Episode Transcript
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1:26
audiences only. Scientists
1:28
discuss topics that can be
1:30
triggering, such as emotional, physical
1:32
and sexual violence, animal abuse,
1:35
suicide, and murder. I
1:37
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need of support, please visit
1:44
somethingwaswrong.com/resources for a list of
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Opinions expressed by my guests on the
1:52
show are their own and do not
1:54
necessarily represent the views of myself or
1:56
Broken Cycle Media. Resources
1:58
and source material are linked in the
2:00
episode notes. Thank you so
2:03
much for listening. The
2:28
season 14 of Something Was Wrong began airing on
2:30
October 20th, 2022 and the last episode aired on
2:32
January 3rd, 2023. The
2:39
season highlighted the narratives of Kalin,
2:41
Melissa and Sarah and their very
2:43
toxic, abusive relationships with a man
2:45
named Jake, as well as the
2:48
abuse their children faced at his
2:50
hands. As the season
2:52
progressed, it included several accounts from
2:54
other victims and acquaintances of Jake's
2:57
as well. Jake continued
2:59
to leverage his professional connections
3:01
in the media to add
3:03
validity to his dating presence
3:05
and in turn victimized over
3:07
40 women in and around
3:09
the Seattle area. On
3:12
December 13th, 2022, the guests of
3:14
season 14 also participated in a
3:16
Something Was Wrong live event with
3:19
Tiffany on which they discussed the
3:21
impact of the season and answered
3:23
some listeners questions. One
3:26
week later, a petition was created
3:28
to call for Jake to face
3:30
criminal accountability. And despite the
3:32
fact that less than a year has
3:34
passed since its release, quite a lot
3:37
has happened since. The Broken
3:39
Cycle Media team is so grateful for
3:41
Kalin, Melissa and Sarah's involvement, as well
3:43
as the rest of the guests in
3:46
season 14 and the impact their sharing
3:48
has made. We are
3:50
also grateful to host this conversation with
3:52
Kalin and Melissa about all that's come
3:54
next since season 14 has aired. Hey,
4:01
this is Kaylin. As
4:04
far as my story goes, it
4:06
starts in 2007 and
4:08
goes through my relationship with Jake and
4:11
the six years of emotional,
4:13
physical, psychological, sexual, financial abuse
4:16
that he put me through.
4:19
I knew that he had recorded us having
4:22
sex and he was using it as blackmail
4:24
with me and sending it to me and
4:26
saying like, oh, this is all I watch.
4:29
And I'd asked him several times, please delete
4:31
that. Sometimes it was videos
4:34
I'd never seen before. And I
4:36
know that with Melissa, the
4:38
same thing happened. And
4:40
then finding out that he cheated on me with 40
4:43
plus women, including Melissa, who
4:45
he ended up getting pregnant
4:48
and the journey dealing with Washington
4:51
and California's court systems and
4:53
how difficult it is to
4:55
protect your kids from abusers.
4:59
I know that we started all of this
5:01
and decided to go on the podcast in
5:03
hopes to slow down Jake. Our
5:06
collective story started with one
5:08
of Jake's victims creating the
5:10
Instagram account. That included his name.
5:13
Our hope was that if somebody was
5:15
searching Jake's name on social
5:17
media, that this other account on Instagram
5:20
would come up and then they're warned.
5:22
Whereas now, if you
5:25
search his name online, they are warned.
5:27
You can't look his name up without seeing all
5:29
of this information. And that really
5:32
was the goal. As
5:34
Kalen said, I dated Jake actually
5:37
for not very long. My
5:39
whole timeline with him on a romantic
5:41
level was only a few months. But
5:44
dealing with the family court system and all
5:46
of the abuse that went on with that, there
5:49
was a lot to it. I
5:51
think a common misconception with our season
5:53
was that we started out with the
5:56
goal of trying to have Jake thrown
5:58
in jail. wasn't our
6:00
purpose. We started just sharing our
6:03
stories, hoping that we could dump it on
6:05
that Instagram and leave it. And if anybody
6:07
Googled him, they would find that information and
6:09
it would be there. It wasn't
6:11
something that we even ever planned on
6:13
continuing. It just morphed
6:15
as more women came forward.
