1283: Eva LaRue & Kaya McKenna Callahan | 12 Years Hunted by a Stalker

21:54The FBI agent said that this was scary in particular because it was very personal, very specific, and very violent, which is like a trifecta of let's take this seriously. I mean, he's saying, this other letter reads, I will stalk you, punish you, and finally kill you, you bitch. I'll make your life a living hell. It's so weirdly personal from a guy who doesn't know you, which we'll get, you know, you mentioned earlier that he's like personalizing everything. And the way that he says he's gonna torture and kill you is so graphic, again, I won't share it here, but the behavioral psychologist in the documentary, she says something terrifying, which is that the letter writer's thoughts and writing are clear and coherent, which means that he's much more dangerous because he could actually make good on the threats, and that gave me goosebumps, right, when I heard that.

22:40If you get a crazy letter and it's written in like crayon or something like that, upside down letters, you're like, okay, sure. But then this guy is like very calm, very specific, very personal. And yeah, he signs them all Freddy Krueger, which is just extra gross because that's like the guy who shows up in nightmares, right? So he's definitely deliberately trying to be as scary and crazy as possible, but is also not so unhinged that he like doesn't know what day it is or where he lives or something. This is like a semi-functional human being. Right. And there were a few letters in there, too, where he said, well, you're on CSI.

23:12You're a detective. Come find me. Come find me if you can. I mean, and he had a job. He had a job in a memory care facility. That's something that you actually do have to be functional to be able to do. So, yeah, like it definitely was scarier knowing that he was a functional man that really could have made like good on his promise. Yeah, yeah. I'll talk more about him in a little bit. But is there a part of you being an actress on CSI, were you thinking like at first anyway, oh, good, they're going to take the DNA, the fingerprints, like I said earlier, yell enhance at some camera footage, find this guy, you know, at a Walgreens.

23:47I'll do it myself. I know how to do it. I'll do it myself. I've yelled enhance before it screams. I know how this is done. Just let me get a hold of all the equipment that we have. We have the real equipment on set. I'll figure this out if you can't figure it out. Yeah, because basically all the same tech that you're pretending to have on CSI It's like, oh, was there a moment where you were like, wait, this isn't real? I thought this was real. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just assumed. I didn't even know having been on the show, even for those few years, I didn't know that everybody wasn't in CODIS. Just assumed that all bad guys were in CODIS.

24:18But, you know, if you're not caught being a bad guy beforehand, then you're not in CODIS. And not only that, but you can have a criminal record. And if you don't have a murder or a rape record, then you're still not in CODIS. Oh, I see. Only in APHIS, because APHIS is the national database for fingerprints. But here's the other interesting thing. When we go to get our fingerprints done at the DMV, everybody, if you have a driver's license, your fingerprints are in your state. The states don't share fingerprints. I see. I didn't know that. Yeah. There's a national database for fingerprints, which is APHIS, but that's only if you are a criminal.

24:53But if you're not a criminal and you just went to go get a driver's license, only your state has your fingerprints. They don't share it across state lines in case your criminal, which they normally are, is mobile and goes from state to state. Do they use it, though, in the state? If you like. Probably. I don't know. It's a good question, but probably. Yeah. There might be constitutional issues with that, right? Like I'm giving you my fingerprints so that I can prove who I am. And it's like, well, maybe it's not constitutional. I will get a thousand emails about this. Your hyper vigilance must have been off the charts, right?

25:27He's saying things like be prepared for my arrival. I'm coming for you. No one can stop me. I'm around the corner. I can see you. So let me ask you, are you coming out of Erewhon with your bougie smoothie after a yoga class and like a random guy like me is behind you a few paces in the parking lot? Are you in the back of your mind thinking like, is this the guy? First of all, you and I don't Erewhon. We do not Erewhon. It's only for InstaFluencers and like it's so ridiculous. Who's buying a$25 smoothie? I mean, you've got to be an idiot. I'm sorry. I know people do. I have friends that go to Air One, but we don't Air One.

25:59Anyway, but yes, you're always looking, oh, my gosh, in a parking garage. Oh, yeah. Still, to this day, I mean, not only as a woman do you in parking garages and places you are alone, are you hypervigilant, but it really was like, and still is where I'm like, could it be anybody? You know, someone could recognize something. Someone could, you know, you just, you never know. and I feel like especially for you, that whole scene too in the docuseries when they're talking about, you know, you're going to events still. Paparazzi's there. You're actively signing things to people while you're walking.

26:33You don't know if you're quite literally signing something and they're looking you down in the face and it's him. Like you don't know who it is. It could be anybody at any time. And now they're this close and now they could stab you or now they could shoot. You know, it's interesting because at the end, when people saw the picture of him in the second episode. So many people said, were you relieved when you saw his photo and when you saw video of him? And he's this, you know, big dude who's got a limp and is, you know, barely getting along. And they said, you must have been so relieved that he, you know, couldn't make good on all that.

27:09And I said, of course he could still make good. All he needs to have is a gun. Yeah. He doesn't have to run up on me to be able to, you know, incapacitate me just by shooting me in the leg or whatever and I can't get away. Well, I also feel like, too, a lot of people started being like, oh, well, you must have been so less scared. And I was like, I was like, well, we didn't find him still for 12 years. So for 12 years I did not know what he looked like. I very much thought he was going to be a Ted Bundy type. I thought he was going to be, you know, athletic, handsome, blend in with the crowd well.

27:40And he wasn't. I was like, that was a man you notice in a crowd. Yeah, for all the wrong reasons. That is true. I will say if I get a stalker, nobody who's not an eight or above, please. Right, I know. I'm like, Kaya's romantic. I didn't remember being hot. Well, I was like, I was like, well, damn. Yeah, spoiler, the guy's a cross between Jabba the Hutt and Archie Bunker. Like, this is not a sexy guy. That's the perfect, that's the perfect. He is the biggest, like, turd. He's exactly who you would expect from somebody who has all day to write crazy letters to somebody they see on TV. Um, he's, it's quite on the nose.

28:19Plus he has like what they always say, what they always describe as beady little eyes. You know, and I was always like, what are beady little eyes? This dude actually has beady little eyes. It looks like he has no whites of his eyes. They're black all the way across like a demon. Like it's really creepy. You are going to die a slow, painful death. When you hear about these amazing deals on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is also sponsored in part by BetterHelp. Sometimes February makes it look like everyone else has their love life totally dialed in, and no matter where you are, married, dating, single, it can mess with your head.

