Let's Go To Court! - 226: CoolSculpting & the Disappearance of Michele Harris

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

Supermodel Linda Evangelista was feeling insecure about her body. Her thighs weren’t quite as slim as they used to be. Her jawline wasn’t quite as hard. A new cosmetic procedure called CoolSculpting seemed like the answer to her problems. The procedure was marketed as a non-invasive method for shrinking areas of stubborn fat. So imagine Linda’s surprise when the areas where she received CoolSculpting began to grow. Then Brandi tells us about Michele Harris, a mother of four who went missing on September 11, 2001. In the months leading up to her disappearance, Michele and her husband Cal were in the middle of a contentious divorce. She’d begun dating other men. She got a part-time job. When she went missing, people suspected that Cal was to blame. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Linda Evangelista is the latest to go to war against this fat-freezing company,” by Andrea Marks for Rolling Stone  “Back in bloom: The rebirth of the indomitable Linda Evangelista,” by Sarah Harris for British Vogue  “Linda Evangelista shares first photos of her body since fat-freezing nightmare: I’m done hiding,” by Jason Sheeler for People.com “Linda Evangelista says she ‘looks forward to the next chapter’ after CoolSculpting lawsuit settles,” by Arielle Weg for Prevention “What to know about CoolSculpting,” by Rachel Ann Tee-Melegrito for Medical News Today “Linda Evangelista covers British Vogue after CoolSculpting procedure: ‘Miss my work so much,” by Edward Segarra for USA Today In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “A Time To Kill” episode 48 Hours “Disappearance of Michele Anne Harris” wikipedia.org “9/11 horror limited investigation into upstate N.Y. mom’s disappearance”by David Krajicek, New York Daily News “Michele Anne Harris” charleyproject.org “Cal Harris Says Acquittal After 4th Murder Trial Was 'Total Relief,' How He and Kids Are Moving Forward” by Matt Gutman, Marc Dorian, Mike Repplier, and Lauren Effron, ABC News YOU’RE STILL READING? My, my, my, you skeezy scunch! You must be hungry for more! We’d offer you some sausage brunch, but that gets messy. So how about you head over to our Patreon instead? (patreon.com/lgtcpodcast). At the $5 level, you’ll get 37+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90’s style chat room!  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts! I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court! On this episode, I'll be talking about cool sculpting. And I'll be talking about a disappearance.

Everyone, Brandi's very unprofessional today. Why am I unprofessional? Because you keep looking at me and laughing. Okay, you have a t-shirt wrapped around your head, ma'am. It's called plopping. I know you're plopping, but maybe it's unprofessional to plop during recording. Did you ever think of that? No, never.

It just says taco real big across your head. A beloved listener once sent me a t-shirt that said Taco Bell on the front. Yes. Bell, B-E-L-L-E. We all got it. Love, no, some were scratching their heads. And I wear the shirt. And also when I'm plopping, which is a thing curly-haired people do.

Yes. And also something you do in the bathroom. Oh, right. There we go. haired people do. Yes. And also something you do in the bathroom. Oh. Right. There we go. With the unprofessionalism, the total lack of class. I'd never talk about fecal matter on this podcast. Anyway, the point

is I'm currently plopping in brandy. Because you just got fresh color. Yeah, fresh color. Fresh cut too. Uh-huh. That's some bitch. You can say that again. Because you just got fresh color. Yeah, fresh color. Fresh cut, too. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. That's a bitch. You can say that again.

Also, I just gave Norm the best haircut ever. Everyone, my husband's looking really hot. It looks so good. Don't try to bang him. Are you saying that to me? To everyone. Okay, I'm not going to try and bang him. We just told them how hot he's looking, so then it's my obligation to just, like, tell the world. Don't bang my husband.

Okay, great. All right, well, anyway. Cool sculpting. There's a lawsuit about cool sculpting? Okay, hold the phone. First, we have to do an ad. Oh, shit. Right.

We have ads this week. Unlike last week. You know, Brandy, sometimes I go negative. I focus on the problems and not on solutions. Yeah, that does happen. And it can be tough to train your brain to stay in problem-solving mode when faced with a challenge in life. In my defense, I'm very good at naming all the bad things. You excel at that.

Okay, now we should talk about our Patreon. Absolutely. We have one, and it's on the internet. Oh, God. And you can subscribe and support our show. You get bonus content, bonus episodes. You can get on Zoom calls with us. That's right.

We played Taboo this month. It was very fun. Everyone, you have not lived until you have seen Brandy say a word she's not supposed to say in Taboo. I tabooed myself. Twice. Oh, I'm so disappointed in myself. Anyway, there's a video of it if you want to watch it. I don't know why anybody won't watch that, but it's there.

Brandy technically won the game, but I feel like I really won the war. That's right. Also, you can get ad-free episodes and you can get them a day early. Oh, what more could you want? Nothing. That's it. Shelter, food, water. And our Patreon.

All right. Moving on to CoolSculpting. Yeah. Okay. What do you know about CoolSculpting? I know a lot. I've seen lots of on to CoolSculpting. Yeah. Okay. There's... What do you know about CoolSculpting? I know a lot. I've seen lots of stuff about CoolSculpting.

Oh, shit. I know someone who got it done. No, you don't. Yeah. What were their results? None. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Can you tell any more or is it... That's... That's probably... Okay. Okay. It's also not cheap. No, it's not.? It's probably not. Right on. Okay. It's also not cheap. No, it's not. No, it's not.

I'm so excited to tell this one. I didn't know you would know anything about it. Okay. Everybody, just calm down, everyone. First off, a little bit of honesty. This is yet another case that no one has asked for. Great. Not a single listener has expressed any interest in hearing about this.

And yet this case called to me like a siren. I have wanted to do this case for, I mean, really, it's only been a year. Okay. I was trying to make it bigger than it was. Anyway, I guess I'll just start. Yeah, how about you just tell us about it? Okay. Shoutouts to, I'm not going to name headlines, but I'm just going to say People Magazine, Rolling Stone, British Vogue.

Yeah, those are the main sources for this story. You're making faces. What's your face about? No, I'm very interested. Continue on. All right. The Grace Kelly of podcasting will do whatever the fuck she wants.

That's right. As they say. Let's talk about Linda Evangelista. Shall we? Oh! Oh shit! What?

She famously had a botched cosmetic procedure. I didn't know it wasn't cool sculpting. Sure was. I've never seen you get so pumped up. Oh, my gosh.

Okay. So Linda Evangelista is one of the most famous models of all time. Yeah. A supermodel, if you will. She was born in Canada and was discovered as a teenager when she competed in the Miss Teen Niagara beauty pageant. Fun fact, she did not win the pageant. But a scout for a modeling agency was sitting in the audience. And afterward, he handed her his card.

But Linda's parents were super strict and she had to wait two years to call him. Okay, you're making that face like something creepy was going on. And in a way it was. When she was a teenager, she like took a job in Japan. She got over there and they were immediately like, take your clothes off. And not like, could you take your clothes off? And so she called her mom and her mom was like, go to the American embassy. And then, you know, she fucked off and got out of modeling for a little bit there. Holy shit.

Anyway, that's not part of the story. That's just a rabbit hole that I went down. Wonderful. So, you know, she waited the two years and her career took off. In 1984, Linda moved to New York where she stayed in Elite Model Management's Upper East Side apartment for models. And if you think that's news to me, then you don't have any idea how much America's Next Top Model I used to watch. Yeah. So I watched a ton of America's Next Top Model.

All right. So just calm down. I've been smizing for years. Pretty soon the agency was like, Linda, you're amazing. We're sending you to Paris. So at 19, she became an international model. And she was on like every magazine cover ever. She was on Vogue, Cosmo, Glamour, Elle, Marie Claire, Rolling Stone, Time, Newsweek,

and of course, Cigar Aficionado. Of course. Duh. Are you even a model if you haven't been on the cover of Cigar Aficionado? You probably are. She began working with Karl Lagerfeld. Lagerfeld, yeah. He's kind of a big, dishy douche. Oh, no, stop it. Stop it. The important thing is he was the head designer for Chanel. Yeah, and he was a fat guy who lost a bunch of weight and then became terrible to fat people.

No, we don't have time for that. Brandi, we have no time to talk about how Islamophobic he was or how he called Heidi Klum fat. Oh, jeez. Or here's another fun one. Let's just play the hits. How he said that Pippa Middleton shouldn't show her face. She should only show her backside. Awesome.

Yeah. Like I said, there's no time for that. Stop getting distracted by things that aren't part of the main story, Brandy. I'm pretty sure you have ADHD. Fun fact, everyone. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD. Today's my first day on medication.

Let us know if you see a difference in the show. The point is... Well, no. we'll hit that whole thing later. There's no time. There's no time. The point is, Linda became Karl Lagerfeld's muse. Oh. And Gianni Versace's muse.

And she did ads for Pizza Hut. Isn't that amusing? And she did ads for Pizza Hut. Isn't that amusing? She modeled for all the high-end fashion brands, and I will name several of them now. Okay. Valentino. Oh, you heard of it?

Giorgio Armani. Obviously. Donna Karan. Yes. Calvin Klein. Herb Luger. And Comdesgarkens. Comdesgarkensins it's three words what

com-dis-gark-ins how do you spell this first word is c-o-m-m-e then we got d-e-s then we got g-a-r-C-O-N-S. Okay. I never heard of this brand.

Doesn't say she did anything for Kirkland Signature, so I really – sounds like she wasn't that big of a deal. In 1987, she became part of Revlon's The Most Unforgettable Women in the World campaign. Oh, shit. the most unforgettable women in the world campaign. Oh, shit. By this point, she was part of the Trinity. And by that, I, of course, mean Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, and Linda Evangelista. They were the it girls.

They were supermodels. Linda was everywhere. She was gorgeous. She had perfect bone structure, legs for days, and she had the most versatile hair you ever did see. In 1988, she chopped it all off. And at first, the modeling world was like, oh, no. But then they were like, oh, yes. Right.

And everyone chopped their hair off. I'm going to look up a picture of her. Sure. I realize I didn't go nutso describing her just because, you know, it's like you describe one supermodel. You're kind of, I mean, she looks like a supermodel. Like super hot. Can you just picture someone who's super hot? Bang, you've done it. Yeah. Over the years, Linda dyed her hair blonde. She dyed her hair red. Spoiler alert, she looked great all the time. In 1990, she did an interview

with Vogue and famously said that she and Christy Turlington, quote, don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day. Same. Except adjusted for inflation, that's $22,000 a day. Oh, fuck.

