Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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I'm super excited to share Something Was Wrong is partnering with Moment for a special virtual event, Something Was Wrong Live. Join Kaylin, Melissa, Sarah, and myself Tuesday, December 13th at 6 p.m. Pacific time as we come together to answer listener questions and share updates from Season 14.
33% of the net proceeds from this event will be donated in Emerson and Ivy's honor to the National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association, which supports and promotes court-appointed volunteer advocacy for children who have experienced abuse or neglect. The organization ensures children's safety, permanent housing, and the opportunity to thrive. For more information and to grab your ticket, head to moment.co slash support.
something was wrong. You can also find a direct link in today's episode notes. Thank you so much. This season, guests will be sharing their own testimony in regards to the criminal allegations against Jake Gravbrot. All persons are assumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Guest experiences are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of myself, something was wrong, or Wondery. At
At the time of this episode's airing, Jake Gravbrot has not responded to our request for comment. If you have been a victim of Jake Gravbrot or have a crime tip in relation to these matters, please visit somethingwaswrong.com slash 14 for more information. All names of minors involved in this story have been changed for their privacy and protection.
Some survivor names have also been changed for anonymity and safety purposes. Season 14 covers a variety of mature topics that can be upsetting, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence. Content warnings for each episode and resources for survivors can be found in the episode notes.
The podcast or 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 well. Don't let anybody tell you. I stayed in the hospital for...
a full day and Jake touched base
once or twice, but it was pretty sporadic. Checking to see how Ivy was doing, how I was doing, was being more kind and caring, but also not very overly talkative. I came home from the hospital and I was absolutely exhausted from all of it. The childbirth, dealing with him. The few days after that, he stayed in pretty close contact.
and wanted to know how she was sleeping and how I was doing. And I wasn't quite sure how to read any of that. I had gotten to a point with him towards the end of my pregnancy, especially after going through his cycle so many times that I always felt
the most nervous and had the most anxiety when he was being nice because I always knew what followed the nice was a bomb going off and something terrible happening. It stayed pretty peaceful for the first week to 10 days.
When she was about two weeks old, I took her to Seattle for a visit. I can't remember the whole day, but I do remember going to lunch. I picked him up at his salon and he needed to drop off towels to be washed for the salon. We went and did that. And then we went and had lunch. And I think at some point we went back to the hotel I was staying at so I could change her clothes.
He left right after that because he had plans. He said, I have something I have to go do. It was a really peaceful day. And he paid for our lunch. Granted, it was a cup of clam chowder, but he paid for my lunch and he washed my car. Being kind and caring and wanting to spend time with Ivy. And there was no focus on anything past that.
This is before he was with Mimi. He had taken Emerson at one point to the store here in Mission Viejo Mall. He met some girl that worked there who was maybe 18. She looked super young. The only reason why I knew about her
was because he had taken a bunch of pictures of her and Melissa saw it in the Dropbox. It was one of the times that he came to visit Emerson before he met Mimi. Emerson and I would go into the store and we would see her and she would tell him that I was there. So then he'd be like, are you at the store right now? And I'm like, what the fuck? Are you following me? I would get all scared and paranoid. Then Melissa was like, it's that girl. She's told him that you're there.
I called the store and spoke with her manager and said, look, I am a domestic violence survivor. Your employee is telling him where I am. I don't feel safe. And I cannot come into your store if she's going to do things like that. I think that she either left or got fired, but it was definitely one of those things where I'm like, his reach is very far.
After that, it came to light that he had a girlfriend, Mimi. Though Mimi and I have spoken several times, and she has given her permission to use her real name and provided evidence in these matters, she's not participating in the season out of caution for her personal safety. Participating survivors and myself support Mimi doing what feels right for her, and we appreciate Mimi's willingness to speak with me.
She didn't know necessarily, I don't think, that he had been talking to me every day or trying to spend time with Ivy.
She wasn't okay with it. And when she was about two weeks old, he wrote me a text and said, going forward, my visits need to be one-on-one just with my girlfriend. I was still struggling to figure out if I could trust him. The last thing that I needed was another person thrown into this situation that I don't know.
