S9 E9: He's Escalated
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Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences. Episodes discuss topics that can be triggering, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, suicide, and murder. I am not a therapist or a doctor. If you're in need of support, please visit somethingwaswrong.com slash resources for a list of non-profit organizations that can help.

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For those who haven't experienced interpersonal violence themselves, it can sometimes be confusing as to why some victims stay in abusive relationships. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports that a victim's reasons for staying with their abusers are extremely complex and, in most cases, are based on the reality that their abuser will follow through with the threats they use to keep them trapped.

The abuser will hurt or kill them or hurt or kill their kids. They'll win custody of the children. They will harm or kill pets or others. They will ruin their victim financially. And the list goes on. The victim in violent relationships knows their abuser best and fully knows the extent to which they will go to make sure they have and can maintain control over their victim. The victim literally may not be able to safely escape or protect those they love.

A recent study of intimate partner homicides found that 20% of homicide victims were not the domestic violence victims themselves, but family members, friends, neighbors, persons who intervened, law enforcement responders, or bystanders. The National Domestic Violence Hotline warns that abuse is about power and control. When a survivor leaves their abusive relationship,

They threaten the hold their partner has established over the survivor's agency, which may cause the partner to retaliate in harmful ways. As a result, leaving is often the most dangerous period of time for survivors of abuse. Fear, shame, gaslighting, normalizing abuse, intimidation, low self-esteem, lack of resources, disabilities, immigration status, cultural context,

children, and coercive control are just some of the reasons victims have difficulty leaving their abuser. The cycle of abuse, tension, explosion, love bombing, can lead to what psychologists call trauma bonding. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, biologically speaking, the bonds we develop originate from our infantile dependence on someone else for survival, usually our primary caregiver or parent.

Survival is the foundation of human attachment. So when safety is threatened, i.e. trauma, we naturally turn to someone seen as the caregiver in our lives, someone who provides support, protection, and

and care. When this bonding occurs, oxytocin, often called the love hormone, is released in our brains, furthering comfort and attachment with the caregiver. In adult relationships, this caregiver is often our significant other. We can see how then trauma bonds occur. When the person we regard as our significant other, the caregiver,

is also the one creating trauma by threatening our safety through abusive behavior. Given that we are hardwired from birth to turn to an attachment figure when threatened,

we naturally turn to our romantic partners when abuse occurs, even if they're the ones who are being abusive to us. This leads to victims feeling bonded to their abusers. We also have a tendency to try and make sense of our experiences, and so we work hard to rationalize the dissonance between our abusive partner's caring and harmful actions. This rationalization strengthens the bond further.

On top of all of that, abusive partners often promise change and actively tend to the wounds they create, precisely at those moments when we feel most vulnerable and hurt. The danger of traumatic bonding lies in the impact repeated trauma has on us.

and while some effects are more overt, such as marks from physically abusive behaviors, others may be less noticeable. One common impact of experiencing any type of abuse is overproduction of cortisol, normally released to provide energy when we're faced with stress,

Too much cortisol can damage our immune system and make us more susceptible to illness, cause anxiety, and create high blood pressure. On top of physical marks or the overproduction of cortisol, there are a slew of other health concerns that may result from abuse. From asthma to fibromyalgia to sexual dysfunction, flashbacks and depression, repeated trauma can impact our physical health in surprising ways.

With our understanding of what's behind traumatic bonding and its dangers in mind, it's worthwhile to take steps towards overcoming the trauma bonds. While it may be easier said than done, it is still entirely possible. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is Something Was Wrong. I think you know me, you don't know me.

So Christmas Eve, I'm hanging out at the house with my kids. We're having a good time. And I get a knock on my door. And I look through the doorbell camera and there's a guy

carrying a couple of like small wrapped presents. And I can hear him through my camera saying, oh, special delivery for Mr. Kenji and his kids. I have a special Christmas delivery. And I immediately knew right away, okay, this guy, you know, I never seen this guy before. I don't know who he is. I don't know why he would be bringing wrapped presents for me and my kids.

