Your hair looks really good. Oh, thank you. Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena.
And yes, yes, more red. I feel like we should leave in the part where you said my hair looks really good, because that was a very nice moment. I was going to say it before. I was going to say it again, I mean.
No, it should be before the episode starts. Like, that should just be. Yeah, that's how the recording started. Let's keep it in.
Let's keep it in. Keep it in. Do we burp before we started? No.
I know, you never know. Not in this one, at least. Oh, yeah. You know.
Oh, did you burp? I keep burp. Leave it in. Leave it in.
Mention it all. Oh, sorry, Pete. Also, quick update. In one of my last cases, Jack Tupper, I mentioned a fucking horse owner named Bill Frankel.
And one of our horse owner was a horse owner and hired Jack Tupper to be the trainer. And his name was Bill Frankel. And one of our listeners said that that's Bethany Frankel's lead father. I myself need to do some digging to make sure that's true.
But when you said the name, I almost was like, is it any relation to Bethany? When I wrote it, I thought it, but I was too involved in the case that I forgot to go back and look at that little part. We all thought it. None of us said it.
But like, is that him? Like, for real? I was a very quick Google search that we could do. It's your dad.
That's her dad? Shit. Look at that. He was called Bobby, though.
Sound like Bill Bobby. I mean, I don't know. People call him all kinds of things. That's a wild little.
That's cray-cray. Tibia. That is cray-cray. Wild tidbit.
Well. Sorry, I just got lost in a headline. I was like, uh. It's just an episode with crazy tails in it.
Can I start? Yeah. Awesome. My tail is called The Time I Was Accused of Being an International Spy for Taking a Picture of a Mountain That Looked Like a Butt.
So that's why I wanted to start. Because they took a picture of a mountain that looked like a butt. I already love this. And it does look like a butt.
They sent a photo. All right. It says, hi, Ash, Alina, and DebDev. Just wanted to start off by saying how much I love the podcast.
I'm so glad that my co-worker recommended it to me, because it's really kept me sane over the past few weeks, as I've been dealing with a severe concussion. Oh, my gosh. And I haven't been able to do pretty much anything other than listen to podcasts. Listening to your episodes have kept me entertained and saved me from overwhelming boredom.
So thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm not sure if this story is something you'd want to share on listener tales.
It is. But I figured you might get a kick out of it either way. I attached a double-spaced butterfly and some pictures to this email. I've also changed the names for privacy purposes.
Thank you for reading. So, this happened while I was on a language immersion internship program into a country. Uh, no, but county. No, but country.
A country. I gotta go. A country in East Africa. I changed all the names for privacy reasons.
Stop laughing. I got them. On this particular day, I had gone on a site visit to a rural... Shut up!
It's not just me laughing. My kids do. I know, everybody's laughing. It's not just me being mean.
Everybody's mean to me all the time. Please rescue me. Rescue her! Rescue me!
Uh, on... Disharmonizing BRB. On this particular day! I had gone out to a site visit to a rural woman's banking collective with some employees of the non-profit I was interning with and a woman from the UN who funded the non-profit.
That's pretty fucking cool. The day had already been longer than expected because we had to stop for about an hour on the way to the village for a road to be built. Oh, you know. Just gotta pause.
This road is being built. Now, I still have a lot of questions about the road being built because if it wasn't there in the first place, why were we going that way? That's what I was going to ask. Maybe it had been built and destroyed and they were rebuilding it?
I don't know. Who knows? We'll never know. Anyway, we were running late because of the road situation and I was extremely hungry because I hadn't eaten anything all day after the woman from the UN had regaled...
Regaled? Regaled. Regaled. Me with stories about getting typhoid from food she ate in a similar context.
Oh, that'll get you hungry. That will make you not want to eat anything ever. I felt bad for not accepting the food from the generous woman who offered it to me, but I have already had enough stomach issues as it is and I really didn't feel like I could take the risk. I was also starting to get nervous because the sun was starting to go down and I had been warned many times about the dangers of being out after dark.
So you can imagine my delight when my co-worker pulled the car over for no apparent reason and pointed excitedly out the window saying, Look, Anna, what does that mountain look like? Being the annoyed wet blanket I was feeling like in that moment, I replied in a monotone, A butt, Jumma. It looks like a butt. Do you want to take a picture?
I did not. I just wanted to get home before dark and eat something, so I sat grumpily in my seat as everyone else in the car took pictures. In hindsight, the mountain really did look a lot like a butt and it was pretty funny, but I was not feeling it in that moment. And it turns out that was probably a good thing for me.
My annoyance quickly turned to panic, though, when a man in a dirty t-shirt and cargo pants stuck his arm into the driver's side window, reached over to Jumma, and pulled our keys out of the ignition. The way my entire body would shut down in that moment. I would just cease to exist. The fight or flight response that I'm currently feeling just thinking being in that position is outrageous right now.
Gotta go. Naturally, Jumma, who was in the driver's seat, asked the man what he was doing and demanded the keys back. The man responded that he was a police officer. Doubt it.
And couldn't give the keys back because we were a threat to national security since we were taking pictures of the landscape close to the border and foreigners were in the car. Now, this was clearly bullshit because the village we had been at earlier was much closer to the border and we had been taking a buttload of pictures there without issue. No pun intended. I'm also not even sure he was a police officer since he didn't give us any form of ID and was definitely not dressed like a police officer.
I wouldn't count on it. Yeah, no. I explained to him that I was not in fact a spy but rather a student and offered multiple times to show him my passport and visa. He was uninterested.
After a few minutes of back and forth, he demanded that Jumma get out of the car to quote unquote settle this. I hate this. Are we going to have a cage match? What the fuck?
This is where I started to get really worried, I bet. The police in this country did not have the best reputation and while I knew he probably just wanted a bribe, I was scared he might beat Jumma up if he didn't want to pay. And Jumma was a stubborn but not very large guy. After a few minutes of me craning my neck to try and see what was going on next to the car unsuccessfully, the next thing I knew Jumma was getting back into the driver's seat and the police officer, quote unquote, was hopping into the back seat of our car, getting real cozy with my co-workers, who were now sitting four people in the back row seats.
