cover of episode S19 E2: (2/5) [Amy] Creeping 'Round My Backstairs

S19 E2: (2/5) [Amy] Creeping 'Round My Backstairs

2024/1/18
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Something Was Wrong

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People
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Amy
A
Amy的姐姐
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Amy的父亲
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Andy
REAL AF 播客主持人,专注于讨论和分析时事新闻和政治事件。
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Natalie
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Sarah
个人财务专家,广播主持人和畅销书作者,通过“Baby Steps”计划帮助数百万人管理财务和摆脱债务。
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Amy: 我在网络约会中被一名男子盗用照片并公布我的个人信息,包括姓名、地址和邮箱等,并遭到持续的威胁和骚扰。他不仅将我的裸照发布到网络上,还冒用我的身份在社交媒体上发布恶意评论,攻击受害者及其家属。这种行为持续数年,严重影响了我的生活和工作。 Amy的姐姐: Amy 遭遇网络骚扰,家人给予了大力支持,但起初低估了事件的严重性。报警后,由于缺乏嫌犯信息,警方无法采取行动。 Amy的父亲: 我们不知道骚扰者的身份和动机,这让我们感到焦虑。即使是普通的社交活动,Amy也需要谨慎小心,我们制定了安全预案,并一直担心骚扰事件会再次发生,感到无助。 Andy: Amy 向她的商业伙伴坦诚了此事,更担心的是对公司声誉的影响。Amy 虽然表面上很坚强,但内心受到了极大的伤害。 Sarah: Amy 为了保护公司声誉,向商业伙伴坦诚了此事。 Natalie: 我与Amy是朋友和同事关系,了解部分情况,认为Amy的遭遇已经过去。

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Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences, as it discusses topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, rape, and murder. Content warnings for each episode and confidential resources for survivors can be found in the episode notes. Some survivor names have been changed for anonymity purposes.

Pseudonyms are given to minors in these stories for their privacy and protection. Testimony shared by guests of the show is their own and does not necessarily reflect the views of myself, Broken Cycle Media, or Wondery. The podcast and any linked materials should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. Thank you so much for listening.

You think you know me, you don't know me.

At one point, he started asking for photos that seemed odd. When I told him no, something in him changed. He said, look at my profile on Plenty of Fish. When I went to his profile, he posted most of the explicit photos that he had of me with a description of who I was, first name, last name, my email address, my home address, and a ton of content. I asked him to take everything down. He said, this is just the beginning, whore. No, I'm not going to do that.

not knowing what to do, the first thing I did was call my parents. My family, being the supportive and loving family that they are, didn't hesitate, didn't blink, didn't criticize, just jumped into action and came down immediately to my home. I remember it very well. We were in bed at night. It was about 11 o'clock. We were asleep. Phone rang, and it was Amy on the other end. She was in tears. I spent the night at Amy's house crying.

And that was the first of many nights I spent at Amy's place. More than anything, it was just a really deep concern for my sister. I definitely remember when things turned because I actually was asleep the night that everything changed for Amy with this experience. I had my ringer on my phone turned off. The next day I woke up and that's when I found out about everything that had happened. My stomach just sank completely.

The hope was that it would just disappear. The issue would go away. That's kind of initially, at least how I felt, thinking like this is just a one-off. She didn't give him what he wanted and he got mad and he'll just move on to the next. But obviously that's not how it turned out. First thing after that, of course, is calling the police. The police came to my home. I

I talked to them and explained what happened. And although the officer who came was great and listened and felt bad for the situation, given I had no idea who this person actually was or where they were located for that matter, they couldn't do anything. I just remember them giving me a card and they're like, if you get any more information to help us identify who they are, then let us know. We want to help you. But until then, there's not much we can do. That was crushing.

I was shocked and then I wasn't shocked, I guess, all at the same time. I was shocked in that they can't take the conversations or the email addresses that I had, the IP addresses, and put it in some system to try to figure out who this individual is.

For them to actually need a name and a location, that was surprising to me. And then at the same time, thinking how disturbed this individual is, he knew what he was doing. And I probably wasn't the only one. My thoughts also went to who is this Eric that was in the photos, not only on his dating profile with the dog and this wholesome aeronautical engineer, but the nude photos that were exchanged. Yeah.