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30:57That's joindeleteme.com slash Jordan, code Jordan. Don't forget about our newsletter, WeebitWiser. It comes out every Wednesday. It's a two-minute read. It's a letter where I do not threaten to dismember you and cut you into little pieces or anything of the sort. In fact, it's practical advice that you can apply to your life right away. It's a great companion to the show, and you don't have to call the FBI once you start receiving this in your inbox. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Now, back to Ava LaRue and Kaya McKenna Callahan. The fear must have been seeping into Kaya as well, right?

31:28Because even though she was five when this started, you want nothing more than to protect your kids. but we had a recent break-in and we were home when it happened and I chased the guys kind of off the property. I didn't follow them or anything, but... Oh my God, was it more than one dude? It was three dudes, but they were like, I think they were just gonna rob us. They thought we weren't home. I went like polar bear and just like charged because I didn't, I couldn't see them. I just saw the glass break and the curtain blow inward from the wind and I felt the cold air at night and we don't have trees in the yard.

31:59So I was like, I know it's not a tree. this is funny because this all happens in like half a second, right? I was like, something hit the window. It's broken. Was it a tree? That doesn't make sense. We don't have trees. What could have fallen? Nothing could have fallen. There's obviously a person out there or I'm overreacting, but I'm still going to go psycho and yell and scream and charge because if I'm wrong, it's mildly embarrassing and nobody's here but me. But if I'm right, I'm charging somebody who's trying to break into my house and my kids were in the next room over sleeping and stuff.

32:29So, but anyway, the point of this story is that afterwards, my daughter, who was three, was like, there's bad guys and I'm going to chase them away because I'm a ninja. And it's like, you can't hide stuff from kids when it happens. They just know, they get it. Of course, it didn't help that the cops came through the house with their guns and stuff and she saw all of this, right? So she knew something was going on. But, and for months after that, even now she's still like, I don't like any bad guys. There's no bad guys allowed in my house. You know, she's four. It's almost been like a year. It's stamped.

32:56It's imprinted. Yes, it's imprinted. Right, exactly. It's really kind of embedded. Yeah. Because I was so young, and I feel like with your daughter, it's one of those things that you almost just grow up with it. You don't know when it starts. But the memory for me that really sticks out where I was like, oh, this is serious. And you remember a feeling more than you remember words or an actual moment. And it was the moment when the news, I think it was ABC or CBS, us had showed up at our doorstep after the whole gate gate incident. And they had come in and we were not only packing to move because obviously he had found our actual address, but then on top of it.

33:34And, you know, as a child, you're looking to your parents for guidance, being grounded and what their emotions are reflected. And so for me, I think that was a moment where I was like, oh, my mom is afraid. She can't hold her fear back from me anymore because it's at our doorstep. It is quite literally pounding on our door with a camera and lights as we're like shuffling and packing things up. And so for me, that was a moment where I was like, I need to be afraid because my mom is standing here so scared, shaking. Like, I don't know what to do. So, yeah, it definitely seeped through a lot of all of my life.

34:09I don't know what before. And it's always interesting when people ask like, you know, do you think you'll ever feel back to how you felt before or what life was like before? And I'm like, I don't know what my life was before being afraid and being paranoid and being aware. There is no before. There's only going to be an after. And I don't know what that looks like. That's sad and interesting as well. Because, right, you were so young. You mentioned earlier the psychologist thinks this person is, and I looked this up, it's called an erotomaniac, which is a weird term for this person because there's nothing erotic about this guy.

34:39Nothing erotic about it, yeah. Kind of the opposite. But this is a disorder, a very weird disorder, where the person believes that somebody, usually someone of higher social status, is deeply in love with them. And I actually had a buddy who had a stalker like this. He's a famous author. And this woman that he had dated just literally like decades ago when we first became friends, she was like, oh, we have to be together for this karmic reason or something like that. And he got married. And I'm like, oh, surely she's leaving you alone now. And he's like, no, she wrote to my wife and was like, I'll share him with you.

35:11And it's like, well, share. It's like, no, you're not getting any piece of this. I haven't talked to you for 15 years. and so basically these people i look this up they connect dots that are just not there like you're wearing a blue ribbon in your hair during a media appearance and the person is my favorite color she did this for me because i love blue and she knows i like blue and it's like no she doesn't know who you are you freaking psychopath and people do this occasionally i have a little diet version of this people will say hey jordan i'll get a dm on twitter and they'll be like i know you're talking to me and i'm like yeah i'm talking a lot of you what's going on and they're like no no, no, no.

35:47I know that that thing you said on that episode with Ava LaRue, when you said the blue ribbon thing, that's our code. And I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, the CIA is watching both of us. And this is how you're talking to me. And I'm like, well, then why are you DMing me on Twitter, dude? Why don't we just talk on Twitter? If this is safe, let's just stick with this. None of it adds up. And then a few weeks later, they're like, no, you're also in the CIA and you're trying to control my brain with your codes. And I'm like, and block, right? Because none of it makes any sense and they're schizophrenic or something like that or have some sort of other delusions.

36:22You know, this criminal psychologist was talking about, oh, Rodomania, blah, blah, blah. Why don't we talk about what he really has? But I don't know if that's legal. I don't know if your therapist can come forward and be, well, but can't they? If you are a criminal, can't they say this person has been diagnosed schizophrenic, diagnosed sociopathic? Can they not because it's your therapist? But if you're a criminal, can't they? I don't think it's like your personal therapist. It's probably like a professional can diagnose, but I don't know if it's like their personal therapist can break code too.

36:55Yeah. I mean, you could probably try to subpoena stuff like that. It would be very difficult because there is a confidentiality thing. But if they're threatening to murder someone, the therapist has to report that. Now, he probably just didn't tell his therapist those things were happening. Well, he tried to, he only had a therapist after he was caught. He was trying to, you know, plead that he was, you know, insanity. And they're like, yeah, no, you had a job. Like you said, you were functioning in the world. You were. You're unhinged, but you're hinged enough where you knew what you were doing.

37:25Yeah, you could still take care of some lovely old people. Lord knows what you were doing to them in the dark. I know. That freaks me out, too. Yeah, he worked at like an old folks home. And it's just like, imagine he's watching CSI Miami with some 90-year-old. and he's like, okay, all right, Deborah, good night. And then he goes home and he's like writing this creepy letter to you. Like I watched you today. Like it's just so weird to think about. No, but worse here was where my mind went. I was because he was working in a memory care facility specifically. So what were these 80 year old people who didn't have a memory?

37:55What was he then doing to them at night when no one's around? You know what I mean? Like, and they wouldn't be able to remember and or tell. Right. Oh, it's so creepy. You know, the whole thing is just beyond because if he's that depraved, Yeah, I mean, he might also be a total wimp in real life. And this is just like him sort of LARPing this. Well, who knows? So there are different phases of erotomania and the stalking part that goes with it. Phase one, they're super in love with you. Phase two, they start getting jealous or they start resenting you. Phase three, which is what it seemed like you just straight skipped to, is anger and rage.

