S20 E2: Brody Is Going to Get You Every Time
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Don't know me Well At all Maybe Maybe Till you talk To someone

Hi, I'm Bree. I met Brody the summer of 2019 on Tinder. I was new to the Des Moines slash Ankeny area. I had a new job in a new city and was basically alone.

I was working rotating day and night shifts, very overwhelmed trying to figure out adult life. I didn't have a lot of friends in the area since we'd all moved on from college and everyone from nursing school moved away. A very vulnerable life stage.

At that point in my life, I don't think I was looking for anything super serious. We're talking about Tinder here. But I remember Brody stood out very different than the average guy you'd see around town there with the boat. He was kind of, I don't want to say flashy, but dressed nicely. He was in the medical field, which, of course, I liked because I'm a nurse. We had a lot of similar interests with traveling, etc.

I assumed his family probably had a little bit of money from he had a big boat and he was dressed nicely. He went through med school. So there had to be some sort of wealth background there. Not saying all doctors have to be wealthy because they work really hard starting off, but just with the boat and the fancy clothes. And I believe he had a picture of him standing in front of I don't know what kind of car, but it was a really nice car. And then he was just really funny.

He was getting ready to start a residency. At this point, I was working overnights and our schedules were tricky to align. That's why initially I didn't freak out about not meeting right off the bat. He was just a good looking dude. Wasn't really my type. I was more of a sandy blonde kind of gal, but wasn't fully my type. He was very clean cut. Had a lot of pictures of him racing. There was a photo of him in some sort of scrubs.

I was 23, 24, just looking to have some fun. And I matched with him and said, what the heck? It was later that night or the next day he had reached out and we just clicked very well.

It was just easy to talk to him. And right off the bat, he opened up, seemed like he trusted me, shared a lot of personal information, like his mom had passed away and had had cancer. And his dad was in a drunk driving car accident. His cousin, who was his best friend, that was, quote, Matt. And then he told me about his brother, Brad, who...

who had a huge family, a bunch of kids. And then his sister, they didn't really get along. She was never really that nice to me. But all of these characters he introduced me to were all Jess.

He told me that he had inherited this trust fund, like his med school was paid for. He had this glorious boat that he took out on the big lake in Omaha. Matt was a contractor and did pretty well. All I really knew about his background and family was he didn't get along with his mom and his dad died when he was five. That's all I really knew about him family-wise. And then his brother...

and sister Brooke. I guess his sister had a horrible spending problem and blew through all of her inheritance. Brad had a bunch of property and six kids. That story was interesting in itself. He was a cop and they did Airbnb. He said that's where they got most of their money.

I was in Des Moines, Iowa. Brody was located in Omaha, Nebraska. It's about a two-hour commute, which it wasn't that crazy. Back home in the Midwest, it's not crazy to meet people from those cities. They're going back and forth for work, school. I really didn't think much about it. I'd seen a lot of profiles from that area. And when I asked, he had said he had been up boating with his friends, and I really didn't think twice about it.

Our conversations were pretty in-depth and emotional, which stood out to me because on dating apps, it's usually pretty surface level until you meet. We talked about our love for helping people, which is ironic now. We both like to go out. We both liked the same kind of music. Our conversations just flowed effortlessly. He was a fast replier, which every girl loves. So it was just easy.

It was during the summer and I had been working night shifts. So basically, as soon as...

I woke up at 3, 4 p.m. We started talking. We talked a little bit while I was at work. And then obviously I was working, so I couldn't sit on my phone. But for the most part, it was nonstop. What I talked about with the other victims is they also talked to him nonstop all hours of the day, whether it be during the night, during the day. None of us can understand how she was up at all hours of the day entertaining all of us because me working night shift, there was nights where...

He'd literally be up all night and like sending texts throughout the night to me.

Early on, there was definitely a lot of love bombing. It was something I hadn't ever really experienced in any type of relationship before. This guy was telling me I was the greatest thing that's ever walked into his life. He just respected my job, how caring I was, my heart, everything a girl would want to hear and complimented me nonstop. How could you not like that? He'd sent me this really long letter

long message explaining how he could see me in his future. He wanted to have a family with me, wanted all of these things that anyone would want to hear. And at the end, he had said that he loved me. And I was confused, taken aback because it was still pretty early on. It was less than like two months. I didn't say it at that time. He got angry with me.

And then it was probably a couple days later, I had set it back to make him happy at that point, which is a super red flag.