What? We're all going to the police station to get this figured out, he announced. What? What?
No. I was actually pretty shocked by this development. Oh, were you? Because up to that point, I was fully convinced that he was not a police officer but rather a random guy trying to make a quick buck.
To be honest, me too. I'm still not convinced that he's not. Per this guy's insistence, Jumma drove the now very crowded car to the local police station where we went in one by one for questioning. I began to feel very glad that I did not take any pictures of Butt Mountain because they demanded to see my camera roll and had the pleasure of seeing my progress pictures for my workout plan and a few shots of monkeys stealing stuff from trash cans.
The rest of my co-workers frantically tried to delete their Butt Mountain pictures before their interrogation. Much to my chagrin, the woman from the UN decided to use this moment to take a moral stance and refused to show them her phone because of diplomatic immunity. Wow. Being that my main goal was getting home before dark and getting something to eat, I tried to convince her to just let it go and show them her phone.
She had already deleted the pictures of Butt Mountain, so I didn't get the big deal. Because she didn't speak the local language and the police officer didn't really speak English, I got the pleasure of being her interpreter. The police officer repeatedly demanded to know if she thought he would steal her phone and insisted that he had no reason to because he had his own iPhone. He's like, bitch, I have my own phone.
He's like, I don't need your fucking phone. He also clearly did not know much or care about the UN or the idea of diplomatic immunity. The whole situation was just ridiculous to me, and I had no interest in being the middle man, but there I was. In total, we were probably at the police station for about three hours before the quote-unquote supervisor.
Again, I have no idea if any of these people were actually police officers, but I think the place we were at was a police station. Unclear. What? I'm so confused, came to see what was going on.
This supervisor did have a healthy respect or fear of the UN, and when the UN woman told him she needed his name and badge number to report to the UN while she was checking in late, he insisted that we leave as soon as possible with a deluge of apologies. Wow. Unfortunately, I did not make it back before dark, but did get home safe despite having to jump into some underbrush filled with rats to avoid getting hit by a car. There were no streetlights on my road, so cars generally couldn't see pedestrians after dark.
At this point, I still have a lot of questions about what happened that day, but I'm just happy to be able to look back at the story and laugh. Thanks for reading if you made it this far, and keep it weird, but not so would you pretend to be a police officer and steal non-profit workers' keys and drag them to a baby police station for hours when they're really tired and hungry. For obvious reasons, I can't attach any pictures of Butt Mountain, but I've attached some pictures of to look at it. It's just a tree and some rush.
But now I really want to see... What a wild story. That's insane. Truly a wild story.
Wow. Dang, Anna. Imagine. That's not your real name.
I know that. Don't worry, we're not using real names. Never. But dang.
I just like that Butt Mountain was the thing that almost got you guys. Butt Mountain. Oh, that's not what I meant to say. Oh, man.
All right, well, I'm going to move on to Listener Tale. My husband was kidnapped as an infant by child traffickers. What? What?
All right. Let's see what this is about. It says, thank you so much for the opportunity, Deb. Hey, Deb, shut up.
Hello, weirdos. First of all, my husband is alive and well and was unharmed in his kidnapping. I put the subject line as a question because this was my reaction when my mother-in-law told me the story. You can call me by a name I've always loved for a little girl.
Siggy, short for a Norwegian name, Sigrid. Oh, I like that. I was originally planning on using my real name and coming up with an attempted witty and humorous introduction considering my name is infiraginous and is often mistaken for a man's. I'm not a man and unfortunately have the postpartum bodily scarring to prove it.
However, for the purposes of the story and to bend to the will of my I can never say that word. Catastrophize. There you go. Right?
Anxiety sounds good. I will be using aliases. That's totally fine with us. A few things before we get into it.
Number one, I feel I should be shunned from the podcast universe for not having heard of your show prior to my book club picking The Wish of the Wren for the month of October last year. Hey, that's awesome. Elena, your novel was amazing and I loved every bit of that book. Thank you.
In my defense, I tend to stay within my comfort zone when it comes to books, podcasts, and movies. And my particular podcast love is true crime, but one story seasons such as Up and Vanished and Serial. Really? However, that has all changed now because I cannot stop listening to your podcast.
Thank you. It becomes McGee. Engaged. Engaged.
Congrats, by the way. Also, being that I am a sixth generation Appalachian or Appalachian. Appalachian. I won't say it wrong.
Okay, Appalachian Mountain Woman. I can confirm. You just told me how it's pronounced. It's pronounced Appalachian.
Thank you. I will hold on to that now. I firmly believe that any time Appalachian is mispronounced, an ancestor of mine rolls over in their grave saying, bless their heart, turning an old Southern lady condescension. So for the sake of my gone but not forgotten family members with cool ass names like Icy and Zeta, just say it correctly, folks, Appalachian.
Appalachian. It feels right. It feels better. Finally, this story is not mine to tell.
I take pride in sharing it because my husband was kidnapped is a great addition of two truths to the life. But ultimately, the only morbid worthy happenings in my life have involved my father in a ski mask trying to scare me and a local criminal trying to escape the law by entering my house. Those are pretty good. That's the second one in particular.
And though both experiences were equally traumatizing, the story is much more entertaining and just freaking insane. I myself even found it hard to believe when I first heard it, but it's as true as a dog's love for its human. I do have a few what I've called city side notes scattered throughout the story to clarify things or to add interesting tidbits. Those are from me, but the bulk of the story is from my mother-in-law's perspective.
So without further ado, here's my mother-in-law Drew's story of her five-month-old baby, T, kidnapped in Hawaii. Oh my god. She chose the name and it made me laugh considering the podcast we are submitting this to. Hey, Ashes Beyoncé.
It is long, so if it doesn't get played on the podcast, I completely understand. But I felt y'all would appreciate the reading of the story. I've attached the double-space puttapha, another term I'm now obsessed with for reviewing these, as well as the newspaper article about the story, so you know it's real. And it's a picture of my mother-in-law, my husband and I, and my own little guy for reference.
