BONUS: Amanda’s Early Exploits: Was she ‘sick’ even back in college?
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Ice commander listeners, it's charlie again and i'm joined financing the studio. We have been contacted by so many different people and two people that we wanted to get on the line to speak to us. To tell a bit more is canon and lenin.

Canary was a supervisor of the resident advisers at the sun haz state university, and I was around two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, which is when AManda was at the university and he was a resident adviser. As somebody that's english, i've had to learn what resident advisor is. And lennon was a resident advisor with AManda.

So can read you with a supervisor that looked after the resident advisers. Can you well, welcome along and thank you so much. Can you describe to us was a little bit about that role?

sure. But my role was a system director of the department and with that came a bunch of a different test. I actually supervised her supervisor. But the interesting thing about AManda SHE was very involved on in our program. So SHE worked for for me in my office as a student assistant.

Um he also worked as and ready for a couple of years and then he later became a graduate assistant which was a level of supervisor among the staff members right? So he did that for about A A semester. And in my role, I I hired and trained all of the staff. I did staff conduct and a variety different things throughout the department. You.

AManda? yes. And he was a world around nineteen and twenty and twenty at this time.

I would say so he was already. And when I had arrived in two thousand six, I think I might have gotten her for the last year that he was an order when I came in in August of two .

thousand and six in lena, you were a resident advisor with AManda. What kind of things did you do?

So yeah I mean, in our role, uh, as resent visors are R S for sure. You know that saves saves this time isn't .

because I had to learn what on our was lending that's right.

Yeah but our in our jobs we know we're students actively ourselves. So we we lived on campus, we lived in the residents hall are the dorms, depending on on who you talking to. And we had about, I would say, about eighty years.

So student society, each of us and and on the floors that they lived, we would meet with them. If there were roommate issues, we would, can I do the thing where we hold will call the is our duty phone or on call phone overnight. So we would respond crisis.

We would a obviously host events and activities to build community and engagement. So it's kind of like you're familiar with other university settings. It's like the perpetual welcome week, your orientation or something like that.

But we're doing a year around. We're actively working within our communities. And so we we do like A A reasonable size team to achieve that with our supervisors in the that .

you told leaders reminded me of something and these tickets just keep pop in up. I actually ended up living on her floor because I negotiated housing for a couple of years, and I lived on her full, I think, for a year or two. And so I got to see her as A R, A. And so SHE was kind like my r even though I was a professor staff from, but that's running OK.

So I really wanna dig in to this. So yeah, I was the first thing I want to ask you is when you found out what AManda was doing, was either of you surprised .

when I first found out about IT, I was about fifty percent surprised. And the other half me, you know, was like, this makes sense. Now i'm really surprised that some of the things that i'm learning more and more as I I hear the podcast.

but you're not surprised .

that she's not. Why as a student assistant with I, I got to work with her closely. And i've had people, other people in my life hoods gone through cancer treatment.

And I thought cancer and some of the behavior IT just didn't line up like he was never wanting to talk about, which is fine. That happens every 啊 with with some people。 But I just didn't line up with how someone would like and how someone would feel.

He was always very energized, very bubble and very outgoing, which is a wonderful quality of her. I never saw the pain of what cancer folks would go through, right? And so that immediately made me question some of the authenticity of what he was experiencing.

Learn what did you think what was among alive? Because, you know, I suppose you could argue with what you were just saying, crick, that, well, people show things, show their pain in different ways, right?

Yeah, you know and I think it's thing back to the totality of the question of being surprised. And then also, you know what I was like, I still work in higher education. So I think I at a point where I I don't know, I get too surprised about the behavior of people, unfortunately.

But when I look at the cultivation of a skill set to do these things, i'm not surprised. And what I mean by that is on wind, this isn't a promotion for people to become R S. To become, but but it's this idea of learning how to turn IT on is something that is a skills said, I think we all do IT.