You get the idea. She was killing it, hot as hell, Adjusted for inflation, that's $22,000 a day. Oh, fuck. Shit. You get the idea. She was killing it, hot as hell, making money, swimming in unlimited personal pan pizzas. That's what you get when you do ads for Pizza Hut, right? Oh, okay. What does Pizza Hut having supermodels do? Oh, gee, I don't know.

Because people want to do what the hot people are doing? What do you mean? Why? I've never seen a Pizza Hut ad that has a hot person in it. Bullshit. Or like a supermodel. Bullshit. It's not like Carl's Jr. where the hot woman's climbing on the car with a burger.

That makes me so horny for burgers. No, every commercial has people who are hot. Like, I think they've got... Don't make that face at me. I am looking up Linda Evangelista Pizza Hut. I want to know what this ad looked like. I think you pluck the lady who's in the hemorrhoid cream ad

out and you see her in real life on the street, you're going to be like, whoa, what a hottie. But, you know, they get her a little dowdy looking. What? Yeah, Cindy Crawford was apparently in the ad with her. Yeah, it sounds like an amazing. Two hot models eating pizza. Specifically Pizza Hut.

I'm sure that that happened all the time. Yeah. I'm sure that that happened all the time. Yeah. In 1998, Linda announced that she was retiring from modeling. But did she really retire? No. No, she did not.

A couple years later, she returned to modeling by gracing the cover of Vogue's September issue. Oh, shit. Yes, the most important issue. The fall issue with all the fall. Is it the one where all the fall lines? Yes. Okay, anyway. Also a big book one, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just realized as soon as you asked like the slightest follow-up question, I had no idea what to say. There's like one issue of Vogue every year that's like fucking JCPenney catalog big. Remember the JCPenney catalog? Oh, my God. Brandy, my grandmother worked for JCPenney, proudly worked in the catalog section. I have a pin from – okay, it's so cool. It says, I heart catalog. That's awesome.

And from my other grandma, I have a pin that says, world's best dier, which she got from Weight Watchers, which I kept because it was sad. Yeah. Jesus. But also kind of funny. Yeah, it is funny. Which is how I feel about the catalog. Yeah. I mean, a lot of sad broaches in my life.

Anyway. It's a sad broach collection. Well, I couldn't throw that away. No. World's best dieter. Yeah. That's a relic. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, got to hold on to that. Anyway, for years, Linda kept working. She was still hot, still going. She did a ton of charity work around AIDS research. She was a legendary supermodel. One reporter wrote, of all the supermodels, Linda was most responsible for elevating the job into an art form, pushing up the fees, piling on the expectations, and generally ensuring that by the end of the 80s, the world of the top model had become as lucrative, glamorous, and shrouded in enigma as that of the Hollywood star.

So she'd done it. But it's got to be a little complicated to be known and celebrated for your looks. Yeah. As the years go by, there are all these expectations, wildly unrealistic expectations. Like when you're podcasting with me, you can't plop your hair. Expectations like you will remain stick thin forever. Expectations that you will remain looking 19 forever. Expectations that you will look like a fucking supermodel until you drop dead.

Yeah. Now, Brandy, I don't mean to shock you, but some famous women do have work done. No, what? Well, not J-Lo. She only uses olive oil, as she said. Yeah. Honestly, that made me mad at J-Lo. And J-Lo and I have always had a very nice relationship.

But when she was like, oh, Botox fillers? No, not me. Just a little olive oil. I just lathered myself down with olive oil. That's a great J-Lo impression, by the way. Yeah, it made me mad. Anyway. And so in 2015, Linda was feeling a little insecure about her body.

2015, Linda was feeling a little insecure about her body. And she found out about this cosmetic procedure called CoolSculpting. What is CoolSculpting, you ask? Well, it was FDA cleared in 2010, so don't worry about it. Yeah, what, they freeze the fat cells and then they die and they're supposed to just like fall out of your body. Flushed out. Excuse me. That's essentially what happens.

Okay. Brandi, I would now like to tell you about a cool sculpting commercial that I very much enjoy. Okay. Okay, picture it. It opens on a woman standing in her bedroom in a pair of pajamas. She's looking into a full-length mirror. She lifts her pajama top enough to reveal her stomach. She cups her stomach.

She frowns at it. And as the woman frowns, a voiceover plays. Mirrors. They show us all our problem areas. Those places that we can't wish or squish away. Well now, fear no mirror and eliminate those problem areas with cool sculpting. Then we see a before and after shot of someone's tummy. In the before shot, it's a little bigger. And in the after shot, taken eight weeks

later, it's a little smaller. The voice says, the patented cooling technology targets and kills fat cells with no surgery or downtime. Then we hear from some satisfied customers. For example, Leslie, age 41, says, after getting the CoolSculpting procedure, it gave me back the body I had before I had kids. I feel much more confident. And age 56 says, I don't have to think about what I wear and how it's going to make me feel anymore. I know everything I put on is going to make me feel good. And that's a new feeling. For everyone, for the record, Brandy doesn't look the least bit happy for any of these people. Paige, age 53, says, That's stupid.

Stupid that she feels great and it was super easy? Okay, but I think it's painful and it's super expensive and it gives you minimal results. Ouch. I hope the makers of CoolSculpting are not listening to this. I hope they are. Because if they are, they are crying. Then we're treated to more before and after pictures. Thighs.

A little bigger and then a little smaller. There's footage of women doing yoga. A woman lounging by the pool. The voiceover says, with the CoolSculpting procedure, you can do it too. So if you want to see a slimmer you when you look in the mirror, go to CoolSculpting.com. There is, of course, some fine print in the last few seconds of the commercial. What's it say? Oh, I'll read it to you now. It reads, while CoolSculpting is safe, some rare side effects may occur, but the typical ones include temporary numbness, discomfort, and swelling.

As with any medical procedure, only your physician can help you decide if CoolSculpting is right for you. To learn more about the procedure and what to expect, visit www.coolsculpting.com. So, pretty great, right? Oh, no. Oh, oh, what don't you like? The slimmer you, the no downtime. It's all so perfect.

Okay, great. You know, if you weren't such a hater, you might be asking questions like, but Kristen, what is school sculpting? How does it work? Is it right for me? For this part, we must thank our friends at Medical News Today. Rachel Ann T. Malagrito wrote an article about CoolSculpting, and I'm going to read to you from it now. So first off, CoolSculpting is the name brand for a fat reduction method called cryolipolysis.

Cryolipolysis? It sounds stupid when you say it. Here's how it works according to Rachel's article. It uses freezing temperatures to break down fat cells. Fat cells are more affected by cold temperatures than other cells. This means that the cold does not damage other cells, such as the skin or underlying tissue. During the procedure, the practitioner vacuums the skin above the area of fatty tissue into an applicator that cools the fat cells. The cold temperatures numb the site, and some people report feeling a cooling sensation.

and some people report feeling a cooling sensation. Most CoolSculpting procedures take around 35 to 60 minutes, depending on the area a person wishes to target. There is no downtime because there is no damage to the skin or the tissue. Some people report soreness at the site of CoolSculpting, similar to what they might have after an intense workout or minor muscle injury. have after an intense workout or minor muscle injury. Others report stinging, firmness, mild discoloration, swelling, and itchiness. After the procedure, it may take around four to six months for the fat cells to leave a person's body. In that time, the area of fat Average of 20 percent. So – OK.

For starters, I first learned about cool sculpting from YouTube. I don't know if you remember this trend, but like several years ago, some CoolSculpting brand must have reached out to a ton of beauty influencers and given them free treatments. So I saw a bunch of beauty influencers going and it's funny because it had the exact opposite effect on me than it was supposed to have. It didn't make you want to get it done? Well, it's clearly painful. Yeah, it looks painful. It's clearly painful. And I'm sorry, but it's like it's for people.

It's specifically not a weight loss method. Yeah, no. It's specifically for people who have like these so-called like stubborn areas that can't be impacted by diet and exercise and so i don't know it's just like it's skinny people going in getting frostbite what is what it looks like and then you don't even see the results for months. And when you do, it's maybe 20%. 20%. That just sounds awful to me. But at any rate, Linda Evangelista heard about this procedure and she was tempted.

She said, those cool sculpting commercials were on all the time on CNN, on MSNBC, over and over. And they would ask, do you like what you see in the mirror? They were speaking to me. It was about stubborn fat in areas that wouldn't budge. It said no downtime, no surgery. And I drank the magic potion. And I would because I'm a little vain. Which, I mean, yeah.

Yeah. Supermodel, yeah. Absolutely. I think that'd be really hard. Oh, absolutely. Your entire career is based on your appearance. Yes. Yeah.

The thing I really hate that people do now, and they do this with, like, any think over a certain age it's like they will compare a photo of her now out on the street no makeup hair up you know dressed however to a photo of her when she was in her 20s with professional makeup professional, professional stylist. Yeah. And what's the message? Oh, look at this. Yeah, you look like shit now. A woman dared to age. Yeah. That's terrible.

Yeah. So in 2015, Linda went for it. By this point, she was in her early 50s. She went to her dermatologist, and over the course of about six months, she had seven cool sculpting sessions. What areas did she target? Her chin, her thighs, and the area around her bra.

Oh, yeah. That's where I get my meat. Initially, things seemed fine, but within three months of receiving those treatments, Linda noticed these weird bulges in all the areas that they tried to shrink with the CoolSculpting treatment. Oh, my gosh. Over time, the bulges became bigger. They got hard. They turned numb.

Linda initially didn't blame the cool sculpting. She figured she was doing something wrong. So she exercised harder. I have down here that she followed a strict diet, but that's not it. I mean, she stopped eating. Yeah, that's not a strict diet. That's an eating disorder. Yeah, sure is.

Sure is. She felt like she was losing her mind. Yeah. Finally, in June of 2016, she made an appointment with her doctor. And at that appointment, she took off her clothes and just started bawling. She told him, I haven't eaten. I'm starving. What am I doing wrong?

Her doctor diagnosed her with paradoxical adipose hyperplasia or PAH because I'm never saying that again. But let the record reflect that I only had to say it once. You said it great. Oh, my gosh. Thank you, Brandy. So her body didn't flush the fat. It just stayed where they froze it. Not exactly.

Okay. A little worse than that. It like, yeah, well, like settled into these lumps. Mm-hmm. Okay. I'll just let you tell the story. Okay, first of all, how did you find out about this stuff? Did you see any of the YouTube videos?

No, I've never seen any of the YouTube videos, but I saw the commercials on TV. There were like ads in magazines. Oh, yeah. It was everywhere for a while. I feel like you don't see it as much anymore. No. Because, you know, I mean, it just doesn't. It's a scam.