It was just too much. And not to mention, she's a newborn. She's a brand new tiny baby that I'm not comfortable sending her with people that I don't know or I don't trust. It was a lot to try and maneuver. I told him no and I explained all of that. His response back was, okay, I have no interest in being her father then. I wish you well. Goodbye.
That was pretty much the last communication that I had with him until she was 10 months old. He did tell me, you can always send me pictures of her, but if I can't take her for my visits with my girlfriend, my girlfriend isn't comfortable with you being around. So it's either got to be one-on-one with her where you drop her off with us or it's not anything.
He put it on me. And when I said no, he said, okay, well, that's your choice then. You're telling me I can't be her dad. I said, that's not what I'm saying. I'm telling you that you need to build trust and build a co-parenting relationship with me. This person that you just met has no bearing on any of that.
The last thing that you should be doing is adding a third party into this already horrible situation. He didn't want to hear any of it. It was, I think, an easy out for him. It was a way for him to walk away and focus on his new relationship without feeling like the blame was on him because he was able to
twist that around and make it my fault. For a few months, I did send him pictures occasionally. He responded twice and they were one word responses.
On social media, most of the people that I knew did not know what was going on. I had a couple people reach out and be like, Hey, are you okay? Or what's happening? But for the most part, I didn't want to talk bad about him to Emerson. I don't want to talk bad about him on the internet. I'd rather say it to his face than post online. April 22nd, 2014, we get our final orders.
He's seeing Mimi now. They come for a visit together. I had my mom do that drop off and pick up because...
did not have any interest in meeting her. I felt like he was only with her for like four months. He hasn't seen Emerson in six or seven months and he's bringing his new girlfriend to see her. I don't get it. She's with you all the time. You guys are flying down together to like play house with my kid. I found it a little off-putting. Emerson came home from their visits and she was
fine, well taken care of. She liked Mimi, wanted to talk about her and tell me about her. And I was happy that somebody was supervising. I also didn't know their relationship. So I had hoped that everything could remain positive. They went to the beach one day. And I think that Emerson didn't want to take pictures with him, but did want to take pictures with Mimi. And I think that it upset Jake and he got mad at Mimi for it. They're supposed to stay within the county.
They take her outside of the county to see her friends. And so I'm frustrated because they're not following the parenting plan.
I'm following the parenting plan and it frustrates me that they are not doing that because I'm somebody that follows the rules. These are black and white things. There's really no gray area. It says don't take her outside of the county and they took her to Riverside County, which is not super far. But when you're a little bit scared that they might kidnap your kid, taking her outside of the county is scary.
During this time, I would have nervous diarrhea. So I would be stuck at home the whole time because I was so nervous and scared. He would pull all sorts of weird things like one visit, he was late to drop her off. And I was starting to freak out. And I was messaging Melissa, he's five minutes late. I'm so scared. I reach out to him. And he tells me I wanted to wash Emerson's hair.
Well, when I sent her with him, I packed a bag of food and clothes for the day because she's a kid and she gets dirty. He's not having her for an extended period of time. It's only six hours. And he said, Oh, she had sand in her hair. I'm like, Okay, fine. Hurry up. I'm stressing out. He
He drops her off. And I'm like, Oh, did your dad wash your hair? And she's like, No. And I was like, he did it. And she's like, No. I said, Did you have a bath? And she's like, Yeah. So I'm like, what the fuck are you giving her a bath for and not washing her hair when like, the whole thing is you want to wash her hair, and she's in dirty clothes. You put her back in her dirty clothes when I sent you his clothes. And I don't know if he was just trying to make me uncomfortable. It's
It's so hard having to like give your kid to somebody that you don't trust. It goes against every instinct I have. All I wanted to do was protect her from him. And here I am having to make it okay for her to go with him. Oh, it's heartbreaking. It was so, so terrible. In the summer of 2014, I filed for paternity to be established.
I asked the state to not include child support in that, mainly because I didn't want to deal with him. Money is a really big issue to him, and I didn't want any of that hassle. And it wasn't worth it for me for the small amount of child support that I would probably get. It wasn't worth the grief that would come with it. I asked them to establish paternity for my own reasons.
legal processes that I was going through with Chris at that point as we were getting ready to go forward in our divorce. Legally, I needed it to show on Ivy's birth certificate that Jake was her biological father. The state told me, "You can't ask for no child support. That's not allowed." There's a minimum that every parent has to pay, and I believe in the state of Washington, it's $50 a month. But they said, "That's not in your control."