We all go through our life. And some of us who are most successful become continually success. Where I find our definitions of success is our ability to acknowledge how to turn IT on, turn IT off, recharge all these other things. In the case of the kind of work we are doing and how IT may be translate to AManda, is when you live.

where you work.

how do you turn that off in the work we did? We try to get IT about an hour or two. So I look, I look at that like a little.

You get back in your room, and that's the only time you really get a chance to stop smiling or stop putting up the bold face. Once I discovered that I wasn't real, I kind like, wow, OK. This is something i'm not surprised by, because I think there had always been an element of putting on the show.

So, right, guys, right? So this was back in two thousand and six, kind of two thousand and seven. SHE started a blog in twenty twelve to remind everyone, which is when he said he was diagnosed with cancer with hodgson. So hang on, we're talking about IT as if what you put on this good face. So did SHE say .

he had cancer then? Yeah, what? Well, SHE SHE definitely had. I don't know this. For fact, I say this. I think SHE started a very, very small and realized that maybe he could do this to get out of stuff like classes or work, or what have you.

And then just saw that there was a success to started building on IT, right? And said, I could do this. I can make the money out of this or something. I don't know that for fact.

So when you say I don't for fight, but he was saying SHE wasn't very well.

He was saying he was sick.

Yeah, I remember her being sick. Uh, and I remember that coming up because when you're looking at your peers and there is fourteen hundred residents in one building, right? Pretty big, big fourteen resistance in one building is only fifteen rs.

You know, we got to work. And so any time someone was excused, you felt IT h he was sick in the gic. I say a quite a bit when I came to the extra duties of what was asked of us.

one of things we also found out through somebody who was a boyfriend of her back around that time was that he was saying he had pus. Does that ring any bells .

for the review above?

And I just want to pick up on you. You are saying camera a SHE. She's always really smiling, like in all the photos we have gone through from her blog post.

And this years and years and years, he is always really smiling. And one of the things that people said about her was he is so charming and lovely. And I mean, I i've met her and he was smiling and lovely even though she's been just been sentenced. Can you describe a bit more of what what he was like and what the interactions were like was SHE kind and a good place? And or how would you describe that?

yeah. And this is the difference between what she's done versus how he appeared, right? Because he was very much everything of a help bar.

SHE was, I mean, if you met her, you would immediately melt into her, wanting her to be a good friend of yours, right? I thought he was very bubble, very personable. Um SHE SHE actually was a very hard worker. I don't want to take any of that away from her. He did I think SHE did her job and he did IT well and you know her accolades proof that he was IT seemed he thought many of us that he was a good person and he was generally doing things how people and um was really caring about all the folks.

I think like I shared the earlier, it's twenty four seven and we're around each other all the time and you can you can be genuine. And I would totally agree with the standpoint of the hard work in the way he shows up. Like her creativity hurt when she's on SHE would SHE can win.

SHE would win. Like I think there are number of of things. I think her biggest stringent in the work that we did was and programing and engagement like really showcasing you obsess a great speaker, very energetic, super welcoming in those are qualities that when you think about interviewing someone for a role like this, stand out in interview.

Um I think for some of the other things that you, a fellow R A would track in that would feel and we definitely felt that at the time was but you how many of your students do you actually know like you've got a some residents, do they think you are resource or do they engage at you outside of the space? So I think that we were seeing things in tracking things in the light where IT was. I think we felt IT once again as as peers. But I think from a showing up standpoint, like even myself, like at the time even being you in that window, friends h with the Manda, I think we if IT was like time to do something, you wanted her to be in your team because you know, he wanted to win. So it's like and so and he was going to show up and and put on especially could so like there's so much productivity there from that lands and engagement and so I totally see I like can sharing that a sort of energy of, oh yeah, he is someone you upon meeting or like, oh, there is someone I I can also look up .

to yeah but then when you agree that. Some of that was in the manipulation of all of this, is that I feel like he showed up like an a plus student to the people who matter, like supervisors, maybe teachers, people who are making decisions, who had the power to make some of that so he wanted those people to know that she's she's fantastic and she's great and he can do all the stuff and he looks good in front of them so that later possibly they could be um sympathetic to her cause like you in .

a way camera because you hired her, right? You hired her as a grad assistant so SHE actually work for you. You must have see those qualities in her.