But I didn't answer the door. He stays there and he keeps knocking and knocking for a couple minutes. And I kind of had a hunch that he was a process server or something and that he was trying to get me to come to the door so he could serve me. So I just didn't answer the door. And eventually he leaves. And I wait a few minutes and I open the front door to see if he had left the presents or whatever to see if he was actually legit. And sure enough, there's a stack of papers on my doorstep. And it was another restraining order from Artie.

Which, by the way, this guy illegally served me because I never answered the door. He just left the papers there. But regardless, I pick up the papers, I look through them, and the restraining order application already says he needs protection from me because I'm continuing to contact and harass his girlfriends. And so he attaches some screenshots of the text messages I had sent to Valerie and Barbara when I had asked about the car keys the previous month.

And then he also claims in his restraining order that I created this website about him that's slanderous and all this stuff. And then he attaches just screenshots of the website. No evidence to prove that I was tied to the website in any way. So when I see this, I'm pissed. It's Christmas Eve. I'm trying to enjoy the holiday with my kids. This guy had just hacked one of my social media accounts a week or two prior.

And here he is trying to file yet another restraining order against me, claiming I'm doing anything to him, harassing him in any way, which isn't true. It's the holiday. I can't get a hold of my lawyer then. So I wait until the week after when I tell my lawyer about this. And she suggests that we file a restraining order in response because, yeah, this is bullshit. He's going to drag me to court over, again, another set of false accusations and

he can't get away with it. So she encourages me to file another restraining order and I do and you know I attach all the stuff from the prior restraining order I had filed and then all the information about my social media account being hacked and I talk to Darcy and her friend and I

I convinced them to come and testify on my behalf and let the judge know that this guy has tried to get me fired from my job, has threatened to hire a hitman to murder me, has threatened to murder our kids. And they agreed. I tried to subpoena my work to get them to testify that I already had filed a bogus complaint to try and get me fired.

The appointed judge on Kenji's application was presiding over multiple restraining orders filed against Artie, so she decided to hear all the evidence at one hearing and make a ruling then.

Well, I mean, my lawyer said this was pretty much a slam dunk case at this point. Based on everything this guy had done, she said, I've seen restraining orders get granted for much, much less. You have so much evidence, so much detail here. You got two witnesses who are going to testify. It's like a slam dunk, right? And I thought the same thing. So the case gets postponed to February. I'm just kind of anxious to get it over with.

I just don't like this thing looming over me. I just want to get this restraining order. I want to get this done, close this chapter. I don't want to have anything to do with Darcy, Artie, any of this crap anymore. This has just gone way beyond anything I would have ever expected. So February comes along and I show up to court. We wait to be called and we're called in about 1030 in the morning.

Darcy, Danielle, and Kenji were all present in the court the day of their collective hearing, February 18th, 2021. The case takes up pretty much the whole rest of the day. At the beginning of the hearing, Artie tries to postpone the hearing, you know, saying that he hasn't had enough time to gather his evidence or subpoena his witnesses or anything like that. But

But yeah, it's clear that he doesn't have any evidence against me. He tries to say that I photoshopped some of the text messages and basically tries to discredit all the evidence I've got. It doesn't happen. The judge accepts pretty much all the evidence I submitted to the case and then in turn denies all of his evidence that he submitted because it's all hearsay. So like the text messages to Valerie and Barbara...

And because they weren't there at the court to testify that I had sent those messages and that they had responded the way they did, the judge didn't accept it because it's all hearsay. Because in a restraining order hearing, he has to prove that I did something to him directly to be threatened, harmed, or whatever. And me communicating with his girlfriends, there's nothing there. Not to mention I hadn't threatened them or done anything to make them feel fearful of their safety. I just asked for my car keys back, basically. Yeah.

So, you know, during the hearing, Artie's really flustered because he's getting nowhere. Every request he's making is getting shot down. My lawyer starts to go through the website because he accused me of creating the website. So she begins to cross-examine Artie about the website and he's trying to object or plead the fifth or whatever and

The judge is telling him, no, you have to answer questions about the website because you're accusing this man of making slanderous statements about you on this website. So let's go through each of the line items on the website and see if these things are true. And I think that was the best part of the hearing for me because the first thing my lawyer asked them is, you claim to be a doctor. Are you a licensed doctor?