I don't know. Some of those thighs did look smaller. I don't know. Some of those thighs did look smaller. So her doctor diagnosed her and he said that no amount of diet or exercise could ever fix PAH. As it turned out, Linda was experiencing a rare side effect of CoolSculpting. And boy, the side effect really sucks because the side effect does the polar opposite of what you want the CoolSculpting to do. It creates fat deposits.

So instead of shrinking areas that you want to go away, it enlargens and hardens. I don't think enlarging is a word. Not only does it enlargen, it enlarges. As of today, CoolSculpting has a fine print warning about this on their website. Here's what it says. Rare side effects may happen in 1 to 10 out of 10,000 CoolSculpting and CoolSculpting Elite treatments. And then in parentheses between 0.01% and 0.1%. One such rare side effect is a visible enlargement in the treated area, which may develop two

to five months after treatment, will not resolve on its own, and may require surgical intervention for correction. Oh my gosh. But that's only like in 0.1% of cases. Don't even worry about it. What are your thoughts on that warning? I don't know. OK.

I've got my tinfoil hat on in addition to my T-shirt that's wrapped around my head. OK. OK. The thing that stuck out to me about that warning is that it doesn't name the thing. Yeah. It doesn't say paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, which I just said beautifully. So my theory is that – and again, I'm just talking out my ass here. But my thinking is that if they named it on their site, then myself, I would Google that.

And then once you Google it, you see all these pictures of it. And you go, oh, shit, that's not worth it. Yeah. Because people often get these hard bulges in the shape of the rectangular pool sculpting machine. It's called the stick of butter effect. Oh my gosh. No, it like raises up. In an article about PAH and People Magazine, a CoolSculpting representative submitted a statement, and here's the gist of what it said. CoolSculpting has been well studied with more than 100 scientific publications and more than 11 million treatments performed worldwide.

Rare side effects like PAH continue to be well documented in the CoolSculpting information for patients and health care providers. So, PAH can happen, but not very often. Linda was just unlucky. And, I mean, she was devastated. Yeah. Shortly after she got her diagnosis, Linda's doctor contacted Cool Sculpting's parent company, Zeltik, which has since been sold. But, I mean, you know.

Yeah. We're sticking with Zeltik. Wonderful. It sounds like Zeltik tried to do the right thing. Linda says they offered to pay for her liposuction. They said they would choose the surgeon. They'd use a specialist who'd done this exact thing before. And she agreed.

But on the eve of her liposuction, she found out that the company would only pay for the liposuction if she signed a confidentiality agreement. And she was like, no, absolutely not. So she paid for the surgery herself. And this liposuction was no joke because it had to be done on her thighs, her back, her chin. This was like a full body surgery. And afterwards, she had to wear a chin strap and a girdle and a bunch of compression garments for eight weeks, like just spanks head to toe. She was told that if she didn't wear all those compression garments, the PAH might come

back. So, I mean, she definitely wore the garments. And the PAH came back anyway. Oh my gosh. In July of 2017, she got liposuction all over again. And the bulges came back. As it turned out, the bulges weren't affected by liposuction. They literally would not go away. What? Mm-hmm. So there's no fix? Yeah, I mean, it doesn't seem like it. Holy shit. That's wild to me. Yeah.

She said, it wasn't even a little bit better. The bulges are protrusions, and they're hard. If I walk without a girdle and a dress, I will have chafing to the point of almost bleeding. Because it's not like soft fat rubbing. It's like hard fat rubbing. Linda. Wow. Yeah.

Linda was miserable. She didn't look like herself, didn't feel like herself. She could no longer put her arms flat along her sides. She stopped looking in the mirror. After two surgeries, she said, I have incisions all over my body. I have had stitches. I've worn compression garments under my chin. I've had my entire body tightly girdled for eight weeks. Nothing helped.

I was so embarrassed. I just spent all this money and the only way I could think to fix it was zero calories and so I just drank water or sometimes I would have a stick of celery or one apple. I was losing my mind. Yeah. She fell into a deep depression. She was afraid to leave the house. She dreaded seeing people she knew. She was so deeply ashamed. She says she didn't recognize herself physically and didn't recognize herself as a person either. And of course, when she did leave the house, she was photographed and people mocked her looks.

Yep. That's terrible. Yeah. Absolutely horrible. For roughly five years after she had the cool sculpting procedures, Linda hid from the world. But finally, in September of 2021, Linda Evangelista decided that enough was enough. She looked herself in the mirror and she said, Let's go to court!

She sued the company for $50 million in damages in New York federal court. Excellent. Yeah. Claiming that they'd been negligent, that they'd failed to warn consumers of possible side effects, and that they'd promoted misleading advertising. Yeah. Maybe engaged in misleading advertising. Yeah. Maybe engaged in misleading advertising. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I think the thing, they have the little warning, right, but they don't name PAH specifically. And, well, they may name it in some of their printed materials. I'm just reading you what's on the website right now. But it says it may require surgical intervention to correct, but surgical intervention didn't correct it for Linda Evangelista. Yeah.

The other thing is, like, cool sculpting is expensive, but it's a lot cheaper than liposuction. Oh, right. Yeah. And so a lot of the people who got this done, you know, if they're having that side effect. Yeah. They can't afford to then have a liposuction surgery to correct it. Right. Yeah.

Okay. So what are your thoughts on this? OK. So what are your thoughts on this? If it's a side effect that's listed in what you sign off on, what do you think? I don't know. personal thought here. I think, you know, obviously you can't run through every single possible negative side effect with a person. I mean, and I don't know. They always give us a long thing to sign and who reads the whole thing. But I do think if a potential side effect would give you the exact opposite reaction that you're looking for, then maybe that should be called out and said aloud by your doctor.

Yeah. Yeah. But the thing is, if they did that, probably no one would sign up. Right. I mean, I think people still would. They'd still take the risk, but way less people. Yeah, way less because, like, again, we're talking about, like, you'll see the results months later and it'll be, like, 20%.

20%. I mean. But I think, OK, honestly, this is, again, I haven't, I'm talking out my ass now, but I can't imagine that most people know that's the payoff. I think they sell it as having much bigger results. Yeah. Okay. And that's like the equivalent of like those Weight Watchers commercials, for example, where it's like, I'm Chrissy and I lost 74 pounds on points. And then at the bottom in little tiny writing, it says results not typical.

OK. Yeah. I would guess the majority of people signing up for CoolSculpting don't know they're looking at only maybe a 20% improvement in like a specific area. Yes. Yeah. Okay. That's a good point. Linda claimed that she had suffered severe and permanent personal injuries and disfigurement, and it caused her pain and suffering, emotional distress, and mental anguish. In her lawsuit, she also said that she'd experienced economic losses as she'd been, quote, rendered unemployable and unable to earn an income as a model. Her legal team uncovered some pretty damning information. Like what? Okay. This is a public statement from her lawyer, and I'm just going to read it.

I think it – anyway? Okay. This is a public statement from her lawyer, and I'm just going to read it. I think it – anyway. Okay. It's telling that Zeltik disclosed the risk of PAH to its investors in its SEC filings years before disclosing that risk in any of its aggressive direct-to-consumer marketing material. 2012 10K warned its investors of possible, quote, additional liability from claims related to known rare side effects such as late-onset pain, subcutaneous induration, hernia, and paradoxical hyperplasia. And its product liability insurance may not be adequate to cover Zeltik against potential liability. Remarkably, Zeltik's marketing material and the CoolSculpting website failed to mention the risk of PAH until after Ms. Evangelista underwent the procedures. Zeltik failed to even include any general warning on CoolSculpting's main homepage

until February 2019. Wow. Yeah, I mean, if that's all true, which I imagine it is. Yeah. I mean, if that's all true, which I imagine it is. Yeah. That's pretty bad. It's not good. Yeah. Our product liability insurance may not be adequate

to cover us. Shit. Yeah. People are getting hernias from this thing. Oh my gosh. I don't know whatas from this thing. Oh, my gosh. I don't know what subcutaneous induration is, but it didn't sound good. It doesn't sound good. It's under the cutaneous. Hang on.

I'm Googling this. Oh, firmness under the skin. All right. All right. Well, I was hoping for some new sexy thing. But Zeltik's legal team was like, hold the phone. Linda signed paperwork that included information about the possibility of developing PAH. Also, what's the statute of limitations on this shit?

Also, yes, we called CoolSculpting safe and effective, but that's not a warranty in the legal sense. Judge, we ask that you dismiss this case. See ya. What did the judge say? The judge said, I will think about it. Oh, but how long did the judge think about it? Well, can you give me a minute to tell you about it? These are the things I want to know, Kristen.

Yeah, you will. Believe it or not, I'm not going to leave you hanging on that. In the meantime, Linda went public. Do you remember this? Yeah. I was like glued to the story. Yeah. She said,

Today I took a big step towards righting a wrong that I have suffered and have kept to myself for over five years. To my followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my peers' careers have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by Zeltik's cool sculpting procedure, which did the opposite of what it promised. It increased, not decreased, my fat cells and left me permanently deformed even after undergoing two painful, unsuccessful corrective surgeries. I have been left, as the media has described, unrecognizable. I have developed PAH, a risk of which I was not made aware before I had the procedures. PAH has not only destroyed my livelihood, it has sent me into a cycle of deep depression, profound sadness, and the lowest depths of self-loathing. In the process, I have become a recluse. With this lawsuit, I am moving forward to rid myself of my shame and going public with my story. I'm so tired of living this way. I would like to walk out my door with my head held high,

despite not looking like myself any longer. Of course, Zeltik had some things to say, too. One of their spokespeople said that PAH is well documented. Yeah, we fucking told her that she could get PAH, and she should have known, and it's not our fault. It's her fault. Brandy makes for an excellent spokesperson, and unbelievably, she is available. I don't know how she's not booked. Next time you get in hot water,

just have Brandy get on the phone. Yeah, so they said it's well documented both in the cool sculpting information for patients and health care providers and in the sample consent form given to health care providers to use with patients. Interesting.

Did she sign the sample consent form? I don't know that she signed the sample one, but I believe she signed something. Well, hang on. Let me go back to what she said here. She said, I was not made aware before I had the procedures. Interesting. Okay. made aware before I had the procedures.

Interesting. Okay. But I wonder if that's one of those like, yeah, I signed something. I didn't... Yeah. I mean... Yeah, I agree to the terms and conditions. Exactly, as we always do. Yes. What do you think of that?

See, I think this is tough because... Yeah, I think it is tough. I think it's really tough. Because on the one hand, if they warn you. Because, yeah, the company might have done enough to protect themselves. Yeah, I mean, if it's in there, okay. Mm-hmm. I just, it makes me think that the whole terms and conditions things, there needs to be more rules around them.

There needs to be a word count, first of all. Yeah. And there needs to be, and by that I mean a word limit. Yeah. And it needs to be written kind of inverted pyramid style with the stuff that's most important to you at the top. Well, and also it needs to be written in plain English. Yeah.