Oh my god, the most beautiful child. She is adorable. So beautiful. By the way, Ashes, she is a Libra and I'm a Virgo.
Okay. Oh, we got a Libra in here. Oh, one more side note. My dad has some creepy stories like I'm out waking up in a cemetery across the street from their house as a kid, and my nana, pronounced Nana, being temporarily paralyzed by other worldly beings.
So if you'd like me to share those, let me know. Please do. We would like that. Keep on keeping it weird, my gals.
Siggy. Oh, your family's so beautiful. Truly a gorgeous family. Oh my god, you're a little buggy.
All right. Many of us have had moments in life that we can look back on and realize how extremely brave and lucky we are for having gotten through them. For me, the kidnapping of my child was such an event. I'm already, I just got full chills.
My body won't. I remember the day clearly, October 10th, 1989. My son was just one day shy of five months and was very much still an infant. We had just relocated to Waikiki, Waikiki, thank you, from Cupertino, California.
We had been living with my mom and my unhinged stepfather and wanted a new living environment for the health and safety of my son and I. I was a radio DJ by trade and I decided to go to Hawaii to work for my friend who was a new program director at KPOI, Honolulu's rock station. A few weeks prior to this incident, I had managed to secure a small studio apartment in Waikiki for tea and myself. I recall being shocked at the extremely high cost of rent.
I was on the hunt for a babysitter so that I could work in the evening hours. My general shift was going to be from about 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. After failed attempts at finding care through the people I had met and after scouring the newspaper ads without success, I decided to place an ad myself.
Several people responded to the ad and in Hawaii, a lot of ladies take on child care from their homes. Surely I'd be able to spot someone who is not a legitimate caretaker, right? This area is known for being very welcoming and family oriented. One pair of person in particular responded and left multiple messages.
I was going through a few others and had not called her back yet. However, she called me again, sounding almost pushy about the job. I should have seen that as a red flag, as none of the other applicants had that same approach, but I really needed to find a sitter and I honestly didn't think much of it. I finally spoke with her and we talked for about 30 minutes.
She sounded nice. She had kids of her own. She was a retired nurse, et cetera, et cetera. All the normal sounding stuff.
So we set up a time to meet in person. This initial contact was right around the time of my birthday, October 7th. So it's easy to recall the events in the timeline. I remember going to her apartment, which was very close to my own.
It was a tall high rise building sitting in the Ala Wai Canal in the middle of Waikiki. This is important to the story as being familiar with this building was one of the main factors in knowing what happened to T. Since it was close to my birthday, we agreed that this woman, who we will call Stella for the purpose of the story, would try out an hour or two with my son and see if it was a good fit for us all. I was super overprotective of him, being that I was a 25-year-old single mother living 2,400 miles from home.
Therefore, I always had anxiety when anyone else watched him aside from my mother. I'm that way anyway, so don't worry. I decided to go out for a few hours to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. It had recently opened and was supposed to be an amazing experience.
We decided on a date and time, and I really looked forward to a few hours on my own. When I arrived at her apartment the initial time, Stella watched T. She was wearing a house dress. It was about my height of 5'8", was thin, with bleach blonde hair, and wore wire-rimmed glasses.
She literally looked like a younger grandma type and appeared to stay home most of the time. That night for me was everything I wanted it to be, and the check-in calls with Stella went equally as well, with her giving me frequent updates on how T was doing. I felt very excited to be moving on with my life and away from living with my abusive stepfather. After a few hours of dinner and drinks, I called the cab and headed back to the apartment complex.
When I got back to her 21st-floor apartment, Stella quickly opened the door and invited me in. The baby was sleeping soundly in a bed we had made on the floor, and he looked peaceful and happy. We talked about how she was feeling, how I was feeling, and confirmed that we both wanted to do this again in the future. I scooped the baby up, went down to the awaiting cab, and back to our new apartment.
Stella and I continued to talk on the phone in the coming days, and she always asked how T was doing and what he was up to on any given day. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Conversations were normal, she listened to my request, and she seemed like a genuinely that she was feeling, and she seemed like a really good thing to do, and she seemed like a really good thing to do. nice person i never once felt any weird vibes or feelings when we spoke isn't that so scary that's terrifying some people just don't give off the vibe that they're a fucking monster the next opportunity for her to watch him was on the night of october 10th i had to go to the radio station to train before i could go on air so i was scheduled to be there in the early evening late afternoon for this purpose i thought it would be a great time for stella to watch the baby again and do another trial run before i had to work full time as i'd done this as i'd done before i bundled the baby up filled his large diaper bag with all the things he could possibly need and caught a taxi back to stella's apartment everything once again seemed normal when we arrived and she answered the door inviting us in however i distinctly remember two things one she was wearing a house dress like before but this time she had regular clothes laying out on her bed which i could see from the living room that struck me as a little odd but i said nothing two she had placed two very large suitcases directly adjacent to the front door those suitcases had not been present in the during the previous visit i asked her about them and she said she was taking them downstairs in the morning to her storage unit in the garage this didn't seem unusual as many of these buildings had subterranean parking with private storage units for tenants items for an additional fee the baby was sleepy so after sticking around for a few minutes chatting i handed him over to get ready to leave i recall saying something like you don't have plans to go anywhere right and she laughed as though the idea was preposterous she was drinking a coca-cola from glass with ice and i watched her swig and refill it several times while i sat there i stood up to leave and as i left i remembered that the lobby of several days and had not gotten around to it so i decided i would use the phone in the lobby to update him on my new job and our life in hawaii before going to work this proved to be a very critical decision in all of this because had i not stopped to call him in the lobby stella would have likely gotten away with kidnapping my five-month-old oh i just got full chills all over again oh i walked to the bank of phones that is some like mama power in there that you were just like you know i'm gonna stop right now yeah i'm not gonna wait till i get the station i'm gonna stop right now i walked to the bank of phones i remember getting him on the line immediately sounded relieved to hear from me was asking all about the baby i told him about the job in the new apartment that i was excited about finding a babysitter and i was in a really decent place mentally the phones were situated in the lobby so that when you use them your back was turned away from the front door therefore if anyone were to exit the building and walk by you you would most likely not see them just before bill