6:18
We started to understand that it was
6:20
a lot worse than what we had
6:22
even expected or thought. So
6:24
the mission of all of it had
6:26
changed over the month as
6:28
we realized that he was definitely doing
6:30
a lot worse stuff than we imagined
6:33
that he had been doing for all
6:35
of those years where we didn't have
6:37
contact with him. 10
6:39
years go by and we're hearing from
6:41
these other women that he's doing the same
6:43
thing. I think that when
6:45
around 40 women came forward on Instagram
6:48
is when we really felt like this
6:50
was a bigger story that we needed
6:52
to share. He was traveling
6:54
outside of the country and so we were
6:56
worried that there were women all over the
6:58
place. At that point,
7:00
we had an obligation to say
7:03
something to protect women because he
7:05
was clearly not slowing down. We
7:08
were under the impression that things had gotten
7:10
worse because there were times where he was
7:13
seeing several women at a time. There
7:16
was an urgency there to speak out
7:18
because I do think that this is
7:20
something that he is continually
7:22
doing. And if he deleted
7:25
everything, because of this podcast,
7:27
then amazing. I do
7:30
not want him having videos of
7:32
me and or any of the
7:34
other women that he's been involved
7:36
with. I just want to make
7:38
that clear because I think other people have said
7:40
like, Oh, now he's going to delete everything. And
7:42
it's like, well, that's a good thing in my
7:45
mind. I
7:47
first became aware of the story via
7:49
the Instagram. The account had added me
7:52
and tagged me. I started watching
7:54
the posts and I started
7:56
to see in real time
7:58
women coming forward. sharing their
8:00
stories and was, like
8:03
everyone else, extremely disturbed
8:05
by their encounters and experiences
8:07
with this person. I think
8:10
to Caitlin and Melissa's point, this
8:13
person has not only shown a
8:15
pattern of predatory behavior for
8:17
decades at this point now. He
8:20
also didn't even care when he
8:22
was called out by this Instagram
8:24
account and so many people within
8:26
the area seeing it, he still
8:28
was so emboldened to continue. And
8:31
I think that really speaks to his
8:34
profile as a human being
8:36
and I think that with
8:38
certain abusers it's very evident
8:41
by their pattern of behavior
8:43
displayed through multiple survivors and
8:45
years and years of abuse
8:47
when people are a danger to
8:49
the public. I believe
8:51
that Jake Gravbrough is a danger to
8:54
the public to this day. I think
8:57
he has very little
8:59
empathy, if any at all, for
9:01
other people and he has no
9:03
impulse control and he's dishonest and
9:05
I could go on forever. So for
9:08
me I was instantly curious about the
9:10
story and also just proud from
9:12
a distance that these survivors were
9:14
coming together and taking back into
9:17
their hands a little bit of
9:19
justice and accountability towards this person.
9:21
I then connected via Messenger or some
9:23
way on Instagram and was told that
9:26
a submission had been made through the
9:28
website. So I went there and we
9:30
set up a Zoom pre-interview and the
9:32
rest is history as they say. This
9:35
was the first season where we were really
9:37
breaking a story that hasn't been covered in
9:40
the public previously. So legally
9:42
there's a lot more implications and risks
9:44
for the show and so it felt
9:46
like a really big decision to make
9:49
but ultimately when I had
9:51
heard and learned about what
9:53
had happened to the children,
9:55
my main concern became will
9:58
this individual date someone
10:00
with children in the future. Of
10:02
course, his filming women and all
10:05
of his other horrific things that
10:07
he has done are mind-blowing,
10:11
but this needs to be done. We need to
10:13
warn the public. The survivors
10:16
provided an insane amount of
10:18
proof also was what made
10:20
it possible to actually use
10:22
this person's real name. The
10:25
survivors, when I met with them, they had
10:27
already collected the stories of 40-plus women
10:30
they were already having
10:32
to create timelines and document things due
10:34
to their own legal battles and legal
10:36
abuse that they'll have to continue to
10:39
deal with. And so it
10:41
was because of their work and their
10:43
diligence, honestly, that we were able to
10:46
create the season at all and warn the public. And
10:49
to their point, they didn't come to me
10:51
and say, Tiffany, we want you to go
10:53
to Seattle PD and get this guy arrested.
10:56
It was after we had recorded and
10:59
after we learned everything that we learned
11:01
throughout the season and how much evidence
11:03
the survivors and I then collected, how
11:05
many interviews were done. It was the
11:08
most interviews I've probably ever done for
11:10
any season. The amount
11:12
of corroborating evidence was profound.