Absolutely, absolutely. Like I said, some of them just did not. I didn't match up. I didn't much.

Can you tell us about this residency program that a man was part of her sought after residency program where students got three thousand three thousand dollar pay plus room and board but then AManda mysteriously left after about six weeks, which is unusual that actually .

the graduate uh level position that he was employing and SHE rehire both graduate students and um underground for the R A position. But there's a level of assistant um residents life resident life coordinators are professional folks that i've gone through grad school and all that stuff. And then we have a system resident life creators that might do a uh a bunch of supervising and some other tasks on.

But SHE entered in that role for um I want to say like maybe six to eight weeks or something like that. And we had gone through the process of getting her high because we had to make sure that he was um a great student. That was the number one priority an and to us, he was a great candidate because SHE had already known our department, had known our program and he could easily transition into a the role having all of those skills that we didn't have to necessarily retrain her on.

And so he was really interesting. After six or eight weeks, he was gone. SHE was like, SHE resigned, and SHE didn't give us a reason. He just was done. And that role did pay for. We pay tuition, we to paid, remember, board, and we also gave, I want to say, about a three thousand dollars step in a month to all of our great .

students a lot. Do you mind if I just onna bring Nancy and I, Nancy the deo with us, and a lots to bring nanc at this point? Nci, do you think there was a particularly reason why I was around that six to eight week's time frame?

Yeah, I mean, that for me, I noticed, you know, he had wrapped up a lot of education debt when we were looking at the bank. Psy, and I couldn't figure out how that worked. And I I do know like what you come back around at the six week, mark, you can withdraw and usually get a reimbursement of the funds for your tuition. There's like a cut off point and then a view if you get out before you get reivers. So I always thought that was the the situation.

What do you think about that camera? You're not in your head.

I think that is brilliant to the office with you. I mean, aside from having the dead, but I to have figured out that as a way to make some money, i'm not suggesting that people do that because clearly, this is what of the outcomes is like.

But SHE, it's crazy that if that's what he did, he got roman board for a period time, he got the monthly a step, and then he got us to pay for her tuition um which you know could be upwards of ten thousand dollars. And then after while he just left him out reivers for the amount because we after we leave the after we transfer the money, we have nothing else to do with IT IT just and leaves our hands and IT now goes into the students account. And so he clearly that, and I I never ever thought about that, but IT would have meant that he would have gotten all of those funds as SHE withered from those passes can make.

When you posted on facebook about the podcast commander and about no in AManda, he said something wasn't right and lows of people commented and felt the same. What was not right from either review, you think? Was there any obvious lies or things at the time, or only complaints made or anything that made people question her?

You, we all kinds secretly had these feelings, but never, all right, said, it's what a other but I was you know, it's stuff that we each observe. Do you know IT might be that i'm feeling SHE called out sick but get she's going to a party or you see her all dressed up to to go out on the date or something right? And so some of those things, just to make any sense that IT IT IT makes IT IT raises eyebrows um and I almost wish you that we were favor of to says something to what other back in the .

says I think something can regale de to earlier um is this idea of looking good for those that matter? I think there were times where where a person recognizes their accolades exceeding their actual effort and they don't dive in that energy. I would say, really, I would say, good, reasonable person would not choose to thrive with that energy.

If if I gave credit to kinnick right now for something he know he didn't do, he would probably say, thank you so much. But actually a few other people contributed to that success. In one of the things that I think stood out was there were often more accolades than were actually achieved that amen to would speak to in those of us.

And they know where, like, you didn't do that. Like, you know, I think that that was probably the grand struggle, right? That was just kind of like the idea that not true. So I think like just those little bit of embalmed shits, IT was tough because there I think at the time, and i'll say this is at the time, there were so many of us working so hard, and we were collectively being successful, to have one person make IT seem like they we're only successful, is the part that kind of stuck with people, was like this idea that you were somehow reason everything took place.

