Speaker 1: This episode contains mentions of graphic or sensitive material that
Speaker 1: may be triggering. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: Crime A.
Speaker 3: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the show made by
Speaker 3: the Crime Junkie Ashley Flowers for those who are Crime
Speaker 3: Junkie AF, and today I have not one, but two
Speaker 3: special guests that are here to share their incredible story
Speaker 3: and listen. I've covered a lot of cases, but this
Speaker 3: one is wild. It made headlines in twenty fifteen when
Speaker 3: it was falsely dubbed the Real Life Gone Girl, and
Speaker 3: their story was also chronicled in a widely popular Netflix docuseries,
Speaker 3: American Nightmare. You guys have also co authored a book
Speaker 3: titled Victim f from crime Victims to suspects to Survivors,
Speaker 3: and you're now advocating for the wrongfully accused and convicted.
Speaker 3: And so I am so honored to welcome Denise and
Speaker 3: Aaron Quinn, doctors of Physical Therapy too.
Speaker 4: Crime Junkie AF Welcome.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I know that this weekend you actually right here in
Speaker 3: Indy in the flesh, because you guys were at an
Speaker 3: event working with an organization that does a lot for
Speaker 3: the wrongfully convicted on your life bingo card. Is this
Speaker 3: where you thought you would end up in what you'd
Speaker 3: be doing?
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. Yeah, No, I envisioned working as a physical
Speaker 2: therapist and yeah, maybe starting a family, which check check, Yeah,
Speaker 2: doing that but all yeah, no, how could you even
Speaker 2: imagine any of this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you want to Obviously, people can go read
Speaker 3: your book, they can watch the documentary. But for those
Speaker 3: who don't know your story, do you can you please
Speaker 3: walk us through a little bit of how you found
Speaker 3: yourself in the situation you are now, way back in
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I moved to Vallejo, California in twenty fourteen
Speaker 2: to pursue a physical therapy residency to specialize in working
Speaker 2: with people with severe and eural logical disorders so traumatic
Speaker 2: brain injury, spinal cord injury gbs als and so it
Speaker 2: was a nine month residency. I was expecting to be
Speaker 2: there temporarily. I was not expecting to meet the love
Speaker 2: of my life, Aaron.
Speaker 4: Spoiler alert, We have a happy ending.
Speaker 2: But we Yeah, we met working at the hospital together
Speaker 2: and we had a shared passion for what we were doing,
Speaker 2: and we would just find ourselves at social gatherings just
Speaker 2: kind of gravitating towards one another. We talked about family
Speaker 2: and friends and sports and life, and I was surprised
Speaker 2: at how quickly we fell in love, were you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, without question? Was yeah, we just hit
Speaker 1: off right away, and like we would just spend hours
Speaker 1: talking to each other, and it was yeah, I'm pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, it was an ex did And also
Speaker 2: the timing was not ideal because Aaron had just gotten
Speaker 2: out of a relationship and his ex also worked in
Speaker 2: the hospital with us, which plays into a lot of
Speaker 2: Also what happened because she was the intended target of
Speaker 2: the kidnapping, and the police chose not to believe Aaron,
Speaker 2: partly because of the complicated relationship situation surrounding that. But again,
Speaker 2: our love was undeniable, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we just so that the when this all, when
Speaker 3: the story starts, when when all this takes place, you
Speaker 3: guys are actually like coming together right that evening to
Speaker 3: like have a talk about like what is our relationships?
Speaker 4: What are the next steps?
Speaker 3: And obviously you guys decided you wanted to move forward, right, but.
Speaker 4: Then your life took a left turn.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: What happened?
Speaker 2: Well, we went to bed that night and we were
Speaker 2: awoken into a voice saying, this is a robbery. We
Speaker 2: aren't here to hurt you. Stay calm, and continued speaking
Speaker 2: and instructing me to tie airon up. I was tied up.
Speaker 2: They put blacked out swim goggles over our eyes, headphones
Speaker 2: over our ears, with prerecorded messages of instruction. We were
Speaker 2: hoping that it was just a robbery. We could hear
Speaker 2: the other intruders downstairs opening drawers and a drill being used.
Speaker 2: And so if we both just individually thought, okay, if
Speaker 2: we're compliant and we do what they say, then they'll
Speaker 2: take our belongings, take our money. That's fine, then it'll
Speaker 2: all be over. But that's not what happened. And as
Speaker 2: the night progressed, they separated me from Aaron, and then
Speaker 2: I was told they were going to be taking me
Speaker 2: for forty eight hours. And initially the voice he was speaking,
Speaker 2: he said, you know this is we have a pro problem.
Speaker 2: This wasn't intended for you. We've got to figure out
Speaker 2: what we're going to do. But ultimately they decided to
Speaker 2: continue with the kidnapping. And I was putting the trunk
Speaker 2: of a car, what.
Speaker 3: Are you thinking? But at that point, you like it
Speaker 3: can't be a robbery in your head anymore.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I mean that at that point, I knew it was
Speaker 2: going to be taken, and I didn't know what was
Speaker 2: going to happen next. And we were forced to take sedatives.
Speaker 2: So at that point, the sedative's already kicked in. I've
Speaker 2: got zip ties binding me. I don't know what's happening
Speaker 2: with Aaron, and there's they're threatening us, you know, if
Speaker 2: you don't cooperate, we're gonna cut your partner's face or
Speaker 2: give electric shocks. We could hear tasers being or stun
Speaker 2: guns being like zapped across the room as threats, obviously,
Speaker 2: so it was hard. You don't want when it's just you,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe you'd fight, maybe you'd try something, but when
Speaker 2: they're threatening the person that you love, you don't want
Speaker 2: to do or say anything that could lead them to
Speaker 2: getting hurt or killed. And that's what they used against us,
Speaker 2: you know. And it wasn't clear what the kidnappers were
Speaker 2: going to ask of Aaron. They didn't specifically tell me
Speaker 2: because again I thought, I mean, I knew he had
Speaker 2: some money and is in the savings or something, but
Speaker 2: there was nothing in our lives that was out of
Speaker 2: the ordinary, that was that would lead us to think
Speaker 2: that anything like this would happen.
Speaker 3: So they take her away and you wake up, and
Speaker 3: then what happens.
Speaker 1: Well, they had provided instructions the night before saying that
Speaker 1: I need to give them two payments of eighty five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars to stay under the ten thousand dollars federal
Speaker 1: mandate report limit.
Speaker 4: They thought about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, the kidnappers knew where I banked, they
Speaker 1: knew where my parents lived, They had done their research
Speaker 1: on me, and so they also had threatened if I
Speaker 1: went to the police that they would go after my family.
Speaker 1: They told me if I called the police, they would
Speaker 1: kill Denise and basically just pay the money and we
Speaker 1: can move on with our lives. So they put me
Speaker 1: down at in my living room, which I had taped
Speaker 1: off areas where I needed to stay. There was a
Speaker 1: camera set up in the corner room saying that they're
Speaker 1: going to monitor me. They also said they had put
Speaker 1: a mirroring app on my phone so they could see
Speaker 1: if I was texting or calling anyone. And I was
Speaker 1: supposed to stay there till receiving instructions on going to
Speaker 1: the bank and they were going to follow me to
Speaker 1: the bank. Later. When I finally woke up from the seatives,
Speaker 1: it was like midday and I got some emails from
Speaker 1: the kidnappers communicating tell me about that they'll instruct I
Speaker 1: just needed to wait, basically, and then at a certain
Speaker 1: point I realized I can't trust these people. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously I didn't trust them in the first place, but
Speaker 1: it realized I needed to get help, and uh, eventually
Speaker 1: I decided to call nine one one, which is still
Speaker 1: like the hardest decision I ever had to make, because
Speaker 1: my feeling is if I call the police, I know
Speaker 1: I'm going to be safe, but if they can not
Speaker 1: per see I called nine one one that they will
Speaker 1: kill deniece and they were asking for amount of money
Speaker 1: that I could give them. But UH figured if I
Speaker 1: show up with the money, they could just take me
Speaker 1: and kill us both and then there's no witnesses. So
Speaker 1: when the police. But I decided to call the police,
Speaker 1: and when they show up the house or meet immediately accusatory, uh,
Speaker 1: asking if I've been partying, if I was on drugs,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I've been drugged by the kidnappers,
Speaker 1: but they kept on asking me, are you partying? Did
Speaker 1: you have a party last night coming on? No, but
Speaker 1: that's what they seem to focus on.