11:15
So we thought, hey, here you
11:17
go, SPD, and we're going to give
11:19
you notice, which is honestly a risk as
11:22
a journalist to do that because then you
11:24
have to worry about a gag order being
11:26
placed on you. But again, we wanted that
11:28
justice for the victims. We hoped that they
11:30
would do the right thing, that they would
11:32
act right away. They could get a search
11:35
warrant. They would get his computers and hard
11:37
drives and electronic devices, which does happen, by
11:39
the way, for some victims when they have
11:41
the support of law enforcement. I had just
11:43
spoken with victims who had gotten that type
11:45
of justice. Part of
11:47
the process was reaching out to
11:49
Seattle Police Department, weeks leading up
11:51
to the season starting and throughout
11:54
the season with no reply. Will
11:57
Casey at The Stranger, who's amazing, had
11:59
been sent the podcast by
12:01
a listener and had reached out.
12:03
He was fantastic to work
12:05
with. He spoke with the survivors
12:07
who used their time and energy
12:09
to help others and spoke with
12:11
him too. He went to SPD
12:13
and they finally returned my phone
12:16
call. What I recall about that
12:18
phone conversation that I had was
12:20
I was very angry and questioning
12:22
the officer about what took them so
12:25
long and how ridiculous it is that
12:28
the survivors and I have basically done their
12:30
job for them. She didn't
12:32
say much, essentially said they were
12:34
gonna return people's phone calls now.
12:37
She had reached out to Kalyn at
12:39
that point but what Will
12:41
Casey at the stranger communicated with
12:43
me was that they had done
12:45
an article earlier on the subject
12:47
of Seattle PD. According to
12:49
the Seattle Times article Tiffany
12:52
references, quote, Seattle Police's
12:54
sexual assault and child abuse
12:56
unit staff has been so
12:58
depleted that it stopped assigning
13:00
to detectives this year new
13:03
cases with adult victims. According
13:05
to an internal memo sent
13:07
to interim police chief Adrian
13:09
Diaz in April, end quote.
13:12
We also learned through this process
13:14
that this entire city of Seattle
13:17
had at the time one victim
13:19
advocate that was expected to support
13:22
the entire city of Seattle's
13:24
survivors, which is just insane.
13:26
It's very perplexing and it's
13:28
very disheartening and honestly it
13:30
made me feel
13:32
bad that this is the
13:35
actual reality. It made
13:37
me not even want to put
13:39
that out there into the universe.
13:41
Granted I learned that information after
13:43
the finale but even putting
13:45
it out now in this episode
13:47
it's making my heart race but
13:50
it's also the reality of the
13:52
situation that even with all the
13:54
evidence, all the bravery, all the
13:56
time, energy, everything, it's just like
13:58
sorry and that's really
14:00
uncomfortable truth. The
14:03
live was December 13th. We
14:05
had the live and we hadn't even got
14:08
to the Omari episode. The day that
14:10
we recorded the live, I was
14:12
on the phone with Omari all day. Because
14:15
Jake often used his link
14:17
to the media to add
14:19
validity to his persona, his
14:21
job as a photographer was
14:23
relevant throughout season 14. Omari
14:26
was the owner of the media company that
14:28
Jake was employed by. That
14:30
Tiffany also reached out to. Allegedly,
14:32
they had cut ties with Jake.
14:34
But we have reason to believe
14:37
that he was still being employed
14:39
by Converged Media. That's the only reason
14:41
I remember that that episode was the episode that
14:43
would be going out the next week. That
14:45
was episode I think 10. So we still
14:48
had two or three episodes that aired after
14:50
the live. That's because people
14:52
kept coming forward. Yeah and
14:54
then Omari waited till the day of
14:57
the live to answer my emails. Because
14:59
we hadn't mentioned Converged yet, certain people
15:01
hadn't responded to comment. And I also
15:03
waited quite a bit. Then Jake
15:06
pulled the legal shit. That's why we added
15:08
the episode too. Because right after the live,
15:10
I remember us being on the phone. He
15:12
was really mad about the live. He
15:15
was like so mad. He didn't
15:17
want us doing the live. And
15:19
then the season actually stopped airing
15:21
the last week of the year.