38:30And this stuff is all reflected, or at least the latter phases are reflected in the letters. And it's like this rage that their love is unrequited and you started sleeping with a weapon under the bed. I'm wondering, what's your weapon of choice? A machete. Machete? No, I'm a dead serious. Yeah. What? Really? Yeah, no dead serious. We have a machete. Oh, I thought you would have had like a firearm or something like that. Well, we did for a long time, like especially when I was married, we had so many firearms. We just locked those up, but we had machetes under the bed. Okay. Wow. Dang. That is, that's, yeah.

39:02Okay. Did you train with it? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh, my God. I learned how to shoot a gun when I was eight. I shot my first shotgun in Montana, and we were doing skeet shooting. And then we went to the gun range, and I shot Glocks. Yeah, I was eight. And I learned to shoot on CSI Miami. So they trained us. And then I used to go with my ex-husband. We used to go to the shooting range a lot. That's when he taught Kai how to shoot. And so we're pretty proficient. Because unfortunately, the statistic is against women who have guns, who keep guns in their room under their bed. The majority of women are killed with their own firearm by an intruder.

39:42I see. They get disarmed. Yeah, they get disarmed. Or they hesitate to shoot or whatever. they're just on. I mean, which makes sense. I wanted to make sure I was proficient. Yeah, same here. And I'm glad I am because I feel very comfortable holding a firearm safety wise doing what, you know, it's heavy. I mean, when you really hold it, like when you hold a gun, a handgun in your hands, you're like, this is a lot heavier than you think. And that's, this is legit. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm grateful that I know how to safely use it. And here's the thing. We're not, we're not even gun people. We're not even gun people.

40:13No, I get it. I mean, you kind of had to become gun people. We're not like card carrying NRA people or anything. Not that, you know, anybody who's watching, if you love it, you love it. I don't care. I don't care what you do. It just wasn't your hobby. Love what you want to love. It's just not mine, you know. Tell me about Italy, because this was creepy as hell on theme. Creepy as hell. Yeah. So it was the last three months of that particular season for CSI. There isn't even a word beyond terrifying. You know, the threat I felt like was coming from everywhere. And I know this is not like all that relatable.

40:49Actors are a minuscule amount of people in the world that are stalked because there's like 13.5 million people just in the United States that are stalked, men, women and children. And actors are like this many of them. And I know this doesn't sound very relatable that I happen to have a friend who has a villa in Italy, but he said, you know what, as soon as the show goes on hiatus, come and stay for the three months of hiatus. Just come stay in Italy with me. And I thought, yeah, I don't know how to stay safe here. So I did. The day after filming for that year, we jumped on a plane and we were not there 36 hours in Italy.

41:26Then we wake up in the middle of the night. You've got jet lag and Kaya rolled over and she was like... I remember it was the mosquitoes too that kept us up. There was like mosquitoes just buzzing in our ears. We were trying to like hide under the pillows. We were exhausted. Yeah, we were exhausted. It was like three o 'clock in the morning and she was like, mama, are you awake? And I said, I am. Let's try to go back to sleep. About 10 minutes later, our bedroom door opens up. And you know how when there's a light behind somebody in a darkened room, you can't see their face because they're in shadow because the light's behind them.

41:54So I couldn't see who it was, but it was obviously a man. And I said, Max, Max. I was trying to be quiet because Kaya was hopefully back asleep. And I was like, Max, Max. He didn't answer. and he stood there for a few seconds and then he closed the door. So I thought, okay, well, Max is up too. I'm going to, thank God, I got up and I went to the bathroom first, took a few minutes in the bathroom. And then I thought, I'll go out in the house and see if Max is up because we're obviously both up. I went out into the house and all the lights were on. And I thought, well, that's kind of weird. And I walked around.

42:25I didn't see Max anywhere. I didn't yell up the stairs, but I was like, Max? Because his room and his mom's room were upstairs. Nothing. So I went back to bed. And the next morning, Max comes racing into our room. And he says, the house was broken into. Oh, my God. They took the car. They took our jewelry off the bedside stands in my mom's room and then in my room. We were completely robbed. Did you hear anything? Did you see anything? And I said, oh, my God. He was in our room. He came right into our room last night. I thought it was you. And he goes, no, it wasn't me. I was asleep. So in that, for me, I know that this is a jump, but because I had been doing nothing but praying for my life and my daughter's life for three months and praying for some sort of guidance and some kind of hope, in that moment said to me, it was God's answer to me, saying, if I want you dead, I will get you in any country, in any city, in any room, anywhere in the world.

43:25So relax, because this person came within 10 feet of me and my daughter while we're laying in bed. So it's not that the fear went away, but I was able after that to compartmentalize it. That's interesting. It's like a turning point. Yeah, I suppose. And it wasn't the stalker. It was just a random robbery, right? Right. But in that moment, we were like, oh, my God, the stalker followed us here. I mean, completely irrational. Of course, you know, he didn't. But, you know, in that moment, just like you said, in a matter of seconds, you're like, the glass broke. Was it a tree? Was it a thing? You start to run through all the things.

44:02And you're like, oh, my God, the stalker actually came into our room. Did the police, did the Italian police impress you? Not in the tiniest. Yeah. No, except they're Armani suits. They're Armani suits. Yeah, they were hot. Yeah. The cops there are hot. I love that you were pissed, that you were like, why aren't you taking fingerprints? Why aren't you doing fingerprints? Why aren't you taking fingerprints? Why aren't you doing? I was like, do I have to do this for you? Give me your tools. I can figure this out. They came in and they were touching everything. I was like, stop touching things. Stop picking things up.

44:32What are you doing? You're contaminating the scene. Yeah. It's like, ma 'am, our tools are unfiltered cigarettes. We're not doing anything. Unfiltered cigarettes and an espresso? Yeah. Can you give us a minute? Maybe we'll work by like two. Yeah. we're going to be back. We're going to go on break. Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah. I saw in the docuseries, it was like, don't touch the crime scene. There's fingerprints on the windows. And they're like, look, we're just going to look around and contaminate the crap out of this and then leave and write something for your insurance company. Hey man, reality comes crashing into your Hollywood image of what police are.

45:05So back to LA, you build a fence around your house. It's six feet. And unfortunately in Glendale, it can only be five, eight or something like that. And you have to go before city council. And these geniuses give your address out on live television. How pissed were you? Oh, my God. I don't know. Like in the documentary, you can see my face. I had just said I had a stack like this in a Manila. I said, here are all the letters from my stalker. This is why I have a security gate and a security fence. I'm just trying to get a variance for the three inches that I am above the code right now. And I said, here are all the letters.