So, of course, once he was served papers, it looked like I was the one asking for child support, even though I didn't really want it. He contacted me at that point. I hadn't heard from him since late January or early February. Quite a few months with absolutely no contact. And he contacted me by email and said, why are you doing this to me? I wrote back to him a really short paragraph that was fact-based. These are the reasons why.
I didn't get a response back from him. The next response that I did get regards to all of this was an email that came from Mimi. It was from her email and it was CC'd to Jake. It was really long. I'll summarize it. The email was titled future correspondence. It was basically her saying,
saying that all future correspondence regarding Ivy would have to go through her and that I was not allowed to speak to Jake directly. She went through her opinions on the whole situation and how she felt about it at the time.
having never spoken to her and not really knowing that much about her. It was, I'm going to be honest, it was really off-putting. It was a lot to speak to someone that you didn't know in that manner. But I also didn't know where that was coming from. If Jake had her write that,
or if they wrote it together. But I also knew after reading that I didn't like how it made me feel. I didn't like being talked to like that. I felt like I was being preached at and talked down to and told this is how it's going to be. I didn't think that that was appropriate coming from someone that really had no part in the parenting aspect of all of this. When I responded back, I responded back to Jake all
only and said, this is a co-parenting issue. If you want to talk to me about Ivy, you can talk to me. I'm not going to talk to some person that I don't even know that's never met me, that's never met our daughter, that doesn't know anything that I've been through, has only heard your side of this, which most likely is lies. This is not going to happen. That upset Mimi. She responded back again with a pretty,
I would say mean email that was attacking my character. And she accused me of using Ivy as a tool or a weapon to try and hurt Jake. I'm sure from everything that he was telling her, that's how it appeared from her point of view. I didn't know her for one. So I wasn't going to get into deep feelings with this person that I don't know. I wasn't in a headspace to deal with...
another woman after everything that he'd put me through. I didn't think it was unreasonable for me to say, you should be able to talk to me or at the very least, find a neutral third party. I don't think your girlfriend is a neutral third party person that should be handling all of this. It was pretty back and forth. At some point, she said, fine, if you want it that way, I'm hiring him a lawyer, and we'll fight this out in court. And she did. She hired him a lawyer.
I already had a lawyer. I wasn't overly concerned with any of it. He eventually agreed to the parenting plan that I set forward, which I asked for visitation to be at my discretion because I didn't believe that he could be consistent.
And I didn't want to be tied down to him having once a week visitation or whatever it was every single time, knowing that he was probably not going to show up for most of them. So I just had it written into the parenting plan that he could ask for visitation whenever he wanted it. And I would make the time for him to see her.
He actually moved back to Yakima, which is our hometown and where I live. Him and Mimi moved here to live with his parents in their guest house. He was going to be local. He sporadically would see her, but not very often. It would be a visit here, a visit there. He would go one month seeing her once a week for a few hours, and then...
He'd go like three months without seeing her. It depended on how his relationship was with Mimi, whether he was involved in Ivy's life. It depended on whether he was stable with Mimi or not. It was very much painted to me that she was extremely threatened by me, that she didn't want...
Jake to be around me at all. When they were fighting, he would back off and not show up for visits with Ivy. He wouldn't want anything to do with her. He would use that as a way, I think, to manipulate Mimi as well. Looking back now and knowing what I know,
I understand that there was a lot of triangulation happening between the three of us. It made for a really toxic situation. It was nonstop, honestly. It was him telling Mimi that I was obsessed and in love with him, according to what she's told me before.
he would tell her things like, if you can't be a good partner, I'll just go back to Melissa. Things like that to make her feel like there was a threat there.
He was constantly telling me how unstable she was, that she was, in his words, she was crazy and abusive, which made it hard for me to want to send my child to their home. I don't want my child in this environment. If you two are that unstable in your relationship... At one point, Jake actually agreed that...
Maybe it's best for Ivy to not be around both of us until we're able to go through therapy and work on our relationship. I appreciated that. And he said that he would do his visits one-on-one. Usually every Wednesday, he would have her for two to three hours in the afternoon. And I found out later after him making this whole gesture about, I want to have just one-on-one time with Ivy.