15:24
Before we get to the updates, I do
15:26
want to touch a little bit on the release
15:28
of the season. How did that feel
15:30
to be able to listen back to
15:33
your experiences? Was it healing? It
15:36
was a lot of mixed
15:38
feelings. Hearing it all back.
15:41
It's so easy for me to be really
15:43
hard on myself and feel like I was
15:45
an idiot and listening to it.
15:48
I think I had to forgive myself
15:50
during it. My husband is hearing some
15:52
of this stuff for the first time
15:54
and my parents and people
15:57
that know me from where I
15:59
live now. are hearing this for the
16:01
first time. I think that it's
16:03
hard to hear it back. I
16:05
can see all the red flags now, and
16:07
I can see everything telling my story now.
16:10
But when you're going through it, when
16:12
there's limited on the internet, 16 years
16:15
ago, we didn't have all these,
16:18
like gaslighting, I'd never even heard of
16:20
that. I'd never heard of triangulation.
16:22
I felt like I was being
16:25
financially abused while it was happening.
16:27
But I didn't even know that
16:30
that was really his term. It
16:33
just felt like he's fucking ruining my
16:35
life. He's making it impossible for me
16:37
to take care of my kid, barely
16:40
scraping by. I had trouble
16:42
buying food. Why doesn't
16:45
he see that this is a
16:47
shared responsibility? It definitely was
16:49
one of those things where I felt like
16:51
I needed to hang on to it for
16:53
some reason, and I don't feel that anymore.
16:56
So that definitely, I feel like
16:58
is the biggest positive to come
17:01
out from the podcast. I
17:03
got my life back, if that makes
17:05
sense. It felt like
17:08
it had been lifted, and I didn't
17:10
have to hold it anymore. Because I
17:12
think I was hanging on
17:14
to some of it so that I could
17:16
maybe not tell Emerson one day, but so
17:18
that I could try to explain to her
17:20
why her dad wasn't involved in her life.
17:23
So it was pretty
17:25
stressful, overwhelming, kind
17:27
of in a good way. It
17:29
was incredibly healing, I think, to share
17:31
my story. But it was a lot.
17:34
I think for both of us, that
17:36
was the first time that we had
17:38
really ever sat down and told the
17:41
story in start
17:43
to finish like that. I know
17:45
for me, listening back, it's like really
17:47
hard to hear. I get
17:49
why people are frustrated listening to it.
17:52
I'm frustrated listening back to it, but
17:54
you talk about hindsight. Red flags and
17:56
a cycle of abuse obviously
17:59
looks different than it does
18:01
in the moment. Even when we're telling
18:03
it back, we're laying it out and
18:05
telling this is what happened. Obviously, I
18:07
know where the red flags I missed
18:09
were. I'm telling you all of them.
18:11
It would have been much
18:13
easier for either of us to just leave
18:15
some of that stuff out and we chose
18:17
not to. We tried to tell our stories,
18:19
the good, the bad, the ugly, everything in
18:22
between. It would have been
18:24
easier to sugarcoat some of it so
18:26
we didn't feel like, yeah, I believed
18:28
him when he told me this or
18:30
I went back after he did this.
18:32
I think probably anybody that has existed
18:34
within an abusive relationship can relate to
18:37
that on some level. I mean, there's
18:39
a reason why it takes an average
18:41
of seven times for someone to leave.
