292: What if a shocking lie revealed your inner truth?
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This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. There was a presence to her that drew people in. She was so bubbly, so kind, so vibrant and alive. I was kind of stunned. I felt that I was in the presence of something greater. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein.

You're listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 292. What if a shocking lie revealed your inner truth?

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The best way to describe my childhood was aesthetically pleasing. I lived in a beautiful house. My parents had beautiful cars and everything looked pretty picture perfect from the outside. But the dynamic in the house was much different than that. My father was very authoritarian and my father had a heavy hand for punishment. My father's punishments had to do with being grounded, but not only being in my room, but my belongings were removed.

The first time I remember being grounded from food, I was four years old. I had misbehaved in a swimming lesson. And I remember my father telling my mother on the phone that I have to go to bed and I can't have dinner. And I remember thinking, wait, won't I be hungry? And I remember my father saying, you'll survive. And that stuck with me for the rest of my life. As a stubborn person, when he challenged me by withholding food, I challenged him back by saying, I don't need it.

That was a power move on my part and boy did it make me feel powerful. It was something I could cling on to and use it as a means of control. It was my way to rebel. The amount of anxiety I felt as a child waiting to be punished for something potentially as insignificant as saying a bad word. I had to find a place of peace within myself in order to cope. And I think a lot of this involved leaving my body. My father's anger was very, very present in the house.

I see my father as somebody who was probably bullied, and I think that him finding his redemption has shown through in the way that he bullied me. The way my father was treating me was inappropriate on every single level. His anger could be physical, but that's not what I feared. That was few and far between, and I would have rather been hit than punished by having all of my belongings removed, being confined to a room for three months.

scrubbing trash cans, cleaning gutters. His anger seemed to be quelled by his ability to control, to make me bend over backwards in order to please him since he was the man of the house. I dealt with heavy misogyny.

I knew by the time I was six years old that my purpose was to grow up and be sexy. And as a child, I absorbed that so much. I felt so nervous in grade school. How am I supposed to grow up and be sexy? That's not what I want to do. But these are things I internalized. I became a child that was self-conscious, feeling very different, different.

And this stemmed from such a deep rooted fear of being made fun of. And I became very, very quiet in my suffering. It got to a point where I realized I was better staying quiet. It was safer. I felt like for a good portion of my childhood, I was just trying to survive. My brother was born when I was 10 years old.

Right away, I feel like I kind of took on a role as a second mom. A lot of my punishments had to do with babysitting, changing his diaper, feeding him, bathing him. And I didn't mind. I felt like in my eighth grade middle school years, I was just clinging on to my love for this child in order to get through the days. Anytime I wanted to give up, I would think, but I have a little baby brother and he is perfect. And that got me through.

One of the more unfortunate things to happen at that point is that my father likely saw this and the way he operated, he needed to ruin it. And so what he did is he started shaping my perfect little baby brother. My brother started copying my father and my father would say, we're doing it to get a rise out of you. Just ignore us.

And I was angry at my father, but now I was angry at my little brother because he didn't know better. But he was almost making my life just as miserable. In that moment, I thought, I'm so alone. I lived in an isolated, unincorporated area, and our neighbors were pretty far between. I didn't have a lot of kids to play with, but our neighbors had this boy visiting. He was a few years older than me. He was in his teenage years. I believe I was about 11 years.

I was becoming scared of people, protective of myself. But when I was invited to go to an amusement park, I thought, yeah, I should do that. My parents let me. And pretty soon I was in a vehicle with our neighbors, their son and his younger sister. When we went to that amusement park and we went on the haunted house ride, I felt him lean over and kiss me. And I think in that moment, I knew that my life was going to change.

I didn't know how to say no. No was never received well in the house. You didn't tell my father no. I didn't tell this boy no. He continued to touch me. He continued to reach his hands up my shirt. I felt trapped. I didn't eat that day. I was so nauseous. And when I came home, I laid on the ground in my room. I laid on my rug, trying not to vomit and thought, what just happened? I went into the living room where my parents were sitting on the couch and I just silently sat in a chair.

In my mind, I'm thinking, what good could possibly come from saying something? So I didn't. But soon enough, I was struggling. I was living in a constant fear that he was coming after me. One of the most significant parts about this is after I thought I was done and I was away from this boy, he knocked on our front door. Now, if this isn't a perfect example of who my father was as a person, I looked at him and I said, please don't open the door. Don't let him in.