I don't want to say that I wasn't ever happy because in the beginning I was happy. I was super excited about it. I should say I wasn't ever fulfilled. Talking about him made me happy and the idea of him made me happy. And some of his words in the beginning made me happy. But I wasn't fulfilled. It wasn't a real relationship by any means.

Hi, I'm Brie's mom. I've known Brie her entire life. The way that I would describe her is compassionate, overly trusting. She just believes in the good of everybody. Probably why she's in the career that she's in.

She is soft-hearted, kind-hearted. She's coming of age. She has a lot of fantastic characteristics that I would say are weaknesses of mine in that she got a lot more of that gene than I did. And I admire that in her. It's really fun to watch her become who she's becoming with all of these things together.

Now she has a little bit more of mom shining through and it's great to watch. And I'm so proud of her for doing this. It's absolutely fantastic. And I love her to the moon. She's not one to shoot her mouth off. She's never been like that, even when she was little. She's the one that's looking around the room and checking everything out and making sure before she says something,

The relationship that she had prior to this one, it left a mark on her, let's just say. So she was very guarded, wanted to protect her heart, didn't want to share things with this person because she was afraid of getting hurt. There wasn't a lot of talk of Brody between Bree and I. I can't even say she was in a relationship because I don't know what it was. I don't know what to call it.

This fiasco that she was in, she was in it for quite a while before I got more involved with it. It was more when flags were going off and it was when it was more really volatile is when she started talking to me more about it.

Within like two weeks of us meeting, I was like, I'm really uneasy. I just need some reassurance. I would just really appreciate like a quick phone call or FaceTime. I'm off work. You're off work. And he's like, what's your deal with that? Like, why are you obsessed with it? He would always say, why are you so obsessed with calling? Or why does it matter? We can just talk on here. He had said something like, you're being crazy. Another girl was like this.

basically made me feel super stupid for wanting that so much. I don't know why I felt stupid. It's a very normal thing. But him and then Matt was also like, it's just not his thing. Like, stop bugging him. It's going to tick him off. So I just kind of dropped it. But I asked many, many, many more times. He would call Monica while she was at work. Jess also had my schedule and similar things would happen.

So I'd been talking to Brody for like a month or two. His cousin, Matt, he added me on Snapchat and was sending me videos of what I thought was Brody racing at the motocross races. Matt's sense of humor was a lot closer to mine than even Brody's, which I don't know if that was calculated purposefully or not, but I just felt like we were best buds. And looking back at both of their senses of humor, it's wild to me because that's not how

how Jess was in our real friendship. It's odd that they all had different personalities and even typing styles. It was calculated. I think everything is very thought out. Me getting along with Matt so well, it wasn't in the same way as I got along with Brody, but it was just our sense of humors were very similar. Brody never really cared. He's like, it's just Matt. I was never going to date him or anything like that.

My name is Emily and I met Bree back in high school up north in Brainerd.

And then we both worked at a little lakeside place up north on Gold Lake called Ernie's. So we served together for a while and then we actually lived together for a little bit with her and her dad and me after my parents had moved back down. She was nice enough to offer, actually, as we weren't that good of friends quite yet, for me to live in her house with her. So we got pretty close pretty fast and have honestly stayed best friends through her traveling and nursing and moving all around the country for the last couple of years.

Honestly, Bree is one of the most bubbly, sparkly human beings. She's not afraid to say anything funny or ridiculous. And she's just a good time. You know, she's just one of those lighthearted people where she's always looking to have fun. She's one of the most positive, wonderful human beings I've met in a really long time.

So in the early days, which is honestly the only thing that I can really think that I held onto through the years and genuinely wanting to believe that it was what this person was saying that they were, but she had said that she had initially met Brody at a bar through her good friend Jess, who she started talking to me about as she had moved in Iowa in this nursing circle. And then how this Jess girl was dating Brody's cousin Matt. So it all kind of seemed connected.

In the beginning when she was like, "No, I met Brody one time at a bar for years and years and years," the catfish thing never popped up for me because I held on to the one little lie that she did tell me in the beginning to make it seem legit or whatever the reason that she was scared.

But I just always came back to, oh, well, you know, no phone calls or FaceTime or anything like that. You can still hold on to that one night in Iowa in the dark bar that you supposedly met this person. And I didn't think to go and re-question her about that for so many years, which still sticks with me to this day, to be honest. Obviously, hindsight is 20-20.

flowers are like my biggest weakness. And Brody had sent me flowers, I think three times. Once he sent them to my job, delivered red roses and cookies. That was for, I think, a Valentine's Day. And then for two birthdays, he sent me flowers. She had to have spent a couple hundred dollars thinking back to that. And Brody was like, this wasn't how we planned your birthday. We're

when everything's better. It was one of those waves where he did the love bombing thing again. And I was like, okay, like maybe he does really care because he couldn't come see me when I was quarantining. We were all terrified. Matt had added me on Snapchat and he would show me videos of quote Brody racing. I have no idea who it actually was, but he would send me stuff like that for when I couldn't go to the races or whatever.