Speaker 4: Do you feel like you were like in the upside down?
Speaker 3: Like I feel like I would be so taken aback,
Speaker 3: but like I call you for help.
Speaker 4: What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Even the the camera that the kidnappers had installed
Speaker 1: was making some noises. They just went over and unplugged
Speaker 1: the camera and I was like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Like there wasn't a did not seem like they were
Speaker 1: taking any of this seriously, just like no gloves, yeah,
Speaker 1: no gloves, yeah yeah. And eventually they seem to back off,
Speaker 1: but they said like, come to the station give a statement,
Speaker 1: which I was like, I'm here to help to all
Speaker 1: get station. And I kind of already knew that they
Speaker 1: would at some point think that was just like love
Speaker 1: triangle that went astray between Denise and my ex. But
Speaker 1: I was like, I know that this actually happened. The
Speaker 1: evidence supports me. Unfortunately, I went in with like a
Speaker 1: mindset of an innocent person and you can't actually do that,
Speaker 1: because they very quickly put me in prison clothes at
Speaker 1: the police station and then started interrogating me for about
Speaker 1: eighteen hours, saying that I need to you confess that
Speaker 1: I killed Denise. I'm just making up this crazy story
Speaker 1: that no one would believe. And it's either I it
Speaker 1: was an accident or I'm a cold, calculated monster. But
Speaker 1: there was no question that Denise was dead. Went in
Speaker 1: to tective said, I'm not looking for alive Denise. I'm
Speaker 1: looking for dead Denise. And I've accepted that and you
Speaker 1: need to accept that. So they just hammered away from me,
Speaker 1: at me for hours and and I.
Speaker 2: Mean they stripped him down, naked, took photographs of his
Speaker 2: naked body, then put him in jail clothes. So it
Speaker 2: was just everything was very strategic to break him him down,
Speaker 2: which is what they do, and they isolated him from
Speaker 2: his family. His family was there. He kept asking for
Speaker 2: his family. They said, I don't know where your family is,
Speaker 2: and they wanted to see him.
Speaker 3: And it's like it's like they could only operate in
Speaker 3: the box that they knew and what what happened to
Speaker 3: you guys was so calculated and abnormal they could they
Speaker 3: only look at it through this like boyfriend kills girlfriend lens.
Speaker 1: And they also didn't actually investigate anything. And we find
Speaker 1: out later that they literally didn't look at a single thing,
Speaker 1: and they didn't bother reach out to other departments, which
Speaker 1: if they had, they would have found out the mo
Speaker 1: that was done in our case. There were similar crimes prior.
Speaker 2: To you guys, prior to us in the Bay Area.
Speaker 1: So they just straight up didn't do anything and just said, well,
Speaker 1: I don't believe them, and they're going to try to
Speaker 1: get a confession. That was like their only goal. Even
Speaker 1: after I asked for attorney, they didn't get me attorney.
Speaker 1: They sent my brother in who's an FBI special agent,
Speaker 1: telling him to try to get a confession from me.
Speaker 1: He's the only reason why I got an attorney because
Speaker 1: when they allowed him to leave, he was straight up
Speaker 1: in the parking lot googling criminal defense attorneys for murder
Speaker 1: in Vallejo and he ended up finding my attorney, Dan Russo,
Speaker 1: who was the only reason why I got out of
Speaker 1: interrogation cell, because they were just going to keep me
Speaker 1: there indefinitely.
Speaker 4: Until you broke exactly.
Speaker 1: And actually the detective told my brother, I would like
Speaker 1: to try a few more things and so get me
Speaker 1: attorney because it does not matter to them, because because
Speaker 1: they just can't they can hold you and just do
Speaker 1: that to you, and they'll and people generally don't think
Speaker 1: about like why would I confess to something I didn't do?
Speaker 1: And that's by if the hour after hour after hour,
Speaker 1: that's the only thing that they'll accept. They kept on
Speaker 1: telling me, you need to start the story over. That
Speaker 1: makes sense. We can't start with it. You know, three
Speaker 1: people breaking in your house that didn't happen, so tell
Speaker 1: us that you did it. And often a lot of
Speaker 1: people confess not thinking that they did the crime, just
Speaker 1: to get it to stop, because it's psychological torture. It's horrible.
Speaker 3: I've seen it happen over and over where it's it's
Speaker 3: they're like, you can get out of this room, and
Speaker 3: there in everyone's mind it's like, okay, well I can
Speaker 3: get help when I'm out of this room. Right now,
Speaker 3: I'm by myself. I'm with them, Like, once I'm out
Speaker 3: of this room, we can all figure this out. They'll
Speaker 3: they'll see that I didn't do it. But there is
Speaker 3: no getting out of that room once they get what
Speaker 3: they want.
Speaker 2: Right, And that's a thing. Confessions get convictions, even false confessions.
Speaker 2: So and jurors just don't understand the pressure that is
Speaker 2: put on the psychological manipulation. A lot of people think, well,
Speaker 2: why would you confess to something you didn't do. Wait
Speaker 2: till you're in that position and they're trained to break
Speaker 2: you down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's about eighty percent conviction rate if you confess,
Speaker 1: regardless of physical evidence. So there's been cases where someone
Speaker 1: falsely confessed they weren't even in the same state and
Speaker 1: they got conviction because of that. And that's a problem
Speaker 1: with our system here is that people were so caught
Speaker 1: up on gain confessions as like a gold standard. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. The confessions shouldn't matter unless there's actual
Speaker 1: evidence to back it up, which.
Speaker 3: There is a law corpus dilecti, like there is supposed
Speaker 3: to be that you're not supposed to be able to
Speaker 3: convict someone just on a confession. You are supposed to
Speaker 3: be able to show in physical events circumstantial evidence reasons
Speaker 3: why they could have done it as well stuff to
Speaker 3: back up that confession. But I've seen so many instances
Speaker 3: where that just like goes out the window.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean in the most tragic thing of it
Speaker 2: all is that they had Aaron's phone. They should have
Speaker 2: been monitoring it. Someone put it on airplane mode, and
Speaker 2: that first night they missed phone calls from the kidnapper
Speaker 2: who was holding me captive. They could have traced it,
Speaker 2: they could have rescued me, they could have spared one
Speaker 2: of the rapes that I had. Yeah, so it and
Speaker 2: it's just all because of their tunnel vision. They were
Speaker 2: just so focused on Aaron and they missed evidence that
Speaker 2: could have led them to be the heroes in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to continue how extreme it went. So police
Speaker 1: said I had killed Denise. I was able to get
Speaker 1: out of the police department. But eventually Denise was released
Speaker 1: by the kidnappers, and instead of taking it seriously, the
Speaker 1: police within hours said it was a hoax and that
Speaker 1: they try to pin Denis sign against each other, saying
Speaker 1: that one of us will get community, but not both
Speaker 1: to say that it's all made up.