Now my father, he opened the door and said, "Hey, come on in. Lindsay would love to hang out. Why don't you guys go upstairs and watch a movie in the movie theater?" And in that room, this boy continued to touch me. I thought about how I begged my father. I thought about how he did nothing. I thought about how I was being touched and part of me thought this is my role in life. I vowed to myself that I would never, under any circumstance, be alone with a boy.

While in the beginning, I was really just trying to get through, I started developing maladaptive behaviors. And once I hit sixth grade, I really started noticing my mental health symptoms coming into play. The first time I ever harmed myself, I was at the dentist getting a filling. I thought, if I put pain into my arm, maybe I won't feel the pain in my mouth.

And it worked. By digging my nails into my arm, I felt this escape, this control. I could put my pain where I wanted to put my pain. And I kind of ran with that. As an eighth grader, I probably hit my peak of being angry. I felt at this point so darn alone in my struggle. I lived in a house where mental health was not talked about. This anger turned inward with horrible depression.

From there, I fell into some not great relationships. The first one I had, I chose what I was familiar with, and that was a replica of my father. This person treated me horribly. He would degrade me constantly. He would tell me, you're so lucky to have me because nobody else could love you. At this point, I was living in hell with obsessive compulsive disorder.

In my experience with mental health, I have never experienced such a difficult disease. And this consumed me. I thought maybe that if I tapped in multiples of three, counting up to 27, that it would fix things. I fell into this magical thinking. It went perfectly with my OCD. I would think things like,

Well, if I didn't pick up that trash on the side of the road, my grandma's going to die. And I couldn't bear that responsibility. There was a ritual where I would stand in my shower. I had some blinds and I would tap every single blade of the blinds. Any intrusive thought that entered my mind, I had to do something.

I developed this huge aversion to germs, feeling like if I touch something dirty, my hand was sizzling. There was this burning feeling that would not go away until I washed my hands. I refused to touch the floor of my apartment without shoes. It was something that terrified me. I had this ritual where I would stomp my right foot twice. I shook my head twice. I snapped twice and then touched my face. Why?

For some reason, I knew it was keeping my brother safe. I didn't kiss my boyfriend goodbye in a multiple of three and there was an earthquake and that was all my fault. The things I was doing made perfect sense to me. It got to the point where I was wearing gloves in public. I was sitting on plastic bags. I had stopped eating almost entirely because food felt dirty or I had to eat in a multiple of three.

This was the way that I could find control in my life. At this point, I had graduated high school. My high school boyfriend followed me to my college. At college, with him, I was officially isolated. He had already shown that he was controlling and he was abusive. At one point, he entered, went straight to my room, and refused to leave.

At this point, I begged, please leave me alone. And he said, not until you eat something. I said, okay, I'll have an apple. When I walked into the kitchen, I didn't grab an apple. Instead, I grabbed a serrated kitchen knife and dragged it across my wrist. The ambulance, the fire department, the police were all called. My boyfriend had the audacity to look at me and say, I forgive you. And in that moment,

After receiving a 5150 and being sent to the psych ward, I finally felt safe. I was safe from my father. I was safe from my boyfriend. When I returned back to school, things had not gotten any better. Somehow, my boyfriend at the time was now following me to stores. Things got so much more intense. I was being watched constantly. The OCD was just simply out of control.

I was now experiencing things like skin picking, which would have me lost in the mirror for three hours. Suddenly when I pull away, I've got big red welts all over my face. I couldn't live this way anymore and I decided to put myself in treatment. What I had yet to understand is that as I struggled with OCD, I was also struggling with an eating disorder. Because of this, I was sent to an eating disorder treatment facility.

Now, I had been seeking validation all my life and in this eating disorder treatment facility, I became absolutely obsessed with my weight, with calories. It was the same control I got from playing out my OCD rituals, except this was so much prettier to look at.

I remembered the feeling of being able to control. Undeniably, I could control what I ate or did not eat. This became so obsessive that for the next three years of my life, I would focus on nothing else.

But my weight, calories, food, anything that could keep my mind off of what was actually happening in my life. The abuse I endured, the relationship with my father, the suicide attempt. I had gotten so good at my eating disorder. Nobody could control what I put in my mouth except for myself. Not only that, but I was getting compliments. The praise was becoming more and more.