Early on, Matt had said, you work at this hospital, right? And I said, yes. And he said that his on and off again ex, who he's still on good terms with, was going to be working there. We were close in age and we had a lot of similarities and we would be good friends. And he knew that I didn't have a lot of friends where I was and she didn't either. So why not meet up for coffee?

He gave her my number and she reached out to me and said, hey, just introducing myself. Apparently, you know, Matt and Brody, I just thought we should get coffee. Maybe we can all hang out sometime. Very seemingly normal. So we went for a coffee date and she just filled me in a little bit about herself. And I found out at this point I had been best friends with her cousin freshman year of college.

I met Jess's cousin in college. We became really close right off the bat. We had a lot in common. We were girly girls. Both had backgrounds in dance. We went shopping on the weekends, did manicures, pedicures, whatever girly things we wanted to. We went out a lot together. I do kind of remember her talking about Jess's sister, who she was close with.

The day that I met Jess, we had been talking about Iowa State. And I said, that's crazy. One of my best friends is from the city she had brought up. And she had said that that was her cousin. And I didn't know if she knew this beforehand.

before or ahead of time or if it had just been a really crazy coincidence, but their family's pretty tight knit. So I don't know if she had seen me on social media or if she had brought me up in front of her at one point. But looking back, it seems like a pretty wild connection to have.

She was really bubbly, quirky. She seemed like a really genuine person and she was very interested in everything about me, trying to get to know me. Of course, it makes sense now, but very interested, very intrigued, asked me a lot of questions. She seemed pretty relatable, like we'd both gone through the struggle of being young adults and trying to just get on our feet after school. And she told me about how she had a child and he was staying, it was either with Jess's dad or with Jess's grandma. He

He had gone between the two homes a couple of times. What she told me was they wanted to help her so she could get on her feet once she moved to Des Moines, which I didn't think was that crazy. She was just trying to pay rent, get some things ready before the school year. She was just super nice. I hadn't had any close friends for probably like six months. I had just moved to the new city. I've been doing the new job, doing an orientation, really work focused at that point. So it was really nice to connect with a friend who understood it.

How quickly after meeting in real life would you say your relationship with Jess developed? Very fast. She always wanted to hang out, whether it was after work or on the weekends. On our days off, she wanted to know my schedule. Very clingy. It didn't bother me because I was like, cool, I have a friend now. We'd go get our nails done. We'd go to the movies. We'd go shopping. She never had money, but she always had money to shop and go to Target, which was ironic. We became inseparable, basically.

Here's Bree's mom. I did not get it. I did not. Not that Jess was a bad person day one when I first met her, right? Didn't know anything about her. She didn't have like the spark that I think Brianna has. She wasn't engaging. I didn't get the connection, how the two found each other and how they were becoming these super close, tight friends. Well, now I know why. Didn't then.

I was never not nice to her. Well, I was not nice to her later, but initially she just would not be the type of person that I would see Bree naturally becoming friends with without some sort of connection to somebody else. It never made sense to me how they became best friends.

Are you somebody who feels like you can read people's energy? I would say 100% I am that person. I feel like if you are lying or if you're not who you are, I feel like I can pick that up. And that's because I am who I am unapologetically. This is me. If you don't like me, I don't care. I really don't care. I have plenty of other friends. So I feel like yes, I can. And

And there was a point in time, Jess made a comment to Bree that she said, I don't think your mom likes me. I mean, she was right. I didn't not like her, but I was just, I didn't like her either. I'm just not interested in her. It doesn't make any sense. It's like a vacant soul. There was nothing there that gave me any kind of a good vibe.

In the very beginning, she didn't tell me a whole lot. I didn't know that her and her mom had such a strained relationship. I didn't know that her and her dad had such a strained relationship. All she said was that he helps with her kid and he's a good grandpa and that her grandma helped her out a lot. She was really close to one of her aunts, which looking back, I really don't know what's true and what's not because of how much she's actually lied about.