Speaker 3: And at that point, is that just to like cover
Speaker 3: their own ass or did they do? You think they
Speaker 3: really like believe this in their hard of hearts.
Speaker 2: I mean they were angry. If you see the press
Speaker 2: conference Kenny park gives saying that it's a while goose Chase,
Speaker 2: We've plundered valuable resources on nothing, So I guess I'm
Speaker 2: nothing but he's smug, he is, he's angry, and we
Speaker 2: find out later that the chief of police instructed him
Speaker 2: before he went out there to go burn that bitch.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the mindset that they were in. All
Speaker 2: of these men had no idea anything about me. They
Speaker 2: interviewed my family. My family said all these positive things
Speaker 2: about me. One of the things that clicked to the
Speaker 2: lead detective was my mom told him that I was
Speaker 2: molested when I was twelve, and he was like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know, that could be a reason for some to
Speaker 2: make up a story like this. And at that point too,
Speaker 2: I'm still missing. My mom doesn't know if I'm really
Speaker 2: alive or dead, and she's having the lead detective say, oh,
Speaker 2: she was molested, Okay, then she you know, she must
Speaker 2: be suspicious.
Speaker 3: And they didn't know you from Adam before that, so
Speaker 3: like you guys have a history with law enforcement, like right,
Speaker 3: and again I decided.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Aaron's brothers in the FBI, like how you know,
Speaker 2: like what, Yeah, it's hard to understand that level of
Speaker 2: hate and that just that closed minded tunnel vision.
Speaker 1: Is just yeah, And I honestly can't tell you what
Speaker 1: the police were thinking, because like the mental gymnastics that
Speaker 1: they had to go through to get to a murder
Speaker 1: to now we're doing this together to end where's labeled
Speaker 1: the real life Gone Girl.
Speaker 4: I don't even know what the end goal would have
Speaker 4: been in their mind.
Speaker 1: They were saying. At least they mentioned that we were
Speaker 1: looking for our fifteen minutes of fame, which I was like,
Speaker 1: we have doctorate degrees. I mean, I I think I
Speaker 1: had a Facebook page. I don't like, we're not people
Speaker 1: trying to be out, you know, on social media, trying
Speaker 1: to expand ourselves like we're Denise's.
Speaker 4: There was nothing that would have given them that indication.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again they didn't. They can't express like why
Speaker 1: we would like any motivation to it, and it.
Speaker 2: Literally was they swear they just saw the movie and
Speaker 2: they're like, aha, you know, I mean, And that's a
Speaker 2: scary part that these trained professionals, including the FBI, you
Speaker 2: would think would know better and go buy a different
Speaker 2: standard instead of getting their tips from fiction.
Speaker 1: And to the point of where they put my phone
Speaker 1: on airplane mode the cannappers had called, they didn't track
Speaker 1: those phone calls till twenty four hours later they actually
Speaker 1: tracked them up to South Lake Tallahoe. They never went
Speaker 1: to South Lake Tahoe to examine uh the area at all,
Speaker 1: which we later find out Denise was held in Tahoe.
Speaker 1: Uh And after the press conference or to police sow
Speaker 1: as a hoax, the kidnappers even sent emails going like
Speaker 1: this actually happened. We'll give you all this evidence of
Speaker 1: like because they were stealing cars on the island, they
Speaker 1: had broken other people's houses there, they had been doing
Speaker 1: a string of crimes that they're like, this is what
Speaker 1: we've been doing, and we did kidnap them. And the
Speaker 1: police said whenever our lawyers was potentially writing the emails,
Speaker 1: or my brother was writing the emails, or we made
Speaker 1: it up because I had I was on next door,
Speaker 1: which is like, you know, a community message board. So
Speaker 1: they said, Aaron's on an active member on next store,
Speaker 1: so he knew about these crimes. I'm like, how the what?
Speaker 2: And there's details in the emails that were not posted
Speaker 2: on next door that you wouldn't be able to know,
Speaker 2: like the specific things that they stole, and then things
Speaker 2: that they didn't steal. They chose not to steal that
Speaker 2: over Xbox because they already had one, or so there's
Speaker 2: just things in it that like there's just no way
Speaker 2: we would have had that information.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just like, what's so insane to me is
Speaker 3: is this narrow mindedness, Like fine, look at you guys,
Speaker 3: sure exactly, but like also while you're at least exploring
Speaker 3: all of the options, but they truly went on a
Speaker 3: hunt for just the pieces that fit into this theory
Speaker 3: that they made up out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the lead detective literally says, I'm a puzzle maker,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna fit the puzzles together to make it
Speaker 2: look like you're a monster.
Speaker 4: I mean she said that out loud.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I recently reviewed the interrogations and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my, it's just every time. It's still hard that time. Now, Oh,
Speaker 2: he's still working on payroll and he's going to get
Speaker 2: the pension. He got promoted, he.
Speaker 1: Got awarded, he was given Officer of the Year that year.
Speaker 1: He's also was ahead of the union for nine years.
Speaker 1: So he has tremendous power. And we've heard from other
Speaker 1: officers in that department who say that this is what
Speaker 1: he does. He just bullies people. We know that he's
Speaker 1: withheld evidence in other cases. He lied on sworn statements
Speaker 1: in our lawsuit. He's I would say it slightly. He's
Speaker 1: just a dirty cop that has no accountability and no
Speaker 1: one holds him to any sort standard. And now he's
Speaker 1: going to retire with full pension and the city will
Speaker 1: be paying him. He makes over two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand a year and they'll just be paying him for
Speaker 1: his retirement.
Speaker 4: Does that make you want to flip the table? I
Speaker 4: want to flip the fucking.
Speaker 1: It's well, yes, it does, maybe a little bit more
Speaker 1: than that too. The problem is, like in Dean Sire,
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of things, like the Lucky Ones,
Speaker 1: out of this we weren't convicted, but that took us
Speaker 1: hiring criminal defense attorneys that cost us one hundred and
Speaker 1: forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: My brother's FBA.
Speaker 3: Don you think about that like that, Like one hundred
Speaker 3: and forty thousand dollars is not is not something that
Speaker 3: a huge majority of the world has has at their disposal,
Speaker 3: much less like that they can actually like put up.
Speaker 3: It's the system is.
Speaker 4: Not made for the people who often need it the most.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, and I mean my the only reason we
Speaker 2: could afford it my family was because my grandma passed away.
Speaker 2: The year before and my dad got an inheritance. It's like,
Speaker 2: how would I have even you.
Speaker 3: Know, you'll lose homes, You'll lose like exactly, you'll go
Speaker 3: into debt, like hoping that your life.
Speaker 2: We're both fortunate to have the families that we have,
Speaker 2: Like I've got a big family. Remember talking to my cousin,
Speaker 2: I'm like, how do I get because he's the first
Speaker 2: one I saw And I'm like, okay, we need a
Speaker 2: criminal defense attorney. I'm like, how am I going to
Speaker 2: pay for this? And he's like, don't worry, and he's
Speaker 2: we're gonna figure it out. We'll all be there to
Speaker 2: support you. But it just it is daunting, like how
Speaker 2: do we even how do you? How do you fight
Speaker 2: the FBI? Like who do you turn to? I mean,
Speaker 2: at one point, breaking point, I turned to Aaron sobbing
Speaker 2: because my mom was sobbing in the next room. She's like,
Speaker 2: why are they doing this to my baby girl? And
Speaker 2: I don't have an answer to give her. And I'm
Speaker 2: crying to him, going like who do we call? Like
Speaker 2: Obama's president at the time, Like do we call him?
Speaker 2: Like what a ridiculous statement, you know, like he's got
Speaker 2: more important things, But that's just the desperation and the
Speaker 2: power of the highest agency attacking you.