They're written like in legalese. Yeah. They're written like in legalese. Yeah. And I always feel like in so many of these important documents, it feels like they're padding in a lot of language. Yeah. If nothing else to bore me. Yeah. That could be the ADHD.

But if you want to get me to stop reading, use more words than you need to. They also said that they warn about the possibility of PAH on their website, saying that it occurs in about one in 3,000 treatments. That's not the statistic we heard earlier. Right. That's not the statistic we heard earlier. Right. So I included this here because, I mean, you see different figures on this. And, like, that's a – both times it's coming from them.

Yes. And that's a wildly different figure. Yeah. times it's coming from them. Yes. And that's a wildly different figure. Yeah. Again, spidey senses. I feel like this is way more common. I agree. And I think people are embarrassed. What they gave one in every one to 10,000 cases. Hang on. Let me let me go up because I don't want to misquote. Yeah. Rare side effects may happen in 1 to 10 out of 10,000 CoolSculpting and CoolSculpting Elite treatments. Okay. And so now this time it's 1 in 3,000. Mm-hmm. All right.

Yeah. I bet that it's way more common than they're saying. And I bet a lot of people don't report the side effect. Yeah. Because they feel like they got scammed. Yeah. Like they fell for a gimmick. Yeah. So that's what a lot of these articles say is people feel stupid. Yeah.

They feel like I shouldn't have fallen for this. It's my fault. Nope. It sucks. Yeah. Well, the other thing is they might not even know that what they're experiencing is a direct result of the procedure they got. That's a good point.

Especially if you don't get that stick of butter thing. Now, have you seen photos of the stick of butter it's weird i mean yeah you would see that and you would know something was very wrong yeah but if you had random pain if you had a hernia i mean if you weren't aware that that was a possibility then yeah i don't know that I would necessarily assume it was related to the cool sculpting yeah I would just be really psyched about my slam and bod that was now 20% smaller in one place true story one time someone said that he could cool sculpt my face someone told you that yeah so okay I was at a place getting an IPL light facial. That's like for sun damage and stuff. And so like they do a ton of stuff there. And so he starts talking

to me about like all the stuff they do. And I kind of halfway joking was like, well, could you give me cheekbones? That's all I've ever wanted in this world. And he was like, yeah, you know, cool sculpting on your face. And, you know, I had only ever seen the YouTubers with like, you know, a little on their stomachs. And I was just like, I don't know. It kind of freaked me out. That was and I'm glad it did freak me out. Can you imagine? No.

Cool sculpt my fucking face. No. Sticks of butter on either side of my face that'll fix my cheeks right up anyway nobody's ever said they could cool sculpt me are you jealous I'll take you back to that guy yeah just lean back here.

Oh, God. Yeah, and it's expensive, too. Yeah. I think your cheeks look great just the way they are, Kristen. Oh, I got them CoolSculpt. Stop. Yeah, I've just – you know what? In times like these, it's helpful to be a little wimpy.

Oh, yeah. You know, I got my tetanus shot the other day. You did? Yeah. I got a tetanus shot when I was pregnant with London, so I'm good for like another eight years. Wow. Were you brave? They didn't even tell me what it was.

Well, that seems. They just jabbed me with it. And then my arm hurt a few days later. I looked at my medical records and I was like, oh, they gave me a tetanus shot. Yeah. I'm still in quite a bit of pain. I told the nurse that I was scared of shots. And she told me to try to find the dog in the painting in front of me.

Are you serious? I'm totally serious. There was no dog. I was quite embarrassed, because clearly that's not something they have to say to many 36-year-olds. And she didn't even give me a lollipop afterward. So that was a waste.

Anyway, should I get back to the story? Do you get a flu shot? Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. I do the things I'm supposed to do, but I'm a giant wimp about it. Okay, you know what? So London just had a doctor's appointment, and they did like a nasal mist for her flu shot this year. Do they do that for adults? Okay, now I have to tell another embarrassing story. like a nasal mist for her flu shot. Yeah. Do they do that for adults? Okay.

Um, now I have to tell another embarrassing story. Again, don't like shots. Don't like any of that shit. Yeah. And one year when I was a reporter, like I,

I can't remember the County health was like giving out flu shots. I went to cover it. And of course, while we were there, the lady was like, well, have you gotten your flu shot? And I was there with a photographer and no photo op. No, no, no. Then

that's not what I'm saying. I like he knew me well enough that I knew I couldn't lie. Oh, OK. And so, you know, we were both like, no, we haven't gotten it. And so he got his, and I started feeling queasy just watching. And then I saw that they had the nasal mist. Oh, so they do do that for adults. Well, yeah, but afterward and looking back, I'm like— They give you a children's. Well, no, no, no. I think they do do that for adults.

But also it's like I totally took that from a child. Some child had to get a shot because I got the nasal mist. Anyway, I can't say I wouldn't do it again, but I am ashamed. They didn't give London a choice. It was just the nasal mist. They didn't ask her if she would prefer a shot. I should have rushed in there and been like, step aside, London. You be brave with the shots.

I will take the nasal mist. Anyway. Can you believe that woman lied to me about the dog in the painting? That's hilarious! I was looking all over for that dog. Christ. Anyway, I'm an adult woman. It's fine.

So, yeah. Yada, yada, yada. Do you think I should get lip plumpers? I think you should do whatever you want. Do you think my lips need to be plumped? No. Okay, here's the truth. Well, hmm.

I was about to say those lip injections always look bad yeah but maybe it's just because I'm looking at the cheap ones and I watch a lot of reality TV so I see a lot of bad lip injections what about lip blushing have you seen that I have seen that I get that done well okay I thought about that too yeah my fear is what if you get kind of the wrong color? Yeah, exactly. You know, because I would like if my lips are a different color, but I hate putting lip stuff on. So this seems like the perfect solution. Explain what it is to the people who are not just constantly looking up cosmetic.

Lip blushing is like lip tattooing. They literally tattoo your lips with a color. Yeah. So it's like but it's supposed to be very pretty natural looking, not like, you know, like you have a lot of color on there. But you think my regular tattoo guy could just whip that out for me? Probably not. He could do his best. No, I've thought about that too.

But it comes back to I'm too scared. Yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't get that done. Oh. Oh. You don't have the nuts. No, you're right. I mean, I could barely get that shot.

Yeah. I mean, how many posters am I going to have to look at looking for some dog while they tattoo my lips? Oh, that's the wrong one. We meant to have you look at this poster for the dog. Oh, that's the wrong one. We meant to have you look at this poster for the time. Actually, people are getting freckles tattooed on them now, too. Yeah, I think that's insane.

I think that's fucking insane. I have also seen a makeup product that's basically like a little painter brush that you splat freckles on yourself. Yeah, you just got them all natural. Yeah, I got them, like, lasered off by the man who wanted to cool sculpt my face. And yet they remain. Weird how you didn't offer to cool sculpt your ass, Kristen. Wow. That is the rudest thing I've ever heard.

Hey, how flat is your ass? It's so flat that no one has ever offered to cool sculpt it for me. What if I got the PAH on my ass? Oh. Then I had like a really hard, painful butt. Yeah, that sounds terrible. That stuck out really far. And it was just like a bunch of sticks of butter. Good ideas or no?

No, I don't think so. Why don't we just like, let's just work with what we got. Okay, those lip injections, though, they look painful. Why don't we just like, let's just work with what we got. Okay. Those lip injections, though, they look painful. They do look painful. Yeah. And I do worry. Like, I don't think I should fuck with my shit.

Like, probably just going to keep on. Trucking? Yeah. Keep on keeping on. Would you ever do anything? Yeah. I'm interested in a lot. Yeah, see, I feel like I would do stuff.

Yeah. But obviously my comfort zone is real small. Yeah. So I've gotten my eyebrows dyed. It's not a cosmetic procedure. It felt very proceduric to me. All right. Well, you know, stay tuned, gang.

So I thought about Botox one time, but then I heard that sometimes if they do it wrong, you can get the wonky. And I realize we're podcasting. That's when, like, you know, one eye goes. Great. They really got eye goes. Great. They really got it now. Yeah. They understand. They understand it's what I don't want.

We're talking about cosmetic procedure horror story here. And now we're talking about what procedures we would get. Well, I think that is the great conundrum. No, I think it's like feel for for the people who've had this time. And I guess I'm thinking about like, if I were hearing this story, I don't know that I'd want to hear it from someone who's like, oh, these fucking morons. And I just don't feel that way. I don't feel that way either.

Because I feel like I'm open to getting stuff done. Now, obviously I'm not because I'm scared. I can't. But this is a rare judgment-free zone. Yeah. It's a small zone. Yeah. All right.

So that warning that we just talked about. Yeah, like 10 minutes ago. So that warning that we just talked about said that there's a possibility of PAH occurring in about one in 3,000 treatments. And in the warning, they specifically say that PAH won't go away on its own and that surgical intervention may be required. Again, I think that's dancing a little bit. It is. Because, okay, it won't go away on its own. If you want to get rid of it, you have to have surgery. And even then might not be able to correct it.

Right. Yeah, I think that warning has to go further than that. I think so, too. Because that's the other thing. In some of these articles, they were talking about, you know, for these people who, like, aren't having successful liposuction procedures afterward, like, goddamn, they could have just gotten liposuction to begin with. To begin with. Exactly. That sounds terrible. Oh, my God.

Okay. Anyway. Have you seen it done? Yes, I've seen it done. I have to close my eyes. They get that little wand thing and they start moving. They're just really jabbing in the air. I know.

What is wrong with those doctors? I mean, they're probably doing it the right way. They're doing it the right way, I think. But why do they have to be so aggressive? Is there a reason they have to be so aggressive? I think they've got to scrape it. Oh. Separate it from the cutaneous.

No, that makes perfect sense. And you know what my problem is? Anytime that stuff happens on TV, I watch like the first two seconds maximum. And then I have to look away. So all I see is they start going to town and I'm nope, nope-ity, nope-ing. Right out of that. Yeah. But you're right.

They're scraping. Oh, my God. So Linda Evangelista was, of course, not the first person to develop PAA after Cool Sculpting. She wasn't the first person to sue over it either. She wasn't? No, but she was definitely like the most famous. Well, obviously. Calm down.

I think that Claudia Schiffer was suing over it. That was the first other model I could think of. You've got really dated references. As opposed to me, who is very hip and cool. Oh, yeah. You ask and cool. Oh, yeah. Ask me anything. Yeah, name a model, Kristen. Kendall Jenner.

Okay, that is a current model. She's got – Yeah. Yeah, suck on that. She has nothing to hold. Bella Hadid. But I bet you – well, no, you're right. I was about to say I bet you she's had it.