My thought went to, I don't think I'm the only one. He must have done this to whoever he was portraying to be. I know there's at least two of us, myself and Eric, right? I did report his profiles to Plenty of Fish multiple times. Nothing came of it, which is extremely frustrating. I kind of resigned myself to the fact that I don't think I'm ever going to figure out who this person is.

I had to decide how I was going to let this entire situation impact me. I wanted to be strong and I made a very conscious decision that I wasn't going to hide. I was going to continue being who I am. My hope was that he would just go away, even though there was a lot of strong language in his last message to me. I didn't respond to his crazy messages. I deleted the site and just moved on.

I don't remember actively dating. I think I was definitely open to it. But I don't recall being on apps or connecting with anybody on that level during that time. This probably had a big reason for that.

Almost a year went by with no contact, or at least me being aware of contact is what I will say. I think he was probably tracking me. I don't think he was necessarily reaching out to me. If he was, then I completely was oblivious to it. I didn't hear from him again until January of 2017. And that was an email.

The terminology is so disturbing to me. The email address it came from was hugospick, and the email address itself was hugothepussyhoundatoutlook.com. Mind you, this is sent to my work email at 10.30am on a Tuesday, and the subject is Hi Amy. I knew immediately who this was.

In the email, he simply said, I don't tend bar at, and he names the restaurant where I met this person, but I'm still game for yet another hookup. So what do you say? The rest of the email says, I'm a Chicano stud. Can you dig it? And he just signs it, Hugo.

I was terrified when I got this. I had moved on from the interaction with the cop. I still didn't know who this person was. They obviously knew where I was at and how to get a hold of me, which is terrifying. I don't recall telling anybody about it, but I was so terrified. I deleted the email and printed it because I didn't even feel comfortable forwarding it to my personal email address. I've held on to this email for decades.

this long, a printed copy, and I put it in a folder and I just put it on a shelf. I just held onto it in case anything else happened. It sat on that shelf for a while. After that email in 2017, it became more real that maybe this person was going to pop up multiple times in my life. It messes with your psyche, to be honest.

The contact lessened so much that I suspected the person either moved on, was incarcerated, or had something that happened to them. And there was a certain amount of relief with that. Still, we were searching every possible avenue, but definitely had a sense of concern that maybe this wouldn't be the end.

You don't know who it was, who perpetrated it, what their motivation was. It was just a big unknown. We didn't know if it was the person around the corner, the neighbor down the hall, somebody she worked with. I had actually even thought that it could be an organized group from another country that wanted to extort her financially or otherwise. We had no idea. So it was impossible to guard all those avenues. And it was very stressful and disturbing. There's nothing you can do.

It just brings it all back because this is your baby who you have worked really hard to love and protect. Then there's somebody out there who has, at the time, all the power.

You never knew when it was going to restart. It was always on Amy's mind. There was no sense of peace at all because you knew, especially with social media and the internet and what he had already done had already put her at risk. She was always looking over her back. She would date, but you always wonder, is this the guy? Or you'd look around the corner, is this the guy? Fortunately, she lives in a building that is protected. We even had to have a family code word for safety.

which we knew that if Amy ever called or texted to any of us, even just a part of the word, we knew that she was already in a life-threatening situation. And we were to call 911 immediately. We always had a plan. Everybody that invites you somewhere was a suspect. They had to be because we didn't know who this is.

She had a dinner invite with neighbors. She kept saying every excuse in the book nicely because they were nice people, but she didn't know them. And so this is how she's had to live her life. And we've had to be looking out for her. She did finally say, I got to have dinner with them. I think they're okay. This is like after a long time, many, many months, maybe even over a year. She went down and she said, here's our code word. And, you know, I want you to call me at such and such time.

Here we are having just a simple dinner invite from these people who really are great people. They're like the salt of the earth. They're wonderful people. But we didn't know. She can't even be invited to go to supper and have a regular dinner in peace. And we couldn't either. Anybody you don't really know was a suspect.