45:47You guys have copies of them, but I can give you these ones if you don't have them on you. I can give you these ones right here to look at. I'm scared to death for my daughter, blah, blah, blah. I go through this whole thing, blah, blah, blah. The next thing they say is literally, okay, well, we need to state your name for the record. And I said, Eva LaRue. And they said, Eva LaRue, at 1149 blah, blah, blah street in Glendon. I was like, oh my God, it's on public TV. It's literally on the color from your face. I feel like literally you went pale. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Unbelievable.

46:17Like absolutely the dumbest. I mean, look, they probably run on autopilot, but like, hello, man, get a clue. Right. And I do think it was just autopilot. I don't think it was malicious. God, I would hate to think it was malicious. I think it's just what they do. Yeah. I think it was just their job is boring as hell. And they were like, all right, here's what we do. But also like maybe pay attention for this one. Just so you know, like three of the idiots from that particular council went to jail. No, they did not. Yeah, they were skimming money, taking bribes for variances and taking bribes for this.

46:48Oh, yeah. Three of them went to jail. Oh, so we could have bribed them? You could have just bribed them. You didn't even have to go to the meeting. Would have been nice to sue for having to move. Oh, I didn't know we could have just done that. At that point, you're not thinking about any of those things. Yeah. Yeah, next time just start with the bribe. Start with the bribe. So the paparazzi, of course, shows up the next day, and I assume you're thinking, great, now if they can find me, he can find me. Paparazzi are basically just stalkers with cameras and a profit MO, right? We moved in three days.

47:17At this point, you're in this new relationship with this new fiance. Did you feel guilty? You know, like he's getting the letters now. He started getting the letters. And they started out, dear Mr. Capucho. That's how they were addressed. Dear Mr. Capucho. please pass this letter on to your wife who I would like to rape and kill and dismember and love Freddy Krueger. Yeah, it's not your fault, but I feel like I would have felt guilty. Like, I feel I would have still felt bad about that. I'm sure you do. Yes, I felt horrible about that and horrible for his employees that opened the letters at the office because now they're scared to death that he's going to come to the office looking for Joe and find them like, you know, everybody's scared.

48:00Right. Turk, my publicist, he has his address. He's, oh my God, what am I supposed to do here? Everybody was afraid. And so, of course, he finds the house. He starts sending letters to the house addressed to you, Kaya. What year are we in of these letters coming, by the way, at this point? When they started coming to you, they started in 2007. When they started coming to you, it was around 2009. I thought I was like a teen, or I guess you just no you never knew yeah you never knew you know now right now yeah yeah today you are this many years old like yeah today years old yeah so you're in high school kaya at that point right this must have been so stressful you're already in you're a teenager you're in high school and you're worried about like boys and exams and it's like oh and my psycho stalker who might murder us yeah i mean even you referencing where it's like do you feel guilty do you feel bad especially just for her husband at the time.

48:54It was a very similar feeling for me in the way that I would make friends, you know, starting a new middle school, starting a new high school and trying to make friends and then always having in the back of my mind being like, I have to let them know at some point. But I obviously don't want to start my conversation with, hi, I'm Kaya. I do cheer and let's be friends and I'm funny. And by the way, what comes with being friends with me is like, you might want to look over your shoulder a little bit because I have a stalker. Like, how do you enter a relationship at 16 like that? And every relationship thereon, I mean, even now in dating, it's interesting because I am in a relationship and my boyfriend's dad had to say to him, or, you know, obviously this is all coming out at the same time.

49:37And he was like, well, do you feel safe? And, you know, what if he comes back and what if he starts finding you? And it kind of freaked me out. I was like, oh my God, yeah, it's such a burden to put on people because now you're scared by association. And, you know, you can't be public with people. And friendships I had, you know, in high school, it's all about social media. And my friends were posting about each other and we were all tagging each other and tagging our high schools. And I always had to make it very clear with my friends, you cannot tag me. You cannot put your location and I will not tag you.

50:11And I'm like, I don't mean to like, you know, obviously it's almost like a... Yeah, you're not snubbing them. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, because at the time, yeah, as a teenager, you're like, oh, you're not going to tag me? But it's like, I am doing this actually for your protection because with association and anything connecting me to you and digging deeper, like, you know, it's all connected. So, yeah, that was always the back of my mind thought throughout high school. You were right to do that because he was looking at your, you mentioned earlier, he was looking at your social media, leaving little emojis.

50:38And you're like, ah, random dude, whatever. But it's like, nope, he was looking at who you were associating with and who you were friends with and what you were doing. and like looked at all your photos. What is the cadence of the letters? Are you getting them every week? Are you getting them every month? Because it seems like it's not like a regular thing. No, there was no sort of regularity to it. We would get a flurry of them. I would just assume that he went on a little psycho spin out and we would get them every day for a week and then we wouldn't get them for three weeks. And then sometimes for a while there, when the show ended, when CSI ended, I thought, oh, thank God, like maybe he'll just be off of it.

51:17And for about six months, we were enjoying no letters at all. And then all of a sudden they started again like fast and furious. This is so weird. It's like on his meds, off his meds kind of stuff or like. I don't think he was ever even on meds. Well, he told us when we were sitting in court in his pathetic speech to us, he said, oh, I wish that I'd had a therapist sooner because he had a court-appointed therapist now and he was on court-appointed meds. And he said, and I wish I'd been on meds sooner because I don't think any of this would have happened. We're like, yeah, we wish both for you as well.

51:50But so there's, I think that's why he would just go into weird spin outs. And then his mom told the FBI that he was a huge All My Children fan and he used to record it and then play episodes on repeat again and again and again and again, like obsessively. He was obsessed with All My Children. So I think the obsession definitely happened from back when I was at All My Children and then escalated. But that's the other thing that we found out since all of this happened is that of all the women that were murdered in the United States last year, 86 % of them were stalked first. So we know that stalking escalates to rape and we know it escalates to murder.

52:29And that's why the laws around it are so ridiculous, because if that's the statistic of escalation, the law needs to be you're not allowed to menace, period. I don't care if you didn't break into their house or you didn't lay hands on them. If you are menacing someone, that needs to be against the law. Yeah. I mean, it's harassment, but that's, it doesn't reach the level of like what it is, right? It's also harassment if I call you names a bunch of times and you tell me to leave you alone, right? That's one thing. But when you are menacing somebody, like I'm going to harm you. I'm going to hurt you.