But no. No. Probably – yeah, no one's having this anymore. Anyway, by this point, a personal injury lawyer named Luisa Tarasova had already represented a few clients in cases against CoolSculpting. And she argued that the warning that Zeltik gives people is too vague and too short. She feels that PAH is such a severe, permanent, adverse effect that it warrants a much bigger warning. I agree. I totally agree.

So she's representing a client in an ongoing case about this. Her client got some CoolSculpting treatments in 2018 and afterward developed a hard bulge the shape and size of a bowling ball above his belly button. Oh my gosh. Right? In the lawsuit, the guy claimed that he hadn't been sufficiently warned about the side effects of cool sculpting. But in 2021, the judge wouldn't allow the case to go to a jury trial and ruled in favor of Zeltikik saying that the company's warnings about PAH were adequate and that the guy had signed a waiver acknowledging the risks. I think they have to say that PAH is the risk and it may not be reversible. Even with surgery. Even with surgical intervention.

Yeah. Like I think you have to go that far yeah and it can't be tiny writing at the bottom they have to get skywriting yes out just that's the only guy writing outside the any clinic that offerspting, which does sound expensive. I was going to say, they need more money for their insurance liability and also all of the jet riding. Here's a question. Could they just pull behind a banner? Yeah. That seems cheaper. Yeah, it does sound cheaper.

Yeah. We also have to think about the, you know, environmental impact. Yeah. So many consequences, you know. It's just a nightmare. So the man has appealed that decision with the aim of getting the case in front of a jury. But these cases have a tendency to not make it that far. For example, in 2015, a doctor sued Zeltik because she bought one of their machines

after having it demonstrated on herself. She said the company representative said that the side effects would be minimal in nature and only had a rare chance of occurring. But then that doctor began experiencing pain and numbness in the areas where she'd performed the procedure. numbness in the areas where she'd performed the procedure. So she sued, but her case was dismissed. The following year, a woman in New York sued Zeltik because the cool sculpting machine gave her growths in her thighs. See, I think – I mean Linda Evangelista posted a picture of her thighs. I think that seems like the worst one because people are obviously getting like their inner

thighs done. And the thing she said about chafing inner thighs done. And then you get these hard bulges. Oh, yeah. This was me simulating chafing. Did you like that? I am so glad somebody finally did it. But that case was also dismissed. These cases kind of keep coming, though. In 2017, there was a class action lawsuit alleging that Zeltik misrepresented their product as having FDA approval. It's marketed as being FDA cleared, which the plaintiffs said that would make customers think that the product had been FDA approved. The latest thing I could find on that was that a judge sided with Celtic, which I'm kind of with them on that. I mean, to me, FDA cleared doesn't sound like approved. I agree.

Because we all know FDA approved. Yes. In 2021, there was another class action lawsuit, and this one was about PAH. But from what I could find, that one was dismissed too. So I'm sorry. It was a little – there are a lot of these and it's a little hard to track all of them down. And it looks like just a ton of these things get dismissed. And it also looks like the company didn't want to fight with Linda Evangelista. Well, because she's a big name.

Well, and I mean that's how I found out about this was her coming out with her story. Yeah. So they settle with her, give her a chunk of money that you have like an undisclosed amount of money. That's how you're going to tell us. That's your favorite thing. I fucking hate it. Do you want me to make up a number? Yeah.

$11 billion. She got $11 billion. Wonderful. I'm so happy for her. You think $11 billion? No. They probably gave her some like bullshit amount of money. I bet it's not bullshit.

How much do you think? Million bucks. No, it's more than that. You think? Yeah, I do think. What? Yeah, I think – so she was suing for $50 million. I bet you she got $25.

I doubt it. $20. No. Why? $10 million. All right. Would you be pretty happy with $10 million? Yeah, I'd be all right.

Yeah, I would too. Yeah, so 10 months after she filed her lawsuit, they settled for an undisclosed amount. Great. Which we decided was $10 million. Yeah. Based on our extensive knowledge. Yes. This year, she appeared on the cover of British Vogue's September issue.

She talked about her career and the lawsuit. issue. She talked about her career and the lawsuit. And for all her pictures, the makeup artist drew her face, jaw and neck back with tape and elastics, according to the article. And in every photo, Linda wore a scarf wrapped around her head and neck with a hat on top. I'm sorry, this year, she appeared the September issue? Yeah. That's like tomorrow. It's already out? Well, yeah, Brandy. They release them a little early. All right.

Excuse me. Yeah. Dumbass. Hang on. Let me make sure. Let me make sure. British Vogue. Linda Evangelista.

Oh, Boom Chakalaka. Yeah, I'm right. Okay, Jesus. Suck on that. All right. Okay, Google British Vogue Linda Evangelista so you can see these photos. I'm looking at it. She had the red hat and the red scarf and the red jacket.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they're only peeking her face. Yeah. I mean, what do you think of that with, like, the taping back and stuff? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I get it. Uh-huh.

But then also the quote is I'm trying to love myself as I am. Yeah. So I thought the interview was kind of interesting because it was clear she was kind of struggling with that herself. Well, I imagine she is. No, I mean literally with the tape and stuff. And she basically said, you know, these photos are a fantasy. Yeah. And for that reason, I'm fine with putting these out there.

Yeah. And, yeah, I mean I guess we all know there's a lot of Photoshop and artistry that goes into those photos. Yeah. But what would have been really cool is if they would have just put her on the cover like exactly how she looks. Wouldn't that have been cool? I kind of think it would have been. Yeah. I do think – I'm not being sarcastic.

Like that would – to me, that would have been the way to go. Like – I think so too. It lessens the impact by doing it this way. To me, it feels very vogue to have covered that up. Yeah. I mean that's – yeah, it feels very vogue because that's what they do when they put a plus-size person on their cover. Jackets, jackets, jackets, jackets. Yeah, giant ruffle, shapeless dresses.

Like, yeah, it's disappointing to me. Yeah. She should have been on the cover as she is, not with tape and strings and scarves and – yeah. Which I've got to say, if you still look good with a scarf around you – I mean she looks beautiful. She does. She looks amazing. Of course she does.

Yes. But I mean you really are a supermodel if you can pull that off. Yeah. So I'd like to end with a paragraph from the article about her in British Vogue, which, you know, it is a September issue, but they release them a little bit early. I don't know if you've ever read a magazine in your life. It says, am I cured mentally? Absolutely not, she declares. She can't look in the mirror, nor can

bear for anyone to touch her body. But I'm so grateful for the support I got from my friends and from my industry. An outpouring of love came from everywhere, from her fellow supers to Gwyneth Paltrow and Marc Jacobs. Artistic director Kim

Jones was one of the first to send her a letter, the result of which sees her starring in a new Fendi campaign. She says when her son saw those images, he said, damn, you spent five years in your bedroom and now this? But regardless of such praise, a Fendi campaign and a British Vogue cover, she is reluctant to call this a comeback. I miss my work so much, but honestly, what can I do? It isn't going to be easy, she concedes, highlighting the fact that in these pictures, she's almost entirely covered. You're not going to see me in a swimsuit, that's for sure. It's going to be difficult to find jobs with things protruding from me without retouching or squeezing into things or taping things or compressing or tricking, dot, dot, dot. And that's a story about cool sculpting.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just of the mindset that like that warning needs to be more prominent and it a possible side effect is that it could do the exact polar opposite of what you're wanting it to do, I feel like that needs to be spelled out by your doctor. Yeah. Like it needs to – OK. It's one thing to have it written down. It also needs to be said aloud to you.

Yeah. And, you know know if you decide i mean do your thing yeah yeah all right you want to hear about a disappearance i do i think you'll like this oh yeah i do what is it about um it's about it's a disappearance you You like disappearances. I do. I know. I'm a fucking freak. Shout out to an episode of 48 Hours that I read and did not watch. You weirdo. And, okay, this is a little bit out of the norm for me, but shout out to Wikipedia. This is the most thorough Wikipedia page I've ever seen in my life. Okay.

It was a hell of a Wikipedia page. All right. Hey, I respect a hell of a Wikipedia page I've ever seen in my life. Okay. It was a hell of a Wikipedia page. All right. Hey, I respect a hell of a Wikipedia page. Absolutely. Absolutely. To those around them, Michelle and Cal Harris seemed like the perfect couple. Oh, here we go. Not just because Michelle spelled it the very cool, beautiful way with one L.

Kristen, remind me, how do you spell your middle name? With two L's. Oh. Which I pronounce like a Y. Anyway. Anyway, Cal had been a star lacrosse player in high school and college and came from a wealthy family. I mean, aren't all the lacrosse players. His family owned several car dealerships in Tioga County, New York, which is for sure how it's pronounced and which we all know is in the southern tier of upstate New York.

Upstate New York. Upstate New York between Binghamton and Elmira. And, of course, it is south of Ithaca. Oh, yes. I do know Ithaca. south of Ithaca. Oh, yes. I do know Ithaca. Everybody knows Ithaca. Also familiar with New York City. Yes. Cal went to work in the family business after graduating from Hobart College, and it was there that he met Michelle.

that he met Michelle. Michelle got a job as a secretary at one of the Harris family dealerships right after she had earned her associate's degree from Suning Morrisville. Michelle was beautiful and radiant.

People described her as magnetic. And she quickly caught the eye of Cal, who by this point was quite the successful businessman. He was a little bit older than her, but I mean, he did well, but in his dad's business. In his dad's dealership. And we're not calling him a successful businessman.

Dude, my dad owns a dealership. Yeah, we're not calling him a successful businessman when he, like, just graduated college and works for his daddy. And we have to call him daddy. Anyway, Michelle had come from a working- class family and wasn't accustomed to the lifestyle that Cal could give her. And he completely swept her off her feet. In 1990, the couple married. And shortly after that, they settled into a 250 acre estate with a private lake near

Spencer, New York. No. Do you have an address? I do not. God damn it. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah.

He actually, okay, I know he worked for his dad, but he did seem to be doing well. At one point, they like calculate his net worth and it's like $5.4 million. What's his dad's net worth? I don't know. Okay. We need to know that information before the court can make a determination here. Anyway. If his dad's net worth is anywhere close to that in that same range, then yeah, he's doing great.

I have no idea. If it's way, way bigger, which I'm sure it probably is, then let's all calm down. Anyway, they— I don't know why I'm getting so defensive. I just can tell he's a murderer. Kristen, you don't even know who disappears yet! I knew the second you said radiant, I was like, oh boy. Oh boy.

No one's ever radiant and still, like, with us. Anyway, so the couple marries. They move into this 250-acre estate. Can you imagine? It had a pond. Right. And a private lake. Oh.