18:44
Like, Kaitlyn, a lot of my family, a lot
18:46
of my friends, they had never heard some of
18:48
this stuff. I think the
18:50
number one thing more than anything
18:52
else was guilt and shame of
18:55
all of it kept both of
18:57
us quiet for so long. So
18:59
being able to just phone it all
19:02
and say it out loud where we
19:04
had felt silenced, you're taking that power
19:06
back. In that sense, it was really
19:08
healing. You're able to put it out there and
19:10
release it. I think when you
19:12
say things out loud or when you
19:15
tell it as a whole, you look
19:17
at it a little bit differently because
19:19
we can now pinpoint exactly where we
19:21
should have left, things that were obvious
19:23
red flags that we wish that we
19:25
would have known, mistakes that we made
19:28
for some reason. Even when you
19:30
know all of the information, when
19:32
it's all put together, the way
19:34
Tiffany put it together, it's just
19:37
so impactful. It was heavy
19:39
though. It was a lot. My
19:41
heart just broke week after week hearing
19:43
everyone's stories side by side and being
19:45
able to pick out the parts of
19:48
other people's stories that I related with
19:50
the way that they felt at certain
19:52
points and just remembering what that felt
19:55
like, what the confusion felt like, the
19:57
loneliness and the isolation and feeling like
19:59
this. is never going to get
20:01
better when you're in that fog and
20:03
you can't see past it. You can't
20:06
really trust yourself. You've lost all sense
20:08
of yourself. You've lost your sense of
20:10
confidence in your own judgment. You can't
20:12
even tell what is up or down
20:14
or left or right anymore. That's
20:17
so disorienting to live in
20:19
that space. I remember what
20:21
it feels like. So when I hear other people
20:24
talking about it, it makes me really sad. But
20:26
I'm just really thankful that we're
20:28
all in such better places and
20:31
we've healed and we've grown. There's
20:33
not one person that
20:35
participated in the podcast that I
20:37
feel isn't light years better of
20:39
a person for what we've all
20:41
gone through. We've all grown so
20:43
much. I think that just really
20:45
speaks volumes about the type of
20:47
women they all are. With
20:50
all of our recording, we recorded 24 hours
20:53
worth of stuff. There were
20:55
times where I'm jumping around or we're talking and
20:57
then I'm like, oh shit, I totally forgot to
20:59
tell you that. Let me tell you about that
21:02
story. I think I thought, oh
21:04
yeah, I can just shoot off the
21:06
cuff and it'll be fine. I learned
21:08
very quickly. When you're telling things
21:10
that have happened like 11 to 16 years
21:13
ago, it's hard to
21:15
always remember everything or stay
21:17
in line. I wish
21:19
I had a diary during that time because I think that
21:21
that would have made it so much easier. It's
21:24
so much to encompass, right? And to
21:26
your point, it's like years and years before.
21:29
So sometimes shit comes back to you
21:31
while you're talking. Did
21:34
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21:39
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liquidiv.com. I
25:03
think too, because I have such
25:05
a weird name that maybe I'm
25:07
easier to find on social
25:09
media, but I've had
25:12
several messages from people going
25:14
through something similar and
25:17
asking for guidance, which
25:19
I like to document everything. That's
25:22
my biggest, like I would tattoo it
25:24
on me. Seriously, that's the best thing
25:26
you can do for yourself when you're
25:28
going through something like this. The
25:31
other thing I had people reach out and
25:33
say, my sister or my friend is in
25:35
a similar situation as you or I think
25:38
she is and what should I do and
25:40
how do I approach her? I
25:42
obviously don't have all the answers, so I'm always
25:45
like, well, if it were me, I
25:47
would like you coming to me and saying,
25:50
hey, I'm here for you no matter
25:52
what, no judgment, I'm here. You don't
25:54
have to tell me what's going on,
25:56
but know that I'm a safe place
25:58
and if you need a... place to stay, no
26:01
questions asked, you come to my house, I
26:03
don't care what time it is, you have
26:05
a place to stay. Now maybe that person
26:07
isn't willing to do that, but I do
26:09
think that the people that were close to
26:11
me knew how bad it was, and
26:13
they didn't know how to help me. I
26:15
think if they just said, you don't
26:17
have to tell me, because I wasn't
26:19
ready to share it all, and
26:22
just knowing that I would have a safe
26:24
place to go to, I think that things
26:26
would have been a lot different. I
26:29
had people telling me about their stories
26:31
that they've never told anyone. I
26:33
get never telling anyone, because I was
26:36
always so afraid to tell anyone. I
26:38
just cut all my friends off in
26:40
Seattle for the most part and left,
26:43
because the people that I knew with
26:45
him, I was afraid to tell. Since
26:47
then, they've reached out to
26:50
me and apologized for not
26:52
hearing me when I did try to tell them.
26:54
With the husband in life
26:56
that I was pretty close with, that Jake
26:58
was also really close with, I
27:00
considered them family when I lived in Seattle.
27:03
They all were like, I don't want to
27:05
hear it. And since the podcast
27:07
came out, they've all come to me and
27:10
said, wow, I'm so sorry.
27:12
Thank you for sharing your story
27:14
and giving me support and love.
27:17
It's so cool to not have to
27:19
tell every one of them individually how
27:21
terrible things were. I'm glad
27:23
that they listened and they gave us all
27:25
a chance to tell what we went through
27:27
with Jake. They allowed their perception
27:29
to change. They listened with an open
27:31
mind and it meant everything to me.