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And my lawyer asks them, okay, where are you licensed to practice medicine? And he answers, in Europe. And she says, okay, which country in Europe? And then he says, the UK. And she says, no, which country in Europe?

And then he says, oh, England. And then she digs deeper and she asks him, okay, so where did you go to medical school? And he says, in Europe. And she says, no, where did you go to medical school in England? And he says, oh, you know, he's like fumbling around for a few seconds and

clearly trying to make up something on the spot. He says, oh, um, um, St. John's. And then she says, okay, what city is St. John's located in? And he says, uh,

in Oxford. And she says, okay, where did you do your residency? And then he says, oh, I didn't do a residency. And then she says, okay, well, you didn't do a residency, but you said you're a licensed doctor. How is that true? And he admits, well, okay, I'm not a licensed doctor. I never finished or whatever. And it's like, okay, instant perjury right there, right?

Everyone in the courtroom is like kind of rolling their eyes at this point. But my lawyer continues and she's like, okay, well, where'd you do your internship then? And he says, oh, at St. John's. And she says, wait, isn't that the medical school? And then he's like, oh, well, it's a medical school and it's a hospital. And everyone's just kind of like, oh my God, this guy. And then she continues to dig and she's like, okay, where'd you do your undergraduate studies? And he said, in Spain. Okay, where in Spain? Um,

the University of Barcelona. Okay, what year did you graduate? 2003. Okay, what year did you graduate medical school? And then he couldn't remember. He was like, it was either 2007 or 2008. And then we're like, okay, yeah, something's not adding up here. How can you not remember what year you graduated medical school, first of all?

But then the next thing my lawyer points out is, well, on the website it says you didn't serve in the military. Is that true? And he's like, oh no, I served in the military. And then she asked him, okay, what years did you serve in the military? And he's like, oh, from 2005 to 2007.

And so my lawyer's like, well, wait, how did you manage to get your bachelor's degree, go to the military and then serve two or three years there and then go to medical school and finish that in like a year? And then the judge stops that part of the conversation. She's like, okay, this is irrelevant, but everyone in the room knows that he's lying here. And looking back at the restraining order that Tammy had filed against him and the court transcript there, he told a different story.

In that court transcript, he claimed that he was born in England

and that his father was part of the Irish mafia or something. And so his family had sent him to Mexico to stay with family there to protect him from his crazy Irish mafia dad who was trying to come after him or get him. But anyways, nothing added up there in that story. And the story he told in our hearing was completely different. It's obvious to everyone that he's lying. I can see the court reporter there rolling her eyes. The bailiff is rolling his eyes.

During one of the breaks, he pulls me aside and he's like, yeah, me and my partner, we've seen this guy in here so many times. He was coming in with a British accent before. He doesn't have a British accent now. He's trying to say he made something like $30,000 a day or some crazy shit like that. And they knew he was full of shit. I'm like, yeah, you know, you need to go make sure the judge knows this.

because she's seen them in there multiple times too. I don't know how you can just come in here and waste everyone's time like this and just lie to the judge and suffer no consequences. So anyways, we get to the end of the hearing. Me and my lawyer are feeling really good about this. I thought she did a really good job presenting a really strong case against Artie. And then the judge comes to her ruling and

And first of all, she denies his restraining order against me, saying she doesn't find any credibility to his claims that I've harassed him or done anything to threaten him. But then she turns around and makes a ruling on my restraining order, and she denies my restraining order also. When we ask for an explanation, she basically says that she wasn't sure if my testimony was 100% credible. She felt like I had left out

some context and some of the text messages I had attached, which wasn't true by the way. The way I'd organized my evidence, I'd chopped it up and organized it by date to make it more readable. And she said she had wanted to see a full end-to-end transcript of all the text messages Artie had ever sent me, unedited, so that she could get the full picture.

You know, and I didn't know that. I would have gladly given that to her if I had known it. And the other thing she said was that Darcy had testified on my behalf during the hearing, saying that Artie had made multiple threats to get me fired from my job. He had made multiple threats to have me murdered. He had made threats to kill her, murder our children, so on and so forth. But she didn't find Darcy's testimony credible at all because of the fact that Artie has a restraining order against her, but also in and out of this relationship. And...