53:07I'm going to lay hands on you. That's different than I'm going to sue you. You're a butthole, like all the things. Yeah. You know, like calling names and whatever is different than I am menacing. Yes, this is on a totally, totally different level. And in fact, tell me about the close call at school. Yeah, I mean, that's where it all dovetailed. Obviously, this is something with 12 years, but you can't live with it at the forefront of your mind every day. So for me, I was just a normal day at high school, and I was at the cafeteria, and I get an overhead call being like, hi, Callie, and come to the front office.

53:42And I meet, and I'm like, oh, great, what did I do this time? I'm like, I know I cheated on at least three tests in the last week. You know, it's finals week. Busted. And so I'm going to the front and they tell me, hey, you know, your dad called. And I love my dad. But, you know, my dad lived in Palm Desert at the time and he was two hours away. And so he was never like the first to contact ever. And so they didn't really know what he looked like or sounded like. So they were like, you know, go on your phone and you can stand right here, but, you know, contact your dad. And so I'm texting my dad and then I'm texting my mom.

54:15But they also said, your dad said, he's going to pick you up after school, stand out in front of the school, he's going to pick you up from school. Yeah, but they were more like, they were kind of suspicious too. They were more like, just double check with him on your own. And so I'm texting you being like, hey, yeah, dad called the school saying he was going to pick me up. Have you heard from him? I mean, he would have called you first. I'm texting my dad. Hey, dad, are you picking me up? And so she's like, no, I haven't even heard from him. That's weird. I'm just kind of standing there. And the moment my dad texted me saying, no, I never called the school, I hadn't thought about the stalker in the forefront of my mind.

54:47But all of a sudden it was immediate where I was like, oh, my God. Like the world just came at a close in. And I just was like, oh, my God, it's my stalker. It's my stalker. And so I'm freaking out to the poor front office lady at my school. And she's like, go back to class. You're fine. Like I don't even know what you're talking about. I was like, you need to call the FBI. You need to call my mom. Mom, we need to get the FBI on the phone right now. So my mom, you know, I had the chance to call my mom, and so she comes rushing over and is coming to pick me up. But yeah, I mean, and then the FBI showed up and tapped the phones, and the next day or overnight, he had left 19 voice messages detailing basically everything he had said in the letters, but directly to my school so that the poor front office woman had to start her morning at 6 a.m.

55:35listening to those. And how he would kill any administrator or teacher or kid that got in the way, a student that got in the way of a team here. The fact that he didn't get more time just for that, for threatening a school, is really pretty unjust. All right, we'll pause right there because apparently threatening to rape and murder someone and their kid is a great place to tell you about our sponsors. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Momentus. By this point in the year, routines are real, not aspirational. And when you're taking supplements every day, trust matters. The problem is the supplement space is low regulation.

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1:00:02He's threatening teachers, students, and someone in particular, and administrators of the school, and he's going to kidnap somebody from his school and rape them and kill them and torture them. Like, that alone is... Three years seems okay. That's fine. Yeah, no, it's crazy. He ends up with such a light sentence. So the FBI gets back to you after a while here. The new agents are the guys who helped catch the Golden State Killer. We had Paul Holes on the show, actually. He's one of the guys who was involved in that. Yeah, I know Paul. He's a great guy. He's really good. Episode 725, that story is crazy, right?

1:00:32The genetic genealogy. Well, and here's the interesting truth about that story. Paul Holes had been on the case for like 20-something years, and he was getting ready to retire. and the two FBI agents, well, specifically Steve Kramer, who had been a lawyer for the FBI, he was just fascinated with the Golden State Killer case, why it hadn't been solved. And so he called Paul Holes at one point after listening to Michelle McNamara's podcast and reading her articles on the Golden State Killer. And he called Paul Holes and he was like, hey, I'm with the FBI. I'm just a lawyer with the FBI, but how can I help?

1:01:04Like, are there any tools that we have that we could help? I'm just fascinated with why it hasn't been solved. So they kind of create this ragtag team, it was Steve Kramer who created Forensics Genealogy. He was never allowed to take credit for it because he was with the FBI. And the FBI said to him, murder is not an FBI jurisdiction. Murder is local law enforcement jurisdiction. And it's only FBI jurisdiction if it's part of a RICO case or part of some other, you know, FBI jurisdiction sort of case. So the FBI said to Kramer, you got to do this on your weekends. Don't be messing around doing this on FBI time.

1:01:42If you're doing this, this is a hobby for you. So to FBI, they did not ever get to take credit for it. Then the FBI, when the case got solved, Paul Holes and one of the other guys from Colorado, I can't remember his name right now, they took all the credit for solving a case that he literally didn't solve for 25 years by himself. Although he's a lovely guy and he did help do the stuff, it was Kramer who created the technology. And then when Kramer came back to, and Bush at that point, Steve Bush, came back to the FBI and said, we think we've created a brand new technology. The FBI, God bless them, were like, yeah, it's a one-off.

1:02:16It's not replicable. Sit still. So they kind of went behind their back. And our FBI agent at the time, Richard Alexander, had just gotten a promotion and was leaving our case behind, somebody else was going to be taking it over. And they just happened to be chatting inside the FBI offices. And they said, look, we're looking for another DNA heavy case because we need to kind of quietly prove that this is a technology, like on our weekends, basically. And Richard said, please take this case. These are my girls that I've been trying to solve their case for 12 years and I haven't been able to do it.

1:02:52It would be amazing. Please take the girl's case. And so our case was the very next case that the guys took after Golden State. Our case proved that it was a replicable technology, and our case ended up being a precedent-setting case for the FBI. It was the first ever adjudicated case with forensics technology, so genealogy. Essentially, if they don't have the DNA match in the database, right, they have something, let's say, off of a postage stamp or off of a murder weapon, they might not have anybody in the database, but they can go to, I don't know, 23andMe or something like that, a DNA site, and go, is anybody here registered who would be a relative of this person.

1:03:28And so with the Golden State Killer, I'm going off memory here, but basically Kramer and Paul Holes, they found that this person's brother had registered. And they were like, oh, we found a DNA match for a brother or maybe it was a cousin or something like that. It was like a fifth cousin. Okay. Oh, it's really that far off. Okay. Because when they first started uploading the DNA from Golden State Killer into these other entities, GEDmatch and Ancestry and all these things, there wasn't even enough DNA in those companies in the beginning to get a match at all. So they had to wait. It was almost like three years or four years that they kept uploading, waiting to get a match.