I know when she walked into a very high-end bar restaurant in downtown Denver, there was a particular person who wasn't looking at her in quite the right way. And she thought, is that him? We were literally alone with all of this. I'll never forget a book that was suggested that Amy read when she was going through this. And we kind of laughed at the book. We're like, how does it help us find the predator? How does it help? It was so archaic. She didn't have the tools. She had to be her own advocate for so long.

We knew it wasn't going to end. We wondered when it would start again and what he was going to do next. You just think, what else can he possibly do? So time is of the essence. My parents were obviously and understandably very protective of us and they love us. And it was hard for my dad. He's always the fixer and the protector. He's definitely the kind of guy that there's a problem. He's not going to get all emotional. He's just going to help us fix it.

I personally had never experienced stalking. I didn't know anybody who had experienced stalking, cyber stalking, any kind. It's like what happens in Lifetime movies. It was scary for sure.

Not knowing where this person is, who they are, how serious they are. It was really frightening. And we didn't know if he could somehow find us. This is one of those things that was just out of everybody's reach. I know that he, on a primal level, just wanted to stop this and figure it out and fix it.

and having to watch Amy go through what she did, I could just tell he just felt powerless to stop it. And on my mom's end, the same. I think she passionately loves us in a way that she's always our biggest cheerleader and she's always our biggest advocate. My mom experienced a level of dysfunction in her own family growing up, and she always worked really hard to keep us from that and to build a better, healthy life for us. I think

On a level, this made some stuff resurface where she felt like she had done everything she possibly could to protect us from forces that are just toxic and traumatizing. And unfortunately, this was happening and it was out of her control. And it was basically what she had always worked to avoid coming to fruition.

As far as Amy's experience, it seemed like she was just trying to survive day to day. And she's a pretty busy person anyway. She has a pretty demanding life because of her job and it was all she could do to like juggle her everyday life, living in pretty much a constant state of fear and anxiety. Was this person going to show up? Where were they? What was going to happen?

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I had to assume this guy could be anywhere, but of course he very much could have been in Denver because that's what all of our conversations were about when we initially spoke on Plenty of Fish. In the back of my mind, I start thinking, is it somebody who knows me trying to taunt me?

Your mind starts racing with all of these thoughts. I never dated anybody serious over those next three years. As messed up as it is, I would think, is this the guy? In the back of my mind, everybody was a potential suspect. I was very vigilant. It's super messed up when I'm saying this out loud, but this is what it does to your psyche when someone does this to you and you have no idea who they are or where they're at. And that in itself is emotionally, it's almost like I was harassing myself to some degree.

The amount of anxiety I would have is through the roof. Mind you, I still am working a full-time job. My name is Andy. I'm Amy's business partner. We've been business partners since 2017. First time I heard about the stocking was in early 2017. Amy and I and our previous business partner went out to lunch. Amy said she had something that she wanted to talk to us about.

She explained the situation that she had met someone online over the course of having several conversations with them, had been talked into sending some photos over the internet to that person. She said instantly the tone of that relationship changed and she was now dealing with somebody that was threatening to expose those pictures. She was very open about it. I trust Amy.

She was much more worried about the potential impact on the reputation of the business we were talking about starting at the time versus the impact it was having on her, which I think just speaks to the person that she is. But it was clearly something that she was pretty concerned about.

This definitely impacted Amy emotionally. She doesn't carry her emotions on her sleeve, though. It takes a lot to rattle Amy. I can see that this has created some pretty big scars for her. But on the daily, she is still the same strong person. It was almost as though she was carrying such a heavy weight and such a heavy burden by herself to protect everyone else from what was really happening to her.

But it's just not possible to have something like that going on and not have it be impacting you pretty deeply. We were thinking that this was going to go away, fade into the background for her, but it never did. It just got worse over time.

My name is Sarah. I've known Amy for a long time. Originally, she worked with my husband at another firm before they became partners for their current firm. I knew Amy through going to work social functions with my husband.

I think at that point was a little bit more limited of information because it was a hard situation. And as they were developing their firm and that outward image of that, I know that it was a really hard concern for her when they were discussing becoming partners for their current firm.