I'll never understand why. I mean, it seems like, I don't know what you have to do to be able to get a restraining order, but it seems like something really bad has to happen. Someone has to get seriously hurt or killed before a restraining order is granted. And I don't know how Artie managed to get a restraining order against Darcy. I mean, I think it was the fact that he convinced her that there was no hearing and he showed up by himself and Darcy didn't have a chance to defend herself. And it

It was extremely alarming to me for her to tell me that this guy is able to break into my house and I can't stop him. I can't control it because what if my kids were there that night? He had broken in and strangled her. What if he had killed her while my kids were there? What would he have done next?

I mean, I'm sure he would have gone after my kids next. I had to have a couple very serious conversations with Darcy about this. And I talked to her family too, where I'm like, I think I need to file for full custody of the kids because I just don't trust that they're safe with her anymore. I don't trust that she's able to make decisions to protect them. In every situation like this, she just shrugs her shoulders and says, well, I can't stop them. I don't have any control. And as a parent, that's a really scary thing, right?

I don't know anybody who would say that and just kind of admit that they can't stop someone from coming in and hurting them or potentially hurting their own children. That March, Darcy and Kenji went to a mediation hearing to reach a co-parenting agreement. During the meeting, both parties agreed that Artie would not be allowed around their children.

I agreed not to fight for full physical custody because she promised that Artie wouldn't be around the kids at all. I believe she's kept the kids away from Artie. And there have been multiple incidents the past few weeks where the kids have confided in me that they're scared for their mom. They don't like Artie. They don't trust him. They're afraid he's going to do something to their mom.

which is just really sad for me to hear. They're only six and eight, and that's a tough thing for a six-year-old or eight-year-old to process, to have to worry about their mom's safety when they're not with her. And my son especially, he feels like he's only eight, but he feels like he's her protector, he's her bodyguard. So he feels like he needs to be with his mom all the time so that he can protect her in case Artie comes around. And I have...

Major anxiety, anytime I see her name pop up on my phone, you know, anytime she texts me or calls me, I'm like, oh, great. You know, I'm just afraid to answer because I'm afraid to know what she's going to have to say. Did something happen? Are my kids safe? That's always in the back of my mind when my kids are with her.

I do feel like she's this toxic piece of my life that I have to kind of just manage and deal with now. She's very manipulative. She's like Artie in some ways where she likes to play the victim and turn things around and paint me as the bad guy.

It's just no fun to deal with someone like that. She doesn't have to be nice to me, but I just want her to get better just so our kids can have the mom they used to have because she was, honestly, she was a really good mom to them when they were younger. A really good mom. And my kids had a great time with her, but the past year, year and a half, I mean, I can't imagine. I don't know what life is like when my kids are with her behind closed doors, but I can't imagine it's any fun. Darcy definitely is abusive in her own way.

As this evolved, when this was happening to me, and as I would tell my friends and other people about the story, pretty much everyone was like, in shock and disbelief. This sounds fake, right? Like you're making this up. Please tell me you're making this up. And I'd be like, no, this is the truth. This is what happened. This is what's happening. Then I'd catch up with friends every few weeks. And it's like a TV show for them. They would be like, oh, so what's the latest? What's happening this week? And I'd always have something to say.

And they were like, man, you really need to turn this into a TV show or a movie or something. I asked Danielle if she's been able to cut complete contact with Artie. No, I wish that was the last contact. Contact is a loose term. He will email me or text me or...

Send me some sort of note. He does it pretty much maybe every other week or so. I mean, I can read you the last email. He says, let's see. The last message I got from him last month was that we have a new court date for custody.

Get over it.

They're pretty much all different versions of this message.

This was around like three weeks ago, which leads me to a crazy development that happened yesterday.

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I literally looked up if Mercury was in retrograde. I was like, what is happening right now? So I get this note. I'm never on Facebook, by the way. Instagram all day long. Facebook, not my jam. I do have a Facebook page and...