They never went to therapy during that time. He was putting her in the car and driving her over to spend time with Mimi. So he was lying the whole time about all of it. I was constantly catching him in lies. Not to mention, by this point, she's a toddler and she's still struggling not wanting to go with him because he's been so inconsistent. There's no real bond there. There were a couple times where him and Mimi broke up
It was definitely more calm during those periods. And then she would come back and the group chaos would start up again. This season, Instacart has your back to school. As in, they've got your back to school lunch favorites, like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back to school supplies, like backpacks, binders, and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow.
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The next visit was without her and Bowie was with him. It was like the first time she had ever been sunburned in her life. He took her to the beach all day long, did not bring water or food and was eating all of her stuff and drinking all of her stuff. When I got back to her, she's like, I'm so hungry. I'm so thirsty. And she was like a little lobster.
I took her to get Thai food and she ate an adult portion of food and drank like four glasses of water. And I'm like, who is this kid? She was so hungry and thirsty and I felt so bad. I am allowing this neglect to happen because the court is forcing me and it sucked. It felt so bad. I had no control. I can't protect her in these situations.
He would get four days with six hours at a time, but he'd usually only take two of the days. They came with their supervised visit with his parents. This visit was especially hard on her. I was actually really surprised because I thought, oh, with her brother there and her grandparents, she'll have a good time.
She had a loose tooth. It was her first tooth that she lost. She was sad that I wasn't there. She wasn't even that excited about it, which was such a bummer. She should have been really excited. It's her first tooth. I was like, "It's okay. The tooth fairy comes anyway." That was their last visit, and that was the last time that he saw Emerson in person.
This is a little bit mean on Melissa and my end. Sometimes we would use that blue sky as a way to anonymously send things to people that Jake was seeing. Then blue sky turned into this bigger entity that it wasn't before. Melissa finds in the Dropbox
a naked picture of someone he took while he's with Mimi. She sends it to her via Sky Blue to be like, hey, he's taking pictures of girls like this. Maybe you're interested. It was an American flag wrapped around this
girl and she was naked. And apparently that was like a big sore subject for Mimi. Obviously she didn't trust him because why would she? They were living at his parents' house. They had a little apartment attached to their house. They were living in there and they got in some huge fight. Mimi ended up talking to Melissa and I on three-way. This was maybe one of the first times that we talked on the phone.
We didn't ever do three-way calls together, so this was a very unique situation. She told us about the abuse that happened. It sounded really familiar to situations that I experienced. She would talk about how he would be yelling. I'm like, oh yes, I remember the yelling. The difference was it sounded like she would fight back.
And, you know, good for her because it wasn't anything that I felt comfortable doing. I was always so scared that he would kill me or hurt my daughter that I would be really agreeable or try to diffuse any situation. But it sounded like with Mimi that she fought back and he ended up choking her until she blacked out.
In the text messages that he sent me about it, she was enraged and he tackled her because she was apparently hitting him. And he said she bit him at some point during all of this and that he got her to the ground to try and keep her from hurting him and to get her to calm down. And in his words, in the process, I'm sure in his mind, accidentally strangled her, which
which is just absolutely ridiculous. It was like, I'm the victim in all of this. Why does she get to be the one that has all of her friends comforting her when I'm the one that has done everything for her? I mean, it was just so over the top ridiculous. And I knew that he was full of shit. Not too long after all of that, I sent those screenshots. I emailed them to Mimi and CC'd Jake.
Because I knew he was lying and I knew that his version of the event were not probably very accurate. Of course, his response back to that was, well, she remembers it differently than I do. Well, of course, because your version wasn't the truth, I'm sure.
Mimi uploaded pictures of her neck, his thumbprints from that incident. There's bruises on her neck from that. I don't remember if she wrote out exactly what happened. I think there was a whole post though. Yeah, I'm looking at it now. There's a whole post.
There's a photograph of her neck and there's multiple places that look like fingerprints. It says, this story is hard one to tell. I was 120 pounds and he was easily 220 pounds. His eyes turned black, his body pinning me down on the ground with his hand on my throat, telling me to say goodbye to everything I loved and take my last breath. I thought in that moment that I was really going to die and everything started to go dark and he let go.