27:35
I learned so much from listening to
27:37
other people and
27:39
talking with other people. We had
27:42
so much support. Of
27:44
course, there's a handful of people that
27:47
are saying shit. When
27:49
people are wondering, why didn't she leave?
27:51
Or if this was happening, I would
27:53
have just left and go where?
27:55
With what money? But a lot
27:57
of It is the. Either
28:00
heard a long are they didn't fully
28:02
understand or they don't understand how the
28:05
court system works for they don't understand
28:07
abuse. Because. They've never gone
28:09
through anything like that before. Being.
28:12
Able to try to clear up
28:14
some stuff, I felt like it
28:16
was hopeful and not hurtful. Ah,
28:18
already it was so hard on
28:20
myself hearing it all. Nothing anybody
28:22
to say to me would have
28:24
really hurt. My feelings. The.
28:26
Only time where if I would
28:28
get upset when they were saying
28:30
about Melissa. It's when you
28:33
feel like people are judging your every
28:35
move under a microscope and I'm judging
28:37
at my every move. I'm gonna
28:39
be my biggest critic and seeing how
28:41
did you not feel this, especially when
28:44
I laying it out so clear a
28:46
makes it hard. but I do think
28:48
I probably should have been a little
28:50
bit deeper into the court systems and
28:52
how difficult it is. To. Protect your
28:55
child. When. I also think. That.
28:57
Some places people are listening,
29:00
maybe not always to the
29:02
right reason. Like. Oh
29:04
let me see the train. Leaves
29:07
is the new. We are
29:09
hoping that education pieces there.
29:12
I. Still think that there's so much
29:15
we don't know about this type
29:17
of abuse the court systems haven't
29:19
even caught up with is. How
29:21
can we expect listeners since
29:23
be there. There. Are
29:26
so many hard conversations that need
29:28
to be hard to be able
29:30
to grow and understandings. I
29:32
think it's just a product of
29:34
media in general. People. Tend
29:36
to sometimes forget that were real people.
29:39
The voices that you're hearing are real
29:41
people. So. The opinions
29:43
that you're having about someone's
29:45
choices or someone's life and
29:47
you're posting them on the
29:49
internet. You're talking about someone's
29:51
axles life. Obviously. You're
29:53
always gonna have the people that are just
29:56
there for the purpose of being cruel. We.
29:58
know from our season said one
30:00
of those people that was on
30:02
there being cruel was most likely
30:04
Jake because he had screenshots of
30:06
everything and there were a couple
30:08
of pretty sketchy accounts. I
30:11
think our journey with participating
30:13
in the online discussion, at
30:16
the very beginning, it's really hard to not get defensive.
30:19
And I think we had to get
30:21
over that really quickly. But once we
30:23
actually settled in and tried to like
30:25
understand what people were saying what
30:28
the conversation was, we learned so much
30:30
in that process. There had
30:32
been someone that had posted, why would
30:35
Kaitlyn not just have the custody removed
30:37
when he sent Emerson back with a
30:39
sunburn and ate all her lunch? We
30:42
were just like, that's not how that works.
30:44
When there's a parenting plan, you have to
30:46
follow it. This person finally had wrote
30:48
back and said, oh, I'm not a
30:50
parent. I'm not from the US. So you
30:53
start to understand that they form an opinion on
30:55
it or they don't listen carefully. And then they
30:57
fill in the blanks of what they didn't hear.
31:00
As the season was coming out, we're like getting emails and
31:02
they're like, I work with Jake and he just started at
31:05
my job. Now I'm freaking out and
31:07
he's trying to go by Jacob. Like that's going
31:09
to make things better. People
31:11
aren't going to know it's him. Kaitlyn
31:13
started off by saying that their
31:15
mission was really to spread awareness
31:17
and warn the public about this
31:19
person. They have been so
31:21
successful in that. I think
31:24
it's incredible the awareness that was able
31:26
to be spread through the show and
31:28
literally protect the women of Seattle. I
31:32
just want to add something to that. One
31:34
thing that I was really shocked at
31:36
was how far the reach of the
31:38
podcast was. I've had at least three
31:40
friends that have contacted me. These
31:43
are people that live in Seattle. They
31:45
know me, but they had random relatives
31:47
or friends from the East Coast. One
31:49
was in Europe. One was in Hawaii.