We got a lot more intimate because that was like family. She very much believes in being an all cards on the table partner so that they can really be successful in how they move together and how they're aligned.

It was important for her to disclose because there were concerns of how that could bubble up given the launch of their new firm. So at that point, she did bring that to her partner, but it was still a little limited because it was about time.

protecting privacy too. Now they have been in partnership together for gosh, a handful of years. We are her firm's public relations and communications firm that also handles their social media. And so we've really gotten to know Amy professionally through the partnership with my husband, but then also working on behalf of their team.

That's really when we first started to learn about it, but the depths of what was to come, I did not know.

My name is Natalie. I have worked with Amy for the last five and a half years at our company. I met Amy in 2018, where she actually was my hiring manager. I really admire her as a leader within the organization and within the community that we're a part of. We soon became fast friends.

Not only did we become really close within the office, but we just were able to build a really authentic bond throughout our relationship. I really attribute a lot of not only my professional, but my personal success to Amy being a mentor and a friend. I know I had insight into her experience just by being friends, whether that was a glass of wine that she shared that news over. I don't quite recall that.

Amy always handles everything with so much grace. However, I was aware of the situation, really thinking it was more, you know, in Amy's past.

Three years had passed since the email and the last time I heard from him, I heard from him on March 4th, 2020 in the evening, like seven o'clock. A Facebook user at this point, I can't remember what the profile was, but I received a message on Facebook Messenger. He also directly emailed me.

He essentially said that he emailed my entire roster at my company, including my business partners. He basically said, "I have just emailed," and he states all of their names individually.

The fact that he names each of them individually is very creepy to me. And it's his way of saying, like, I know exactly who you work with. And then he goes in to say, when we chatted way back on Plenty of Fish, I saved our entire chat to my thumb drive. You remember that?

LOL. How you fucked that worthless, spic pussy hound, douchebag fuck boy, your beloved Hugo on your birthday after hanging out with friends. And then he goes on in a very detailed nature of that experience.

He basically says, you remember all of the graphic details you gave me that night, right, whore? LOL. Well, now, and he names again all of my colleagues, have that entire conversation to read. LOL. Winky face. But what about those pics? LOL. And it ends. My heart sinks. For him to come four years later, after our initial conversation on Plenty of Fish, and with a message like that, I was terrified.

He's coming after my professional life, my career and my aspirations and anything that I did was important to me. This isn't just my reputation. This is our company's reputation. How am I supposed to know if that actually happened or not? I have to go talk to these people. I obviously had to be very open with my entire company of what was going on to make sure that they were protected to some degree.

So if there was something that was happening to them, that they let me know that so I could add it to my file that I was building. I think it was my way of wanting to protect them from all of this too. Of course, I had Googled, what do you do in this situation? How do you find these people? And so the FBI's website, you basically file a report online. It

It's the Internet Crime Complaint Center. I had filed four reports to the FBI. The first one was literally the day after I had heard from him in March of 2020. I filed the second report the next day, thinking that somebody would contact me at this point.

On March 9th, he created an email using one of my cousins and a nonprofit she was associated with that I was supporting to email me to harass me. And I don't have a copy of that email, but it was very disturbing because that happened. I had to, again, connect with my parents, talk to my cousin, regroup.

regarding this. They were very supportive and I'm grateful for that. But not only was my younger cousin exposed, but so was the nonprofit she was supporting. It just really struck a nerve. I definitely did not see that one coming. And that was only move two or three of hundreds of multiple daily interactions and communications to me from him completely trying to destroy me.

The third report to the FBI was March 10th. I realized that I was so much in defense mode in March of 2020, kind of when everything reignited and full-on escalating behavior that I didn't document much. I was kind of playing whack-a-mole is the best analogy I can provide and just trying to make it go away, which I'm sure is a trauma response. And you have to remember, this is during COVID. So if it wasn't hard enough already in the time that...

we were going through as a globe to have this resurface. And to the extent that it did, it was really difficult. I was very, very anxious, very emotional, hypervigilant. Thinking back to that time, I was so just in shock, like,

You know, we were, for the most part, shut in for the month of March, but he did not let up the gas after March. And I do think some of the specifics are important to highlight. He came after me not only on social media, but he called me, he texted, he emailed my work.

