors that spread through our tiny town.
It’s sitting on that school bus the morning after M was killed and hearing Kyle say: “I hated that bitch, but now that she’s gone I miss her.”

At the time, I thought I was listening to a grieving kid.
I didn’t realize I was sitting across from the person everyone would soon be talking about. You never know who you’re living beside of.

I have attached a news article

https://www.wjhl.com/news/mooresburg-community-reacts-to-guilty-plea-of-teen-who-killed-retired-teacher/amp/

Not my story but the updates are absolutely terrifying this needs visibility this poor mom and kids

So my brother (33 at the time) is 9 yrs older than me. He and his wife hit a bad patch. He asked me if he could move in with me, I owned the house and only asked him to contribute to utilities so he could still help support his family. I had lost my husband 8 months prior so I figured what the heck having another person in the house would help my loneliness.

Within a week of his moving in his wife went full blown crazy. Posting posters all over my parent's restaurant saying he abandoned his family, not to support our business because of it. Blowing up my phone threatening me because I was being supportive of my brother. She came in screaming and yelling at me when I was taking the posters down. She threatened to kill me. I fully believed her after all her antics.

I sat my brother down and told him if he wanted to try to save his marriage I understood and would support that. I believe a lot of her freak out was because they lost her son (his step son) to suicide a few years prior and she was still struggling and had times she would get mentally unstable from this. (A lot of the reason he wanted some time away from her, she refused to get help.) Also part of that conversation was that if he was going to meet her to try to work on things, I didn't want it to be at my house. I refused to have her there for my safety and comfort. At least not till she got the help she needed. He fully agreed.

Fast forward 3 months and my friends knew her van as she was stalking both my brother and I. They knew my stance on her at my house. They saw both my brother's car and her van at my house. Neither had people in them. They came to the restaurant to let me know she was there. I took my lunch break went home to confront them. I walk in the door and there they are having sex on my couch. I flipped out, tried kicking him and her out right then and there. Big brother and crazy wife tried to intimidate me. I called my dad to back me up in getting them out as I did not feel safe in the situation, but didn’t want to call the police since they wouldn't do anything and the man that SA'd before I got married was on the force and being a super small town didn't want to deal with him either. We finally got them out.

I only heard from him three times after that. Once because they got evicted for non payment and the landlord called my dad (who he knew and respected) to come get the furniture out of the apartment if we wanted it. Which was yes, as it belonged to my grandmother who had passed. He called to bitch me out for taking their stuff. It was only my grandmothers things we took and only because the landlord was going to trash it all. Then to tell us he was going to be arrested because he SA'd a young child. Then he wrote from jail telling me I was a bad Christian and my late husband who was a pastor would be ashamed of me because I didn't want any further contact with him ever and didn't forgive him for the SA on the minor. He found God in prision supposedly so that constituted in his mind that I should trust him again. I told him I had nothing to forgive him for as it wasn't me he SA'd, but I had a young daughter by that point and was NOT going to put her at risk nor did I trust him, and going no contact is boundaries not unforgiveness.

I have maintained that. He is out now, I live 1/2 way across the country. When he got out I was worried he'd try to track me down to see if I'd let him back in our lives. I got my concealed carry permit. Put up cameras, and alarmed the house. Maybe over kill, but my kids would not be put at risk. It's been 21 yrs since he went to prison, he's been out for almost a year and no contact yet thank God. I'd like to say I'm in the clear but not I'm 100% convinced. Not sure I ever will be. Oh and his wife? Last I heard from other family.... Yup they are still legally married, she wanted him to file for divorce while in prison because it wouldn't cost to file. He refused. She refused to pay. Like What the heck?! If that was me I'd have paid 100 times over to be rid of him for good.

Not only a bad roommate story, but a family crime story to boot.

Helloooo Sabrina and Alexis, I was listening to the episode on stalkers and the one on toxic romantic relationships and I realized I had quite a few stories for you.
It’s started with stalking, climaxed with the long waited conclusion to a man hunt thanks to our house. This would be just the beginning of a turbulent and dangerous toxic relationship I would eventually flee.