It's definitely interesting to read the texts from him versus like what she said. You can definitely see in those text messages from him where he likes to shift things. I was pretty shocked.
He was going to come for another visit and he wanted to bring Mimi with him. And I said, you guys cannot have unsupervised time with her. Even though my court paperwork said he could have her unsupervised. I was like, no, I am not letting you have her unsupervised. Your parents have to be there. I know that he has impulse control issues. I don't know Mimi very well.
I'm not saying she can't come. I'm just saying that somebody else has to be there because if something happens and you get angry at her, I don't want my kid caught in the middle between the two of you. And he agreed.
The tea kettle incident was why I said I didn't want Ivy to be one-on-one with them while they were so unstable. I had no clue what their house looked like. I just assumed knowing him, it's probably actually worse than what he's saying. During all of this, when you occasionally look at his social media or her social media,
a picture is being painted, they're deeply, heavily involved in their church. Everything is based around God and being good people and having a healthy relationship and all of these things. So when I'm finding out that he's strangling her...
It does not match at all with the vision and this like picture that had been painted of what their relationship was. I didn't want her to be exposed to any of that. I just said no. And he agreed and said, I'm just going to have one-on-one visits and work on building my bond with Ivy and focus on that. And in the meantime, I'm going to be going to therapy and working on my relationship with Ivy.
Mimi. He also told me, I'm so serious about all of this that I'm actually giving up sex too. We're not even going to have sex. We're just going to work on our relationship.
Knowing him, I obviously knew that was a lie too. That video that's on the Instagram was in that time frame because that's actually what Mimi was asking for. She was asking for them to take a step back, not have sex, work on their relationship, work on the issues without there being anything else. Do therapy and he was obviously not a fan of that idea with seeing that video and his reaction.
What's the difference between then and now? Why is it that you think that a relationship based around sex is a relationship- It's not! What the fuck, man?! I have done everything for this! What?! I'm gonna record you if you're gonna act like that. I fought so much for this relationship! Don't do this! You're asking me to give up something that matters to me.
that matter so much to me. I have said, if you can't get over it, then leave. No, what I'm asking you- If you can't get over being able to have kids, then leave. I'm telling you, here's your fucking door. It's open. I'm not going to fight for you. If that's what you want to do, then leave. I'm recording you just so you know. I don't give a fuck if you're going to quit. What are you going to do? Put it online? What I've said multiple times is if this is something that you cannot get over, then I can understand that. You can go.
It's exactly what I've said over and over again. No, I mean like... That is exactly what I've said. That is exactly the conversation that we had. Do not deny that. I'm not denying that at all. What I'm asking you is if I can sacrifice something so large for you in this relationship and for this relationship because I love you that much and that's something that I'm willing to do. No, I'm not willing to sacrifice sex. Sorry. That's what you're trying to get at. No, you're not.
Mimi moved out and moved back to Seattle and she wasn't around and things had been, I'm not going to say great, but they had been okay-ish for a month or two. Fall 2015, I had a knock on my door in the evening and it was a police officer.
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I was really confused why there was a cop at my front door and he handed me papers. It was a harassment order. Jake had filed for a restraining order against me. It was really honestly a work of art. The way that he painted me, he claimed that I was nonstop harassing him, that I would contact him every week without him wanting me to, that I constantly would bring up nonstop
money that I claimed that he owed me. He said that I would show up randomly at all the places he was at in town, that I would drive by his house at all hours of night and he would see me out there, that he feared for his life, that I was such an unstable, unwell person and I was stalking him to the point that he feared for his life.
Never once in any of this did he say that we shared a child together. And when I'm contacting him or having any kind of communication with him, it was in regards to our child. The money he owed me was the child support he was refusing to pay or money for items for Ivy that I bought that he was supposed to pay me back for, like a car seat. He was constantly telling me, I'm broke, I'm broke, I have no money. So I bought...
all of Ivy's supplies for the visits at his house. So I bought a case of diapers. I bought some extra clothes. I bought some of her favorite snacks because he wouldn't have known the things that she ate and liked to eat. I was trying to make it as easy on her so she'd have some of the same things at both houses.