and i said goodbye he said please take care of tea and if i were you i would go back out there one more time to check on him what fucking bill why would you say that too like that's kind of like you wouldn't think your friend would just say that you know what he's got a feeling this was the best piece of advice i've ever received i hung up the phone and jumped in the elevator heading back upstairs to sell his apartment i remember walking up to the door i had just left 15 minutes earlier and seeing that it was slightly ajar it caught me off guard and i pushed on it immediately calling out her name no one answered i ventured further into the apartment and realized stella's house dress was thrown on the bed the clothes she laid out earlier were gone the lights were off the tv was off and more importantly my son stella and those two suitcases had vanished oh my god my heart just dropped for you truly i began to freak out and i can literally feel the fear and adrenaline pumping so hard in my heart this could not be happening i must have been seeing things wrong she had to be here where was my baby my thoughts were racing and i started hyperventilating i was completely overwhelmed my first thought was that perhaps she'd just gone to take the garbage out they had a separate garbage room in these buildings requiring you to walk down the hall to throw your trash away i ran as fast as i could down the hall shrieking her name because i was just so scared where had this lady gone with my baby oh my god i jumped back on the elevator thinking i would ride down to the security desk at the lobby and ask them if they'd seen her or the baby when i approached the desk i asked the two men sitting there if they had seen stella come down the elevator or leave the building in any way they both nodded their heads and pointed to the door i asked did she leave they both nodded again and one said she was carrying a baby and almost slipped on the floor nearly dropping him on her way out of the building i could not believe what i was hearing why why did she leave i asked the officer at the desk to call 911 and report a missing child i talked to the police and gave them a brief account of what happened all in between sobbing and hyperventilating the police assured me they were on their way after i hung up with the police i asked the security people to begin calling all taxi services in the area so they could determine which taxi may have possibly picked her up they called at least six or seven cab companies and each time they were told that no one had anyone that sounded like stella or a baby in their car by the time i by this time i'd gone out to the front lawn in front of the apartment building i was sitting on the grass falling my eyes out i'd been through so much bringing this baby into the world alone just a few months before and thought after everything we've been through this is how it's gonna end oh my god before long several police vehicles pulled up i recall there being a large police presence with an ambulance in tow as well it was during this period that i kept trying to figure out a way to make it back into the apartment building and up to the very top to jump off the roof i know it sounds scary but i really thought that if my baby was gone that i really did not want to be on this earth anymore the police asked me questions mountains of questions how did i meet stella what did you do for work what did you look like what phone numbers did i have for her how many times did you watch them before today and on and on i was completely overwhelmed and to this day have never cried so hard in my life after sitting outside with the police i could hear the radio traffic on the police scanners as the situation progressed i couldn't understand everything as they were using codes but evidently they were pursuing some leads in the case and we were on stamp we were to stand by i cannot recall exactly how long we sat there waiting for any type of news but it seemed like two hours at least probably more i remember one of the officers a large samoan man sitting next to me on the grass reassuring me everything would turn out okay i really didn't believe him but i kept nodding my head just then an officer on the radio said the words my entire body had been aching to hear we got him we got him we found the missing baby oh my god my whole body literally i was just gonna say chill like i have some of my legs right now everyone around me cheered and high-fived we were all so excited but this was still very much a police investigation even though they had somehow managed to find him and stella things still needed to be sorted out and the place to do that was the police station i was in a squad car and driven downtown to the honolulu police department it was a low-slung building on a side street with yet another sub durian parking structure beneath it i was led into a fairly large room that was dark inside with windows covered by dark grapes i was asked to sit at a large rectangular table in the center of the room with a very large reel-to-reel tape recorder in the center it was a classic we just need to ask you a few questions mantra being sent to me i agreed but kept asking where my son was and when i would be able to see him they asked me numerous questions over and over again framing it in different ways why did i give my child to stella wasn't it true that i know wasn't it true that i no longer wanted him so she must have said she like sold him yep had i called to check on him while i was gone either tonight or on the previous occasion she had watched him i simply tried to calm myself down and answer all their questions clearly and honestly honestly to the best of my ability i understood they had a job to do but it was an interrogation style interview i felt confident in my heart that everything would work out and that i would be getting my baby back soon suddenly there was a commotion at the door of the interview room and we learned that they arrested stella and were bringing her downstairs to the jail they wanted me to go down there and see if i could identify her i recall feeling so much anger that she had done this i was really looking forward to seeing her face to face as the patrol car rolled in i could clearly see a set of legs kicking at the glass of the rear door of the squad car no face no torso just legs that's so creepy when the car came to a stop an officer got out and walked around to let stella out of the car they grabbed her by each arm and walked in my direction immediately her eyes met mine and she began cursing at me saying i had given her my baby that i was a liar and that she was taking care of him because i wasn't and so much other utter bullshit she is disturbed i screamed back and i think i called her every name in the book i was feeling homicidal at that point and really did not care about anything else aside from getting to her the police had repeatedly had to repeatedly hold me back as she passed by and went into the jail by this time it was dark outside and the officers escorted me back inside the building to wait they informed me that t had been taken to the hospital as a precaution to be checked out for any injuries or sign of abuse from stella i remember sitting in that police station for another four or five hours it felt surreal and very out of body i had a hard time thinking about what had just happened because i was in shock and i was not responding to things as i usually would have after about five hours an officer came to get me to walk into a different area of the police department when i rounded the corner i saw t wrapped in a sheet with nothing on but a diaper he saw me and started crying i walked over grabbed him and gave him my biggest longest hug i could imagine he immediately relaxed and he appeared to be very tired i asked the police if i could leave and go home and they said yes they stated stella would be in jail for a while as they were charging her with felonial felony custodial interference in the first degree a major felony there were additional charges as well but that was the main charge i was contacted