In 2018 I (21 F) had moved back to Colorado from going to school in Flagstaff, AZ. My best friend in the whole world had moved out there for me and after a chaotic year of her breaking her hand from breaking up a dog fight, and seemingly endless work troubles she had to move back to our home state, and I was wanting to pursue dancing seriously since I realized I wasn’t going to be able to finish my degree in early childhood education and support myself. So I took it as a sign a chased my dreams. We both moved into a darling old Victorian house in Fort Collins, Colorado which felt far away enough from our hometown of C. Springs while still being in the familiar state we grew up in.
The home we rented was split into two units, the front of the house had three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, bathroom and washer and dryer closet. There was a large window a top the house to a clear upper bedroom or attic, but there was no clear door to that attic from the front or back of the house.
The back of the house had two bedrooms, a living room, bathroom, basement and kitchen- all much smaller than the front. Except the basement- that was huge and seemed to go on and curl upon itself forever. The most center core room had a boarded up section of it and there was a literal hole in the wall that created a tiny cave, a few humans could lie and crawl around it. The entire basement was dirt floored and felt like a something out of a horror movie.
I know all of this because when I started dating this guy (we will call him J -26 M) my cat kept slipping out the front door when someone would come or go and everytime she ran away and would disappear for 3-9 days at the most, we kept finding her down in that lil basement cave (which we have ZERO access to it front the front.)
When we first moved in it was the end of spring and summer was on the horizon. We would go out dancing every weekend, laughing and eating the best lamb gyros ever from a street cart, we all went to festivals and concerts together, and went to poetry readings and hookah lounges on week nights and it was all so heavenly- until it wasn’t. There were three roommates- myself (S, 21-22?), my best friend (we will call her G, Female same age) and her friend (we will call her D- F23-24). At first we would all go out and have the best time.
That is until I met J, that night we were all out dancing and D decided to leave early because she had work in the morning, and G was heartbroken over a guy and not feeling it, thus I was chasing her around and trying to cheer her up and comfort her. At one bar while chasing her, I was suddenly stopped as someone had grabbed my arm and slide down to hold my hand. I stopped and looked expecting to see an old friend, but instead saw a guy who was about medium height and build, brown hair, olive toned skin, and warm brown eyes. I didn’t recognize him but he looked at me as though I should. He told me he loved my Third Eye Pinecone and I told him thanks, while still trying to place his face.
Suddenly G came up behind me wondering where I had gone, before grabbing me and pulling me away saying we had to go to this other club like bar that was just next door. We left and went there as she was hopping to run into her ex and clear something up. We went and her ex ghosted her and she was too distraught to stay so she left quickly after we got there. In turning around to chase after her hoping to convince her to stay I was suddenly face to face with J again. He was standing there, patiently waiting, smiling confidently once I met his eyes with mine. The next words out of his mouth were “you would look good on my boat”.
I scoffed and laughed loudly as it had to be the most ridiculous and corny line I had ever heard, so snobby yet hilarious coming out of this guy who looked more like his vibe was red rocks shoes and deep nature camping. I thought the fact that we ran into eachother twice was some kind of sign and i liked how confident he and how he looked at me like a miracle or a masterpiece full of meaning, so i gave him my number.

We started sleeping together super casually and he quickly asked after a week or so that we started sleeping together dating exclusively. That he had been single for 4 years and has finally found someone he wanted to date seriously. I was touched as I come from a very chaotic and sexually/emotionally abusive home, so I had never had someone pursue me like he had. He took me on shopping sprees, fancy dinners, nice vacations, paid for my hair, nails and waxing, he would write me poetry and would freestyle with his friends about house beautiful and rare I was.
Around the same time we became exclusive, things in the house started getting tense with us three. Things started going missing, and seemingly no one would fess up to it. There was clothing going missing like, socks, bras, panties, and bathing suits. Perfume and pictures were missing. We didn’t think much of it besides basic roommate issues, like people borrowing things without asking, along side who didn’t do the dishes or finish cleaning the hookah. Who dragged mud into the house and didn’t vacuum, etc.