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I was managing a 24-hour fitness at this point, and it was such a stressful job.

The eating disorder got so bad that I just simply couldn't be an employee anymore. I was starting to black out. I was getting low blood pressure, having trouble standing, to be honest, with no mental clarity. My manager called HR and said I wasn't doing well. All I was really doing was working or starving. And I was really looking for friends. I was looking for a community.

My manager was very active in her church. I saw her as a lighthouse. She was so kind, so generous, so lovely and caring. She saw me in my struggle. She knew what I was going through. And she started inviting me to church. Now, I grew up in an atheist household. I've been atheist all my life. So I denied this invitation many, many times. But one day I had an especially horrible panic attack at work.

In this moment, she grabbed me, pulled me into her office and said, just come to church with me. So I thought, what do I have to lose? I'm so lonely. I'm in so much pain. So I went to church. It was nothing like I expected. There were no pews. There was a dance floor. The first sermon I sat through, I didn't believe it. I didn't belong. It wasn't me. But I saw how much love was in the air.

I saw how somebody walked into a room and everybody greeted them. Everybody was welcome. And so I went back. Maybe my second or third time there, I told them, hey, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in God. I don't think I ever will. And they said, that's okay. We're just glad you're here and gave me a big hug. And I thought I've found my people. I have people in my life now that love me and they love me for me.

It doesn't matter my background. It doesn't matter my struggle. I've been accepted into this community. As a 26-year-old, I finally felt like I was falling into place. And I continued to go. As somebody who grew up needing and wanting to be helpful, to be reliable, to be that straight-A student, I dove into this church as hard as I could have.

There were some days I was there six days a week, whether I was joining a random Bible study, helping paint something, setting up for a service. I was there, pouring everything I could into this community, making sure that I would stay accepted, that I would stay loved, and that I would be seen as worthy. So it had been less than a month that I had been attending this church.

I clung to my manager who had initially brought me to this church because I was still trying to find my own group. My manager introduced me to so many people that I would then call my friends. One of them I had known about beforehand. She was a young woman, just a few years older than I was, that was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was struggling with Hodgkin lymphoma and she almost glowed.

There was a presence to her that drew people in. She was so bubbly, so kind, so vibrant and alive. I was kind of stunned. I felt that I was in the presence of something greater. I watched her walk around wearing a halo. She stood on the stage, the bubbly, sweet, cute person she was, and I ate it up.

Anything she had to say, I wanted to listen. I had to know where she was getting her strength from. I thought, my problems are so insignificant. This person is dealing with the most horrible disease. She's going to die. She's going to leave her beautiful kids behind. And boy, how she radiated. This person's name was Amanda C. Riley. When I first met her, she had shaved her head and was wearing a little beanie.

She was openly talking about her cancer diagnosis. And I felt a little starstruck. I felt like I had never met anybody that was so verbal about such a terrible struggle. When I looked at her, I didn't see death. I saw light. She was a presence that made people want to listen. It's almost that she had some extra knowledge. She's so young and she's been fighting such a battle. She's learned so much. And then there was me.

I felt so dirty. I felt so alone. My struggle felt so deep. But I would look at her and suddenly I felt like everything was okay for me. Amanda said she pulled her strength from God and I, to some extent, pulled my strength from Amanda. In this place, I was coming from my loneliness, my despair. I was more than happy to surround myself with people like Amanda. So angelic.

And even being so upfront about my struggles with mental health and OCD and anxiety. She was supportive of me. There was a part of me that felt so unworthy to have a conversation with her. I was in the hospital too. She was getting chemo. I was getting fluids. But it felt so different. I felt like I asked for this. I put this on myself. And she was so undeserving. I wanted to know where her sunshine was coming from.

And I wanted some for myself. I felt honored to be invited to Amanda's house. I felt like, ooh, I finally made it. She's bringing over all her close friends and I'm there too. This is wonderful. A lot of me felt like, gosh, Amanda must be so busy. How is she juggling all of this? She's got children. She's teaching. She's doing chemotherapy. And she's showing up to church multiple times a week.

As somebody who wasn't making much money, you know, working in a gym, I thought one of the best ways I could possibly help her is to pray for her. Sitting in church, the very first time in my life I ever talked to God was on behalf of Amanda. This was right after she had just gotten up, walked to the back of the church, and passed out.