Speaker 3: Which is like to go back to I mean, this
Speaker 3: guy who's gonna go live his life with this pension.
Speaker 3: There's like it feels like there's no accountability. No, like
Speaker 3: you do. You wield so much power and you're given praise,
Speaker 3: but like when things go wrong, it's like, ah, innocent mistake.
Speaker 3: I mean like it's almost like that's what they chalk
Speaker 3: it up to all the time, like, ah, it was
Speaker 3: a mistake. You know, we tried to fix it. No
Speaker 3: big deal.
Speaker 4: But okay, it is a big deal.
Speaker 3: Like people lose their livelihoods to like if they end
Speaker 3: up on the other side. Most people don't end up
Speaker 3: on the other side of it.
Speaker 1: Well, they also kept on saying that this case was
Speaker 1: too bizarre or too crazy for anyone to solve. And
Speaker 1: then you actually look at like, well, you know, tracking
Speaker 1: the phone calls, you know, reach out at your job. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So they try to say that they weren't malicious, they
Speaker 1: just made mistakes.
Speaker 2: And still blaming us. So we pursued a lawsuit against
Speaker 2: the city and the police department, and throughout the whole
Speaker 2: thing were lies and well, we couldn't believe them because
Speaker 2: they weren't acting like victims, lying saying that I didn't
Speaker 2: say that I was a victim, even though I did
Speaker 2: say I was a victim of kidnapping.
Speaker 3: And I'd be so angry at that point too, and
Speaker 3: so like, I, yes, you're a victim, but I also
Speaker 3: be like.
Speaker 4: I don't have to act any certain way for you.
Speaker 3: You're coming from like my whole life.
Speaker 1: What's important though, there's no set way that victims act.
Speaker 1: And even during our lawsuit, weren't opposing the chief of police.
Speaker 1: He's told that, yeah, I'm trained that victims all act differently,
Speaker 1: and so like how it's a victim supposed to act,
Speaker 1: and like what we did was I called for help.
Speaker 1: I answered all your questions. I like gave you my blood,
Speaker 1: my DNA, I literally gave you a clothes off my back.
Speaker 1: And he's answered all the questions that she was asked
Speaker 1: until they accused her of her crime, and then she
Speaker 1: got attorney, which is all right, but they said they
Speaker 1: told me that she lawyered up and therefore that was
Speaker 1: a sign of guilt, not excluding the fact that the
Speaker 1: accused her of her crime, which you know, gat defense
Speaker 1: attorney is a good idea.
Speaker 2: They offered me a profit of agreement, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: what is that so, like, I mean, of course I'm
Speaker 2: going to get an attorney. You know, it's like you're
Speaker 2: diagnosed with cancer and then people go, oh my god,
Speaker 2: you got an oncologist, Like, well that's so weird. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like what.
Speaker 1: So all of this was to say is like the
Speaker 1: system can railroad people. And we have met people who
Speaker 1: have spent decades in prison and they are innocent and
Speaker 1: they eventually, you know, very few get exonerated, but they
Speaker 1: get their lives stolen. And there's tends to be very
Speaker 1: little accountability for the officers who do this type of thing,
Speaker 1: so especially when it's like in this almost wilfully ignorant
Speaker 1: or malicious way to protect themselves over protecting the public.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately now is that the officers involved in the case,
Speaker 1: but the supervisors who don't do anything about it. And
Speaker 1: went to the local prosecutor and she said, we asked them,
Speaker 1: like who watches the watchmen, right, like who police the police?
Speaker 1: And her response was, well, they do their own investigation,
Speaker 1: that they bring it to us, then we'll pursue it.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, oh, you get to grade your own
Speaker 1: paper and guess what, they always get an eight plus
Speaker 1: and then they.
Speaker 4: And they never get to go to the principal's office.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then they never turn away from it. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, so they are complicit with that too, and
Speaker 1: that just erodes like confidence, and it hurts, hurts the
Speaker 1: good officers who are doing their job because of bad
Speaker 1: officers get promoted, and it affects the culture and like
Speaker 1: at every level. And that's some of the hardest parts
Speaker 1: of this. Like you can understand, like there's the kidnappers,
Speaker 1: aren't you know, quote bad people, or there's people out
Speaker 1: there who want hurt or have power in that way,
Speaker 1: that's easier to understand than the quote the good people
Speaker 1: doing the bad things. And then not again, not having
Speaker 1: any sort of safeguard for that, they can just do
Speaker 1: that to you. And again, we're lucky that we had
Speaker 1: the resources financially and the support systems that with our
Speaker 1: friends and family. And then a few months later when
Speaker 1: the kidnappers attacked another family, which is even more of
Speaker 1: the tragedy because you when you falsely accuse or wrongly
Speaker 1: convict people, you let the real perpetrator go. And so
Speaker 1: he was emboldened to attack another family. And thankfully there
Speaker 1: was detective on our first case connected him to our crime.
Speaker 1: And that's why we were proven innocent. We were not
Speaker 1: not guilty, because it's one thing to be like, well,
Speaker 1: yeah they're still a little shady, but we're you know,
Speaker 1: we can't prove it, but they probably did it because
Speaker 1: for whatever reason they thought. But we're actually just proven innocent,
Speaker 1: which is so rare.
Speaker 3: And yeah, she made the hero wall. When I was
Speaker 3: watching her in the documentary, she was amazing. So there
Speaker 3: are there are They're not all bad, like there are
Speaker 3: no good ones doing the work, but it's really hard
Speaker 3: for them to do good work because they have to
Speaker 3: wade through.
Speaker 4: So much bullshit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Misty the detective was has told us that
Speaker 1: she had people not like vallejoll went call her back.
Speaker 1: There's like lack of communication, like everyone's like territorial and
Speaker 1: like it's almost like pissing matches, like it's like that childish.
Speaker 1: And she was really disheartened that way because she thought, hey,
Speaker 1: we're all in here, let's let's catch this guy, Like
Speaker 1: let's do the right thing, Like this is man is
Speaker 1: break into people's homes in the middle night he was
Speaker 1: he's raping people like, this is a really dangerous person.
Speaker 1: This is not This is not someone who was doing
Speaker 1: like selling drugs because they had no other way to
Speaker 1: make money or that or that's what they grew up with.
Speaker 1: He was trained, he's a Harvard lawyer. Lawyer or trained
Speaker 1: at Harvard law.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: This man had like a lot of privilege in his life.
Speaker 1: He just he's a pretor and you want he wanted
Speaker 1: to attack people and do it and he's a careful
Speaker 1: and patient criminal.
Speaker 3: Did he do did the next family what he'd done?
Speaker 3: You like, like, does it seem like he stalked them,
Speaker 3: knew about their lives?
Speaker 2: And I don't, Uh, I don't know if the stocking
Speaker 2: was as long, or if they if there was a
Speaker 2: specific reason that he targeted targeted them other than maybe
Speaker 2: just the location of their house. I think it was
Speaker 2: near a fire road, so that's where he escaped out of.
Speaker 2: But I don't, I don't know exactly.
Speaker 4: Did you guys ever get an answered as to why you.
Speaker 2: No, not a definitive answer. No. And again it's it's
Speaker 2: the I can't trust the investigation, so you know they've
Speaker 2: completely missed the opportunity to catch him even after I
Speaker 2: was released. Maybe they didn't rescue me, but they had
Speaker 2: the calls trace them to Southlake Tahoe. They didn't. From
Speaker 2: all the police reports we looked at, including the FBI report,
Speaker 2: there's no indication that they actually investigated. And again they
Speaker 2: attacked another family. And even after that, so our attorneys
Speaker 2: were writing the Department of Justice to say, we need
Speaker 2: new investigators, like this is there The lead FBI agent
Speaker 2: had had a prior relationship with Aaron's X, so there's
Speaker 2: a conflict of interest. You know, there's clearly people's judgments
Speaker 2: are are we can't trust them? Yeah, But then we
Speaker 2: had the djsa, it's not our problem and it's not
Speaker 2: a problem, and they can stay on the case, and
Speaker 2: we're like, how, I mean, just the.