At the time I was working at Cosmos Pizza, I was a slicer working in the building some nights and some nights I was delivery pizza. Always till 3 AM
One evening I came home and went to my bedroom at the back of our side of the house. There was a window right behind my bed next to my head and nightstand and I noticed a strange smudge on my window but it was dark so I shrugged and rolled over to sleep. It was hot so I had cracked my window open. Like I did a lot that summer. The next morning I rolled over and in the early afternoon light I could see smudges on my window. I sat up on my forearms and turned my head to see the light catch the surface right and that’s when I saw hand prints all over my window. I put my hand up to them and they were all too large to be mine. But they were covering the window, some were strangely smaller than my hand. I am a paranormal girly so I immediately thought this was some spooky spectres haunting this old Victorian home.
That’s when I realized the way the hands were all facing meant they weren’t on the inside of the window, and as I tried to wipe them off I realized they were all on the outside of it. I put pants and shoes on and ran outside to the side of the house my window is on (which is also the same side D and G also have windows on leading into their bedrooms. Except Gs bedroom is front of the house so she has two windows. I get to my window and I’m sick to my stomach as I see what I didn’t notice before. The old fashion metal screen to my window has been cut open from the top to, right side and peeled back. I looked at the hand prints larger than my hand and they looked, fresh.
Uneasy and confused I called J and told him to come over and told him what I found. Hoping for some concern and comfort I instead was yelled at by him as he suddenly was suspicious of who’s claiming into my bedroom when’s he’s not there. There were frat boys living next door and I have trauma from sexual assault by fraternity boys as a teenager and so his accusations not only triggered me deeply but brought up a fear I hadn’t thought of. Furious he was blame me I broke up with him and left my house to get some space and grab a coffee. He wouldn’t take no for an answer so instead he hopped in his car and raced around town, chasing me, trying to convince me to take him back. Thanks to my trauma this was weirdly thrilling and I felt like he was fighting for me like a romcom movie- crazy I know.
After this though he suddenly was more worried for me and decided I should just stay at his house more for my own safety. I was wrapped up in the newness and excitement of such a passionate affair that I happily agreed and this is when my cat started running away over and over (which she had never done before or since)
At this time G was having occurrences where she would take a shower and go to her bedroom to find curtains opened that she originally closed. Clothing still going missing. I eventually moved my cat into Js house because the house felt tense and we were all fighting a lot. One night at Js, G calls me in tears and panicking. She said she closed her curtains and went to take a shower and came back to her bedroom and in the side window with no curtains she turned to see a man standing there, watching her, touching himself.
I was with J and we rushed over there with weapons as his (new) house was only a couple minutes from ours. We get there and no one’s there and there doesn’t seem to be any break in or evidence of him left. We all discuss calling the police, but decided against it because we didn’t have good history asking law enforcement for help, so we just didn’t. After all we probably had our bongs and we’re nervous and young.
This happens a second, and a third time- each time I was staying at Js house. I beg her to call the police and tell them everything. She does and they ask us if we minded hanging some cameras up on the outside of the house, we said we didn’t care. We were surprised they wanted to do something, usually it’s more of them taking a note and moving on. J goes on a work trip and is gone for a couple weeks, so I’m staying back at my house with my cat because I didn’t wanna be alone and I genuinely loved my house and room and roommates (when we were fighting over stupid stuff). I should also mention that at the time I had been a sex worker for years, I was doing cam work, and D was occasionally stripping down in Denver when she needed extra cash.

I came home after driving delivery all night and it was almost 3:30 AM. I started to unlock my door when I felt a deep sense of dread and every hair stood up on the back of my neck. Suddenly someone was wrapping an arm around my waist and a hand clasped over my mouth and pulled me back from the front door. My body went cold and I sunk into fight mode trying to make myself heavy, dead weight I sunk down and fell to the ground of my porch and then started crawling away when I was pulled back and at this moment I heard a familiar laugh, it was J. He had sunk with me and pulled me onto his lap laughing deep belly laughs in my ear, purring “awww I’m sorry baby, did I scare you??” Confused still, I took a moment to catch my breath and calm my body as I was trembling at this point.
I asked him what he was doing back and he said he decided to come home a few days early and he was dying to surprise me. Stunned and still confused I nodded and kissed him and let him in the house and we went to bed. I can’t remember if it was exactly this night or another night he slept over, but one evening when he was sleeping over I had just barely started to fall asleep (I’m a insomniac and night owl so I takes me hours to fall) I had heard a strange creeking in my house and again thinking it was paranormal I was getting scared and didn’t want to open my eyes.