the next day by police and they told me the story of how she was caught i was chomping at the bit to learn the story for capture and her motive for kidnapping my child according to police she had gotten into the cab with the baby she directed the cab driver to drive her to downtown honolulu to bishop street the taxi driver immediately felt weird vibes from her as she was too old to have such a young baby she was who was only clothed in a diaper and a sheet he asked her whose baby he was how old he was and whatever information he could glean from her wow this guy's like great seriously she told him she was caring for a friend's child because the mom needed a break and could no longer care for him her response to his questions and her vague answers really grabbed his attention good for this guy while the taxi driver was driving to the destination he told her he needed to make a stop for gas she agreed and he pulled over to a gas station when he got out he called into the taxi stand explaining that he was driving an older lady with a baby and that he was concerned for the baby's welfare wow it was then that the taxi company realized this realized their driver was driving around with the missing child everyone was looking for the driver was instructed to act normally and take stella to wherever she wanted to go but to stay with her to find out her actual destination they pulled in front of a large high rise in downtown honolulu since she had two full suitcases and a baby the taxi driver brilliantly offered to help her take her luggage upstairs so he would be able to see the apartment she was entering and provide valuable information to the police when he got to the apartment with her he saw an older man and the baby was taken into another room the driver immediately contacted police with all the information he had on stella including her exact location they waited several minutes for other officers to arrive before going upstairs to confront stella and her apparent boyfriend who was part of the entire plan when they knocked no one answered at first i'm certain they were wondering who could be at the door after several tries they opened the door and were confronted by the police at first stella denied knowing anything about a baby and denied knowing me like they're not going to find the baby in the apartment yeah the police asked to come and talk or to come in and talk and go over the information that they had with stella while they were in the apartment they heard a baby crying immediately knew the gig was up one of the officers walked to a closed back bedroom door and opened it opened it up inside they found tea laying in a sheet and nothing more than a diaper no bottles no diaper bag nothing i'm not sure what happened to the diaper bag i'd left with her but it was gone while she and her boyfriend were handcuffed and searched it was during this time that the police discovered passports other identification and over thirty thousand dollars in cash what the fuck it was clear that something nefarious was going on and both parties were immediately arrested and taken into custody this is so bizarre the key to this whole story was the taxi driver if he had not been alert and aware when talking to stella he would have never stopped and called in to report what he was dealing with in the taxi since it was already a major response by the police and looking for a baby and we knew stella was in a cab at some point the driver's call was the one we were all waiting for i was able to get my baby back at the police station so t and i went home to our new apartment and called my father who's an experienced police officer for the sacramento police department and explained what happened ciggy side note my husband's grandpa was not only a sacramento pd officer but one who had worked the golden state killer case and retired as a captain a real badass are you guys trying to tell me out here like what story is like just the twist and turn seriously all of it was very hard to believe and he asked me many questions and for many details after speaking he decided the best thing for me was to gather my stuff and hop on the next available plane back to the mainland i must say it was very disappointing as i had high hopes for my time with tea in our new state but ultimately our island time had run its course and wasn't meant to be i do not blame you we flew back to sacramento not cumpertino there was no way i was going to put myself and my child back into that unhealthy situation my father was very well connected and was able to find an apartment for me within a few days he helped us furnish it and i began looking for work we were contacted by the honolulu district attorney's office letting us know a victim slash witness kokua services i'm not positive that sounds right though who could assist me with the resources i may need as well as to help me through the criminal justice system in hawaii they also told me that it might take some time for the case to go to trial and that stella had been released on bail with restrictions she was not allowed to leave the state for any reason and she had to check in regularly with a probation officer to stay free until trial she agreed to this it took approximately two years for the case to wind its way through the court system and i was surprised when i received the call that we had a trial date um the advocate told me they would be needing me to travel back to hawaii to be a witness for the prosecution i was excited that i might see some justice for the scariest harrowing and most traumatizing event in my life it was a warm summer day as i flew out to hawaii to attend the trial my mom stayed behind to take care of tea as i had no intention of ever having him set foot in hawaii again immediately upon arrival i was called down to the victim witness offices there i met with both prosecutors and their staff i was asked to repeat the story of what happened from my perspective and they helped me to recall certain parts of the kidnapping my mind was unsteady as i felt i mentally blocked out much of the incident it was not something i wanted to talk or think about but i did my best in recalling the events for about three days we met every day and went over the questions they were going to ask me it made certain i responded truthfully but with an emphasis on certain things that had happened it was like going to school the biggest point they gave me was both directly at the jury when answering and to express any emotions i might be having after recalling the events of that day the following day was the start of the trial i remember walking into the courtroom and the entire jury box was full of jurors it was strange seeing stella sitting at the defense table as i had not seen her a long time i was placed on the witness stand and my testimony began it soon came to feel like i not the defendant the defendant was on trial it's sad how often that happens the defense attorney painted a picture of me that said i was a bad mom and had let stella take the baby because i wanted to go out and party meanwhile you were going for your job he also stressed that i'd willingly given tea to stella and that the only thing she was guilty of was being concerned for the welfare of my child was thirty thousand dollars in cash about that once it came time and why was it that when you came to within the police came to the door and asked for the baby they said there was no baby in the apartment exactly once it came time for the prosecution to question me i immediately began crying on the stand it was super emotional recalling the events one by one and having to explain my thoughts and my actions at every step i made it clear that in no way had i given my baby to stella or stella or anyone and that she never had permission to leave the apartment at any time with my child i ended up being on the witness stand for three days i gave honest testimony and told the facts as i remembered them on the third day i was released as a witness and sent back to my hotel to wait the next step i felt completely spent and cried several more times recalling the