A pond and a lake? Yes. Well, yeah, I guess if you've got 250 acres, there's bound to be some shit on there. Yeah. Okay. In 1994, the couple welcomed their first child, and their life seemed idyllic to those who knew the young family. And it seemed that for some time the couple really was happy. They quickly had two more children, but in 1999,

when Michelle was pregnant with her fourth child, she found out that Cal had been having an affair with a woman who worked at one of the dealerships. She confronted Cal about it, and he admitted to the affair, but he made some justifications.

Oh, I would love to hear them. You see, Michelle simply wasn't living up to her wifely duties. Oh. The house wasn't clean enough and she let herself go a bit over the years. Oh, if only she'd had cool sculpting. Never mind the fact that she'd essentially spent the last five years pregnant. Right. And also, that's not what a marriage is.

No, it certainly is not. You marry someone, you didn't get yourself a maid, you didn't get a guarantee that they would be at a certain weight till the end of time. Yeah. Sorry, Cal. Yeah. So, Cal— Also, eat a dick.

So Cal— Also eat a dick. Cal promised to end the affair, but Michelle later learned that he had not. He, in fact, like, had taken— Why did he have to insult her in addition to— Exactly! Like, well, if you hadn't gotten fat and if you cleaned up around the house a little more often, I might not be banging the young chick at the dealership. In a way, this is all your fault.

Jeez. Yeah. He told Michelle he'd end the affair, but he didn't. Later, Michelle learned that he'd actually taken this woman on vacation to the Bahamas or Barbados or something. Good lord! So he just affaired even harder. Yeah.

I don't think affair is a verb.air is a verb. It's a verb. He made it a verb when he took her to the Bahamas. After Michelle gave birth to her youngest son in October of 2000, she stopped sleeping in the primary bedroom with Cal and started sleeping on the couch. And other people began to see the cracks in Cal and Michelle's marriage. Michelle started telling other people about Cal's behavior. He had a terrible temper.

He was super controlling. And her sister-in-law said it was the first time that she saw that everything wasn't as perfect as they had thought. time that she saw that everything wasn't as perfect as they had thought and that Cal had really unrealistic expectations of what a marriage and a family and a home should be. No, he didn't. He just wanted a wife that weighed what he wanted her to weigh. Yeah. And a house that was always clean magically despite having four children in it. Michelle confided in her sister-in-law, Shannon Taylor, that, like, if everything wasn't absolutely perfect, Cal would scream and yell. He wanted Michelle thin.

He wanted her to look put together. He wanted to be able to, like, flaunt her around. And so Michelle did what she could to lose weight after having four children. What'd she do? I don't know specifically. But her sister said she went to great lengths to try and lose weight following her pregnancies. OK. Sister-in-law.

Are we talking about – It's her – it's Michelle's brother's wife. OK. OK. Yes. I figured. Yeah. Not Cal's sister. Her sister who's secretly really wife. Okay. Okay. Yes. I figured. Yeah. Not Cal's sister.

Sister who's secretly really cool. Right. No. No. And Michelle told her friends and family members when she did confide in them finally that it seemed like nothing she did pleased Cal. It was never enough. And that Cal talked down to her. Cal told Michelle that she was born in Tioga Center, raised in Tioga Center, and she'd die in Tioga Center.

Basically saying, you're small town. You're beneath me. You're never going to be on my level. Gross. Yeah. Fuck off. you're never going to be on my level gross yeah fuck off sounds like she just had a tioga bubble yeah which as i know someone yeah some people are proud of their bubble i'm i like my bubble it's fine in 2001 near the beginning of the year michelle finally filed for divorce yeah and she told cal she wanted out and he repeatedly told her he would not let her divorce

him that's not the way divorce works it's not the couple's nanny barb thayer recalled hearing lots of arguments they They yelled constantly. Like there were fights all the time at the house. Michelle was still sleeping on the couch while Cal was sleeping in the primary bedroom. Cal even reached out to Michelle's family and urged them to talk her out of the divorce. He told them that he believed she was being influenced by outside sources. OK. So she had gotten herself like a part-time job so that she had like something that was hers.

Yeah, good for her. She needed – well, and she probably needed her own source of income because he was going to control her with money. Yeah. I bet he hated that she got a part-time job. Oh, he hated it. So he calls up her family and he's like, she's working at this bar and she's meeting all kinds of people. I think she's doing drugs. Oh, yeah.

You got to tell her to act right. Oh, okay. Now she wants a divorce. Wow. Yeah. A divorce from you? No. She must be nuts.

But when her family would then talk to her,elle was like i'm i've made up my mind i'm i am getting out of this marriage like it has gotten to the point that these arguments are scary michelle told her sister that at one point she and cal got an argument and Cal told her that he didn't need a gun to kill her. What the fuck? And that he knew the perfect spot to hide her body and the police would never find it. Wow. These arguments kept escalating and Michelle did what she could to try and like let people know what was happening. At one time she was like getting her hair done and Cal called and yelled at her and threatened her.

So she put the phone on speaker and let her hairstylist hear the argument, hear the things that Cal was saying to her. He threatened to kill her on this phone call that she let her hairstylist over here. This is the scariest shit to me. Yes. Like Nicole Brown Simpson. She was telling everyone what was going on. And it's like even when you tell people sometimes you don't get justice. Oh, fuck.

The divorce kept moving forward, but Michelle and Cal remained living in the same house. In June of 2001, Cal was ordered to pay $400 a month to Michelle, like, as an allowance, essentially, spending money. He was also ordered to continue to pay all of the expenses for the house. Okay. And the children and everything. And that was to remain, like that was the agreement until the divorce was finalized. They also were to remain in the house together. But Cal was required under court order to give all of his guns to his father or his

brothers so that they were out of the house. He wasn't allowed to hold them in the house. This is a mess. It is a mess. She's getting $400 from him. That's not enough. No. I mean, that seems like it's intentionally so low that she can't leave. Mm-hmm. Yeah. This time the court did like a forensic accounting thing and they estimated Cal's net worth to be about $5.4 million. Did she sign a prenup or do you know? I don't know.

Okay. Probably did. Probably. What I do know is that he offered her a divorce settlement of full custody of the children and $80,000 a year in spousal support and child support total. OK. And she rejected that deal. OK. So that's like his initial offering.

She rejects it and they move forward like the divorce proceedings move forward. By this time, Michelle has gotten like this part time job at this bar and she's just like loving having this thing that's hers. Yeah. And she meets people there. She met this guy named Brian Early. He was this like 23 year old guy. She's like 35 by this point. Oh, my.

They like exchanged numbers at the bar one night. Turns out he lives in Philadelphia. He's only in town working as a surveyor or something like that. And like they hook up a couple times. And then like she starts like meeting him in the Poconos for hookups. And eventually he moves to town so that they can be together. Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

Honey, run. Little boy, run. So they're hooking up. And at the same time, she's like also dating the manager at this bar and grill that she's waitressing at. He's also like 23 years old. She's just living it up. It's cougar town, baby.

It is cougar town. It is. And so she's kind of seeing both of them, but she didn't tell anybody that she was seeing the manager of the bar. Her friends knew that she was dating this Brian Early guy. And things actually seemed like they might be going somewhere with Brian. Like I said, Brian moved to town. Did he know that she was seeing the manager?

No, no one knew. Even her best friend didn't know that she was seeing the manager. But he like moved to town. He gave her a big chunk of money that he'd saved up to put a down payment on a house that they were going to buy together as soon as her divorce was finalized. And he like thought they were like getting married as soon as her divorce was finalized. Wow. So she has something of hers back. She's got, you know, she's making her own money. She's living her own life. And at the same time, like during the day, she's taking care of her kids.

You know, she's living in that house with Cal. But on September 9th, 2001, Michelle was like out on the property with the housekeeper slash nanny, this Barb Thayer. And Barb recalled that Michelle looked at her and said that she was happier than she'd been in years. She felt like she was getting her life back. And she told Barb that she hadn't told Cal yet, but that she decided to accept his proposal for their divorce settlement and that she was just going to. She wanted to be done. She just wanted to be done.

She had even made an appointment with her divorce lawyer for September 12, 2001. So she was going to like – she was going to move forward. She was going to accept the thing. They were going to settle the divorce and be done. Yeah, and they were going to smack the table. That's right. During an audio recording. That's exactly right.

I think I broke my nails. Oh, no. She also told some friends that she had big plans for that, like, second week of September 2001. She was going to go to New York City. She was going to. Oh, shit. She had a bunch of stuff that she was going to take to some pawn shop there. She had a two-carat engagement ring she was going to sell.

So in this time where Cal was, like, giving her just, like, very limited access to their money, she had racked up some credit card bills. Sure. And she was, like, trying to figure out a way to get that taken care of before she did the divorce settlement and, like, her income was going to be, you know, X number of dollars. Right. Whatever. And so she had a bunch of stuff she was going to sell, some jewelry, her engagement rings, whatever, at this particular store in New York City to pay off those credit card bills. But obviously. What day did she go?

So she was planning to go like September 10th, September 11th. She was planning to go like September 10th, September 11th. Obviously, those plans were waylaid by the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York City. Right. So on September 11th, Barb Thayer shows up at the house. She had planned to watch the kids that day because Michelle was going to go into the city and take care of whatever business she had to take care of. And instead, she finds Michelle kind of upset. She has a headache. You know, her plans have been changed.

She wasn't going to be able to go do what she wanted to do. She was going to have to put that off, which then should she wait to tell Cal that she was going to accept the—it just threw things off of it. And so that particular day, September 11th, Michelle had a shift at her part-time job. Lefty's Bar and Grill was the name of it. And so she worked like till 9 that night and afterward she stayed in the parking lot and had a couple drinks with the manager that she had been seeing and another guy. And they talked about the day's events, how, you know, crazy it was for the – I mean,

everybody remembers what it felt like the day the attack on the Twin Towers happened and all of that. And so she hung out there for a while, had a couple drinks, and then she left like 10, 10, 10, 30, and she went to Brian Early Early's apartment who he lived like the next town over. Right. Smithboro. I didn't look up how far away it was. So she goes there.

She stays at his house for like an hour. They have a drink. And they talked about how the day's events had given her some perspective on her life and how, you know, she was ready to have her life back. on her life and how, you know, she was ready to have her life back. And so she, you know, was excited to have her meeting with her divorce attorney the next day and move forward. And she left Brian Early's apartment at 1130 that night. He walked her to the car. She got in.

He kissed her through the open window of her minivan. And then she took off. And no one has seen her since. Whoa. Whoa. Mm-hmm. The next morning, Barb Thayer got a call at 7 o'clock in the morning from Cal. And Cal said that Michelle had never come home from work the night before.