31:51
They had listened to the podcast and knew that
31:53
this person, their family member or their friend lived
31:55
in Seattle and they sent them the podcast like,
31:58
Oh my gosh, look out for this guy. They
32:00
contacted me like, how crazy is that? So
32:03
they ended up telling those people like, oh,
32:05
I actually know Melissa or I know Kaylin.
32:08
We had so many stories like that.
32:10
How many people have heard this story
32:12
and how many people have seen the
32:14
information and the evidence at this
32:16
point is so far beyond anything that we
32:18
ever could have imagined. At
32:21
the beginning, we were hoping that we could
32:23
just warn the women in Seattle. And
32:26
then it became more and more evident that he's
32:28
traveling, he's got upwards of, I think the most
32:30
that we counted at one time was like 11
32:32
or 12 women overlapped and
32:35
they were in different states. He's all
32:37
over the place and he's traveling now
32:39
out of the country because he has
32:41
his passport. We had no clue how
32:43
many victims there could be all over
32:46
the place. The fact that we
32:48
were able to get it outside of
32:50
even the Pacific Northwest but make it
32:53
worldwide is absolutely insane to me. Somebody
32:56
sent it to my husband and was like, do
32:58
we know this fucking guy? Because
33:00
he lived in Washington for quite a
33:02
while and so people have reached out
33:04
to him like knowing that I'm his
33:07
wife and not knowing and saying, what
33:09
are we going to do about this guy? And
33:11
he's like, nothing, we're going to do nothing. I'm
33:14
like, yes, that is the correct answer, we are
33:16
going to do nothing. Definitely
33:18
got to a point towards the end of
33:20
the season, I was just like emotionally spent
33:22
with all of it. I was drained from
33:24
talking about all of it. The
33:26
court stuff going on, the Omari stuff that
33:28
was happening at the end, then we're adding
33:31
episodes. There were so many falls in the
33:33
air by the end. You guys know such
33:35
rumors. In the last
33:37
weeks and even right after we were
33:40
done, we were getting messages from multiple
33:42
people that have listened to the podcast
33:44
and figured out that, oh my gosh,
33:46
this is my friend's boyfriend. In
33:49
regards to Jake's girlfriend, family
33:51
and friends reaching out, it was from
33:53
a place of concern. I Think
33:56
that we spent a lot of
33:58
time worried about her. That
34:00
her son. We. Do things
34:02
we've talked to her of. Yeah,
34:04
those other accounts that we never
34:06
reached out to her. I hope
34:08
she listens even though she's told
34:11
her that we are all lying.
34:13
I. Can't imagine how challenging things have
34:15
been for her. We're.
34:17
Getting all of this information coming and
34:20
to the point where we all needed
34:22
a detox. Kalan. On I talked
34:24
about towards the end of the season
34:26
we were like barely speak a it
34:28
was it out of anything other than
34:30
we were just drains, we didn't really
34:32
have a lot left and the tanks
34:34
to there was a so many different
34:36
things being piled on and every direction.
34:39
We. Just needed time to recharge them.
34:41
So it's been good to be able
34:43
to step away from it and focus
34:46
on things other than date. With.
34:48
The release of the podcast and
34:51
with some distance between it, Melissa
34:53
and I have definitely have had
34:55
time to get back to our
34:58
regular conversations that doesn't include Jake's
35:00
the that's been Nice So have
35:02
each other back in our lives
35:05
without Jake in the middle of
35:07
that conversation. It's. Been
35:09
nice to get back to normal
35:11
life without talking about trauma every
35:14
day because our release and seven
35:16
our friendships have not actually been
35:18
based on him. He would
35:20
only come up in conversation when something happened
35:22
or we needed about things off each other.
35:25
If there was court hearings or anything along
35:27
those lines. It's nice for our
35:29
friendship to get back to the regular
35:31
stuff where we can just focus on
35:33
our girls and focus on being there
35:36
for each other. Also, all the other
35:38
women that we've met along the way,
35:40
we've gotten to get to know them
35:42
more on a personal level as opposed
35:45
to just through the podcast or through
35:47
the instagram page. We were able to
35:49
spend time with a few of them
35:51
in Seattle, go out for drinks or
35:53
dinner, so it's been really nice to
35:56
get to see if some of those.
35:58
women outside of the podcast
36:00
and talking about all of this really
36:02
heavy stuff. Just hearing about their lives
36:04
and what they're doing, them going to
36:06
school or their jobs or their families.