As everybody surrounded her, putting their hands over her, begging God to spare this woman, I finally did the same. This felt like a whole new part of me. It felt easier to develop this relationship because I felt like something good was going to come out of this. You know what? I can go to war for Amanda. Pretty soon, it was a weekly thing.

Sitting in my car with Amanda's best friend, praying, warring, pleading with God, putting our trust in him that Amanda would live to see 31 years old. The only other thing I could do to contribute was donate platelets. On a weekly basis, I would go to the Red Cross. I did that consecutively until I was no longer eligible to donate.

Each time I showed up to an appointment, I held a magnet in my hand that said Team Amanda. Sometimes I wore a bracelet that says Team Amanda. Sometimes it was written on my hand. Each time I walked into this building, I made sure absolutely everybody knew who I was doing this for. They knew her story. They knew what she was dealing with. I felt like this was the best way I could give back. Though I knew it wasn't going directly to her, I knew that the gesture was enough.

A lot of our interactions were just me carrying her on. You're amazing. Keep doing you. You'll beat this. You'll beat this. You'll see your children graduate. That was a big phrase. You'll see your children graduate. I was just absorbed. There were a few experiences we had together that seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Our megachurch held this massive Christian concert. I was lucky to be able to go with Amanda.

The first three rows in the auditorium were roped off as a VIP seating for Amanda and her friends. So now I'm sitting front row at a Christian concert next to one of the strongest women I know, and I just see what I want my life to be.

One thing that made me feel like I was on top of the world is when Amanda actually posted about me in one of her blogs. She said something about how she was so grateful for her new friend and how she saw that I was falling into a beautiful relationship with God. I thought, wow, I'm worthy. I mean something. I mean something to Amanda. I took a screenshot and kind of lived off that fame for a while.

One day, I was sitting in a McDonald's parking lot in my car, struggling with my eating disorder, and I finally texted her. Just wanted to say, you've been in the hospital lately and I have too. And it's really hard. And I know our experiences are different, but it's still really hard. And know that I'm rooting you on. Her response back was short but sweet. She said, keep going. You got this. You can do this.

And that was who she was. She cared. I didn't talk to Amanda for a few years after that. She kind of went incognito. She just kind of disappeared from the internet and from the earth. From there, I just went through a cycle of going to treatment, relapsing, going to treatment, relapsing. I did that for about three years straight. Many, many hospitals, many treatment centers, in and out of programs. And I lost touch with everybody.

At this point, I left the church. January of 2019 was the end of my treatment. The treatment center I was actually at released me saying they didn't know if they could do anything else for me. They couldn't get a handle on my eating disorder because my PTSD was so bad. After I ended treatment, I decided to move to Santa Cruz, California and start a new life there. I struggled. This is really my first time back into the world.

It was interesting to adjust to freedom. I had spent years in situations where people had to watch me go to the bathroom and now I could do whatever I want. I had fun for a while. I was still heavily struggling with mental health symptoms. I got myself back in therapy, but really still continuing to struggle to get adequate nutrition and just really seeing that I wasn't prepared to take the reins on this eating disorder recovery yet.

I was still struggling in ways that I didn't understand. I had been put on a new psychiatric medication to see if we could get a better handle on my depression and anxiety, and little did I know it didn't work with my body. My psychiatrist had told me, you know what, this could make you sick to your stomach. And for some reason, my answer was, I already am. Could it even be much worse? I can handle it. Within a month or two, I was very sick.

I was unable to keep anything down. My body was not absorbing calories. Due to the malnutrition, being on the wrong psych med, I hadn't recognized this until it was in full swing, but I had dove into the most intense manic and psychotic episode of my life. This was like nothing I had ever experienced. I was saying wild things. I started becoming very grandiose in my thinking.

Suddenly feeling like I had superpowers. I felt like I could see flowers grow. I had this understanding that felt so much deeper than human. I found this sense of clarity that I couldn't have possibly described. I felt like I had the answers. It was my time to recover and it was going to change the world.

I finally noticed that I was psychotic at a point where I was hiding in the corner of my room, all doors locked, and I heard an ambulance. In that moment, I was 100% convinced that they were coming for me. I thought they're definitely going to crawl through my skylight. And catching myself in this thought pattern, I was like, whoa, this isn't right. I realized that I needed help.

that this was not sustainable, I was not getting nutrition, and I could only imagine this was all playing into this horrible, psychotic episode I was experiencing. I made a vow. I declared that that was the day I was going to recover. I was going to devote everything within myself to living the life that I knew I could live outside of my eating disorder, outside of all these horrible mental health issues I was struggling with.