And he said, can you please come and get the kids ready for school? And so she did. She was their nanny. She was their housekeeper. And she's there like within like eight minutes of when he calls her. She shows up at the house. And as she pulls up to the house, so picture they live on this big estate and it's got like a quarter mile driveway up to the actual house. So she pulls up to the street that the driveway like turns off of and there at like the end of their driveway is Michelle's minivan like parked on the side of the road. So Cal had said Michelle never came home last night. So she pulls over when she sees the van. She looks inside and like the doors were unlocked.

The keys were in the ignition. Like, yeah, seems very odd. So Barb then drives up to the house. Like I said, it's about a quarter of a mile driveway. And when she gets up there, she walks in the house and she's like, Michelle? She calls out Michelle's name. But only Cal responds. And he's, like, dressed for work.

He's like, I got to go. I'm like, can you please, you get the kids, you got them ready for school? Like, and she's like, Michelle's car is down the road. She's like, it's at the end of the driveway. It's, like, parked's car is down the road. She's like, it's at the end of the driveway. It's like parked on the side of the road. And Cal's like, oh, okay, well, let's go down and get it. And so Cal and Barb drive down and like they look at the car. And so Cal's like, all right, can you drive the car back up to the house?

And Barb's like, hold on. Like maybe something has happened. Maybe Michelle's like hurt or something happened. And she's like, should we look for her? And Cal's like, no, she went to New York City. And Barb's like, how would she have gotten there? Her car's right here. Right.

And Cal's like, I don't know. Maybe she hitchhiked. Give me a fucking break. Yeah. So Cal, like, looks in the car and he's, like, annoyed that it's a mess. There's clothes in it. There's mail. There's magazines.

There's trash. And he's like, ugh, I need to get this thing cleaned out. She's always leaving this car a mess because it's like a dealer car. It has a dealer tag on it, you know. And so he's like, can you drive this back up to the house for now? I'm going to have somebody come by and get it and take it to the dealership and clean it. Oh, I bet you are. And so that's it. Barb drives the minivan up to the house. Cal leaves for work. And Barb obviously was very concerned about where Michelle was and Cal's seemingly cavalier attitude about how she had never come home that night.

Right. And so Barb calls one of Michelle's friends and is like, hey, do you – have you heard from Michelle? Do you know where Michelle is? And they were like, no, I don't. And so the friend calls Michelle's divorce attorney and is like, hey, I don't know. I think something's going on here. And so the divorce attorney calls a couple people and learns that Michelle had left her job that night. She'd hung out for a little bit, but people saw her leave like she left at a reasonable hour.

He called her cell phone. She didn't answer. And so her divorce attorney called the state police and reported her missing. Yeah. Like within an hour, two officers show up at the dealership where Cal's working that day to ask him questions. And they said he was very calm, very unemotional, but he didn't – he wasn't defensive. He didn't try to stop them from investigating anything. He didn't seem like he was trying to hide anything at all.

He, in fact, accompanied the investigators back to his house and told them, take a look around. Look wherever you want. He granted them full access to the house. And he told them they could spend as much time as they wanted. And then he left and went back to work. Wow. Yeah. He left two detectives alone on his property,

completely unconcerned about where they might search and what they might find. Well, they didn't find anything, right? No, they didn't. Yeah. One of the investigators thought that he seemed pretty normal, like, yeah, take a look around, do whatever. And the other investigator thought that he seemed like he was trying to be too normal, almost robotic, like programmed, like he had these responses planned out. Like I'm just going to seem very cool and calm and collected.

Yeah. I mean. Hmm. Hmm. To me, that just—so I can't imagine telling the police, yeah, go look through my house. I'm going to leave. Right? I can't imagine that at all.

No. But assuming he has something to do with this, I mean, all that says is like, yeah, I didn't do it there. Go ahead. Knock yourself out. Search all you want. Yeah. So something that is worth noting is that the timing of Michelle's disappearance resulted in extremely limited resources for investigating her disappearance. The state police and the county police had sent off, like, the vast majority of their officers to New York City to be handling the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.

Right. So there's, like, nobody around to look into Michelle's disappearance. It's like these two guys and no one else. Right. Cal insisted that he didn't have anything to do with Michelle's disappearance. He hadn't seen her. He, you know, whatever. But he said, you should probably take a look at Michelle.

She's been up to all kinds of crazy shit. She's been, you know, fraternizing with all kinds of interesting characters. She's got, you know, this 23-year-old boyfriend and blah, blah, blah and whatever else. Yeah. So you probably should look into them. And so, I mean, they did. They looked into the people who had last seen her, Brian Early. They went and talked to him and he said, yeah, she came to my house after she left work.

She was here for like an hour, but she left 11, 1130. I walked her to her car, gave her a kiss goodnight. I told her I loved her and I said I'd see her tomorrow. And that was the last time I saw her. Yeah. They also talked to her coworkers. And that was when they learned that she had been having some kind of romantic relationship with her manager, Michael Casper. He was like the manager of the bar and grill that she worked at.

So that's when that kind of came out. And her best friend was like, I didn't even know about that. Like, I don't think she told anybody that. And so they learned that Michelle had hung out with that Michael Casper guy before she had left work that night. She'd had a drink with him in the parking lot and another co-worker, a guy named Michael Hakes. And so they did background checks on these guys. And it turns out that Michael Hakes had a record. He had a rape conviction in Arizona and he'd served 10 years in prison. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so like all three of these guys that she had spent some time with

that evening became suspects. They interviewed them all separately. They gave them all. Polygraph? Polygraph test. Yeah. That word would not come to my brain. And for what it's worth, they all passed them.

Yeah. And then they cleared them all. And they went back looking at Cal. Yeah. Two days after Michelle first went missing, a forensic specialist was sent to the Harris home. I don't – forensic specialist seems like maybe like the lowest ranking guy in the forensics department, I'm guessing. And he was sent to the Harrisics department, I'm guessing. Yeah. And he was sent to the Harris home to take a look around.

After those original detectives have already done a search there, they found nothing. He shows up and he sees what he believes is blood spatter inside the home. He found tiny specks of blood on a kitchen doorway and then in like a hallway area, like all in the same area. And he believed that that was indicative that that was a crime scene. The blood still looked reddish in color to him, which meant that it was fresh, fresh-ish. It meant that it was fresh, fresh-ish. Right. And that meant Michelle had to have died in the house, which meant that Cal had to have done it in his forensic specialist opinion. OK. I mean, how much blood?

Very, very minimal blood. Okay. Tiny droplets. Yeah, I don't know, man. Yeah, I agree. And that's about all they have to go on. Yep. Okay.

Yep. Time keeps passing. There's no sign of Michelle. And Cal is just kind of moving on with his life. Three weeks after Michelle went missing, he started up a relationship with an old girlfriend. Okay. And then he. Did he move her in? Not right away.

He did ask Barb to help him move all of Michelle's things out of the house. And he said he was going to have a garage sale and sell it all. Barb, the housekeeper and nanny, thought Cal's behavior after Michelle disappeared was super weird. Yeah, it's a disappearance. It's a disappearance. And she said he never asked, have you heard from Michelle? Has Michelle called you? Do you know anything?

Have you heard anything? Like he never asked any questions. Oh. Yeah. Cal never from her. They checked his phone records and Cal never tried to call Michelle when she didn't come home. There we go. From work.

However, they were in the middle of a divorce. Oh, when she didn't come home from work. When she didn't come home from work, he never tried to call her. But even that morning, though? Never attempted to call her. He called Barb. Okay, I'm gonna kind of give him a pass on that.

Yeah. Kind of. Kind of. They're in a divorce. He knows she's kind of dating someone. Right. He assumes she stayed over at her boyfriend's house. It's like, I'm not wanting to talk to you. I'll just call the nanny. Yeah.

It sounds like the nanny lived pretty close by. Yeah. She lived like six minutes away. So, yeah. Weeks went by. Months went by. There was no sign of michelle

police for what it was worth did suspect that cal harris had killed his wife because of that blood spatter in the house and his weird behavior but well and how he had said he wanted to kill her yeah there just wasn't a case. Yeah. There was no murder weapon. There was no proof that Michelle was dead. There were tiny drops of blood in the kitchen and there were some more in the garage. Oh, shit. But still super tiny droplets.

They asked Cal about them at one point and he said that Michelle had cut herself at some point. And that's what had resulted in those blood droplets. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Wouldn't a more – OK. So I'm assuming these blood droplets are super teeny tiny, not noticeable. Yeah.

Wouldn't the more normal response be, I have no idea? I have no idea. That's what I would say, right? I have no idea. Okay. Yeah, to me, okay, I haven't seen, I've read the blood droplets being described. They're very small. And to me, yes, it seems like something that maybe you or I wouldn't notice, but a trained investigator did notice them.

A forensic specialist did notice them. Well, the two investigators who searched the house first didn't notice them. Right. So months go by. This investigation is just kind of going nowhere they're really just treading water they get different stories from different people about weird threats that cal had made the hairstylist tells the thing about overhearing her michelle's sister-in-law tells a story that michelle had told her um where cal had kind of like come up to Michelle like just a couple of months before she disappeared. And he'd been kind of like laughing and he was like,

I just found the perfect place to hide your body. They will never find you. Oh my God. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They will never find you. Oh, my God. Yeah. And Michelle had shared this information with her sister-in-law. Yeah. It was just one of the many things. There was also an incident where, like, Michelle, like, had locked herself in a closet and Cal sat outside the closet and like repeatedly cocked a shotgun over and over

yeah so they hear these stories these stories are being shared within the course of this investigation but

there's no proof that Michelle is even dead well but her credit cards aren't being used nothing is being used her credit cards aren't being used nothing is being used her credit cards

aren't being used yeah yeah she's not being spotted anywhere no for what it's worth most of the people

around this thought that Cal's behavior was super weird his cavalier attitude about her disappearance or whatever but Cal's friends just thought that

this was just typical Cal behavior. Pretty like he's just an asshole. Yeah. Were his friends in on it? I don't know. By this point, more time has passed.

And like all of the state police are back, you know, from New York City. They've got all of the investigators back. And, you know, from New York City. They've got all of the investigators back. And so now they are determined to find Michelle's body. They're convinced that Cal has killed her and buried her maybe somewhere on the property. And so they focused a search on that 250 acres that they lived on. They brought out helicopters. They brought out dogs. They had people watch Cal's property at night with night vision goggles. They had him like camp out like with camouflage on hoping that maybe he'd in the middle of the night when they thought no one was watching, he'd make a journey out onto the property and lead them to wherever he had disposed of her body.