1:04:04And then they finally ended up getting a match to a fifth cousin. And then they did the gumshoe, old-fashioned detective work and basically knocked on doors. And they said they never had a problem knocking on doors saying, hi, FBI, you're related to a serial killer. Can you help us out? I mean, I would be like, oh, I bet I know who it is. Yeah, yeah, exactly. like, oh, it's Uncle Tom, isn't it? It's like... Yeah, my second cousin, you know, killed that cat one time. I definitely bet it was him. Yeah. What a freak. Yeah, but of course it makes sense because then you narrow it down from every human on Earth or every male or whatever on Earth to in Ohio to, oh, okay, it's somebody who is related to this person.

1:04:41There's a lot of those, but hmm. Are they all men? No. We get down to the last 10 and then how many of them live in Ohio? Then how many of them follow us on social media? and there was one. Yeah, there was one guy following you on social media. From that family branch. And they ID the guy. Yes, he follows both of you on social media. He was in Ohio where the letters were postmarked so they knew that they had him. The classic out-of-shape white dude lives with his mom because of course. I always felt like he lived in the basement, his mom's basement. You did always say he lived in his mom's basement.

1:05:13I was always like, he lives in his mom's basement. It's very predictable. He didn't live in the basement, but you know. And then they still have to match the DNA. So they can't just say, okay, we have a high probability that on that family tree branch of all the leaves on that branch, this is the only one who is a man, happens to be from Ohio, follows us, blah, blah, blah. That's still not enough. They have to stalk him and they have to wait for him to throw out something with his DNA on it. And so he threw out an Arby's cup and they got his DNA off the straw. That's amazing. I mean, that must have been, these guys must have been pretty stoked, right?

1:05:48They're watching some idiot throw away a fast food bag and they're like, please don't be a waste of time. And they get the DNA off the straw and they're like, boom. Yeah. And I think they knew it wasn't a waste of time because they knew they had their guy, but they just had to, but the crazy thing was they followed him. He pulls up to his house. He walks across the street and puts his Arby's trash bag, the bag of Arby's stuff, in a public dumpster across the street. which is weird. He didn't like take it into the house and throw it away. And when he went into the house, the guys who were there, it wasn't Steve Bush yet, were like, it was one of those ones where it's just got a chute, like a big, huge public trash can with just a trash chute.

1:06:28And the rest of the thing is locked down. And they're like, oh God, now we got to like go call the city. We got a dumpster dive. We got to do like, and so he tells a story about how he was like, well, let me just go see. So he goes over and he opens up the little chute and he said, thankfully, somebody had thrown out some blinds and the blinds were sticking up inside the chute. And so the bag of Arby's was hanging on the blinds halfway up the chute. So all they had to do was like reach in and grab it. And then they ran it for DNA. Yeah. That's amazing because that's one of those things where you feel like you could almost like, oh, we called the city.

1:07:06But between when the guy arrived, they emptied the dumpster and it went to the landfill and we couldn't get it and then da-da-da, like, and then the guy saw us and he got freaked out and he went to ground for a year and a half. Like, it's just, it could have gone totally different. And this was scary. There was a scary moment in the documentary where this FBI agent says, once people are no longer afraid of being caught, that's when they're the most reckless and when victims are the most at risk. And they thought, kind of, he was getting to that point, right? Because he was like, I'm coming for you.

1:07:34I'm calling this school now. Like, I'm clearly just not worried. He was excited. 19 messages overnight in one night. Yeah, he's manic. Yeah, because then you have a real location in the same way, you know, like it's not just LA anymore. It's I know where she's going to be every single day, all day. Yeah. And that was that was terrifying. I mean, I didn't go back to thank God it all timed out right, because I think I was only out of school for like three days. But when I look back, I was like, I would have had to switched schools. In all honesty, I would have, you know, obviously COVID happened, I think, a few months later.

1:08:07But I'm like, I wouldn't have been able to go back to school. I would have had to switch. I would have had to completely change so many things about my life once again, just to be safe. And thankfully, I think it was, yeah, three days later and they were like, we've got him. We're not going to arrest him yet. We're waiting on the DNA, but we've got eyes on him. You are good. Yeah, that was so relieving to be like, oh my God, the first time in my whole life to feel like I could be safe and that I was safe to go to school. And of course, as you predicted, he lives in his mother's basement, essentially, right?

1:08:39His mom has no idea, but says, oh, we always watch Davis shows over and over and over again. Creepy. Weird. AF. Yeah. The creepiest fact for me is when they went in and they were checking his phone and the only two numbers programmed into his phone were his work and my high school. Yes, I wrote that down. The FBI goes in, they're raiding this guy's house, right? First of all, he has every photo of you from every public appearance that you've ever done on hard drives and laptops or whatever. And yeah, there's a cell phone with two contacts in it. One his mom and the other your high school. Not work, not relatives, not neighbors, just his mom and your high school.

1:09:19So weird. So weird. So creepy. Like, I can't even imagine had this gone on longer, how many more times he would have called the school. How much more he would have done. I mean, when I went back to school, I felt really bad for the front office woman that was working there because not that I yelled at her that day, but I was like panicking. And she very much was like, go back to class. I think she kind of thought I was trying to get out of school early. She even said to me when I called the school and I said, I'm coming to pick her up. And she's like, well, do you have a doctor's note? And I was like, lady, if you get in the way of picking up my kid, I'll run you over.

1:09:56Like literally you won't be worrying about the stalker. Yeah. Worrying about me. But when I went back and I checked in for some reason and she like looked at me and like almost took my hand and was like, I am so sorry. And I was like, for what? And she was like, I heard the messages. Like, you know, I'm the one who answered. And she was like, I just can't even imagine. And I'm so sorry. I didn't take it seriously. And I just was like, oh, my God. Like, it was one of the first times I realized not that it was going to be public, but where I was like, oh, my God, other people are knowing without me being the one to sit them down and tell them.

1:10:27And this is like, I felt really guilty and like that burden to share that, you know, it's almost, you almost feel ashamed, which is weird because it's not, it's not our fault. It's not my fault. But at the same time, you feel so ashamed to have this. You're sharing a burden. Yeah. And sharing a fear because at some point you get to the point where you're like, well, I can handle it. Not only that, but when you tell people that you feel afraid, the other person is not feeling afraid with you. They're sad for you. They don't really feel the visceral feeling of fear. But when somebody listens to a message that's aimed at them, I'll kill any administrator or teacher or student, suddenly the fear is embodied.

1:11:06Now you're one of the people that's being targeted. And now you're like, oh, my God. Like, then it becomes super real. Not that nobody cares when we tell them, but it's like you're crying wolf. You know, how many times can you say, I'm scared? I'm still scared, you know? It's 12 years. Yeah, how are you doing? It's like when someone has cancer and you don't want to bring up to the person, you know, how's your cancer doing? But you're also kind of waiting for them to tell you. but then you don't also want to bring into a conversation when you're having a good day with somebody being like, oh, yeah, my cancer is da-da-da-da-da.