On social media, he would create fake profiles using the nude photos he had of me, some having my name in them, some having Hugo's name. He would create these profiles and then blast out friend requests to my entire group of friends online, which includes family members and friends.

professional folks. So I would get messages from people of like, "Hey, I reported this. Did you see this?" So now people are seeing these photos of me in these fake profiles being created. I think there's maybe one photo that had my face in them, but for the most part, the other ones didn't. So I would get messages from people of like, "Hey, I reported this. Did you see this?"

There's a number of profiles using people who were convicted of crimes and were pretty well-known serial killers names. And I learned to start Googling some of these names because there was meaning behind it for him. And some, I don't think there was, or I have no idea.

But others, it was very obvious. One of the names he used was Cosmo DiNardo. If you Google him, it says in 2016, Cosmo DiNardo began treatment for bipolar and schizophrenia and was on antipsychotics. And he became obsessed with a Mexican drug cartel with disturbing ritual for disposing of bodies. And a year later, he would lure four young men to the family's farm in wherever he lived and brutally kill and bury each of them.

I know it's just a name, but you have a naked photo of me and you put that name attached to it. That's a threat. And that's terrifying to the person that you're sending that to. So just very disturbing.

The fourth report to the FBI was May of 2020. And at that point, I just kind of gave up. I figured I filed four reports with just the escalating behavior. And at some point, someone will reach out to me. I ended up going back to the office and being around my coworkers in the summer. From summer 2020 to winter 2020, it was a lot of work.

It was literally daily harassment and attacking on social media and every avenue, mainly Instagram and Facebook. I remember it slowly ramping up and then it was just a full barrage by the time fall came. His behavior was so disturbing and so hard to predict, which now knowing what I know today, no wonder I had no idea what his next move was. It was like I was trying to play chess with somebody who was a complete psychopath, but

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I realized he was taking it way farther than just sending friend requests with nude photos of me in the profile picture with my name or someone else's name. He would use fake profiles of me and he would use my full real name and post on victims and victims' families' social media really awful, disturbing content about how their loved one deserved to die or be raped or whatever the crime was. And my name's attached to that.

Although it wasn't me, they don't know any different. I was contacted by a woman who found my work email and emailed me. She basically said, "I really hope someone's impersonating you because the content you've been posting on my missing friends TikTok post is extremely disturbing."

I got that at work one day and my heart sank. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm not on TikTok. I don't have a TikTok profile. So I knew immediately that that was Morrison impersonating me. I told the woman it's not me and explained the situation and she was very decent about it. But how many other victims and missing persons and victims of crimes have been impacted by what he said using my name? I honestly have no idea. I'm only aware of a few. There was another post he did on Instagram

and he had posted there was a Dateline episode about a track star who had been murdered by her ex-boyfriend. He used one of the profiles of me with my full first and last name on one of her friend's Instagrams. He had posted, Lauren's nude pics are all over the internet. There is a thread on 4chan dedicated to them. Man, just look at that ass, lol. Then he adds, I'm sure the ex-boyfriend had a ton of fun

I mean, to bring a sexual context to something so disturbing, you're not only attacking and harassing this individual, but you're bringing me into it as well. So you're really hurting two people and probably many others by posting this stuff.

When we looked up the story, it just felt very threatening. Even though it was online, it was almost as if he had picked, and he did pick that story in particular to kind of show me there's some intent to want to hurt me. These messages are disturbing and awful and can ruin me as a person and my career and my company. What he was trying to do is so evil, it's hard for me to comprehend even now.

I started keeping a file at some point and it became very large. The next post was on LinkedIn and I'm pretty active on LinkedIn given what I do. He created a fake profile using my real name, first name, last name, and my actual headshot I had at the time using a fake role.

He put that I was a culinary director at King Seafood Company, which is not my company or what I do. I didn't even know this was possible. He sent a message to I don't know how many people. My colleagues notified me, but he updated the About Me section, sent a message to everybody and said, I recently edited it. Please let me know what you think.