She didn't open up about the trauma of her family until we had been better friends, probably for about a few months, because I had heard a couple phone calls of her. I believe that one was with her grandma. They fought a lot. They had very toxic fights, her and her grandma and her and her mom. From what she told me, her mom had just always been toxic. Her mom had left her when she was young. I don't know if this is true. What she told me was her and her sister were very young, and her mom walked out on her dad and left.

Her mom got a new boyfriend who was a drug addict and she had two kids with this man. They were together for a long time. They would have a lot of drunk fights. She told me she kind of struggled with mom left me for something better because even to like this last year of knowing her, she'd always talked about how the other two kids that she had with the other man were her favorite and that was her priority and that her mom really never cared about her and her sister the same way.

And then she did talk about her dad being abusive back in the day, not since I had known her, but she did mention that. I don't know what's true on that either.

Jess lived in Waukee. She lived about 20 minutes from where I lived in Ankeny, the suburb of Des Moines. That first meeting is when she started the whole trauma dump and accidentally, quote, mentioned that he had been sent away. And I said, what are you talking about? I knew nothing about any mental health history at this point. And she's like, oh, I thought maybe you'd know. I don't want to tell that story. It's not mine to tell. And I just kind of like looked at her. She's like, I'm sorry.

He tried to kill himself, like he always blamed himself for his dad dying and the family always blamed him. She told me that he tried to hang himself and his cousin Matt found him and he was sent away to an inpatient rehab in Colorado.

I didn't bring it up for a while, regrettably so. I was nervous. It was a touchy subject. He wasn't acting different towards me. I have always been, I don't know, naive, I guess is the word, but I've always hoped for the better. You know, maybe it was a new leaf. I didn't feel like it was my place to bring it up.

I said, I just wanted to like talk about this. And he just exploded. Why didn't I bring that up sooner? How could I know something like that about him? He just felt like I couldn't have been trusted since I knew that I didn't say anything. I was like, well, I feel like I couldn't have done right or wrong in that situation. He was just very angry with me.

That was the first time he scared me because, I mean, it's not my fault she told me that. I didn't know how to bring it up. That's when I tried to get away. And that's the first time he had overdosed, ended up in the hospital. And Matt was talking to me during that time, as was his brother, Brad.

Manipulating, saying he would never hurt you, he would never do any of those things. He's better now, we've talked to him, he's gone to therapy. Everyone has their stuff, he'll get through it. He cares enough about you and flipped the entire situation to make me think, what's wrong with me for trying to get away from this person? I felt bad for doing that. A lot of guilt tripping.

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It was very similar every time. So I'm trying to remember specifics from the first time. But oftentimes it was an overdose. One other time he had gotten in a car accident. But the first time I remember it was an overdose. He was so upset that I would consider leaving. Like he thought I was different or whatever.

whatever manipulation tactic he could use. But basically, I didn't hear from him. Our conversation cut off all of a sudden. And then Matt would come into play and say something along the lines of, have you talked to Brody? And I'd say, no, he stopped texting me. Have you seen him? And he'd say, no. And then say something to poke the bear, make me worry a little bit, but nothing too crazy. And then at some point or another, Brad would text me and say, hey, have you talked to my brother? And I'd

say no he's like so was he angry was he upset and he was upset that i didn't go look for him i don't know what he wanted me to do drive around a town i didn't know but his brother would always get very upset that i wasn't out looking for him he'd say you never cared anyways it's just not your problem it's ours we're his family and just be very manipulative in that way

At some point, usually it was within 48 hours, either Matt or Brad would text me back and say, we found him, we're in the hospital, he's on a ventilator, he overdosed.

Or like the one time he had been in a car accident. And with Jess being in the medical field, she knew a lot of medical terminology. So she said things that seemed very real, like he has a chest tube or he is on a ventilator. He's on pressers and I'm a nurse. So it made sense. I knew the questions to ask and she could figure out how to answer them to make it make sense to me.

One of the bad accidents, I believe it was a motocross accident, he had gotten a head injury and she told me that he had a bone flap, which is when they take a piece of your skull so your brain, so the swelling can go down essentially. Things that were so real in my everyday life. I don't know if she learned from work or learned from what I was asking her, but it was just so real and

I'm sure other people touched on this, but he was sure to ruin every holiday or birthday because he was grieving not just his mom, but his dad. We had made several plans for either him to come and do like a Thanksgiving or a Christmas, or we would play things by ear, like if he was going to be in the area, but there would always be a fight that day or he

He just wouldn't talk to me that day. And I would try to see what was going on or get in his head and see if there was anything I could say or do to make things better. But he was so good at ruining any good day for all of us. We all talked about that. Then usually within 48 to 72 hours, he would end up texting me and saying,

getting upset that I didn't reach out while I wasn't hearing from him more. I didn't know what to do during that time when I wasn't hearing anything. I was just so upset that someone could do something like that to make me worry for so long. And usually in the meantime, I was trying to call either my mom or my best friend back home because I'd get to the point where I just couldn't really deal with it anymore. Being overwhelmingly worried until I heard anything. It was often like a waiting game with my stomach.

falling constantly the whole time. It just became routine. From other victims I've heard, she even pulled in her son to... Validate that. Yes. Did that happen with you? Yes. There's two instances that I remember specifically.