events that i tried to push down for so long i was never allowed in the courtroom while others testified so i had no idea what about what other things had been said other than my own testimony on day four we were told the verdicts had been reached so sad note i became a suzy sleuth as my mother-in-law calls it and i ended up finding the basic docket information on the case hell yeah suzy sleuth the jury debated for less than two hours this spineless bottom feeder was done hell yeah i was asked if i wanted to return to the courthouse and i declined as i was scared and nervous and just wanted it to be over so i could get back to california and my baby the verdict came in that afternoon and stella and her boyfriend were found guilty on all accounts against them her boyfriend was convicted of lesser charges because his involvement had been significantly less than stella now remember she was out on bail waiting for the trial so her attorney asked that she be allowed to remain on bail until sentencing like she's a literal kidnapper the judge agreed against the protestation of the prosecution they set a sentencing date for about two months away to allow stella to prepare for prison i don't know about that i left haw and flew back home and i continued my life in sacramento and was working and going to school t was two and a half by this time and the only concern his only concern was teenage mutant ninja turtles the story does not end here though i was contacted by the prosecutor's office about two months after the trial and told that stella oh i knew this was going to happen and told that stella had jumped bail and was on the run she had somehow managed to get off the island and was on into an unknown destination the way my stomach is announced for you the prosecutor assured me that t and i were safe and they had hard leads indicating that she escaped to england how the fuck did she get to england they had interpol and the scotland yard searching down leads trying to locate her to bring her back to the united states for sentencing as a bench warrant had been ordered by the judge in the case several more months went by and they continued to search for her i was not in the loop in any of this and just assumed they'd find her and bring her back after a few more months had pass i called down to the victim witness program to inquire inquire about the sentencing status i really did want to know the outcome of everything it was during this call that i learned from the advocate that stella had been located but when they arrived to arrest her at a location in london she was found dead strangled to death wow i was shocked and felt so many emotions about this i was not given all the details of what happened only that she'd been found dead by someone else it was a sad and scary conclusion to a case that would eclipse my life for several years from my recollection i was told that she'd intended on selling my baby she'd been found with a passport 30k in cash and plane tickets upon her arrest it was clear this was a trafficking case and she had no intention of keeping t but was using him as a pawn to make money so scary i have often wondered if she had done this and that's what i wanted to any other people to take full advantage of a young single mom living in a different state than her family with little money and resources and literally kidnap her baby to try to sell him was the stuff of television dramas and crime shows i will never forget the look on my baby boy's face when they turned him back over to me from the hospital he was so scared i remember that his photo was taken before we left the police station and he was turned into a news story in the honolulu star and but advertiser my god side note my mother-in-law says that she remember seeing a front page news story with t's picture on it however neither of us were able to locate it when we searched online i found the articles pertaining to t's kidnapping but most were small little snippets in the crime section of the main honolulu newspapers i've attached them to my email and fyi they report that stella was rue's roommate which was fully untrue they did not interview drew for the story for reasons unknown to her so some of the details are reported in error nice my true thanks and gratefulness go out to the honolulu police department for finding t so quickly and for really pursuing a case against stella i'm just so thankful they believe me i also want to thank the honolulu's prosecutor's office for getting the conviction in court and for taking such good care of me through the process t is now 33 years old happily married with a toddler son i often think of this experience and cannot fathom my life if he was not found and brought back to me i'm like gonna cry i know it is sad that all too many cases like mine do not conclude with positive results i'm a very lucky girl and i thank god every day for getting me through this experience going on to live a happy successful life and for making me a grammy to the sweetest little boy on the planet ruined me holy hell what a fucking story i holy shit i am without words it's crazy that we're just like looking at a picture of t 33 and happy and he's a little boy at the center of the story i'm like i feel tearing up here imagining his wife being like there's no way i would have never known you we wouldn't have our baby i know this little baby i know their baby is so perfect oh i just want to watch your bike but you guys are so beautiful together your mother-in-law is so beautiful and it's just like holy shit that is on another level thank you for thank your mother-in-law drew for writing that down incredibly incredibly told story holy shit thank you for sharing it with us and thank goodness he is here and that's awesome wow beautiful and i'm just my whole body is like on fight or flight mode right now i'm just so stressed out for your mother-in-law that is one of the craziest tales that we've ever gotten it's so scary that you have to be worried about that stuff it is and it's sad that you can't trust someone to babysit your child like and it's even worse than a lot of people because it takes a village absolutely you know and it's really i always feel really fortunate that i have so many people around me that i trust and that i you know my kids are comfortable with and that are willing to help and able to help and a lot of people don't have that no especially single mothers oh we think about it constantly like john and are constantly like how do people do this without their village near them seriously i should say single fathers yeah crazy wow thank you for that i feel like i need something haunted after that yeah bring me a haunted shit all right thank you thank you for sharing that that was incredible all right we've got listener tale does a demon come with everyone's college tuition or just mine i'm obsessed it says hello beautiful spooky listeners my name is amazon yes you can use my name of course i have to start my listener tale off by saying how amazing and inspiring y'all are thank you y'all have such an amazing bond with each other never fail to brighten my day enough with all this mushy stuff though let's go down to the nitty-gritty of the scariest fucking night of my life that i still think about to this day so hang on to your tits it's gonna be a wild ride remotes remotes so i'm from greensville south carolina and attended college at the good old university of southern carolina i remember pulling up to my assigned dorm building with my dad's car packed to the brim of an absurd amount of unnecessary dorm stuff that i planned to decorate my room with but hey a girl can't have too much decor am i right no you are right you're absolutely right on the short commute to the um no no on the short commute from greenville to columbia i was picturing my dorm to be super cute and homey but boy i was wrong i stepped one foot into that apartment style dorm and took one look around thinking to myself that there is no amount of home decor in the world to fix this place up i mean the place literally looks like satan himself lived in that very dorm