Probably one of the worst posts I saw in grave detail of events he recalled from our conversation in 2016, but also including my home address, my full name, which is very terrifying because that's

publicly posted. I don't know if he was hoping other people who have ill intent would pick up on that information and do something with it. But not only am I worried about this individual who's attacking me and stalking me, but now I have to worry about other people who may be in this network of evil people who do this to people.

He sent invites or messages on LinkedIn that just said, Hey, and he names my coworker. Why doesn't Amy ever like any postings on y'all's Facebook page or on y'all's Instagram page?

Also, did she ever tell you about Hugo, her beloved spic pussy hound fuckboy, whose worthless disease, spic dick she sucked and fucked on her birthday? No strings attached, of course. Ha ha. Hearing it out loud and reading the words really disgusts me. I don't know how else to articulate the extreme nature of the content he uses.

an increase to my company as well. So, you know, on my company's posts, we post an article or content that was relevant to what I do for a living and using various fake profiles to interact with himself on these social media sites. He posted multiple times on this one. Then

The notifications I'm looking at right now, he had posted six times the same message as what I said before. Why doesn't Amy ever post to Instagram or Facebook or respond or comment? Kevin Steele sent a message that said, why does Amy no longer post or even like anything on y'all's Instagram or Facebook?

Cal Stepanski posted, Amy, where are you? Like, you, why, oh, oh, oh, you, you, you, you, you, question mark, question mark, question mark. And another post on Facebook, Kyle Risma. Why does Amy no longer post or even like anything on y'all's Instagram or Facebook posts?

Using various names of which I've Googled all of these and some of them I don't understand the relevance or where he got them. Maybe he just ran out of names. The next message on LinkedIn, this one, he used that same fake profile using my real name. One of my colleagues was involved with a nonprofit, pretty well known here in Denver, and she had posted something fake.

He wrote a comment, all caps, to that, which is completely irrelevant to what the content of the posting was. It said, Amy does that kind of remind you of the mattresses you use to fuck and suck Hugo, the worthless spic-

bartender. He posted to our company page using the name Cal Worthington. This one I Googled. It's some car dealer in Newport Beach or somewhere in California. I'm not familiar. The guy has passed away. I couldn't find any connection, but he references Jeffrey McDonald in his post. And if you Google Jeffrey McDonald, he's a serial killer. I don't know if this was a news article, but he posts the entire article online.

I'll read a little bit of it. So he just says,

The fact that he has so many references to these people makes me fear for my life. The next post I was going to mention, he uses the name Kyle Jacobs. This message is on another one of my company's posts. And he comments, why are Amy's nude pics back up on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook? Does she know they're all over the internet and are linked to profiles with her full name? And he has my first, middle, last name, name of company, and my home address.

This kind of post terrifies me where he's sharing all of this content, because if he's doing this where he knows I can see it, he's definitely going to be using avenues I'm not aware of for chance or otherwise to put this out there. And what is the intent with that?

There's a post. This one is song lyrics. It was a bunch of words that didn't mean anything to me until I Googled them. And then I realized that it's lyrics that he changed to include me of a Gordon Lightfoot song, Sundown. I can see her like in her satin dress. Where you do what you don't. Sundown. Sundown, you better take care.

I hear this song everywhere. I grew up listening to Gordon Lightfoot because it's somebody my dad listened to.

I'm walking down the street and they hear this song. And every time I hear this song, it brings me back to this post and this whole situation, which is the long-term trauma of what he has done. These are the lyrics he put in the post on Facebook. And he says, I can see Amy lying back in her satin dress in a room where she does what she doesn't confess. She's been looking like a queen in a sailor's dream, and she don't always say what she really means.