One time, I think we were just having dinner or something to her child. She said, you know, you remember going on the boat with Brody and Matt, don't you? You remember that? And he was like, yeah. And then he was like, Brody picks his nose and was just being a kid saying these silly things. And then...

Another time that like really sticks in my head was one of the times after she had convinced me to drive to Omaha to meet him. And naturally he wasn't there. It was in a blizzard. I'm stupid at that point, but I was just so desperate. Just needing to know that I wasn't crazy. This was a real person. I had needed some sort of reassurance. How far in was this?

probably about five, six months. I was like, no, we're meeting today. Like this is it. Cause we rarely had the same weekends off. It was to the point where I was like, no, we're meeting tonight. I drove and sat in a parking lot because what had happened was Matt took his keys. So he couldn't meet me. And I'm like, you can't Uber.

And I just sat there for like two hours. I was so mad. I was so upset that he would let that happen. And then I drove home crying the entire way home. I didn't want to go home alone. So I went to Jess's house. I was obviously crying when I walked in the door. I was just super upset and embarrassed and it's a terrible feeling. And her child had said, Brody's going to get you every time, Bree.

At the time, I didn't think twice about it. But ever since this all came out, that replay is in my head. There's just so many scenarios where Jess would go with me driving to Omaha two hours away to go to a pumpkin patch. She knew how bad I wanted to go to a pumpkin patch with Brody. It wasn't a festival, but there was this huge pumpkin patch that everyone went to. It was just like the trendy thing to do. And I was like, can we please do this? I'd have so much fun. I can't remember if he used it as...

a memory that set him off but he did not like pumpkin patches and wouldn't do that with me and initially had agreed to meet me there and then we get there and then he's like I don't know why you have to keep asking you know how I feel about it and would make me feel like complete crap for wanting to do something like that there

There's so many events. There was a couple car accidents. One time we were fighting and he was supposedly pulling out of a parking garage and got t-boned. And Brad had said, oh, he told me you guys were fighting. So he was probably being reckless because of that. Throwing those lowball comments to like make me feel like it was my fault. There's

There was a couple car accidents, the one bad motocross accident. The initial motocross accident was Monica's, and then there was another motocross accident. When I was working still in Des Moines, and we had had plans, and he didn't show up, and I was beside myself, I was upset with him, I was so angry. I was barely responding. I picked up a shift at work, and naturally, him and Matt were racing, goofing around, and...

Matt had did something with the handlebars and basically

Basically, Brody had overcorrected and it was a bad accident the way he described it. And he was in the hospital for a while. I was never welcome when Brody's sister was there. And that played a huge toll on the hospital visits. People thinking like, why didn't you go visit him there? I was never welcome if the sister was there or obviously if he still had a breathing tube. I didn't want to meet his family before I met him. And I was pulled in every sort of direction with that.

I felt so guilty. And then Matt would be saying things like, oh, you know, he would want you here. Or he'd say he'd be embarrassed. Like he wouldn't want you to see him like this to like make me feel better. Every angle would pull me in a different direction. I wouldn't say I felt happy maybe at the very beginning with all the love bombing, but then it was more just feeling trapped because every time I tried to leave something like this would happen. And I knew the brother would blame me.

My mental health definitely deteriorated quickly. I wouldn't say Jess had as much to do with it. I had other friends that noticed she was controlling. I didn't really see it at that point. We were inseparable. I didn't think twice about it. I had other friends that noticed I hung out with her a lot and we'd work together so she would come to my unit a lot, but it wasn't that crazy because of our jobs.

But with Brody, it was very high highs and very low lows. We would have days of being great, which sounds crazy because it's not like we were ever in person. But he just knew everything I wanted to hear because Jess knew everything about me as a person. And that's how she got every angle of me.