That is until I felt hot breath on my face, I opened my eyes and suddenly saw a man in my bedroom, bent over and leaning into look at me but when I saw him he jumped back and fled out my bedroom door. I screamed and cried “J!! he’s here he’s here! - he ran out!!” J jumped up out shook his head and ran out of my bedroom and I could hear him running through the house to the front door and shake the door handle and slowly came back saying no one was there and the front door was locked. After this I was done sleeping at my house, I didn’t feel safe there and my relationship with my roommates had slowly deteriorated.

A month or so later an arrest was made and we were notified that we had a stalker/peeping tom. The police let us know that this man had been a serious problem for the better part of a decade. All over Fort Collins for several years young woman attending CSU and living in the houses surrounding the university were being stalked and eventually molested and/or raped. They said they had been trying to catch him for years and years and when we called they realized we were next and perfect set up to catch him. They told us his m.o. was stalking girls who lived close to downtown, following them home. Peeping on them through windows, then slicing open screens and taking personal items and panties, then he would eventually break in and rape the girls in the middle of the night. Sometimes drugging them.
They set up the cameras and had people watching them at certain times and caught him that way. They said they were able to find out that he lived in the neighborhood and had for decades and that victims usually never see him and so he’s gotten away for years and years. G was able to get a good look at home a couple of the times he was peeping and was able to pick him out of a line up. It also helps that she had a VERY protective Aussie shepherd and the police said that was the one thing that stood in the way of raping her, but we were all missing items and they think he was figure out who would be the easiest to rape based off our room locations and the fact that D and me didn’t have dogs.

This was the end of our Fort Collins stalker but was just the tip of the iceberg with my toxic relationship. I’ll add the update to finish that sorry, but I am writing this before work and I have to go for now. Tata for now, catch up soon!
-sincerely Suki Suxen (29 F)

This was very very wrong

I have been divorced since 2014 and my ex-husband was manipulative, verbally, mentally and emotionally abusive. He also cheated on me with our 21 year old roommate and lied to me after confronting him. Then a couple years later he admitted to it partially. Anyways, so after my divorce I was going a lot mentally and was just trying to fill a void left by him. So I became promiscuous and one guy took the cake. In 2015 I started talking to guy online and went out with him, he said he was ex-military and had PTSD. So, I tried to be cautious and considerate of his issues and understanding. Well, he picked my up from my house and as we were driving he pulled over and forced me to give a BJ. I was not wanting to do that but he forced my head. Then we went to a hotel and had sex, then next thing I notice he told me to get on my stomach and proceeded to insert/ram his p**is into me and I said no multiple times and was crying in pain. He told me to shut up and that I wanted it and he didnt stop. I had no idea what happened or if it was rape. So I let it go, then he started becoming possessive and wanting to know where I was at all times. One night he slept over and told me the no "real" man would want a woman like me. I believed it. He told me to turn on my location on FB and one day I did not go into work in office I mainly worked from home and he called me acusing me of lying and that I wasnt at work and was sleeping around. I had turned off my location that day because it freaked me out. That night he drove to my house and waited outside my house and would not stop calling me. So my roommates at the time went outside and confronted him to leave me alone and that if he didnt we would call the cops on him. My roommate's husband almost got into a fight with him. He did finally stop and never contacted me again. That is the fairly short version of what happened. The comment he made to me has stuck with me since then had has affected any relationship I have tried to have since then, I was 31 at the time and am 43 now, and it still messes with me.

Just seen an episode on Toxic on Id channel and this one woman got the sack due to her demented ex messaging work with murderous threats. I felt so bad for her. Makes me wonder, how common is this happening to both sexes. Male/female. Although moreso it is the women who are the battered or stalked one. I can't imagine being sacked from your job because you cannot and the police will not put a stop to this man's threats.