I go on it every so often. But I happened to go on there and I was looking for something. I don't even know what it was. All I know is that I see this like message. Then I open it up and it says, hello. This may sound extremely strange, but here it goes. My daughter's biological dad went by the name Artie.

We have no contact with him. She was asking questions about him, so I googled his name to hopefully find a recent picture to show her. When I did, I came across a website that mentioned that he had other children. Also mentioned was a court case involving him and someone with your name. I was wondering if this could be you and if you also have a daughter with him. My daughter has expressed interest in meeting her siblings if she has any. If

If this is not you, I apologize for the inconvenience and complicated story. If it is you, I would love to speak with you or respond. And I'm like, please call me. And then I added her as a friend and she accepted the friend request. And I'm still waiting for a call. So an hour later, I saw that she had posted. I messaged her. I'm like, you found the right person. Is there any way we can talk tonight? She's like, yes, let me put my kids down to sleep and I'll give you a call.

the longest hour of my life. It was so long. It was such a weird thing because obviously I just wanted to pounce on her and be like looking at everything. I could tell from the pictures and the dates that her child was about 12 years old. I didn't know that this happened before I was in the picture, but I had a million questions. Did Artie give her the same story that he's given everybody else? I

I'm also trying to figure out this timeline of when he became already full-time. She actually helped connect some dots for me. She did tell me that she had dated him for a couple of years and that she became pregnant. And he wanted her to have an abortion because he was not ready to be a dad. And she said, I don't think I'm going to do that. I'm going to raise this child on my own. That's totally cool.

I get it if you don't want to be involved. She said that she actually knew him as his real name. She had met him through friends. She had known him as a friend first before they started dating. But at the time, she also knew that he had occasionally gone by a nickname of Artie.

He wasn't being called it full time back then, but it definitely popped up as a name. She did say that he liked to joke around and talk in a British accent at times just for fun, but he wasn't full on using it at that time. I said, did you meet his family? She said, yes. She had met his father and his stepmother and his four siblings.

He has had a rocky relationship with his father. She said the mother moved away to a different state when he was young. He had told her that he had always been close to his mom, so the reason he didn't have a good relationship with his dad was because he didn't like how his dad treated his mom. She did say, take everything with a grain of salt, because obviously we know we can't really trust anything that comes out of his mouth.

They know about her daughter, but they're not really involved in her life either. I asked, did she know that he was married the first time? And she said she knew about the first marriage. I mean, he had lied to me about it, but she knew about the first marriage. I had told her that he had said to me it was a childhood friend of his that had died when she was 16.

Stacey was like, yeah, oh, he did say that to me too. But I think what ended up happening is like he later admitted to me it was actually the first wife's name, the nickname of the first wife. Again, really like, who knows? He could have been lying to her again, you know, for all we know. The other thing she told me was she said that my daughter's name, that he had tried to get her to name her daughter that exact same name.

She was born with his fake last name. And I luckily was able to change that. So I don't have any regrets about naming her that. But it was an interesting tidbit. And ultimately, Stacey made me feel really great in the sense that she connected a lot of dots for me. I do know they parted ways in 2009. So just two years before he met me.

Somewhere between 2009 and 2011, he fully moved into the Artie identity. She thinks that because he was kind of estranged for his family, it was an easy transition for him. She also said that while he was controlling and verbally abusive when they were dating, it wasn't to the level that I described to her about the abduction and the gun violence and everything.

She did say, you know, it sounds like he's gotten worse. He's escalated. Our daughters are going to meet in a couple of weeks. So I'm actually really looking forward to this. I hope that the girls do get along, that they do form a bond.

I would love, just like in my email to Tammy, I would love for something good to come out of this. I'm good at one child. I'm like turning 41 this year. That door is closed for me. So the fact that my daughter does get a sibling and

And that Stacey is so incredible and also wanting to allow this is something that I hope blooms into something really meaningful for both of our daughters and healing for them. I hope that they see that even though they don't have contact with their father, that they both have something really meaningful and good in spite of that.

And who knows? It would really not surprise me if I got another message like this later on. At this point, we don't really know. But I will say this. It reminded me that when we were first dating, I remember him being 26 and I was 31 when we met. And one of the things he talked about was wanting to have kids and wanting to have kids before he was 30.