The lows were really low. And a couple of times I had mentioned, I'm miserable. I had started therapy. And Brody used to say that my therapist was crazy. And it's not fair that my therapist didn't get his side of anything. And how I'd made everyone hate him. I had been begging. I'm like, I don't want any harm for you. I don't want any harm for me. I just don't want to do this anymore.

And he'd said, you were a miserable person when I met you. Don't blame it on me. Here's Bree's friend, Emily.

Bri and I have had this conversation how she was an overnight nurse and was so tired and working so hard that after being emotionally beat down at a job and then emotionally beat down through a text message relationship, she genuinely didn't have any fight in her anymore. And it was honestly heartbreaking to see towards the end there. You know, you don't want resentment to happen between you two, but I also can't sit here and watch you just be absolutely miserable and controlled by a phone at the same time. You know, that's...

The decision she's going to make on her own versus what she thinks that me and her mother, who were very on the same page, think about her and her relationship. At the end of the day, she does have to learn it, even if it's the hardest, worst lesson she could learn. We had been friends for about six months. We moved in together in the spring of 2020. It was right before COVID happened.

Her son was still with her dad slash her grandma. And the plan was, let's move in together. We'll both work. We'll save a bunch of money, which is what we both needed to do. I did that. She did not. I was in my same apartment building, which I said, the only way I'm doing this is going upstairs to a bigger apartment. And that's how I agreed to it. We got a huge two bedroom, which was super cheap back in Iowa. The plan was we would live there. It would be her and I

And then her child was going to come for the school year. So I still had like six months to prepare for that because I wasn't really at a point where I was ready for that. And then it was a week into moving in together.

I don't remember what exactly happened. Monica is more familiar with this part of the story. What Jess had told me was Monica doesn't want to drive to go out with us. And then what she told Monica was Brie doesn't like you. She doesn't want you at the house. We didn't understand it. Like there was no reason for us to not like each other, but she just drew a wrench in that relationship right off the bat. So I knew of her. I was working.

Her and Monica drive to go get her son because of all of this craziness happening with her family, packed up all of his stuff and brought him to where we were. So moved him in.

I thought I had like six months. And then she just moved him in that week because of everything happening. And I mean, what was I going to say? It was her child. There's nothing I could really do. That was probably not my best choice, but it is what it is. My friends and family were like, are you sure you want to do that? And I was like, it's for now. We'll make some money. And eventually I knew I wanted a travel nurse. It wasn't forever. It's not a big deal.

We talked about how I was not a built-in babysitter. I was very upfront about that. I was like, I'm young. I don't have kids for a reason. I was an ICU nurse. I was working as much as I could because it was my only socialization. All of my nursing unit were very young. We were very close-knit.

COVID was no joke. We were working in the ICU overnight, sleeping all day. It's a very weird schedule. It was a very weird point in my life, but work was life. I would sleep during the day and then that got tricky with having a now child roommate.

How did you navigate being so busy and living in this environment and your relationship with Brody? How consistent was your communication with him at this point? From what I can remember, it was pretty consistent during that time. I was sleeping. I was up talking, texting him, getting ready for work. And then I would answer when I could while at work. And occasionally, yeah, it just couldn't happen, especially during the COVID times. And that's when I was accused of cheating at work often.

which was comedic if you were there watching. That got really heavy when I was communicating less. I had to have been doing something wrong. I would stay up, I would be like sleep deprived just talking. But at that point, it didn't bother me as much. Later, when I got sick of everything and I chose to sleep more and I chose to not interact as much, it became a problem and it started more fights and tensions got higher and we definitely fought a lot more when I was communicating less.

During this time, Brody was PRN as needed nursing. Basically, like he could pick and choose his hours. He had been an RN before he did that, before this residency endeavor happened.

but he would pick up as needed and kind of work whenever, but he was super wealthy, so he didn't have to work crazy amounts. He had a trust fund and he could basically do whatever he wanted. I guess his dad was a lawyer. I don't remember anything about the mom's job, but basically he inherited everything. And I remember this caused a huge fight one time

Made me feel so awful because I had been working a bunch of overtime and he had been angry that we weren't speaking or I wasn't communicating something. It flew out of my mouth, something along the lines of, we don't all have a trust fund or something like that. And that was never forgotten. Always held over my head. I apologized profusely. Wasn't my nicest, kindest moment, but I was just so frustrated and

She struck him with her motor vehicle. She had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

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While living with me, I think most important to note, she knew my schedule. She knew like my daily habits. So she knew what I was doing.