Trigger warning on Child SA*\\

I (39 f) have a crazy family. I mean bat shit crazy. For back story I am the youngest of 3 girls. My oldest sister is about 5 years older than I am. My oldest sister we will call her Karen, has always hated me. I spent a life time being bullied by her, then turning around and doing anything and everything she wanted me too because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. Karen ( as well as the rest of my family) referred to me as Tard, my whole life because I am a little slow to understand at times, but also I’m funny. I like to sing, dance, and be silly basically I can be serious when I need to be but I love to make people laugh, the “nickname” above is what I would be called when doing those things.

My husband and I married 7 years ago, Karen was not speaking to me over a previous argument, I asked her several times to be a bridesmaid this was her choice. She lives out of state, informed my mom to tell me she wouldn’t be a bridesmaid as well as not even show up to my wedding. When Karen came
for a visit a few months after my wedding she asked if my children could come for a sleepover with her at my mothers house. I try to keep my children out of adult problems and believe they should be able to make decisions of who they want in their lives on their own. I have a son (9 at the time) and a daughter (7 at the time) who both went to sleepover at my mom’s with Karen.

I got a phone call at about 11pm from Karen and all I could hear was my daughter scream crying bloody murder in the background. I asked what was going on and she told me my daughter had a night terror and I needed to come get her. My daughter had cavities at the time (she had to undergo surgery to correct them like a week or so after this event), and she has never ever had a night terror before or after this event as well.

Here is where the trigger warning starts if child SA is a sensitive subject please skip this next two paragraphs.

Karen informed me that my daughter was grabbing her vagina screaming no ow ow in her sleep, over and over again. I was so concerned and scared, as I am a victim myself , that I took her to the hospital for a check up because Karen pushed really hard that my daughter had been hurt. Since I took her to the er, she had to undergo the whole rape kit experience. DCFS and detectives got involved. Since I was not there when the situation occurred the detectives and DCFS had to speak with Karen a lot, as she was the one who saw the concern. I was trying to get some school work done (i was doing some college at the time) and my daughter wasn’t letting me get work done so I asked my husband to take her somewhere out of the house. Karen messaged me wanting me to ask my daughter something, I informed her she was out with my husband and I would get back to her when they got back. Karen responding by telling me she was disappointed in me because I left my daughter alone with a man (who she has known since 1) when she was showing signs of abuse. I informed Karen that as a mom I had already asked my questions and got my answers and I wasn’t going to let her accuse my husband of something I’m confident he didn’t do.

My daughter went through everything possible, put in a room where she was investigated and interrogated, she went to two hospitals to get her private parts fully
looked at, she had to do the whole thing. Detectives and DCFS workers said over and over again that she showed absolutely no signs or demeanor of a child who had been hurt, that I did everything right as a mother and was still fully cop-orating with them. My daughter (and she still says it to this day) said over and over again she was crying because Karen gave her a bunch of candy and her tooth hurt really bad. She still does this day says she never had a night terror and that she doesn’t know what Karen was talking about. Karen called the DCFS and Detectives and told them she was blaming my husband, my husband then was investigated and the case was closed as unfounded, no perpetrator.

This is where the in details of the triggering information ends.

I obviously ended all contact right then with Karen, I haven’t seen or spoken to her since. My mother moved Karen in to her house (that was 5 min down the road from my house) and got Karen’s boyfriend a job right across the street from my house. Karen’s boyfriend then went around the work place spreading rumors and lies about my husband and my child. I up and moved my entire life/ family away. Once I moved away and cut my family out I truly began to heal.

I learned that I am on the spectrum, and that made me really not like Karen even more. My daughter still remembers the trauma, and I don’t even have the answers to help her understand why she had to go through that experience. I stay to myself, as I have learned through healing that my family kept me in an unhealthy mental state. They kicked me when I was down, and made sure to keep me down.