And when she was born the following year, he turned 30 and he's like, oh, great. I did it. I had kids by the time I was 30. But really, he had at this time a six year old already.

I call Kenji my liberator, but he's definitely been a big rock. And maybe that's part of why the healing process has been a little easier for me because I have had somebody who understands it that I can go to. I try to limit what I tell my girlfriends because I don't want to overwhelm anybody. It's like, oh, this again. But

But with Kenji, we can call each other for every little thing, no matter how many times a day or week it happens. And neither of us are going to be like, oh, this again, because it's something that's prevalent and relevant for both of us. So I do think that that's been a huge source of my healing and being able to move on so quickly is being able to talk through that with somebody. And I have a therapist, too.

She's been like a rock for me through this whole situation as of July when I got in contact with her. Because like I mentioned before, you know, I would talk to my friends about this and stuff and they'd be like, wow, you know, I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope things get better. But fortunately, none of them had ever been through anything like this. So they couldn't really relate.

So being able to have someone like Danielle in my corner who had been involved with Artie but kind of on the opposite side and kind of been through all these horrible things with Artie, we had that kind of natural bond. And she's listened to me vent so many times frustrations, anger. She's been there to listen and support me. And it's just really good to have a friend like that who can relate.

And it's just kind of, I don't know, it's kind of weird that we met under these circumstances, but it's also been really good too. So it just feels really good. I'm glad that I was able to help her, help her family, help her get out of that nightmare she was trapped in. And yeah, I'm very grateful to have her in my life.

I remember I listened to some of your seasons and other podcasts and other TV shows like Dirty John and watching those. And I'm just like, wow, I've lived those. So I think part of it is sharing the story is cathartic for me in a way. It's helping me kind of finally put this in a box and shut the door on it and be done with it.

I think the other part too is just if in some way this can help other people. Like, I felt really good that I was able to help Danielle get out of the situation with Artie. My only regret was that I had contacted her sooner and gotten her out sooner, but I didn't because

Because I was scared. I didn't know who Artie was back then. I didn't know what he was capable of. I feel like if the story can help somebody in some way, or maybe there's someone else out there like me who's going through something similar and they have no one to talk to, no one that they can relate to, maybe this story will give them a little piece of comfort. I feel like keeping this all bottled up inside isn't the right thing to do. I don't think anyone else should be victimized by this guy or anyone like him.

And hopefully the story can help some people recognize, hey, you know, like I just met this guy online on this dating app. He's claiming to be this or that. Something doesn't add up. Something doesn't feel right. Hopefully stories like this can help people maybe step back and take a second look at the situation and hopefully prevent them from getting into a situation like Darcy got into or like Danielle got into.

There's always in the back of my mind that possibility that he could take that final leap, cross over into Dirty John territory and come after me or somebody else. If his verbal abuse has been escalating, I think his physical abuse escalates too. And I think that his physical abuse of others will continue to escalate until it becomes something that lands him in jail. That's my honest belief.

So all I do is wake up every day just profoundly grateful that I have a strong support system, a job that I love, and an amazing, healthy girl that I adore. I think I tell her every single night that she's my favorite person on the planet and that I have my freedom. And I'm the success story as far as I'm concerned.

Unfortunately, Danielle and Kenji continue to endure Artie's abuse and harassment. Danielle is currently working on writing a book about her experience and is back on the dating scene. Kenji is excited for trips he has planned with his kids, and they both continue to work with therapists to help them process their traumatic experiences.

Thank you so much, Danielle and Kenji, for sharing your story with us this season. If you or someone you know is being abused, the National Domestic Violence Hotline Advocates are available 24-7, 365 to talk through any fears, frustrations, doubts, or concerns you might have around your relationship. Call them today at 1-800-799-7233 or chat at thehotline.org.

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

Something Was Wrong is an AudioChuck original. Thank you so much to our team. Executive Producer, Ashley Flowers. Coordinating Producer, Mike McDonald. Mixing and Mastering by Kyle O'Connor. Created, reported, and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. Our theme song was originally composed by Gladrags, covered this season by Midwest Originals. ♪

So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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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+.