was he goth my roommate elena maybe that's off came in after me and we looked at each other as if we were thinking the same thing what the actual fuck my dad of course started to do the typical dad inspection of the apartment and my mom kept assuring me and elena thought the place wasn't that bad mom be fucking for real we hugged our parents goodbye and started to make our little hell hole our own in the first few months there were very little strange things that would occur cabinet doors would be open when we knew we'd left them shut and the tv would turn on in the middle of the night by itself these little things didn't particularly scare us because we just thought we were carelessly leaving cabinet doors open or leaving lights on valid a few months later we both found ourselves a boyfriend they are now our piece of shit exes oh i digress oh shit i'm sorry we both started to basically spend every night with our boyfriends because the apartment was just flat out eerie and scary to be in i always felt like i was being watched i had the feeling we weren't alone in that nasty ass dorm as the holidays rolled around everyone started to pack up and head home for christmas break including our boyfriends so we had to toughen out and stay a few nights in the hell hole i had to stay an extra few days because i had a job at a stupid ass pizza place and was scheduled to work for the rest of the week i made only stay with me that whole week because i would rather sleep on a park bench than sleep alone in that piece of shit apartment i like that i'm part of us i do too i feel good being part of us with you i like it a lot she begrudgingly agreed but broke the news to me that she was leaving a day early fuck her i'm just kidding but still she gave me a hug grabbed her things and walked out the door i wanted to break down crying but it's only one night alone how bad can it be luckily i had to work a double shift that day so i wasn't in the apartment most of the day i got back around 10 p.m that night i made myself some dinner sat on the couch to watch my comfort joe hell yeah rick and morty as i was eating my canned soup dinner and goldfish that sounds awesome we call it girl dinner i heard it sounded like a cabinet door opening in the kitchen the place was old as dirt so literally everything creaked and made noises i've seen way too many horror films in my life to get up investigate so i quickly ran to our room and locked the door the apartment is set up where me and elena share a big room with two twin beds and the bedroom door has a big latch lock that you could not get into without a key that me and elena tied around our wrists i got in bed and listened out for any more noises and didn't hear anything so i basically gaslit myself into thinking that i was being absolutely ridiculous and there was nothing there we've all done that yeah i turned the lights off and got into bed my bad thoughts went away quickly as i lost as i got lost scrolling through instagram which was part of my nightly routine about 30 minutes passed by when i heard the fucking latch lock on my bedroom door unlock itself oh that's horrible i was frozen in fear and laid in my bed paralyzed staring at my bedroom door we had blackout curtains in our room so the room was literally pitch black except the light coming from my phone that barely illuminated the room the door slowly started to creak open and i shot under my covers because i wanted to become invisible to whatever was on the other side of that door i started to cry and even pissed myself a little i'm such a pussy i feel like that was the same thing i knew for a fact that i walked the front door to my apartment and the door to my bedroom door and the only key to get in was literally still tied around my wrist all i could hear was heavy breathing and a slow shuffle like someone was dragging their feet coming into the room i literally mustered up or excuse me i finally mustered up the courage to call out alena no answer alena's like it's not me it wasn't me the breathing and the shuffling got louder and louder there was absolutely no way in hell that i was going to look at what or who entered my room i could hear things being thrown around on the floor and i knew that it was the pillows being tossed on the ground from alena's bed then i heard the creaking from her bed as if someone was getting in bed to go to sleep what the fuck the breathing continued and i just sat there and silent cried i am a religious person so i silently repeated the lord's prayer over and over again until somehow i fell asleep i can't believe you fell asleep holy shit there's a literal daemon in the other room you're just like nighty night i woke up in the morning and looked over at alena's bed and slept on top of it no chills flooded my body because i watched alena flawlessly make her bed before she left i went to check the front door which was still locked i called my mom crying and told her what happened and without hesitation she said addison we need to bless that apartment and get that thing the fuck out of it i told her that i was just going to come home for now because i could not spend another minute in that place alone i called alena to tell her what happened and she completely believed me and apologized for not staying with me apology not accepted i don't blame you after we came back from our month break we walked into the apartment to find all the cabinet and closet doors open even our refrigerator hate that we dropped our stuff in the doorway and ran out of there i called my mom and i told her that we will not be staying another night there and my mom said yes you are we are paying good for you to be there thanks mom for the guilt trip but fuck no i love that she's like we're gonna bless that place and then she's like you're gonna stay the fuck in there she's like listen we paid your tuition we paid your tuition we had a deposit on that place that we won't get back stay with that damn damn my angel of a mom drove up to columbia that day and made me and alena walked uh walked to the room with her she walked through the room with her she yelled you know out of this house you are not welcome here and read scriptures from the bible i'll tell you what the people on our floor probably thought we were crazy as hell but fuck it my mom took us to lunch and dropped us back i love that she's like you guys want to get some lunch let's get some lunch let's get some applebee's let's get applebee's and we dropped us back off when we walked in the place it felt lighter and not as eerie thank the lord we didn't have any more activity since that day but we quickly learned from other students who resided in the building had quickly learned from students who resided in the building had strange things going on in their rooms too move out day did not come soon enough but we survived me and alena continued to be roommates all throughout college and are still sisters to this day it's beautiful as for the building that fucker got torn down this year as it should thank you so much for listening to my tale it literally gave me chills to write this five years later as it is still the scariest thing that has ever happened to me i love you both and i hope you have the best day much love addison oh addison that was terrifying we hope you have the best day thank goodness you were out of that fucking dorm for real because holy hell no pun intended my god a little pun intended that was a lot of the girl a haunted airbnb told by an east coaster playing the character of a midwesterner obsessed damn sorry if i'm slipping over my words i had like a dental procedure done yesterday and you know they should happen you better get it together sorry uh hey ash and alena i finally found the courage to write in my listener tale so i hope it makes it onto the pod it did as the phrase goes i've attached a double space profile and some pictures as well for your enjoyment i look forward to more of more episodes yours truly chelsea the new yorker who ended up in wisconsin by wave organ also i know massachusetts pretty well and was never a fan of mass holes but somehow you