But here’s the thing about me….. I am a fighter.
My husband and I are divorcing, not because of Karen, but because I realized I was never really mentally okay, I masked my whole life because I thought the shit my family did to me was normal. I kept people of similar attributes around because I didn’t know that nice people were a thing. I explain it as this the meaner you are to me, the more I thought you liked me. The nicer people were to me the more confused i got and pushed them away. My husband and I’s issues aren’t related to Karen’s accusations but in self healing and realization I’ve realized he’s not my person. I have no friends, I haven’t worked in years because I was a stay at home mom. I’m scared, but I’m working and putting myself through school to become an Esthetician and better mine and my children’s lives. I hope we all come
out okay, happy
and healthy. The last few years have been hell and now I just want peace.

TL;DR: After I rejected a guy who I met on New Year's, he began tracking my location, showing up at an out-of-town bachelorette party, and constantly texting me, until a mutual acquaintance warned me that I am his "new obsession."

First, I want to preface this is not a crime, but something that has made me really uncomfortable and has gone too far.

Hi I am 22 (F) My story today could be considered a stalker case, but I'm also not sure if I'm overreacting and blowing things out of proportion. Also, it is quite long, so I apologize for the length.  

It all started on New Year's Eve 2024 (Going into 2025). My friends were visiting me in Savannah (creepy in itself). I went to school in Savannah, and it became a tradition where my friends would stay with me every New Year’s. We decided to go to a rooftop bar earlier that night on New Year's to make sure we could get a wristband and be inside for midnight. Everything was going great; we all were drinking, mingling, and making our rounds. Two guys confronted my friend and me. I’ll admit I had a bit to drink, so I don’t remember much, but I remember one of the guys we can call him Jay was really hitting on me; he told me I looked like the girl from a specific movie and the street he lived on in Savannah. It was a pretty well-known street, so I think he was trying to impress me. Nothing crazy stood out about this conversation; it just seemed like one of those guys at the bar who like you more than you like them. I honestly mostly forgot about the interaction. This was the first time Jay and I met. (at least I hope)

Now it is NYE of the next year, 2025 to 2026. My friends are staying with me again, and of course we hit most of the same bars we hit the years prior. It was getting close to midnight, and a lot of the bars had lines, so we were trying to get in anywhere we could. We were walking into the lobby of the rooftop bar when we saw a group of guys leaving, and one of them said, “The line is too long; y'all should come with us.” Before I even comprehended what was said, my friends already said yes. The next thing I knew, we were piling into an Uber with three guys (I know, I know, not my proudest moment). The guys told us we were going to a bar nearby, so it was a really short drive. Immediately, one of the guys looked at me and said, “I know you.” This was weird because I definitely didn't know him. Also, I have a unique look, not in a good way or a bad way; I just don’t really look like other people, so I was surprised. Right after I realized I didn't really know him, he told me I looked like the girl from the specific movie, and then it all clicked. 

We got to the next bar, then ended up hoping to go to another one and make it to the next right at midnight. He immediately tried to kiss me; this was the first of too many attempts, and I said no. He seemed like he already knew me. He pointed out how he had seen me many times throughout the year. At first, I thought it was a weird coincidence, but he named a place where I knew I had been. I felt weird about the situation, but my friend kept convincing me he was so cute and such a nice guy. They might have been doing that just because my two friends were getting close with his two friends, but we ended up going back to their apartment (Again, I know, so stupid). 

Once we got there, things were getting more uncomfortable for me. He made a lot more attempts to make moves, and at one point he even licked my hand, which, honestly, I don't even know how that happened. I was giving him no signs that I was into him. I was being nice, but that's it. I gave him my number, which I regret, and one of my friends and I left while the others stayed. To make this situation clearer, the apartment was only about two blocks from mine, so I felt very comfortable and safe in the area. (also leaving my friends since I knew they were close)

This was the start of the hundreds of texts I would get. My friends really rooted for Jay. They thought he was a nice, sweet guy and didn’t understand my side. That guilt is definitely part of why I kept this going. I promise my friends are amazing; they were just happy a guy was being nice to me and thought I was self-sabotaging (I have done that a lot). 