I gave myself a new birthday, 5-6-2020, and considered that date my new beginning. Once again, I flew into recovering hard. I advocated for myself like I'd never advocated before, and I was accepted into the gastrointestinal unit in a hospital where I received a feeding tube. This was a repeat of trauma for me, but I was convinced to do it differently. Being given an NG tube was

was a feeling hard to describe. Utter violation. Helplessness. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do was switch that mindset. Understand that this was my choice. I was not being violated. I was not being held down. I asked for this because I knew I needed to do something different and this different was going to help me grow. On the second day I was in the hospital, out of seemingly nowhere, I get a message from Amanda.

It was encouraging. She said, continue fighting the good fight. You got this. And she also said, I know what it's like. Then she told me, I've been in the hospital for over 100 days. I've just been flown to Southern California so I can receive special treatment because I'm not doing well. She said, I've developed bilateral pulmonary embolisms. I said, well, so did I.

I thought, wow, that's kind of strange. That almost killed me in 2012. What else is going to happen to this poor woman? But I think part of me just dismissed it. Like, okay, well, she'll survive that too if she survived cancer four times. She is a miracle from God. To get these texts from Amanda, to some extent, blew my mind. She cared. She did care. She reached out to me. She wanted to know how I was doing. She told me, I got this. You keep going.

Once again, thinking about her struggle and all she's been through, mine felt so small. I felt so small. But when she texted me, she made me feel big. I felt like I couldn't have this conversation with a lot of other people, but she gets it. She's been in this hospital bed too. She knows what it's like to be really, really scared. And I let that keep driving me forward.

Luckily, I only had a two-day stint in the hospital. They decided to release me with my feeding tube, and I was able to run it on my own at home. It was just a couple months after I had been in the hospital that I received an email from the Department of Justice. This email stated that Amanda was being sued for faking cancer.

Now, I had known that in the past this was an accusation. I also heard Amanda say that it was all a big mistake. She would say this was of the devil, that her husband's ex-wife was there trying to ruin her life. She stated, I absolutely do have cancer. At this point, I didn't believe that she was faking her cancer. I still believed her, but I wanted to have the discussion.

I reached out to a couple people within the church and said, I got this email. I don't know that anybody I knew was doubting her. I was left in a place of utter confusion. After processing it for just a moment, I went online and I started seeing the articles and I was just so confused within myself.

I reached out to Amanda and I said, "Hey, got an email from the Department of Justice that you faked cancer. I just wanted you to know that." To make it even more confusing, she did call me and she did tell me she was completely innocent. It was all a mix-up. She absolutely did have cancer. She was just at the infusion center and now she's going to pick up her medication. This entire time I'm sitting in this place of confusion.

The court hearings were such a drawn-out process. This took at least a year and a half. Things kept being pushed back, and I knew that until I heard the outcome, I couldn't convince myself one way or another.

I was just hanging on. I fell into several rabbit holes of googling and researching. Is there anything I could find? Is there any indication at all? I'm racking my mind and thinking, where's her scar from her port? And that's something that lived in my mind during this process. I just kept thinking, she had all this drama with receiving a port and then it got infected and it had to be removed and she came to church with a big old band-aid on her chest.

But once that band-aid came off, there was nothing there. And a part of me thought, well, Jesus must have healed it. Because that's what's happening right now anyways, isn't it? When she pled guilty, I think my heart stopped. I didn't feel angry right away. I felt disgusted. There was this gut-wrenching nausea. This disgusting, gross feeling.

of being taken advantage of and hurt in an unfathomable way. It hurts to know that the Radiance, her bubbly-ness and her sunshiny little self was lying this whole time. When they mentioned that she had shaved her own head, I thought I was going to puke. This came so out of left field that I thought, who else close to me is lying and being someone they're not?

That affected the way I trusted people. It affected my ability to know for sure that anybody was in my corner. It seemed like I could absolutely never, ever know for sure if somebody is who they say they are.

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We'd been given the opportunity to create witness statements, a testimony to how this affected us and what her actions really did to people. One of the people I sat next to gave me some insight into how big this thing was. It was so much more than her faking cancer and getting money. She was stealing tears and hearts and prayers and blood.