Speaker 4: It makes you feel crazy?
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean you really do. Like I was like,
Speaker 2: is this my twilight zone? And I literally go crazy,
Speaker 2: like this can't be a reality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like it just feels so black and white
Speaker 3: what is right and what is wrong? And for people
Speaker 3: to be like, but this is just the way it is.
Speaker 3: You're like so wrong, Like oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got a lot of people in that position.
Speaker 2: Being like, oh, I've worked you know, law enforcement for
Speaker 2: twenty years. I'm the professional, and just like what, I
Speaker 2: don't know what you've been doing, but that scares me. Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 2: if you're if you're considered the best.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, they were. We were told often this is
Speaker 1: like how things are done. And then my brother is better.
Speaker 1: My brother's one of the smartest people I know. And like,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of colleague colleagues who are like
Speaker 1: dedicades smart agents, and we just happen to get frankly,
Speaker 1: just incompetent and shitty agents on the They aren't they're
Speaker 1: not equipped to investigate a case like this or that's
Speaker 1: not what their history was, and they shive got more help.
Speaker 1: But they would tell us like this is how things
Speaker 1: are done, Like well, actually, I know these aren't how
Speaker 1: things are done, and if if this is how it's done,
Speaker 1: then like we should probably change, like uh, and we're
Speaker 1: not expecting like law enforcem be infallible. It's really hard
Speaker 1: to solve cases. People make mistakes, but like you need
Speaker 1: to like upgrade and like evolve and like and not
Speaker 1: just like sit there and be like but yeah, this
Speaker 1: is okay, this is acceptable that we didn't do our
Speaker 1: job and then protect themselves. And that's incredibly frustrating to
Speaker 1: be in that field, Like we work in the medical field.
Speaker 1: Like you know, in the medical field, we used to lobotomies,
Speaker 1: like we did some terrible stuff, but we don't do
Speaker 1: those anymore because you learn from it. So like any
Speaker 1: professionals should learn and change. And like even the city
Speaker 1: of LeHo, the police department said they didn't make any
Speaker 1: procedural changes after this case, and so they don't want
Speaker 1: to learn and they rather blame us. And that's part
Speaker 1: of the reason why we keep telling our stories that. Yeah, again,
Speaker 1: the justice Department can like railroad people, and from outside
Speaker 1: you might go like, well they you know, they they're professionals,
Speaker 1: they investigated, like but you start digging deeper and you
Speaker 1: probably know more than us. Is like that, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of times where they just don't do their job
Speaker 1: and then they but they have someone in custody, so
Speaker 1: then that person becomes a scapegoat and people you know,
Speaker 1: listeners and stuff will probably serve on jury. Like you
Speaker 1: should understand, like just because on the officer said this
Speaker 1: person confess, Like, well, how was that confession done? Was it?
Speaker 2: Was?
Speaker 1: It actually backed up on evidence, like how many hours
Speaker 1: was that person put there? Like you need that all
Speaker 1: recorded because they leave you alone in a small room,
Speaker 1: air conditioning on, like no warmth, like I didn't get
Speaker 1: like you don't having food even if you're hungry, like
Speaker 1: you're away from your family. They just like they literally
Speaker 1: put you in a box and then keep going at
Speaker 1: you like we're mentioning earlier. So if someone confesses, and
Speaker 1: most confessions happen after like six hours, so someone they
Speaker 1: go like, oh, they confessed at hour twelve, then I
Speaker 1: don't give a shit what that Like, why they take
Speaker 1: twelve hours? Like do some actual investigation. Then people should
Speaker 1: really be skeptical of like what law enforcement's saying, because
Speaker 1: we are innocent till proven guilty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And even reviewing a lot of the court documents,
Speaker 2: the AffA David and the police reports, just seeing how
Speaker 2: much the narrative is manipulated in what they write and
Speaker 2: how they write. It's it distorts the truth definitely. And
Speaker 2: I think I saw one officer's summary and was like, oh, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is actually objective, But that was out of dozens
Speaker 2: of things that I've read from the officers. So it's
Speaker 2: it's a little.
Speaker 4: There's always a lot of context missing.
Speaker 3: I mean, even when if you're just talking about confessions alone,
Speaker 3: maybe there's a lot of it recorded now in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four, but when we started getting recorded confessions, even
Speaker 3: we work on so many cases that are older, what
Speaker 3: I see more often than not is we get twenty
Speaker 3: minutes of them saying that they did it in this
Speaker 3: like perfect story. And then what we don't get is
Speaker 3: the eighteen twelve whatever hours that led up to that,
Speaker 3: and the thirty five times they said I didn't do it,
Speaker 3: I didn't do it, I didn't do it.
Speaker 4: And I even had a.
Speaker 3: Case recently where they would like start the confession and
Speaker 3: something would go wrong. He's like, oh nop, we're gonna pause,
Speaker 3: We're gonna rewind the tape and like start again.
Speaker 2: Oh god, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So what people don't realize it's not just a confession,
Speaker 1: it's a rewriting of the confession. So they won't the
Speaker 1: auficers won't just take a confession. They'll go they will
Speaker 1: make it or as they were telling me, let's start over,
Speaker 1: so this story makes sense. And that is not uncommon
Speaker 1: that they go the person starts, not they don't know
Speaker 1: the details because they're falsely confessing and go, oh stop,
Speaker 1: let's add that detail because then they know when they
Speaker 1: get to trial. I think this person only knows details
Speaker 1: that perpetrator would know. But they fed them and if
Speaker 1: they don't record it before, you don't see the feeding
Speaker 1: of it. So it is a rewriting of it, and
Speaker 1: that it is hard for people to understand. Even the
Speaker 1: Central Park five case they had, they use five different
Speaker 1: confessions to convict all five boys. Uh, and they made
Speaker 1: one person he had to give them multiple different confessions
Speaker 1: to tie them all together. So that obviously went hold
Speaker 1: up if you compare him side to side.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: But the officers know that. And then again that's like
Speaker 1: they know confessions get convictions, and that needs to change
Speaker 1: because we're the only country that allows officers, like developed
Speaker 1: country allows officers to lie to the suspect. So they
Speaker 1: will continue to lie to you.
Speaker 3: I'm like, we've got your fingerprints, we've got your DNA,
Speaker 3: and they'll stay that.
Speaker 2: You made light of victims lie to family members like
Speaker 2: in our case.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and so like the only thing that the
Speaker 1: police officer said that was truthful to me was that
Speaker 1: they didn't believe me. I would. Yeah, that's the only
Speaker 1: thing that they said was truthful.
Speaker 3: When you guys, so you are one of the lucky
Speaker 3: ones that not only did you fight it and win,
Speaker 3: but you got proved to be innocent. What was life
Speaker 3: like right after that? I mean, did you dive headfirst
Speaker 3: into all this advocacy you've done or did you was
Speaker 3: there a moment where you just kind of like had
Speaker 3: to get your feet on the ground again.
Speaker 2: Oh no, It's been an almost nine and a half
Speaker 2: year journey. Initially, you know, it was about us trying
Speaker 2: to get all the information to defend ourselves because we
Speaker 2: were preparing to go to court and because they were
Speaker 2: threatening us with prosecution. And then uh, you know, my
Speaker 2: captain and rapist is caught for that other crime and
Speaker 2: then it's okay, let's focus on making sure he gets
Speaker 2: the largest sentence that he deserves to protect to victims.