There were times where I was low on money and needed him to pay me back for things that I had paid for or money I had lent him or whatever it may be. So in his harassment order, him saying of all this money that she claims I owe her, most of it that I was referring to was money for our child, things that he was supposed to be paying for. We live in a fairly small town and I never ran into him. I never saw him at a restaurant. I
I never saw him at Starbucks. I never saw him anywhere. The only time I ever saw him was pickups, drop offs. And as far as driving past his house, his driveway is gated and like over a mile long. So I don't know how if I was supposedly driving by his house, which is nowhere near mine and out in the middle of nowhere. The whole thing was so ridiculous.
Every single item that he claimed in there, I had proof that it was a lie. So I hired a lawyer, which cost close to $5,000. That's the lawyer that I had used for all of my previous parenting plan and all of that.
She went through months and months of text messages, pulled out evidence to support everything to show that he was lying. I went in to meet with her and she said, here's my issue. Sometimes it doesn't matter how much evidence you have. She said, don't get me wrong. This is a slam dunk. It's so easily proven that he's lying about all of this. But
But this is clearly an incredibly toxic situation. And sometimes judges, regardless of the evidence, will put through these orders just to keep two people away from each other. She said, if you're okay with no contact, I want to move this out of the criminal side where one of you could go to jail and move it to family court and just do no contact for one year. And I said, absolutely, let's do it.
She contacted him and said, this is what we're proposing, told him that we're willing to
take this to a trial and she has witnesses and she has evidence. He agreed to move it to family court. She called me and told me that he agreed to it. And she said, can you come in this afternoon and sign the order? I came in and the elevator opened and he was standing. He had just left from signing the order. So we passed getting onto the elevator and he was getting off and he just smirked at me. I will never forget it. It was like this smirk.
smug, arrogant, I win type of look. And it was just so disgusting.
It was November of 2015 when all of that was settled. And I believe that we made it to January before he started contacting me again. The way that he told this story to me, what the actual truth is, I'm still trying to figure all of that out, what the truth is in all of this. But what he told me was when he filed that, they had started talking again. They had been broken up.
for a couple months. And he said that her stipulation for coming back was that Ivy and I be permanently removed from his life, that she would only come back if we were no longer an issue. That was his way to get rid of us and to get it taken care of that he didn't have to talk to me anymore. He didn't have to have visits. He didn't have to do any of it.
He kept apologizing to me saying, I wouldn't have ever done that on my own. He said that she came back and they worked on their relationship for a couple months and then she left again. And she had been gone for a few months. He asked to start seeing Ivy again, February-ish, March, when he started seeing her in 2016. We went back to every Wednesday. We still had a no contact order. So Chris or my mom would take...
Ivy to the visits and pick her up. I tried to stay as far away from all of it as possible. There was one day where he had a visit where nobody was available to pick her up. Jake said, well, I'm going to be at church shooting some event. Why don't you just have Melissa pick her up at the church? Someone from the church can walk her out to the parking lot if that is okay. Well, of course,
He didn't do that. He brought her out to the car. Communication with him started again after that point. Sometime in March, he went back to normal where he was texting me pretty consistently. He would take pictures on their visits of things that they were doing, mainly about Ivy. He didn't really bring Mimi up. He didn't talk about other women. I felt like that was the most stable that...
that I actually witnessed him. As far as his relationship with Mimi went, I don't think he had any contact with her at all in those months. She had left and moved back to Seattle, had blocked him, and I don't think they were communicating in any direct way. I'm sure he was still...
using indirect ways to try and get reactions because he always would do that with social media but she was not around during these months where he was seeing ivy i felt like in her whole life that was the only real effort that he ever made and it was really short-lived but i i
allowed him to take his visits because he was making an effort and he was staying consistent. It was important to me with my background, the
The last thing I ever wanted was for my child to feel the abandonment issues that I had felt growing up, having parents that abandoned me. I didn't want her to feel that way. So I always went above and beyond to try and help foster his relationship with Ivy and
Looking back, I wish that I wouldn't have because I don't think that he's capable. He's not capable of being what she needs in a parent, what she needs in a dad. That's one of those hindsight things. You always look back and wish that you would have done things differently. But I also feel really strongly that I did everything that I could have. There's nothing differently that I could have done that would have changed the situation or made it any better.