I can picture every move that a man could make getting lost in her love and is your first mistake. I could see her looking fast and her faded. And he references a pair of pants I was wearing at the time of this incident. She's a hard loving woman got me feeling mean dot dot dot. So part of the lyrics of the actual song with

specifics intertwined about me. And this to me, when I saw this was like, does this guy think he's in some weird messed up or was in some relationship with me for a couple of weeks, and then I broke things off and now he's bitter? I don't understand these lyrics to this day. Every time I'd see a post, the amount of anxiety I would have is through the roof. I

I'm an administrator on our company account. So anytime something got posted, I would get a notification. Multiple times a day, I'm dealing with having to report it to our PR company, who is my business partner's wife and her company. In addition to me getting notifications, just being the admin on our company page, and then my own personal messages, I'm getting bombarded with

family, friends, co-workers saying, hey, I saw this post, I reported it, but I wanted you to see it. I'm getting this on an hourly basis, to be honest, for two and a half years of my life. In addition to trying to live a normal, healthy life that was very busy, the

This was like a full-time second job for me and just trying to manage all of the notifications, whether I saw them firsthand or somebody else sent them to me. To my knowledge, no clients were aware unless I told them about it because they were friends of mine. But at the same time, they very well could have seen these posts.

Up to this point, my perspective was this guy wants a reaction out of me and I'm not going to give it to him. And then hopefully he'll just go away if I don't give him what he wants, which is a response or a reaction or getting upset or calling him out or whatever it may be, then he'll just go away. So that was kind of my approach is just ignore, ignore and take down, obviously, the posts as they came, but really just to ignore him.

At this point, my business partner had to know what was going on. His wife knew it was going on because she supports us on the PR marketing side of our business. She and her team were the ones who, anytime I saw a notification on the admin side of our page, would have to contact to say, pull this down. So here I am reaching out to her via text at 8, 9, 10 p.m. middle of the week, asking her to pull this stuff down or block it or hide it, knowing that they have family time and they also have personal lives. And I'm

And I'm so grateful that she never made me seem like a burden or that it was an issue. I was probably on the phone with my sister or my parents or our PR company on a nightly basis trying to undo the damage that had been done or trying to figure out what we do to mitigate it.

My profile was private. I had everything buttoned up. I did all the things that I knew I needed to do. And this guy still was able to get through the barriers somehow. He knew where I lived, where I worked, who my coworkers were, their emails.

The amount of research or tracking he had to do to come after me from all the angles that he did is just very disturbing. I don't know who has that much time to want to destroy a person, but this man had that. This was their full-time job.

I'm still trying to co-run a business and do my daily job. I couldn't stop what I was doing. So this just felt like bombs being launched at me multiple times a day for years, which was really hard. And I'm having to share a lot of details with people that I wouldn't normally share the stuff with. All of that felt very invasive. Torture is a good word. That's what it felt like.

It's a lot that it was impacting me, but me aside, he took it to a whole nother level where he went after those that I love and respect. Having to see them and know this was happening and they were impacted by it, that really just pissed me off. I don't think this guy thought he'd ever be caught. I think he thought he was so good at what he did and he was. He was super smart and I never denied that and I still don't to this day. I don't think he ever thought he was capable of being caught.

And so I think he was willing to take risks into him and his sick mind. Doing these illegal acts were empowering for him in a sick, twisted way. I told my parents early on, I know this guy is smart. He's not as smart as I am, and he's fucked with the wrong person.

because I wasn't going to just back down. I was on a journey to find out who this person was finally, and he was interacting so much and coming after me so much that I thought for sure if I start collecting data and emails and all of the correspondence, then I'm going to figure out who this person is. Next time on Something Was Wrong.

He was calling me, leaving me voicemails, calling my female employees. I had a group text with all the female employees of mine and colleagues. Whenever I would hear from a number that I didn't recognize or I would get a voicemail, I would text all of them and say, "Hey, I just got a message from this number. Did anybody else?" Comments on this post have been limited. Hugo says, "Hi." Amy. Amy, where are you? I know.

Things that shouldn't be happening were happening to her, and it just, it shut her down in a lot of ways.

I actually threw myself into research. I went out and started trying to put together the pieces, looking at the evidence that Amy had gathered. Pandemic, it was such a hard time for everybody. We're all concerned for the loved ones that are at risk to pass away just from COVID. And yet he's taking advantage of the opportunity to terrorize even more during that time, which tells you a lot about his wicked evil sense.

Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe, friends.

Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow Something Was Wrong on Instagram at somethingwaswrongpodcast. Our theme song was composed by Glad Rags. Check out their album, Wonder Under. Thank you so much.

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To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondery+.