Speaker 2: And so you know, in that three years of that
Speaker 2: criminal case and then our civil lawsuit, we were still
Speaker 2: silent and I was definitely not on social media because
Speaker 2: I was getting death threats and just hateful I just
Speaker 2: the worst things that people can say, and it's just
Speaker 2: all over the board, Like my looks and who I am.
Speaker 2: And it's just.
Speaker 4: Even after people knew that you didn't.
Speaker 2: Do it, Yeah, and then there was still the doubt.
Speaker 2: So that's the thing, you know, they say something immediately
Speaker 2: and they put it out publicly, and that's they plants
Speaker 2: that seed of doubt. And so people, because they believe
Speaker 2: so hardly about that, they don't want to let that
Speaker 2: go because they don't want to be like, oh wow,
Speaker 2: I was so wrong and I was so hateful with
Speaker 2: my incorrect information. So some people really like just hold
Speaker 2: on to it. Yeah, And I mean it took me
Speaker 2: a year to go back to work, one because I
Speaker 2: didn't know people would recognize me. And two I didn't
Speaker 2: know if I was capable. I mean, and it's one
Speaker 2: thing to like have something awful, it is violent crime,
Speaker 2: but have the whole world attack you have the people
Speaker 2: an authority that you're supposed to turn to for help
Speaker 2: attack you. It really makes you feel terrified to even
Speaker 2: like really enter life in society again. So it was again,
Speaker 2: it was just a really long journey. But along the way,
Speaker 2: you know, again, Aaron's brothers an FBI and so we
Speaker 2: learned a lot. We learned from other survivors and paying
Speaker 2: attention to these other stories, going oh my gosh, like
Speaker 2: it wasn't a one off. This isn't a couple bad
Speaker 2: apples and a bad orchard and Vallejo like this, this
Speaker 2: happens way way too often. I think we were watching
Speaker 2: confession tapes or something on Netflix way back then, and
Speaker 2: Aaron was able to predict verbatim what the investigator was
Speaker 2: going to say because it was all the script. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to pay you as a cold calculator. You
Speaker 2: fail this miserably, Like it's just all these and so
Speaker 2: that's what was really disheartening to see how common it was,
Speaker 2: and that's where we're like, okay, well this needs to change,
Speaker 2: and when we're ready, we want to speak publicly. But
Speaker 2: then also because of how misconstrued everything was in the media,
Speaker 2: we knew, okay, like, we can't trust putting our story
Speaker 2: out there through that medium unless all the information's out there.
Speaker 2: So we focused then on writing a book and that
Speaker 2: was several years of finding the right person, and then
Speaker 2: again we did the docu series. It was released earlier
Speaker 2: this year, but we you know, started with one production
Speaker 2: company decided no, that's not working, and then with this
Speaker 2: one We really made them work hard to show us
Speaker 2: that their goals were aligned with ours and it wasn't
Speaker 2: about just sensationalizing the event itself. But what's the bigger
Speaker 2: picture issues? Because you know, sad, anyone can be a
Speaker 2: victim of a crime, but you don't really know all
Speaker 2: the challenges you're going to face unless you're in it.
Speaker 2: And then when you're in it, you're traumatized and you're
Speaker 2: just like swim, you know.
Speaker 3: And how do you guys think now about trying to
Speaker 3: tackle some of those issues, Because it would be really
Speaker 3: easy if there was just one right where we could
Speaker 3: just be like, if we just fix this one thing.
Speaker 3: But it's sometimes can feel overwhelming because it feels like
Speaker 3: there are so many of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, our case seems like this, I don't know, perfect
Speaker 2: storm of so many different issues, you know, the biases
Speaker 2: against women and not believing women. And I mean on
Speaker 2: the FBI affid David, it said my start exam showed
Speaker 2: quote no signs of non consensual sex, even though I
Speaker 2: told them I didn't fight back physically because I was bound,
Speaker 2: I was blindfolded, I was held in a remote location.
Speaker 2: My life was threatened, his life was threatened. You know,
Speaker 2: so it's kind of like, well, of course I'm not
Speaker 2: going to have like physical, egregious injuries. But there was
Speaker 2: evidence in the start exam that indicated that an assault
Speaker 2: did happen or intercourse did happen within that like twenty
Speaker 2: four to forty eight hour period before, and that uh,
Speaker 2: there was bruce from him dropping me, and I mean
Speaker 2: there was consistency in what they found in the in
Speaker 2: the start exam to what I was saying. And of
Speaker 2: course the police never used that.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of aspects in our case that reach
Speaker 1: across culture, our current culture. For us, it's just trying
Speaker 1: to focus on it because there's so many worthy causes
Speaker 1: and we can't do it all right, So, I mean,
Speaker 1: you just don't have the like even the emotional capacity
Speaker 1: to to do this, you know, abc D you have
Speaker 1: to kind of focus on that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, one one organization we paid attention to early
Speaker 2: on was the Joyful Heart Foundation, which was they were
Speaker 2: working on ending the backlog of rape tests, because that
Speaker 2: was something that was so insulting to me. You know,
Speaker 2: they like say that this thing didn't happen. I have
Speaker 2: to take this four hour long start exam, wondering the
Speaker 2: whole time if they're going to use this against me
Speaker 2: because I didn't fight back, So I'm like, what are
Speaker 2: they going to find? What are they not going to
Speaker 2: You know, there was a female FBI in the room
Speaker 2: that I never talked to, was just like watching this,
Speaker 2: it just was all very You mean, you have to
Speaker 2: do it within forty eight hours of being being attacked
Speaker 2: is like one of the most exposing and vulnerable things
Speaker 2: you could do being a victim of assault. And then
Speaker 2: they just kind of they didn't use it. You know.
Speaker 2: Six months later, we're talking to the AUSA and I'm
Speaker 2: asking him where's my start exam? And he's kind of
Speaker 2: looking around the room, going like, Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Wasn't it so important that I get this done? Or
Speaker 2: was this just again like the light detector test deploy
Speaker 2: to see, Yeah, let's just degrade her and demean her
Speaker 2: as much as we can. I mean that's just what
Speaker 2: it feels like, right. So Yeah, there's like with us,
Speaker 2: it's complicated because even going through the court process, we
Speaker 2: see how many rights are the kidnapper, Matthew Mueller, how
Speaker 2: many rights he had compared to us, Like he represented
Speaker 2: himself at one point he was able to watch the
Speaker 2: rape videos. He had videoed me while he assaulted me,
Speaker 2: so he's able to rewatch it, and he in the
Speaker 2: preliminary hearing he had the right to cross examine me
Speaker 2: and Aaron, and it was only because he chose not to.