The person next to me said she stole pictures from my back surgery and called them her own. I was marveled at her dedication to this. Years and years of keeping up this facade. It's beyond me. Years of receiving prayers, affirmations, and anything that could make her special, feel special for that day because maybe she wouldn't survive the next day.

Sometimes waking up, I thought, "Did Amanda die?" Sometimes this would lead me into just praying to God, "Please, please spare her." Nobody wants to see these children grow up without a mom. She's a teacher. She needs to teach the world. She told us that she was getting her PhD at Stanford, which was a lie, but how could she have been any more inspiring? And to know it's all fake.

I feel grateful for that opportunity to have been able to look her in the eyes and read exactly what I wrote. When she gave me that look of remorse, I had to see past that and think, you're not sorry for any of this.

At this point, I'm thinking back to all of the fundraisers, all of the candlelight vigils, the times where we met together online to just pray for her, people across the world, her family, the congregation, the celebrities that stepped in to help her, the people who put on weightlifting competitions and had fundraisers at restaurants, the level of her dedication to her scam and to know it's all fake.

That will forever blow my mind. I was sick for being duped in such a way. For a while after, I felt haunted by our conversations. I found Amanda to be so genuine, so honest and unashamed to say, look what I'm dealing with. It's ugly, but look. And being a role model in that way. I think back to how she encouraged me.

In my mind, replaying all she was enduring. She told us she was going to die. But she still took time to reach out to me. And to tell me to keep going. And I couldn't have respected her anymore. I saw what she was and I wanted to be better. I wanted to take her strengths. And I wanted them to be mine. I think at the end of the day, I just realized that I could take revenge.

what I loved about Amanda. I could take that bubbliness, that sunshine, that love and caring, and I can be that. What makes it even better is that I'm not faking cancer. I can be a genuine person. I can be a good person. To some extent, I can thank Amanda for this healing, but also it feels like I'm mourning her.

I'm not only mourning someone who was a friend. It feels like I'm mourning a loss from a community. I don't want the confusion that this gave me to affect me in the end. I don't want to be someone who questions everybody's motive. I know that there are a lot of things I clung on to in the hospital and a lot of things I clung on to as I dove into this recovery. It was a confusing time.

It was a hurtful time, but pretty soon after, I found my redemption. And my redemption was being able to speak on this. One thing I appreciate about myself is my ability to speak. To be loud, be genuine, be vulnerable, be authentic. And I can only hope that in that, I can bring some healing not only to myself, but to a disheartened community. I know how much people's hearts hurt for her situation.

I considered everything I was going through as something I put on myself. I never felt like my struggle was enough because I didn't have cancer. My sickness was not given to me, but a direct result of me not eating. I see now that my struggle is as real. And I figured out how to find the legitimacy in my struggle. I know that I went through this for a reason.

I know that I can take what I've learned and help others. I can only hope to share what I've been taught. I wasn't alone. Whatever really weird, uncomfortable, unpleasant thing you're experiencing right now, there's somebody else too that can relate to the struggle. You're not alone. You're not. I will continue to mourn the friendship I had and the story that I cherished, but I choose to see people as honest.

I see the sunshine in everything now. When it's hard, I know that it's going to get easier, that it's all an ebb and flow. It's the upward trajectory that counts. And today I feel powerful.

Today's episode featured Lindsay Wilder. To contact Lindsay, you can reach out over email at actuallylindsay at yahoo.com. That's actually l-i-n-d-s-e-y at yahoo.com. To find out more about Amanda C. Riley, her victims, and the many details we couldn't cover on this episode, check out the podcast Scamanda. You can binge every episode of Scamanda, produced by Lionsgate Sound, wherever you get your podcasts.

From Wondery, you're listening to This Is Actually Happening. If you love what we do, please rate and review the show. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on the Wondery app to listen ad-free and get access to the entire back catalog. In the episode notes, you'll find some links and offers from our sponsors. By supporting them, you help us bring you our show for free. I'm your host, Witt Misseldein.

Today's episode was co-produced by me, Andrew Waits, and Aviva Lipkowitz, with special thanks to the This Is Actually Happening team, including Ellen Westberg. The intro music features the song Illabi by Tipper. You can join the community on the This Is Actually Happening discussion group on Facebook, or follow us on Instagram at ActuallyHappening.

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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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