And this is, I would say, a rough week I had another friend that I lost to cancer this week um who had had a long battle I can dick of a twelve year battle SHE she's had with cancer and he was a way then came back and and I can remember her cutting her hair and I can remember you know, all these moments but in seeing her journey and thinking to myself, there's a real piece of this and and you only get so much from a picture. You only get so much from a moment but I think that party didn't sit well. Was this idea of IT just felt a little done up and I can't and it's tough now because at the timing, like I think as well as a foundation of this was years ago in fifteen years ago.

So I think it's it's not like we use social media as the same way we use to. So everything seemed authentic and I can remember giving help reach when I saw the post. But then there's just a point where you start to be like, I know what my direct friends and family who gone through this can't do and you seem to be able to do everything under the sun um whether we have children or different things are like I just know everybody who can do a number of things in our hyper limited, how they can interact the life who are going through these battles. And I really didn't seem like a miracle and that what you're like that's almost too good to be true. But you don't want to be a skeptic about wellness, you know and that's .

that's the hard part. Who wants to be that person that says don't have .

cancer and you just to me, medical because I think that's one of the things you know. We know that we wanna raise awareness and stop people doing this, but also make sure we don't become we don't push out the skepticism where you know question people because not for a second. We say in that because it's really important that that we don't.

And then and thanks for sharing about that because, you know, really sorry about about the loss of your friends. And I think that's what you know, cancer in some way touches all of us in. In some way we all have a story, whether it's ourselves, our family and I know that something very upsetting and close the Nancy heart because nci, you lost your sister .

yeah absolutely. Like I think i'd said earlier that i'm familiar with folks. I've had a couple of folks in my life who have had uh, struggles with breast cancer and a couple of folks who have lost their lives because of IT.

And for me, having experiences, fair hardships and their data day trials around that IT always seemed off. There's no way that someone who claimed what he had would have that much energy to be able to do certain things. The level of energy did not match up with someone who was going through what he was gone through. And certainly people panel stuff in different ways. But my experience did not guilt what I was supposed to.

I just want to ask you with a question, and I wonder, did you know anything about her before you met her? Is in? Did you know anything about her past where he came from? What kind of background SHE is I just think of like when I went to university, no people, I got many people and you know, I told them a bit about where I was from, and I don't name my family. And did they did you ever do you know anything more about her from that .

perspective? No, no, no. I I really didn't. I don't know if he was trying to be very mindful of how much he shared, because SHE didn't want to to get caught when I would ask her questions about what he was going through, so that I can know I was inquisitive, wanting to learn more and also wanting to see how I can possibly support her.

He was a little invasive and wouldn't get into much a much depth about what SHE which was at the time. I thought, okay, maybe it's at her business and and I shouldn't asking that whatever, but you know, all right, I know I don't want to talk about that SHE just kind of beat around the vision and just made up stuff about IT, right? Oh, or hardly even talked about IT when I .

think about how most of the teams conversations would go or my conversations would hear directly if we were like because at night we'd be on duty together. So we have decided to death for three hours, you know so they'll be a mix of class and life and. What we're doing this week or all these other things.

So we would get you know probably ten times out of the semester. So today, twenty eight times a year, I probably would get a solid three hours with her that wasn't even like any other social time um but more times than not IT IT was mostly school current school like university related. I always I didn't know her faith was big to her. I was a religious study's major so um so that was a component that he was speaking to at least around that time, was this idea of a he wanted to get into church. I don't know if he was involved in a church. I can't trying to think of like we had some like student Christian clubs and I recall SHE joined any of them and no, a lot of her other time and energy at the time which I remember her her cousins coming by but I I think I now discovered that those work her little cousins, the the girls that would come over um but um they would .

come sorry later i'm just gna pick europe on that .

you uh uh SHE yeah he would have to to uh Young ladies there be one Young irl and maybe like one a little older that would come over periodically and at the time I was present to me his cousins but I felt yet he would have people over um and then the guy he was dating at the time, not that was a big part because sporting events he SHE two of them and I would go to sporting events together as well so like I felt like the foundation of her homelife outside of school was mostly, at the time, her current boyfriend, the family stuff with with the girls in everything.