She knew every time I planned to go see Brody and then plans would fall through. Oftentimes she'd be there when I was getting ready for a date and be like, oh, what are you guys doing? I'd tell her, she'd be like, he's so lame and play off of it and just know that the entire time I was going to go waste hours of my life driving there and driving back.

It was during COVID, so we didn't get to go out and see the rest of our friends as much. So we did spend a lot of time together, whether it just be watching movies, having dinner. We were really close roommates at that point. Thinking back, I would be mad now, but I wasn't mad that Jess would talk to Brody back then because they had been friends before me. But

But they would talk and she'd tell him, you're really just hurting her. You need to either shit or get off the pot, basically. You're promising all these things and you're not delivering. She'd show me these paragraphs of conversations between her and Brody, between her and herself, making me think that this is real. He has real feelings. He's just got some serious shit he's trying to work out and I need to give him some more grace, whatever.

After several times where we planned to meet up and he had ruined the plan or decided it wasn't going to work or didn't show up, I started to sabotage the meetups because I didn't want to be let down again.

I had never, ever questioned that it was her, even though she was my only connection to him. In what world could that have been true? Because it was so many people. I never thought that. I did question if it was real multiple times, but I didn't do a ton of digging. You kind of know something isn't right, but you look the other way. I was definitely in that spot for a long time or part of it. But I think about when I lived with

with Jess and all of the times we were in the same room and I had been texting him or watching a movie and he would be texting me watching the same movie or texting me at all hours of the day. There's no way with any sort of kind of normal sleep pattern that it could have all been one person, especially juggling multiple people, me and Monica at the same time, for example. She had a privacy screen on her phone

She was just always on her phone for her photography business. She was always editing photos. She was emailing clients. She was texting her aunt that she was really close with, or she was texting her sister. She was just always on her phone from the day that I met her. And I've talked to the other girls and they agree that was just her normal from the very beginning.

It wasn't necessarily that as soon as I sent a message, she would pick her phone up, answer the message and put her phone down. Like she just never really put it down.

There was a derecho, which basically it means inland hurricane. And there was like 80 mile an hour winds in Iowa. You might have heard or seen it on the news. Sioux City, their whole city was basically like destroyed. A lot of apartments were destroyed, which ours was. There was a lot of leaking and they just couldn't fix it. I think we'd been living together for like five months at that point. The storm happened. We all...

We all had to talk to management. We all had to leave within three days. There was no power. We had to figure our lives out very quickly. And they gave us a couple of options. We could either get out of our lease and go somewhere else. We could move to another one of their properties. We chose another property.

Here's Bree's mom.

All I could think of was my daughter and her safety. That's all I could think of. They were living in Iowa, just as family is in Iowa, and none of them would come and help them. None of them. That's not my background. That's not the family I come from. My family, be it small or mighty, we would be in a van with sandwiches on our way to do whatever we need to do to help the kids. There was a pool of money that

my coworkers gave to Bree to help them with whatever, because they had to pay for hotels and food. I mean, they had nothing. And I remember Jess could not, it just was like physically could not comprehend that. And I think, again, this is my opinion. I feel like when she saw that kind of love and support being literally poured out to

to Bree. I mean, it wasn't like we were ignoring Jess because we were helping them both with, you know, whatever they needed. But I don't think Jess ever saw anything like that in her life. And I don't think she knew how to respond to it. I mean, the roof tore off their building.

the building was demolished. They had to relocate. It was a big deal. It was in national news. I mean, there is no way these people did not know this. There's no elevators. It's 100 and some degrees out. They're trying to pack all of their belongings. You couldn't find a U-Haul if you wanted to. It was massive. It was a big deal. And her family couldn't help. They couldn't even send money to help. They did nothing.

After the storm, when we had the option to choose to go to which new apartment, I did confide in Brody at that point about not being sure about wanting to still live with her and her son. It wasn't the smoothest ride and this was a way out of that. And next thing I know, he had told Matt, who had told Jess, and she is a crying mess because I'd said that.

I was just so upset with Brody. I was like, you're supposed to be my rock. You're supposed to be someone I can confide in. And then you went and you told them how I was feeling. I was a very vulnerable spot. And I told you how nervous I was to talk to her about it. And you just went and told Matt, who of course told her. And it caused a huge fight between us. And then I felt so guilty for doing that. I signed another lease. But at that point, we'd only be living another like four or five months together.

This happened on a couple occasions, but it wasn't on as big of topics where she would text me and tell me that Matt told her something. But this case, we were staying in the hotel together and she was just bawling her eyes out. I'd just gotten home from work whilst we were still deciding on what we were going to do. And she was crying and I had to ask her multiple times what was wrong. And then she finally told me that Matt had told her. And of course, Matt heard it from Brody.