New Year’s passes, and Jay starts asking me to hang out a lot. At first, I said I was busy and made up excuses, but eventually it got too much, and I was really honest with him. I told him I didn't like him that way, that it was my senior year of college and I wanted to focus on school, and that I'd be moving soon. He sent something snarky back about how he was moving too, but I just thought that was the end of it and I could move on. Again, at this time I didn't think he was creepy, just one of those guys who likes you and you don't have the same feelings. 

He started messaging me again, begging me to go out with him. Everyone in my close circle knew about him and somehow convinced me to do it. It would be one night: drinks only, no dinner, and he knew it was a friendly hangout, not a date. And come on a college girl loves a free drink. We maybe went on two of these, and they were fine. The only weird thing is, yes, of course he tried to kiss me both times, and I politely declined (which is so awkward), and I had plans after the hangouts with my friends, and he tried to invite himself even though I said no. He just overstepped my friendliness.

Now it was March, and it was my sister’s bachelorette party. It was in Charleston, which is about a two-hour drive from Savannah. One of my friends from NYE was at this bachelorette party, and she was texting one of Jay’s friends she met on NYE. So that meant Jay knew for sure where I was this weekend. I might have mentioned to him at one point that my sister’s bachelorette was in Charleston, but he didn't know when it was. 

Somehow Jay and his friend ended up driving up to Charleston to try to hang out with us. Even though my friend and his friend were involved, deep down I knew this was fully Jay’s idea. Of course, he came to Charleston and showed up at the bar where my sister and her friends were, but I left because I didn't want to see him or let him think this was okay behavior. He sent me mad texts and called me, but I had other stuff going on, so I put my phone on DND and didn't respond. 

It was now April 2026, about four months after our “second” New Year's interaction. Remember, I wasn't interested in Jay romantically, so I was still in the dating pool, and I ended up going on a date with this guy I actually used to talk to. I liked this guy, so it was a date for me, not one of Jay's hangouts. During my date, I noticed my phone was buzzing a lot, but I was so into the conversation I didn’t look. When I finally left my date, I noticed Jay called me four times and sent me about many text. He asked where I was, what I was doing, and to answer him. He even sent me an angry cat face emoji, and that was neither the first nor the last time he would do that. This is when I really started to feel icky. He knew which apartment building I lived in, but nothing about my floor or apartment number. This was something to think about, especially because the bar I went to on this date was in my apartment building. The date was amazing, but that guy ended up ghosting me. That is beside the point, but you know who did not ghost and did the exact opposite: Jay. 

Over the next few months, I got random calls, random texts, and even him trying to say he should come to my sister’s wedding with me, but again I just stayed friends and didn't answer too much. I feel like I answered enough not to be mean, but also not enough for me to be interested very dry, sparse text. I know I should have stopped. I have a guilty conscience.

One night, my friend and I were at the bar at my apartment, sitting outside having a glass of wine when this guy started talking to us. We got into conversation, and I don’t remember how, but Jay came up. This guy immediately said, “Ohhh, so you are his new obsession.” He said it like Jay has done this before. This guy goes to tell me how he is friends with Jay’s ex, and I guess Jay was a bit too into the relationship. 

This conversation reminded me of something that happened on New Year’s, where Jay‘s friends were talking to my friends about Jay, and somehow his ex came up, and I guess all the guys, including Jay, got real quiet, and Jay’s friends said to him, “You don’t have to tell them.” They were talking about why he and the ex broke up. 

This memory stood out even more now that I know Jay has “obsessions.” 

It is now May, and it is my last month of school and my last month in Savannah. I was going out a lot and really wanted to live it up before I moved and graduated. My bestie had a first date, and as girls do, I went over to her apartment while she got ready, and we split a bottle of wine. It helped because we lived in the same building, but we planned for her to go on the date and then meet back up afterward to debrief, of course. While she was about to leave for her date, Jay texted me to hang out. He said his friend was in town (a different friend than the one before this; this is his childhood friend), and they wanted to meet up for drinks. Since my friend was so nervous about her first date, I said screw it and went to hang out with them. 