1:11:36It's still here. Still cancer. Yeah, you know, it's kind of like this conversation you don't ever really want to have. You don't want to make a bad day worse, and you don't want to make a good day bad. So you just kind of don't talk about it. How did you feel when you heard he'd finally been arrested? Relief and disbelief, I guess, because after 12 years, I just, I had stopped hoping that he'd ever be caught. But it was very surreal. The whole thing was, and the timing was so surreal that he had just found your school and the story was so crazy. And then to top it all off, the poor woman in the administration office, the school or the admittance office or whatever, she was like, well, when does FBI agent Steve Bush come back?

1:12:19Because he's hot. My school loves Steve Bush. They love themselves. They'd say their husband. They literally would be like, our husband. Our FBI husband. Yeah, but it was like a whirlwind of emotions. I mean, yeah, everything. It was a TV show, but we weren't on the TV show. It was really crazy. What was it like seeing this guy face-to-face in court, so to speak? I mean, actually, I know you did it remotely because what was the reason for that? They didn't want to give him the... We did it remotely, but we had to lobby for that. Oh. Because they were trying to fly him out to L.A. They were trying to fly him to L.A.

1:12:51to be in the courtroom with us. He'd never been in proximity to us. And we're like, we don't want to suddenly be in proximity. Can you have like a tiny bit of sympathy for the victims? Like, hello. And so finally, like three days before, they told us, okay, we're going to have him via Zoom. But yeah, we had to beg our U.S. attorneys who had our case to lobby for him. Gosh, that's crazy. I mean, at least they caved on that because, I mean, yeah, he would love nothing more than to be in a room with you guys after all this. And we said, if you guys bring him out, we won't be in person. will be Zoom because it doesn't make sense.

1:13:26You're going to give him a free trip to L.A. and then what? Leave him here? Then what happens? I don't know. What's it like giving a victim impact statement? What goes into those, first of all? I don't even really know what those are. You weren't even going to give one. I wasn't going to give one at all. I mean, you sat and wrote yours prior, which was just kind of detailing, more just detailing everything you've been through, everything you've felt, and really laying it all out. To give the judge an idea of hopefully you're trying to influence sentencing at that point. And I don't even really remember what I said other than, yeah, just laying it all out and what it had meant for us and how many times we moved and how this— How it deeply affected us, I guess, in our daily lives.

1:14:04Yeah. Just, yeah, how we'll be affected forever. And then he gave his statement. Well, he gave his first. He gave his statement first. I mean, I wasn't going to speak. I was very adamant about not wanting to stand up and speak at all. but he had gone first and one of the things he said was I hope you can let this go I hope you can just forget the last 12 years everything that's happened because now I'm on meds and now I'm in therapy and now I feel bad I hope you can let this go and move on with your life and in that moment I looked at my mom and I was like I'm going up first I was like not only am I going to speak I'm going up first because I was I just was like I was like this is insane what do you mean let this go.

1:14:43And I felt compelled where I was like, the judge needs to know. I would love to let this go, but I actually can't because A, B, C, D, E, F, G, the entire alphabet. Well, it's rewired your brain completely. Yeah. We will never not be hypervigilant. How do you go back after 12 years to, and he's out. Yeah, he's out now. So how do we just go, oh, he's fine now. I'm sure he's totally sane because people go from insane to sane. Right. He gets three years and then three years of probation, which is crazy to me. I mean, Three years is, it's a long time for a bunch of traffic violations or a bag of weed, but it's nothing for somebody who spent a dozen years threatening to kill you in the most brutal way as possible, and your daughter.

1:15:26It just doesn't make any sense. What do you think he should have gotten, in your opinion? The max he could have gotten was seven in this case. And I think he should have gotten three and a half for her and three and a half for me. And the thing is, I mean, maybe he would have gotten more if Joe, my ex-husband, had been part of the case. But his letters had a statute of limitation on them. It had already been seven years since he had gotten letters. So he could not be part of the case. But there was also people that did not step forward. There's another girl from another soap opera from One Life to Live.

1:15:56And I won't say her name because it's her story and not my story. But her mom called me at one point and said, my daughter is getting these letters. He references you in the letters and says, if you don't believe me and what I'm going to do to you, just ask Eva LaRue. And they were signed Freddy Krueger. So I don't know how long she was getting the letters. I never heard from them about it again. And when the FBI reached out to her, she wouldn't respond. So I think probably what happened was he was off of her. You don't ever want to do anything to reignite their obsession with you. So that's probably why she didn't come forward again.

1:16:30I'm just guessing that he stopped writing her at some point. Yeah, that makes sense. Gosh, it's scary because restraining orders and things like that are just paper, right? And this guy's out of prison. I think you're lucky that he's kind of older and not physically able. But like you said, he just needs a weapon, right? It's scary. Man, I'm glad you guys are okay. How often do you think about this aside from doing promo for the docuseries? Every day, right? I try not to think about it every day. Yeah, we try not to. Well, I don't blame you for that. It definitely comes up, you know, for me. I feel like at least twice a week for me.

1:17:05Yeah. Where I'm conscious about it. You know, at night, you're always, you know, when the house is quiet and you're always. I think it's just intertwined with everything. You know, like there's almost no separation where you're specifically being like, oh, my God, remember I had a stalker today? It's just in every way you. It's how you move through the world. It's how you move. Yeah. It's how you move. Everything's intertwined with it and the fear and the paranoia and, you know, the fear, too, of the fact that this was one man. It doesn't mean it won't happen again. I mean, how are you feeling now that this happened to you?

1:17:39Somebody broke into your house. Like, there's no way you're not thinking about this every night now. Yeah. Like that they might come back, every sound, I'm sure. I don't think about it that much, surprisingly. We made some changes to our security system. I should probably bounce those ideas off you. You probably have a fire alarm system. like we have like new lighting and new sensors and new locks everywhere and stuff like that. And I've got some other surprises should they get further than that. All home alone. Yeah, little home. Yes, I have little toy cars with nails sticking out. I have a pet tarantula I'm going to put on their face.

1:18:14I don't think about it every day, but you know what my wife does? And I know my kids do. I don't know if it's every day. I know they think about it a lot because, again, 10, 11, whatever, we're at almost 12 months, 11 months later, my daughter will be like, I'll be like, what are you drawing? She'll be like, oh, it's a sign. This is no bad guys. And I'm like, oh, these fricking guys. Yeah. So it's sort of in the back of her head somewhere. And then my son will be like, hey, dad. And I'll be like, what? And he'll go, do bad guys, are they just like everywhere in the dark? And I'm like, no, they're not.