Speaker 2: But I'm sitting up there the whole time answering the
Speaker 2: most humiliating questions with the prosecutor in front of you know, media,
Speaker 2: my family about the details of the assaults. My assailant
Speaker 2: is watching me as I'm giving this description, and I
Speaker 2: don't know if he's then going to cross examine me,
Speaker 2: and then he goes, oh, no, I'm not going to, like, oh,
Speaker 2: thank you, You're the hero now, you know. But it
Speaker 2: was so it was a lot to realize how little
Speaker 2: rights we had as victims. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: I do believe, because we were suspects, that suspects need
Speaker 2: to have rights as well. So that's another thing that
Speaker 2: I learned about was Marcy's Law, and that organization is
Speaker 2: working to try to make amendments to each state's constitution
Speaker 2: to add a bill of rights for victims and some
Speaker 2: of the things I've when I was researching it, you know,
Speaker 2: the critics kind of saying, well, no, if you if
Speaker 2: you give victims rights, and that's going to take away
Speaker 2: the rights of the suspect. And I'm like, well, how
Speaker 2: that just because you name rights for one group of
Speaker 2: people doesn't mean that you're taking away the rights of
Speaker 2: other people, you know, within reason, right, But like these
Speaker 2: things are like treat victims with respect and decency, keep
Speaker 2: them informed, make sure that they're protected, and they have
Speaker 2: a level of privacy, like really basic, like basic stuff,
Speaker 2: but like we have to put that in. And what
Speaker 2: was really discouraging too was to realize that California has
Speaker 2: one of the most extensive amendments for victims, but in
Speaker 2: our case, it wasn't implemented. So if the people on
Speaker 2: the field don't believe in this or maybe don't know it,
Speaker 2: but if they're not implementing it, then what power does
Speaker 2: it have. So you know, those are just you know,
Speaker 2: And then we've been paying attention to the Innocence Project
Speaker 2: and like watching case after case, you know, the confession
Speaker 2: tapes and other like making a murder, you know, all
Speaker 2: these things where you're like seeing the trend. And now
Speaker 2: that the series is out, we've had the pleasure of
Speaker 2: being able to speak in front of groups of law
Speaker 2: enforcement for interrogations or in dealing with sexual assault, and
Speaker 2: we tell them, you know, we understand. We're all human,
Speaker 2: we're fallible. We work in the medical field. We make mistakes,
Speaker 2: so we see that it happens. But what's really important,
Speaker 2: especially if you're working with people, human beings, especially going
Speaker 2: through a trauma and that come to you for help,
Speaker 2: you need to be able to self reflect. You need
Speaker 2: to be able to say, how could I do better?
Speaker 2: And name it. Okay, we made this mistake. Now let's
Speaker 2: figure out how to yeah, just to change and to
Speaker 2: help protect people better.
Speaker 3: We get a lot of shit on the show because
Speaker 3: like we talk about a lot of the things that
Speaker 3: go wrong, Like we're not usually talking about a case
Speaker 3: on Crime Junkie if everything went right.
Speaker 4: And what I keep saying is I was, like, there
Speaker 4: are a lot of great people. I've worked with a
Speaker 4: lot of great people.
Speaker 3: But like if you exactly what you're saying, if you
Speaker 3: don't talk about what went wrong, and if you don't
Speaker 3: analyze what could have been better, like how nothing will
Speaker 3: ever change ever And it's not about like necessarily even
Speaker 3: like tearing any one individual or anything apart. Sometimes they
Speaker 3: deserve it, but I like, I just don't expect like
Speaker 3: this band of brotherhood kind of thing right where it's
Speaker 3: just like like no, like like we got to talk
Speaker 3: about when it goes.
Speaker 2: Bad, right we It's like we have to be able
Speaker 2: to have this conversation, yeah, or.
Speaker 4: I don't trust you?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: So, what are the some of the cases that you
Speaker 3: guys have gotten involved with, because I'm my understanding is
Speaker 3: you guys have the kind of like not only are
Speaker 3: you working with these bigger organizations, but are there some
Speaker 3: cases that you guys are really paying attention to right now?
Speaker 2: I mean I think we pay attention to a lot.
Speaker 2: We noticed a lot. There's also a balance of it
Speaker 2: can be a little overwhelming, you know, to to still
Speaker 2: try to navigate because this is our whole life, right
Speaker 2: Like we've got two young kids. We've got a two
Speaker 2: and a four year old, which are amazing and they
Speaker 2: h it takes a lot of better.
Speaker 3: I have one two and a half year old and
Speaker 3: my whole life, which is great.
Speaker 2: It's like that's what I do want to put my
Speaker 2: focus on, right And we're still working as physical therapists
Speaker 2: and advocating for our patients, and so a big part
Speaker 2: of this and advocating is using your voice. And so
Speaker 2: it's been a long journey to find out who we
Speaker 2: can trust to help us amplify our voice so then
Speaker 2: we can talk about these serious issues. Because what's helped
Speaker 2: us over the years is hearing from other survivors and
Speaker 2: seeing them speak out against all odds, and so it
Speaker 2: makes us think, Okay, well then let's do that. Let's
Speaker 2: let's turn our pain into purpose and keep this conversation going.
Speaker 2: And so that's kind of where we're at right now
Speaker 2: is again we're able to speak in front of law enforcement,
Speaker 2: which is what we've always wanted to do. You know,
Speaker 2: we're not at them. We want to work with them
Speaker 2: and advocating for survivors of sexual assaults because there was
Speaker 2: so there's still it's just so sad, like twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: there's still this misconception about women, how they should behave,
Speaker 2: what's their fault, what's not their fault, And we do
Speaker 2: it to ourselves too, because that is so entrenched in
Speaker 2: our culture that it's really easy to self blame. And
Speaker 2: you know, and as we've spoken out, I have to
Speaker 2: recognize sometimes that I need help again, you know, so
Speaker 2: I've gone back to therapy, and that's another thing I
Speaker 2: want to advocate for because it's been such a huge
Speaker 2: help for us in this whole process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think with law enforcement, there's also a lot
Speaker 1: of law enforcement law do better, and like for me,
Speaker 1: a big part is just trying and advocate for different
Speaker 1: types of interrogation and get away from this idea of
Speaker 1: like confessions are the goal. It really should be gain information.
Speaker 1: So there's models like the Peace model, which is more
Speaker 1: of a journalistic approach where you're just gathering information from
Speaker 1: the person you're talking to and you're not center trying
Speaker 1: to say you're not in a guilt presumptive mindset, which
Speaker 1: is what happened to me. And that's based off the
Speaker 1: read technique or Battie is another version. It's a cousin
Speaker 1: of reed, and that read is the most commonly used
Speaker 1: interrogation technique in the world, and.
Speaker 2: Antis with law enforcement, they teach corporation.
Speaker 1: Corporations and schools. Yeah, so you will use this technique.
Speaker 1: I'll put technique in quotes or its method against children.
Speaker 1: And the problem with it is that even the read
Speaker 1: technique started front in the late nineteen forties early nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: after police weren't unable to beat suspects into confessions, they
Speaker 1: figure out how can we psychologically pressure them.
Speaker 4: I would say it's torture.
Speaker 1: And John Reid in the fifty early fifties got confession
Speaker 1: from a man and end up being a false confession.
Speaker 1: It was overturned seventeen years later, but that was a
Speaker 1: basics It starts this whole thing. That starts a whole
Speaker 1: and then that makes READ popular. So the problem with
Speaker 1: READ is it can get confessions that can also get
Speaker 1: false confessions. And so the case that made it popular
Speaker 1: was already based off false confession and it was just
Speaker 1: some detective from Chicago making this method up. There's not
Speaker 1: so there's not really any science behind it. So now
Speaker 1: there are other like HIG will do where it's more
Speaker 1: of a science based interrogation technique. So bring in psychologists,
Speaker 1: bring in like other disciplines to help the officers understand
Speaker 1: those pressures, because I don't think they really understand what
Speaker 1: type of pressure they're doing. And that's another reason why
Speaker 1: we talked to law enforcement is that they don't get
Speaker 1: much follow up with the interact with someone during the
Speaker 1: worst potential. One of the worst moments of their life,
Speaker 1: which is got to be hard day after day to
Speaker 1: be interacting with people that way. But they don't get
Speaker 1: to follow up on cases. They don't hear from the
Speaker 1: other side. So when we speak, we're just trying to
Speaker 1: give them a sense of what it's like to be
Speaker 1: gained railroad by like when they turn that machinery turns
Speaker 1: on you. So that hopefully if they run and ta
Speaker 1: a case where it's you know, maybe it sounds a
Speaker 1: little bizarre, a little strange to them, that they don't
Speaker 1: just rush to judgment and have the confirmation bias some
Speaker 1: tunnel vision. They can think of our case and pause
Speaker 1: and go like, well, what if you know, let's look
Speaker 1: at X, Y, and Z and not just focus on
Speaker 1: this one route. And because we have to do at
Speaker 1: the ground level, right, they're the ones interacting a day
Speaker 1: day basis. So that's one of the things we hope
Speaker 1: for that get away from this because it's awful.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love that you guys are going and speaking to
Speaker 3: them because I think that's where so much change can
Speaker 3: actually happen. I think one of the things I was
Speaker 3: most surprised by as I really got into this world
Speaker 3: and dealing with law enforcement is that there was no standard,
Speaker 3: like there is no standard training to be an investigator
Speaker 3: across You're really only as good as the guy before
Speaker 3: you that trained you. And when you think about I
Speaker 3: mean as you guys, as doctors of physical therapy, I
Speaker 3: mean the amount of training that you had to do,
Speaker 3: education you had to do continued I know, and I
Speaker 3: worked in a hospital for a long time.