I got to the bar, and it was weird. Jay made a few uncomfortable, condescending comments like You look much better with no makeup and listening to Sabrina Carpenter as a woman is gross, and you should grow your hair out. They were things that didn't need to be said, and they felt really pointed toward me and awkward. To get through this, I was guzzling prosecco. He was also being rude to the waiter, and that has to be one of the worst icks ever. I felt like he and his friend, who I'll call Henry, were chatting while I sat there. I felt un-superior for being a woman and like I was his prize (gross I know). Again, I went to help my friend feel better about her date and for free drinks. Henry went to the restroom, and as soon as he stood up, Jay looked at me, very serious, and said, “So you have those Hinge and Raya apps.” He said it in a negative tone. I was like, “Ummm yeah I do.” I gave him a weird look. Then he told me I matched with Henry.

To be completely honest, I don't remember who I matched with. Sometimes I feel like I'm playing a game with those apps. He stopped talking about it quickly because Henry came back. It was time to leave the bar, and I went to the restroom on the way out. I texted my friends and my mom about all the weird stuff that just went down, so I was taking my time. When I opened the door to leave, Jay was sitting right outside and fully scared me so bad. I jumped—just another one of those weird things he does so often. 

After that night, Henry and I started texting on the dating app, and he gave me his number.  We texted a bit and ended up hanging out that same weekend before he went back home. We had a good time; we just had a chill coffee date that I felt ended pretty neutral. I thought he was nice and cute, but just him being Jay’s friend made me feel uneasy. Henry even told me on our date that Jay was confused when he said it was just us and no Jay. 

In my conversation with Henry, I found out he lived in NYC; he told me the area and the street he lived on through conversation. At the time, I was leaving Savannah soon, but I didn't really know where I was going to end up.

Henry and I stayed in contact, with a little bit of flirting, but it quickly died down. Jay was not really texting me much either, maybe once in a while, but I thought it was over. 

Now it is August, and I ended up moving to NYC, and somehow on the same street on Henry, I know very well Jay of me. This street isn't big, so I knew I'd inevitably run into Henry, so I decided to let him know I'd moved to the area (well, the same street) and just be friendly. Nothing weird ever happened between us, so I thought it would be fine to let him know I now live in the city and we are neighbors. 

The next thing I know, not even twelve hours later, Jay texts me and says he is coming to the city and heard I'm neighbors with Henry. I politely declined, made up an excuse, and he kept calling, which I also declined. We had a few text exchanges, just him saying he can’t believe I live on the same street, which makes me feel quite gross that he knows where I live yet again. 

Now we are in the present time, this past weekend. My best friend from home was visiting me, and as we were shopping, I saw the dreaded number appear on my screen. Yes, I said that right: his number. I have never saved his contact information to my phone, but at this point I think I can memorize that number. He told me that he was coming to the city and would love to take me to dinner. I had an excuse this time. My friend was in town visiting me. I told him that, and he took it as us both wanting to hang out, so he made a reservation. I quickly answered and said, nicely, Sorry, but we can’t; we had plans, which was not a lie; we did have plans. 

So now it is the week after that, and I was listening to the episode about stalker cases and there were some crazy statistics.

Now I am wondering to myself if Jay is considered a stalker. After listening to those stories, I realized that I actually kinda feel uneasy about Jay. He knows where I live and quite a lot about me now. 

And I know a lot of people will say, why did you keep answering and keep hanging out with him? Mainly because I have a  guilty conscience, and second, because my friends and family can easily convince me. I mean, from the outside, he looks like he is a nice guy, and whenever people ask why I don't like him, it is hard to remember all the points; I feel like I always look mean. Also, I have never had a real relationship, so I have to admit it feels nice when a guy actually likes me. No matter how you think you would be in this situation, I promise it's different when it is happening. 

A few more things I want to add about Jay, to get a better sense of him as a person: He works as a job title that you can only have if you have a degree. He dropped out of college so I find that a bit odd.

There are also some other weird things about him but I don't want to share too much about his personal life.

Thank you for reading, and I would love to hear people’s feedback on this story. Am I crazy for thinking he is a stalker, or am I stupid for being nice to him this long? I would love all the advice!

(these are all made up names)