It was the middle of April. Chris dropped her off at the visit that particular day. And after a couple hours, Jake messaged me and said, hey, she's doing really good today. Do you mind if I keep her a little extra time?
She's having a really good day. I want to keep going a little bit. And I was happy to hear that. So I said, yeah, that's fine. And he said, oh, I really appreciate it. He's like, you don't have to come all the way into town to pick her back up. I'll bring her home later. I'll let you know a time. An hour later, he messaged me and said, hey, we had a little bit of an accident.
I was throwing her in the air like I always do. And I missed catching her on the way back down. I caught her right before she hit the ground by the side of her face. She's fine, but she's got a red mark on her face from where I caught her. And I was thinking, that's bizarre. But is she okay? And he said, oh, she's fine. She's running around. I'm going to bring her home in just a little while. He brought her home about an hour later. He gets her out of the car and...
Before he even hands her to me, I can see the side of her face and his hand is deeply bruised. You can make out every single fingerprint, every finger onto the side of her face and onto her neck. I played it off. He's like, oh, she looks so bad, but she's doing good. And she fell asleep on the way home.
I took her inside. I knew that he was lying. I took pictures and sent the picture to Kaylin. I sent it to two of my other best friends. I sent it to my mom and probably to Chris. I didn't give any back story with it. Just said she came home from a visit looking like this to see what their reaction was. And they all said the same thing. Oh my gosh, he hit her. I just wanted to make sure that I'm not jumping to conclusions.
I first called her pediatrician. I was really careful that I didn't want to accuse him of anything. I said, hi, my daughter was at a visit with her dad. He was throwing her up in the air and he says that he missed catching her on the way down and caught her really weird by the side of her face.
And I want to make sure that she's okay, that she doesn't have like a neck injury or anything like that. Can I get her in for an appointment? And the nurse said, hang on a second. Let me, let me talk to someone really quick. And the nurse came back on the line and said, we don't
I drove her to the hospital. The pediatrician had called the emergency room and told them we were coming. Sheriff's office. Hello. How can I help you? This is Andrew Cunningham, New Orleans Memorial Hospital. I have to report a possible child abuse. And what did this happen? No, they did not tell me.
Okay, do we know if it was at a residence? You know what, I believe it was at the house. The following nurse did not relay that information to me. Is there any way we might be able to find out an address? And I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just trying to figure out the jurisdiction, the address of where it happened. Hold on, let me ask the nurse here and see what he gives me. Okay, thank you. Okay.
They were waiting for us when we got there. So we didn't have to wait. They had someone take us right back. I thought instantly, like, this is really weird. They put us in a room way far away from anyone else. The doctor came in and took one look at her and said...
I have to call CPS and I have to call law enforcement because this is clearly child abuse. They told me that when I called the pediatrician, based on the story that I told them from what Jake had told me, that they knew that it was child abuse from that or it was most likely child abuse. And so that's what they were treating it as.
We were in for quite the haul that day. We waited and they figured out if it was the local police department or the sheriff's department. We were trying to figure out where it had happened. He said it happened at home, which would have been the sheriff's department. So we waited and a sheriff's deputy came and
The nurses had told me, "CPS doesn't usually show up to the hospital, but they're probably going to contact you in a couple days." And I said, "Okay, whatever we need to do in this process to make sure this is thorough." But I was a little surprised when a CPS caseworker actually showed up to the hospital. They were all very adamant. There is absolutely no way that his story could be true.
I'm so proud of Melissa for handling it the way that she did. I knew instantly what had happened. I told her, I was like, oh my gosh, he hit her. We never anticipated that it would be even close to how bad as it was. It was like a hickey handprint on her face. She did everything right to protect her daughter. And I'm so, so, so proud of her.
I didn't ever go into any of that saying, I think her father hit her, even though I knew that that's most likely what had happened. I didn't want to say that. I wanted them to be the ones to say that because I was still really scared of him. And I felt more comfortable having it be like I took her to the hospital to make sure she didn't have a neck injury. She was just getting over having an air infection too. And
And so I had told Jake, I think I'm going to take her back to the doctor. She seems to be digging at her ear a lot still. And his response was, oh my gosh, her face looks terrible. What are they going to think? And I remember thinking like, I don't really care what they think. They're going to think that you hit her, but I don't care how that makes you look. I couldn't figure it out for the days after all of this. She kept touching her face and saying, ouchie, ouchie and saying, brr, it's brr.