two make me want to visit more the bklyn italian in me makes it hard to like boston though you don't like boston we'll forgive you can we leave this because you know what we'll forgive you you have a really cute cat airbnb host that was a ghost and you know what that rhymed it does so there we go it says hey ash and alena i'm chelsea you can use my name because i'm a 37 year old aquarius with leo rising still thinks they're 27 i love it so i love me some recognition lips hair i recently discovered morbid of may of 2022 but thankfully my life is uneventful so i was able to catch up to the present day pretty quickly i first started listening to you when i had a month off from work so i was painting my home and doing odd jobs around my house now every time i'm in a certain room or staring at my porch i think i painted that to btk or the exterior door frames i painted that to john wayne casey so you're forever stuck in my home and right now i'll never forget painting my kitchen albert fish and laughing my ass off at the tube you trying to explain why they used to why they what why they used to use the boy scouts and the fact that no matter what there's always an issue with managing paperwork truly boy scouts doing police work who knew cops dropping the ball who knew who knew for the last few months i've been wanting to write in because i have little moments in my hundred-year-old bungalow with my old man ghost who watches me when i've had too much to drink or with the old polish lady who says i'm playing with ivan my cat after 2am i'm obsessed with all of that and ivan i love that if you yell at her that it's bedtime she stops but this one is about my airbnb experience in grand rapids please give us the other ones too please do i live in milwaukee please note i was not born in wisconsin i am a new yorker brooklyn bred badass i just want to clarify i live here because it's cheap also now i understand why you don't want to make sense you honestly think that this timepiece lesbian would live here at a free will and not inflation back to it most every halloween weekend i drive over to michigan for a saga tuck i got it saga tuck douglas adult only halloween parade that's a must for your bucket list if you love the arts the gays and damn fun weekends i do that sounds amazing i always try to get one night in grand rapids since it's a little less than an hour drive from the parade this one weekend i booked an airbnb instead of my usual bougie marriott suite this house was built in the 1800s so it was freezing even though the heat was on and it was overall creaky it was overall creaky and creepy but so adorable i got in didn't unpacked through my food in the fridge went out exploring when i came home to cook it online i opened the fridge and found my chicken breasts wrapped in very nice linens that had chickens embroidered on them like they were hand sewn what i stood there confused and triple checked my brain that i didn't do that i drank a lot at this time and smoked a lot too i could have done it but i know i didn't why would i cover my breasts i ignored it made dinner and went to the living room where i proceeded to pass out however many hours later i woke up freezing so i got up to hit the bedroom and i passed the bathroom where i noticed all the bathroom products were on the floor like someone went in and had a hissy fit over the fact that trésame was the shampoo provider it was me i knew that i didn't i knew that i didn't do that so i took note and headed into the bedroom you're just like i didn't do that in the bedroom my stuff was neatly placed at the foot of the bed and one side of the comforters was folded down as a wave inviting me into bed i also knew i didn't neatly place anything and the bed originally did not look like this so now i'm spooked and i creep into bed totally wigged out of my brain thinking is my airbnb host a ghost yes and as i'm laying there trying to fall asleep trying not to wig out i hear pacing in the kitchen as if someone is preparing a meal pots moving someone walking around the island the fridge opening opening so suffice to say i did not fall asleep i also did not go out and investigate no fuck that it can't be a meme ghost if they're trying to meal prep right i think so my ex-girlfriend joined me the next day because that's what lesbians do we break up and then take a mini vacay together just to make sure we know the reasons why we broke up wow if that's not the truth i love you i told her about my exhaustion and experience but she doesn't believe in that stuff and said i was drunk well guess who heard the meal parping after 2 a.m who's a drunk now still me at this time the morning of checkout i messaged the host and simply said your place is haunted to which she simply said yes we know and she's very nice to which i simply said yes she felt motherly to me trying to take care of me i rated her five stars she rated me five stars and i left that's incredible i live in a spooky house but i'm very cordial with my ghosts they do nice things for me like fix my lights or play with ivan that's awesome i'm also an airbnb host and i've only been told some folks here footsteps my medium yes i have a medium came to my home and told me all about the folks who live with me and how they watch me when i renovate paint and they love ivan sometimes ivan and i hear walking around downstairs or we smell cologne but meh it's just the ghosts but that airbnb stay was perhaps the creepiest experience i've had i'm sure the tequila did not help the situation so if you're ever in milwaukee and need an airbnb in a classic 1920s bungalow look me up if you end up going to saga talk i hope that's how you say it i can get it for the dope-ass halloween parade make time for grand rapids the old houses are off the charts there google heritage jill and thank you if you ended up reading this on the pod i told my homies if you did i would make them listen to it daily for a month straight because again aquarius leo flips hair well homies get ready attaches a picture of ivan and a picture of a friend of my home that zillow took clearly during the month of october because i had it all decorated peep that handmade life size michael myers oh handmade i gotta see it out of all the things i've accomplished in my life this is in the top three let me see it let me see it right now let me see this let me see this oh my god look at that holy shit i didn't spot it at first but then i did damn that's terrifying you should put that in the top three also ivan is beautiful i love it and also you are beautiful you are you are a dime piece lesbian a dime piece lesbian correctly described yourself i'm obsessed with this entire story chelsea that was an amazing story i just love that your ghost take care of you and play with your cat i know that's awesome i really like that sometimes you're tired and like you love your copy you want to play with them you wish somebody else would well i like that your medium came and confirmed that which is like you know what they like you and they're gonna take care of you and play with your cat yeah i also like that you have a medium i like a medium but i just have i would also love that let's get into that i feel like we could have a medium it's gonna fucking medium chelsea that was great chelsea siggy fucking who else do we read from i don't know if you're supposed to say the first person's name no anna okay and addison yep yep fantastic we killed it i love it that was a fun one that was a good one we needed those haunting ones to like you know be the bread yeah those last two were the fun ones i need that and all of them were not fun yeah crazy well well i guess it's time for me to go now so we hope you keep listening keep sending those listen to tales and we hope that you keep it weird but it's so weird that you live in a haunted house you try to steal somebody's baby or you want to fucking dorm room because that's really terrifying and i mean i think you should keep it so weird that you're a mountain that looks like a butt definitely that weird yay what does that look like so so so so Thank you.
Thank you.