It was a horrible crying fight. And basically it just ended up with me being like, I can figure it out. Everything's going to be fine. We'll just stay in this new place till the end of our lease. So basically out of guilt, I agreed to stay there. And then fast forward, we moved into the new place. They were there for a couple months and then she just wasn't having enough help with her kid. So she told me.

And so she needed to move home with her dad. At the time, it seemed believable. But looking back, I don't know if another victim was found out and she needed to get the heck out of Dodge.

She really wasn't in a good spot with her dad at that point. So I was super surprised she would even consider going back to living with him. It had to have been something worthwhile to make her do that because she really didn't want to do that. But she agreed. She's like, I'll just pay my half of rent for the rest of the lease. It was like three or four months. I was like, okay, and then I'll move to a single. And I was fine with that.

When Jess decided she needed to move home for needing more help with her son, she decided to have a going away party. We had a bunch of shared friends and it wasn't that crazy. There was this Mexican restaurant we all love to go to. So we just decided to go to dinner one last time as a huge group before she officially moved. That night, one of my close friends in Des Moines, she was getting ready with me and Jess called me. This is when we still live together. She called me and she said, Hey, I'm going to be there shortly. I

I just need to do a couple things to get ready and then we'll go. And I told her that my friend was there. That was great. Whatever. I had grabbed a new plant to put in the window and I got a new welcome mat because the other one was destroyed, but I didn't get rid of anything. And she lost it, had a huge breakdown. I had been in my bathroom finishing, you know, my hair or whatever. And I could tell she'd been upset and she ran out the door. She's like, I'll just meet you there.

I looked at my friend. She's like, is everything okay? And I was like, I think so. But clearly it wasn't. So she ran out the door. I had recently found this out, but she ran out the door and she had texted Lauren saying I acted like she didn't live there. I was disrespectful. I threw everything away. I redecorated. Just this whole spiel. We then meet at this restaurant for the going away party. Monica was there and she had her two friends. I

I had a bunch of my work friends there, so I sat at the end of the table with them. What I later found out was Jess made Monica move to the other end of the table so we wouldn't chat. At the time, I didn't think twice about it, but we conversed about it later and she's like, oh yeah, she made me move.

Jess wanted to go out that night. And then she was upset that people had to work the next day and left early and weren't staying out all night. Everything became a problem. After the fact, I found out that we all just ruined her going away party. I can't even put it into words, like everything I found out after the fact and how upset she was that things didn't go as planned and the new decorations ruined the mood for the night. I had to finish our lease. She was still paying the half of

So I lived there and then I moved to a single. She only stayed at her dad's for, I want to say it was two months. And that is when she called me one day and said,

I think I want to move to North Carolina. And that's when that all started. In hindsight now, who overlapped with you, with Brody? Monica, for sure. Monica in the beginning. And then I for sure overlapped with Lauren because I started the summer of 2019. And then I want to say it was that next fall of 2020 that Lauren came into the mix. Next time on Something Was Wrong.

I had to tell her three years into the relationship, quote unquote, with Brody that I've been talking to this guy I haven't met and she's terrified for me. I wanted to fly there because he was in the hospital and she just had the worst feeling about it. I feel like the reason she took so long to tell me was because deep down she knew something was not right. From the moment Lauren met Jess, I thought that Jess was Brody.

Did you tell her that? Yes. Yeah, I did. Something happened and he was out of the hospital and we got into an argument. I was laying in Jess's bed. I was crying my eyes out. She's rubbing my back and playing Christian music, hoping that I can get through this. Jess lost her mind and started being so angry right before this all was uncovered. Jess could not handle that.

My boyfriend at the time said to me in a very serious voice that I need to be really careful because everything that Lauren had just laid out about the situation that she was in is extremely alarming and unsettling. This sounds like a true crime documentary waiting to happen where there is someone obsessed with another person and they ultimately end up dead.

the Lauren story. It was so nuts. And we truly believed that she was the only one. And I never thought or never could fathom it getting worse or crazier or weirder because it was already so bizarre. And then I'm on the phone and we connect the dots and it's like 10 steps way worse. We got Lauren and Brie to talk. 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. This season, our theme song, You Think You, by Gladrags, is covered by Palehound. For music and tour dates, go to palehound.com.

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You think you know me, you don't know me. We're at home. You think you know me, you don't know me.

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I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. Yeah.

No, it's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical.

Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.