So i'll tell you who those two girls, yeah, they were eats children. So a little IT was coorse wife at the time. And AManda was going to a house and was helping those two kids and became a bit of a friend to them. And because Jimmy had at the time cancer, which was a litters elder daughter, and then jr, who lye became a man as bonus daughter, step daughter, and you called a bonus daughter. So those two kids, he said, were cousins were actually elas children, Jason and jammy.

and that's the reframing, right? Like at the time I did even like, you know, I would even have no one questions that like, you know like you know, questions that someone brings our family over kind of thing and and everything but yeah I don't know. I mean, I think it's IT is been interesting to see some of the overnight with these things years later and and not knowing.

It's like I don't think anyone really there listen until nanty service of research, but I don't know anyone could asset there and just said, let's connect all these dots and and peace, these things together. But I I definitely feel like I think in small bites, people test the waters and see what they can get away with. And and I think just over time, we saw these small bites turn from here.

I can't make IT today because i'm not feeling well. I can't do this because i'm sick to old. How much more can I get?

Thank you so much. Crack in lannon. We really appreciate you sharing your story others and for coming on and giving us more insight and clearly that this was going on far longer than before her block diagnosis.

And we did find out before that in two thousand and ten. But you know, this era that we're talking about right now is around the kind of two thousand and six, two thousand and seven at years. So thank you both of you. Any final words, what would you say to AManda if you saw? And now .

for me, I would just say why, and I think that's the biggest question that lots of folks are having about all of this is why? Why would you do this? Like why fake IT? Why there's lots of people going through this talk about hammer in itself that god forbid that that comes back to you, right?

Uh, why would I I mean, if money the answer that's that's not the answer. There's lots of legitimate ways to get money on. And obviously, you know that now because yoga caught, it's just ridiculous that this would be one of the ways that you would live your life and scheming a around and you're making people trust you and just ultimately lying to everyone. No, I am. Get IT landon.

It's a mixed bag, but I think I think it's on the most mindful and the land I would I would hope or I would probably tell her him along the lines of I hope then this doesn't to turn others from giving to those who really needed.

I would hope that um SHE considers in ways the weight of every dollar that in the last ten and fifteen years that could have potentially actually help save L A life, actually help get a little more research, get a bit more medication that could have gone to someone in real need. And ultimately, I hope your faith s real, because I hope that SHE can find some way to find a way to, I don't wanted to say, cope, but to navigate the impact of that reality. Because if I think I would imagine if a person took on the weight of that impact of what's has occurred, IT would be very difficult to navigate.

And so, uh, whether that's counselling, faith, whatever is out there, I hope that there are some real spaces for her to get help in to become a Better person because I I don't expect flaw is that anyone, I got my flaws. But the intention behind this, the effort IT took to hold this up, I feel like it's just so intense that i'm hopeful to the listeners into the the families. And I know those out there who still have a heart to give feel like they will still be encouraged to find a real cause to give to.

Thank you. I think that's a great message to end on. Thank you both of your camera and len. And thanks for joan mare's Nancy. Thanks again for coming in the studio and thanks everybody for listening.

We really appreciate IT hope you enjoy this bonus episode and that gives you well, that gives us all a lot more insight in the AManda, don't forget to give us a rate and review. And if your friends haven't heard about commander, they should have thanks again. Goodbye for now. Commander is posted and produced by me, charlie webster, and produced by Jackson clinton edit and the music by new oppoa a assistant producer casey hurts assistance editor seem a gray wall, additional production support from Stephen sladen will heel and a coal urban executive produced by me, charlie webster and Nancy moss tello sander is a lies gate sound production engineered by pilgrim media group.