Speaker 4: There's continued medical education. And because you guys have.
Speaker 3: People's lives in your hands, right, which is important, and
Speaker 3: these people have people's lives in their hands, and.
Speaker 4: We crossed our fingers and hope they got trained, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the talks that we gave it was
Speaker 2: for science based interrogation, so it was about improving interrogation tactics.
Speaker 2: And we sat in for a couple of the talks
Speaker 2: and some of the psychologists were talking and we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: thank god, there's a psychologist in the room. But certain
Speaker 2: things were so basic that we're like do we learned
Speaker 2: this in PT school? Like how is this revolutionary? How
Speaker 2: is this a thing right now that's being taught. So
Speaker 2: it was like it's a bittersweet situation and going okay, well,
Speaker 2: at least someone's doing it and they are having these
Speaker 2: conferences and this type of training, but then it was
Speaker 2: equally as infuriating, So like, why weren't we treated this way?
Speaker 2: And why is this not something that is being done?
Speaker 2: And yeah, why do they have to fight to get
Speaker 2: people to buy into it? Yeah? I don't know, but.
Speaker 3: There's one message you have for the law enforcement that
Speaker 3: listens to our show and the survivors who listen to
Speaker 3: our show.
Speaker 4: What would each of those messages be?
Speaker 2: I think with law enforcement really is just recognize that
Speaker 2: we all have different biases. We've all grown up having
Speaker 2: our own life experiences that shape who we are and
Speaker 2: how we see the world and the people in it,
Speaker 2: and so kind of recognizing some of those judgments that
Speaker 2: you might have and trying to keep an open mind
Speaker 2: and self reflect It's okay that you make a mistake,
Speaker 2: but let's just try to learn from it and encourage
Speaker 2: that not just from yourself, but your peers, the people
Speaker 2: you work with as well. For survivors, I mean, the
Speaker 2: biggest thing is just always believe in yourself. You know,
Speaker 2: when you have people consistently trying to gaslight you and
Speaker 2: tell you what you experienced either a didn't happen or
Speaker 2: isn't that bad? It can? It really is re traumatizing,
Speaker 2: and it makes the healing that much harder, and so
Speaker 2: it's easy to give in and just believe that. And God,
Speaker 2: if we didn't believe in ourselves, we wouldn't be here
Speaker 2: and doing the work that we're doing. So that's a
Speaker 2: big thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for me, to pay back off what Denise said
Speaker 1: with law enforcement the idea, I think sometimes law enforcement
Speaker 1: thinks they're being objective and they're trying their best to
Speaker 1: be objective, but no one actually can be objective, Like
Speaker 1: you need to reco regardless of who you are, there's
Speaker 1: always some sort of bias that you are either conscious
Speaker 1: of or unconscious of. No one is strictly objective. We
Speaker 1: see the world through our own lens. So you need
Speaker 1: to if you're a law enforceming, you recognize that you
Speaker 1: cannot is impossible to be fully objective. So you should
Speaker 1: put a lot of different safeguards to try to be
Speaker 1: as objective as possible. And that means bringing other people
Speaker 1: and for survivors as he needs to saying, like believe
Speaker 1: in yourself, find help, like find the people that you
Speaker 1: can trust that will not necessarily not necessarily even try
Speaker 1: to provide answers, but we'll just listen. There's a big
Speaker 1: part of like just having someone who will be there
Speaker 1: for you and for myself. I used to think I
Speaker 1: could just handle stuff I would like try to avoid,
Speaker 1: like burning my parents with distress or my friends, because
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'll just handle it, I can do it
Speaker 1: on my own, and that didn't work out, Like you can't,
Speaker 1: like you need and being such a life altering trauma,
Speaker 1: I've realized that I need like to go to my
Speaker 1: friends and my family and therapists, and we've moved done
Speaker 1: years and years of therapy, but have that trusted group
Speaker 1: that could go to and help lift me up. And
Speaker 1: that's really important to find those people in your lives
Speaker 1: because we all go through different variations of trauma. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be a kidnapping, it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be like this extreme, but people have stuff that happens
Speaker 1: in their lives and we need the help of our
Speaker 1: close ones to heal from it and integrate it, because
Speaker 1: you can't actually just move on, like there's sometimes people
Speaker 1: say just forget about move on, but you can't. You
Speaker 1: have to learn how to integrate this into your life
Speaker 1: because it's part of you, and it's part of it's
Speaker 1: going to impact your decisions either either you like it
Speaker 1: or not. It's a little bit like your shadow. It's
Speaker 1: always there. You can be aware of it or not.
Speaker 1: And so by again help from other people, I have
Speaker 1: helped me integrate it to make something positive out of it,
Speaker 1: and that will be a continued thing. It's never there's
Speaker 1: no end to this, it's just different levels of it.
Speaker 3: Well, you guys, I think are like a beautiful example
Speaker 3: to survivors of what life can be if you put
Speaker 3: in the work, what life can be. Afterwards, I said,
Speaker 3: you didn't see this on your Bingo card for life?
Speaker 3: Did you get other good surprises like things you did
Speaker 3: see coming on your Bingo card or things you didn't?
Speaker 3: I mean, you guys are you both are now practicing
Speaker 3: right in physical therapy, You've got a family, you.
Speaker 4: Obviously got married.
Speaker 2: After this, life does move forward, you know. So it's
Speaker 2: nice that we were able to still have all those joys,
Speaker 2: that we were able to stay together as a couple. Again,
Speaker 2: a large part of that was the people in our
Speaker 2: lives that helped support us. And yeah, I mean we
Speaker 2: were able to return to our careers and we started
Speaker 2: this beautiful family, and now we get to meet with
Speaker 2: people and have these connections with other survivors or again
Speaker 2: in law enforcement, that we can share and use such
Speaker 2: a horrible thing to maybe do something better for other
Speaker 2: people who aren't as lucky as we are, who might
Speaker 2: not have all the resources, or who were still threatened
Speaker 2: into silence, that we can at least we can keep
Speaker 2: the conversation at least going and see if something can change.
Speaker 3: And thank you for doing that. I mean, you guys
Speaker 3: have every right to go live your lives and not
Speaker 3: do anything and take care of yourselves, and I think
Speaker 3: it's really beautiful what you guys are doing.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: Thank you, yeah, thank you, and thank you for coming
Speaker 3: on here. It was wonderful to meet you and for
Speaker 3: sharing your story. I think it will touch a lot
Speaker 3: of people, so I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3: All Right, everyone, don't forget to follow this show and
Speaker 3: add it to your library, and don't forget to follow
Speaker 3: Crying Jankie. We have a brand new episode the last
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