1:18:46And he's like, okay, you know, it's just sort of so that that actually is the thing that pissed me off the most. My feeling of like having being a little bit violated my home, you know, the glass broken, the property damage, dealing with that, that, that was like, that's like not even making the top 10 list of things that upset me about this. It's my family being upset about it. Or my wife going, I always set the alarm when we go somewhere. And I'm like, we're going across the street. And she's like, I don't care. You know, and she's right. But it's also like, oh, I kind of miss the days where she was like, oh, I didn't set the alarm.

1:19:17It's fine. We're only gone for the weekend. Yeah. Yeah. That kind of stuff. No, you're hypervigilant forever. When your brain is traumatized like that and your brain is shocked like that, I don't know if you can ever not have that vigilance. You know what I mean? It's tough. I mean, maybe it fades with time or something like that. I guess we'll see. I'm sure it fades with time. And I don't know for us, as long as the sky is alive, I don't know that it'll really be able to fade for us. What's something you can never do anymore and something that you always have to do now? I mean, now I feel like we've really kind of taken back everything.

1:19:51We kind of— I feel like I can never—I mean, I have like a travel content Instagram, and so I feel like I can never post my exact location about things. I always post for safety. I was in London a week ago now, and I'm just posting about it. I do that. Yeah, I don't post in real time. Yeah, I feel like I can never post in real time. And a lot of my friends do, because who cares? And I can't. and then what would I like to do? Was that that? What's something you always have to do now or you feel like you always have to do now? Like with me, with the alarm system. Yeah, it's definitely our security system.

1:20:29I feel like I always have to, if someone's following me for too long, you know, like you happen to be going the same way, I always make four lefts just to make sure they're not following. Four left turns. Yeah, or I'll pass my house or I'll, you know, Because no one's making four left turns that isn't following you. Right, exactly. Yeah. Unless they're lost. And we know where all of the police stations are. Yeah. In my area. Yeah. Geez. And on the way to wherever we need to be going, like, wherever, you know, the work is. What freaks me out is that, like, guys like this just exist. And they're, like, working at Chipotle.

1:21:05Right. Yes. They live next door to you. They're, like, here. They're right around you. Yeah. Like, oh, the guy who lives with his mom and he's kind of a weird guy, but he's so nice. He cuts the lawn and he brings flowers for her on Thanksgiving. Oh, and he threatened to rape and murder this couple that lives five states away that he watches on TV. What? Yeah. I mean, even the Golden State Killer, he's got two daughters. One of them's a doctor. She went to Stanford. He was like a soccer dad. Yeah. It's like a normal dude that people, you know, he's bringing oranges to the soccer games for the kids.

1:21:36You know, it's his week. But he's killed 43 people. It's so crazy. And in like brutal ways. I remember researching that and it was like he would put like plates on the guy. He would like humiliate the guy by putting plate, like making him watch the whole thing. It was crazy. Gross. True monsters. Really. True monsters. And you dodged yours. Well, thank you again. I'm so glad you're both okay. Thank you. It was so great talking to you. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming on and braving LA traffic. You're brave in so many ways, ladies. Oh, thank you. Thank you. You're such a great interviewer.

1:22:12Yeah, that was amazing. I really appreciate it. Thanks. Nice to meet you guys. Take care and safe travels. So good to meet you. You're about to hear a preview from Joe Loya, a man who robbed 30 banks across California, but says the real crime scene was his childhood, where his Pentecostal preacher father beat him over 100 times before he turned 15. For 14 months, I robbed 30 banks, sometimes several in one day. I lost all sense that my life was going to be long at all. I just wanted to grab the loot and get the hell out of Dodge as fast as possible and go spend it and have fun. That was my ethos.

1:22:47And so I did. Because all the crimes I did and all the violence I did. And starting with my dad, when my mother died, we had received a lot of love from her and everything like that. It's just too much for him. And when he gets angry now, he gets brutal. Like, he may have socked me. He may have choked me. He may have done all those things. Bebe with a bat. He wants us dead. He's using the dead language. He could kill us or I could kill myself. but this is like, it's just a tough time for me to try and process the grief myself and become being brutalized. I don't believe I have a future. So there's nothing inside of me like, oh, I got to protect my future.

1:23:22I better get a job. I better start saving money for the future. None of that. Because the trauma is so intense, you're only looking at surviving the next day in front of you. You know, in fact, I'm not made for society. They have all these moralities, but they're too timid for me. I've seen past the curtain. Like I become in my heart, like a little sociopath looking at like, you guys are falling for the okie doke. And I'm not the guy who falls for the okie doke. I'm the guy who stabs the okie doke and says, get the hell out of my way. I'm not buying it. Right. Once upon a time, Joe Loya couldn't handle his emotional shit.

1:23:56And so now I'm a criminal. I'm a bad guy. In this episode, Joe unpacks the unsettling rapture he felt in the middle of a robbery, and the exact moment seven years in solitary forced him to confront what he'd been running from his whole life. And the turning point that finally redirected everything? It's not what you'd expect. Check out episodes 1264 and 1265 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. Well, I have to say, I am genuinely relieved that these women are both okay. Wow. What really stuck with me isn't just the fear. It's what never goes back to normal. The things you can't do anymore, The things you always have to do now.

1:24:33The fact that even after an arrest, after prison, after restraining orders, there's still that quiet awareness in the background, maybe not so quiet, that a piece of paper doesn't really stop anyone. This story is horrifying, but it's also a rare look at how these cases actually work, how slow they are, how messy they are, and how much of the burden falls on the victims just to stay alive. Ava, Kaia, thank you for trusting me with this and for sharing something so personal and so unsettling here on the show. And I feel like we had fun doing it, if we can say that. And if you haven't watched the documentary yet, prepare yourself.

1:25:05Go and do that. Links and resources, of course, in the show notes. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, our newsletter, once again, We Bit Wiser, very practical. We'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, psychology, relationships in under two minutes every Wednesday. jordanharbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Don't forget about our six-minute networking course as well over at sixminutenetworking.com. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

1:25:35You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. In this show, it's created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tata Salauskas, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. In fact, the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who is interested in sort of true crime-ish or scary stories like this, definitely share it with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn.

1:26:05And we'll see you next time. I've got homes.com as a sponsor for this episode. Homes.com knows when it comes to home shopping, it's never just about the house or the condo. It's about the homes. And what makes a home is more than just the house or property. It's the location. It's the neighborhood. If you got kids, it's also schools, nearby parks, transportation options. That's why homes.com goes above and beyond to bring home shoppers the in-depth information they need to find the right home. It's so hard not to say home every single time. And when I say in-depth information, I'm talking deep.

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