I found out later from his CPS interview that the reason he brought her home late is because he was icing her face for like an hour trying to get the mark to go away. So she remembered that it was cold because he was holding ice on her face and it hurt at the hospital. I kept asking them. I asked the doctor. I asked the sheriff's deputy. I asked our CPS caseworker.
Are you sure there's no possible way that his story could be true? And I remember the caseworker, she pulled out pictures. It's like an example of different types of bruising. And she said, this is from a slap. And she was showing me on her face. This wouldn't come from a fall. This is a full force slap. You can make out every single finger and his palm. It's legitimately a full handprint. She's like, this was the full force of what you would use on an adult.
I felt so guilty because I felt like I had put her back in that environment and I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have allowed him to have his visits. I should have just stuck to my guns and said, no, this is what you wanted. We're sticking to it. And it never would have happened. I felt so many different things. I was angry. I was disgusted.
It was so many emotions. And I remember meeting so many people that tell me, no, he hit her because I was so scared to accuse him of that. I felt like I was scared of what kind of outburst or reaction or what his reaction was going to be to all of that. I'm so sorry. Of course you would. That's terrifying. Yeah, it was a roller coaster for sure. Yeah.
We were at the hospital until the evening.
late into the evening. They put through an emergency restraining order so that he could not come anywhere near her. They took the police report. The doctors did a full exam. Some of it felt like an out-of-body experience because I felt this is my child. They were holding her down. They wanted to check to make sure that he hadn't molested her. They said, these are all things that we see in addition to injuries like this.
The next couple days, I was in pretty consistent contact with CPS and CPS told me, "We're going to be referring your case to Seattle Children's Hospital." At the time had a team of doctors that reviewed child abuse cases for the state of Washington.
And she said, this is severe enough that I'm going to send this to that team to analyze her records and the pictures and see what their determination is. They came back a couple of days later and said,
This is extreme child abuse. To hit with that much force, she most likely flew across the room. For an adult to hit a two-year-old child with that much force, there's no way she stayed on her feet. They were concerned that she could have bone fractures or other injuries that might not be overly visible. So they ordered full-body x-rays.
We had to go in and that was traumatic for her too because it took five nurses to hold her down while they went
body part by body part and x-rayed her. All of this is just horrendous to watch. I'm getting madder and madder by the day. At this point, he's still communicating with me. I'm listening. I'm not really saying much. I'm not telling him what is going on behind the scenes. I did tell him, they think you hit her and
And they called CPS. And he's like, well, I didn't do that. I said, they're probably going to call you and talk to you. I tried to just play it off like they're just doing what they need to do. I didn't let on that all these other things were going on behind the scenes where he couldn't see it. After the x-rays came back, there were no further injuries. But.
But the sheriff's department contacted me. They called and they left a message and they said, we decided not to move forward with your case. We don't feel like this is a case that really should have charges filed. That was it. And I was super frustrated. A couple hours went by.
And I got another call from the sheriff's department. They clearly had the numbers mixed up because this call was a message for Jake, the detective left. I was confused at that point what was going on. So I called CPS to find out what's happening. And the CPS caseworker who is...
really amazing. I had a really good experience working with her and she was really thorough and took her time to like explain everything and the process. And I really felt informed every step of the way.
She called me back within five minutes and she said, okay, here's what happened. They declined to take the case. We don't do this very often, but she said, I referred this case to the upper management at CPS, like her manager. And that person reached out and said, we want you to reconsider this case. And that's why the sheriff's department took it because CPS contacted the detectives and said, no, we're not going to accept that. We want you to re-examine this.
And so they said, OK, we will. And they pulled Jake in for an interview the next day. That's next time on Something Was Wrong. He sat down for like a two hour interrogation interview. I said, I'm filing charges. 2017 is when they got married. He's like, I'm now working at this place called Converge Media. He really has good taste in women.
And Sarah was no exception to that. When I was in Seattle, he had actually already had the cameras installed in his house. 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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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.
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+.