36:08
And that's just been probably the best
36:10
part of the last couple months. The
36:12
new friendships and all the positivity that's
36:15
come from it. I feel
36:17
like there were so many gifts within the season
36:19
that people were able to take away, inspiring
36:22
other people to start Instagram pages
36:24
and Facebook groups like, are we
36:26
dating the same guy? Also,
36:29
I will never forget something that Melissa
36:31
said in the season. This is
36:33
a dog that bites. Sharing that
36:35
piece from her therapist and that
36:37
analogy. I can't tell you
36:40
how much positive feedback we got about that.
36:42
To Kaylin's point about education, people are
36:45
learning and they don't even know it.
36:47
The survivors themselves are teaching one another.
36:49
And I think that's incredibly powerful. I
36:51
don't want to miss on the opportunity
36:53
to share that piece because this is
36:56
a dog that bites examples, opened people's
36:58
mind and gave them a very tangible
37:00
example. They can now take that into
37:02
their lives. Just like Kaylin sharing the
37:04
things that she experienced in the court
37:07
system is going to help somebody that
37:09
is currently in that fight. Tomorrow,
37:11
they have a court hearing that they're feeling nervous
37:13
about and they happen to listen. That's
37:15
one of the fucking coolest parts about the far reach
37:18
of the show. We will
37:20
never even understand the full positive
37:22
impact. It can be the smallest
37:24
detail that y'all have shared about your
37:27
experience and it can be a completely
37:29
life-changing, unlocking mental moment for
37:31
someone else. And that's so
37:33
powerful. I've
37:36
had so many people say to me,
37:38
I wish I would have done what
37:40
we did with the Instagram. There's been
37:42
so many people that have told Kaylin
37:44
and I and even Sarah that they
37:46
have similar stories to us. It's like,
37:48
oh, I connected with my abusive ex's
37:51
ex-wife or ex-girlfriend and we're super close
37:53
now and we've helped each other through
37:55
it. It shows growth, I think, in
37:57
our society because for so long, women
37:59
have... been pitted against each other in
38:01
so many different aspects of life. We're
38:04
taught a little bit to blame other women
38:06
rather than where Kaylin's at where she
38:08
showed all the other women grace. She
38:11
put the blame on Jake who is the one that
38:13
was actually doing all of these things. It's
38:16
a way that as a society, I
38:18
think especially women are taking their power
38:20
back with those things like the Facebook
38:22
group where they're sharing their experiences with
38:24
men and trying to protect
38:26
other women. And as a whole,
38:28
I think they're starting to say, we don't have
38:30
to like sit in silence. We don't have to
38:33
just not tell anyone because we're afraid no one's
38:35
going to believe us. We're starting
38:37
to believe each other and just
38:39
support each other as women. And
38:41
I think that speaking volumes for
38:43
how far those Facebook groups are
38:45
reaching and how many women they're protecting. You
38:48
guys supporting one another, to your point, Melissa,
38:51
that was one of the things that definitely
38:53
stood out from people from the beginning of
38:55
the season was Kaylin's ability to not look
38:58
at you as her competition essentially, but that
39:00
you were able to come together. That's
39:03
amazing. It's women supporting women and
39:05
we definitely need more of it. Stay
39:08
tuned next week for more updates from Kaylin
39:10
and Melissa that you're not going to want
39:13
to miss. The only
39:15
other person that we tried to
39:17
warn was Mike Carrera from MXPx.
39:20
Kaylin's boyfriend had connection to him. We
39:23
were concerned because he had already
39:25
assaulted Ivy at that point and
39:27
Mike was bringing Jake in to
39:29
stay at his house around
39:31
his kids. The most shocking
39:34
part to me was within the first
39:36
few sentences, I recall it saying something
39:38
to the tune of, we've been expecting
39:40
this message. I just
39:42
thought, wow, that's your opener? It
39:45
was so embittered. What
39:50
Came Next is a broken cycle
39:52
media production co-produced by Amy B.
39:55
Chesler and Tiffany Reese. If
39:57
you'd like to help support What
39:59
Came Next, you can leave us
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a positive review, support our sponsors,
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or follow Broken Cycle Media on
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the episode notes for sources, resources,
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and to follow our guests. Thank
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you again for listening. Hey
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Prime members, you can listen
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