They also attached a GPS tracking unit to his truck for like six months, hoping that he would again lead them to a possible disposal site. All of that turned up nothing. A year went by. Two years went by. Oh my gosh. Four year went by. Two years went by. Oh, my gosh. Four years went by. And there was no sign of Michelle.

The investigation went nowhere. Yeah. Finally, investigators thought, like, this case isn't going to get any better. Mm-hmm. So let's see if we can take what we have and make a case out of it. You can't. I agree. There's nothing here.

Right. But on September 30th, 2005, Cal Harris was arrested and charged with Michelle's murder. Wow. Mm-hmm. They're going to blow their one shot. Oh, boy. Oh. Uh-huh.

Oh, my God. Yep, so they arrest him. They're going to try him. He's going to be found not guilty because there's tons of reasonable doubt, and then they're going to find her body. Or then he's going to tell because he's so fucking arrogant oh my god brandy so he's arrested and his attorney like oh it's like are you fucking kidding me there's no evidence here he says you can't find a murder weapon so you can't just say well he must have disposed of it. And because you can't find sufficient quantities of blood, you can't just say he must have

cleaned it up. And well, he must have just done a really good job because we can't find the body. Yeah. A lack of evidence is reasonable doubt. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's not evidence of the crime.

So. Shit. So. Shit. So he's arrested. He's charged. A trial is set for September 11, 2006, the fifth anniversary of when Michelle disappeared. But his lawyer's like, hold the fucking phone. I want this. I want this indictment thrown out.

I think that this grand jury proceeding that led to this indictment being held down was a fucking mess. And so they look into it. And it turns out it was. The grand jury was given all kinds of evidence that would not be admissible in court. They were allowed to hear all kinds of hearsay evidence that would not be admissible in court. And this was kind of long and drawn out. evidence that would not be admissible in court. And this was kind of long and drawn out.

But like the original judge ended up having to recuse himself because he had like a private meeting with the defense attorney. And so then the prosecution argued that he was biased. And so he was he recused himself. And then another judge was brought in and he was then the one who was supposed to rule on whether the indictment gets thrown out or not. Right. And the prosecution was like, no, no, no. Like, because that motion was set before the other judge, like, that should just be thrown out and we should just move forward with the trial.

And this new judge was like, no, that's not really the way it works. I'm going to look over everything. And he did. And he was like, yeah, this indictment has to be thrown out. Like, this grand jury proceeding was terrible. Right. And so his indictment was thrown out. OK.

And so then they put the case before another grand jury and the grand jury turned – handed down another indictment. And so he was recharged with first-degree murder in February of 2007. I am just filled with dread right now. I know. And in May of 2007, Cal Harris' murder trial was underway. Yeah. I know. Can you believe this is at trial?

No. I mean, no, for several reasons. Right. One of them being he's so wealthy. You know he's going to get a stellar defense attorney. So you're going to bring this weak ass nothing case. So you're going to bring this weak ass nothing case. So that's a comment that Michelle's family made like as this was taking so – like the investigation was continuing on and on and on and time was passing.

They're like, he's going to buy his way out of this. But there's just no evidence. Mm-hmm. No, I can't imagine how frustrating this was for her family. Yeah. And yeah, you want justice. Anyone would. But there's just not enough here. There's not.

There's not. So trial begins. The prosecution has a bunch of witnesses testify about when Michelle had last been seen and how she hadn't been seen since. when Michelle had last been seen and how she hadn't been seen since. Barb Thayer testified about finding Michelle's car on the side of the road the morning of September 12th and how Cal had acted really weird about it. She said on the stand that Cal hadn't even had to check to see if the keys were in the ignition. He just told Barb to drive it back up to the house when Barb hadn't told him the keys were in the ignition or anything like that.

Like he seemed to have that knowledge without making any questions about it. People testified about how Cal hadn't made any attempts to contact Michelle when she didn't show up at home, when she should have been there to get her kids up and ready for school, something she did every single day. Barb testified about how she continued to work for Cal after Michelle's disappearance and how like three weeks after he said he was having a garage sale and he was going to sell off all of Michelle's stuff. He was having a garage sale and he was going to sell off all of Michelle's stuff. And how he very quickly began openly dating a woman that, you know, he'd previously been in a relationship after Michelle had only been missing a very short amount of time. That part's not weird. I mean, Michelle was already dating. They were going through a divorce.

Yeah, and Michelle was dating someone else. I mean, that part doesn't. Michelle was dating someone else. I mean, that part doesn't. Michelle's sister testified about the different threats that Michelle had told her about and things that she had overheard. The hairstylist testified about the conversation that he had overheard and how he'd heard Cal threatened to kill Michelle. Then there was some testimony about the blood evidence. So it's very small blood evidence, so much so that they hadn't been able to do extensive DNA testing and had only been able to narrow down that it either came from Michelle or a close immediate family member, like a sibling

or a child. And it's in the house they all lived in. Exactly. Yeah. Yep. The prosecution said that this blood spatter, they called it blood spatter, was indicative that Michelle had been murdered in her home, which meant only Cal could do it. Only Cal could do it. In what way was it indicative that she had been murdered in that home?

I mean, there just wasn't enough there. You can't even do a DNA test on it. blood spatter, testified that there were hundreds of these little droplets of blood and that some of them appeared as if they were diluted, which made him believe that there'd been some kind of cleanup effort. OK. The prosecution put Dr. Henry Lee on the stand. Oh, OK. So Henry Lee on the stand. Oh, OK. So he gets on the stand. He is like the nationally recognized blood spatter expert.

He's like the foremost authority on blood spatter. Right. Right. So he gets up there and he talks about how he affirms this forensic specialist's interpretation of what he sees. He says, yep, that all makes sense, that the coloring of the blood, because it's still red, means that it's fresh, couldn't have been left there for a long time ago, which is what kind of Cal had tried to say, oh, at some point, you know, Michelle had cut herself and bled and, you know, obviously didn't get cleaned up all the way.

What do you – I guess I have so many questions. So this spatter, where was it exactly? It was in a kitchen hallway that like led to the garage. So there was some in the garage, some in the hallway, some on like a door jam is my understanding. Okay. Hundreds of droplets, but very tiny droplets. All right.

So Henry Lee says that this blood spatter is medium velocity cast off impact spatter. So he says this is consistent with a wound that is inflicted during an assault or attack. So he says that this probably came from a punch or a blunt object and that the location of the droplets meant that they had come from no higher than 29 inches above the floor. I don't know. Say that again. So the droplets had come from no higher than 29 inches above the floor. So like a super low hit.

Mm-hmm. Huh. Here's what's interesting about Henry Lee's's testimony though okay henry lee never examined the crime scene these are all just pictures he's only seen the blood in photos photos that were not properly color carded which means that he is testifying to the redness of the blood when you're supposed to have like a color card in the photo to be able to compare the shades. And so the exposure of the picture can greatly affect how a color comes off in a picture. Okay.

So the timing could be off, but his interpretation that this came from a hit, specifically a low hit. A low hit. What does that mean? I don't know. She's on her knees? Yeah. He's dragging her? He's dragging her.

She was dragged out of the vehicle maybe? But then he drags her a quarter mile? That just seems. Yeah. Okay, continue. That's like the prosecution's whole case. I mean, the stuff from Henry Lee, that is something. I agree.

I do agree. But everything else feels like nothing. Yeah. And even that something isn't. Isn't great. Yeah. Yeah. The defense focused on reasonable great. Yeah. Yeah. The defense focused on reasonable doubt.

There's doubt. I mean. Oodles and oodles of doubt here. I could have led this case. There's no body. There's no weapon. Despite doing an extensive search of the entire property, they found nothing. And Cal has been nothing but cooperative with the police. Yeah.

They told the jury that Cal had allowed the police in his home immediately and that those two initial investigators had not noted anything in the house. They hadn't seen any blood. They hadn't noticed that tiny blood spatter, nor had they made any note of any smells that suggested a cleanup effort had taken place there. Yeah. And he'd given them full reign of the entire property. Oh, I just hit the mic out of frustration. Yes. The defense also tried to kind of give some alternative explanations for the stuff that the prosecution said was odd about Cal's behavior.

They said that the garage sale stuff had actually been a result of Cal cleaning up the house after the police search. So the police had done a very thorough search of the house, which had resulted in the house being like a disaster. And so he'd been cleaning it up and he just boxed up all of Michelle's belongings and that they said that it was not Cal who said he wanted to have a garage sale. It was Barb Thayer who said, well, you know, you could just have a little garage sale. Just sell all that stuff. Bullshit. Yeah, I don't know. The other thing is, like, your husband has been missing for three weeks.

Wife. No, I'm giving you this scenario. Your husband's been missing for three weeks. No, I'm giving you this scenario. Your husband's been missing for three weeks. Someone comes to you with the idea, why don't you just sell a bunch of stuff in a garage sale? You say no. That's just fucking weird.

It is super fucking weird. Man, that's the gist of the defense's case. We don't even know that Michelle's dead. I mean, she's dead. Yeah, she's for sure dead. Oh, God.

Okay, give me that not guilty verdict and then we find out what really happened. The jury deliberated for a day. They sent a couple questions. They asked for a clarification on how to define reasonable doubt. Did they ask for the prosecution to present a better case? Right. They were given – this is the definition they were given for reasonable doubt. OK.

It must be a doubt for which some reason can be given. No, that's not the – what? That's what they were given for the definition of reasonable doubt. Huh. Well, it's been quite a while since I did my one semester of law school. But I thought it was like the reasonable man standard. Like what a reasonable person. Yeah.

I don't know. All right. Well. They deliberated for several hours over two days and they found Cal Harris guilty of second-degree murder. Did they really? They did. Wow. And his sentencing – so he was found guilty in June of 2007 and his sentencing was scheduled for August of that same year.

This is really scary. It's super fucking scary, but we're not done yet, Kristen. OK. Oh my god. done yet, Kristen. Okay. Oh, my God. So he's convicted. Okay. Oh, my God. Huge news, right?

Well, yeah. The next morning, the day after Cal is convicted, this guy named Kevin Tubbs comes forward. Kevin Tubbs? Kevin Tubbs. He comes forward. He's a farmhand who lived near the Harris's, okay? Uh-huh.

He opens the newspaper, reads about the verdict, reads the trial coverage, and he sees Michelle's picture in the paper. Uh-huh. He'd never seen a picture

of Michelle before. Right. And he called someone, the police, the prosecutor, the fucking judge. I don't know. He called someone. OK. And he was like. I saw that woman on September 12th in the morning. Shut up. I saw her at the end of her driveway standing outside of her van talking to a man in a pickup truck. She was arguing with a man in a pickup truck. Who drives a pickup truck?

Isn't it Cal? Doesn't he drive a truck? I think Cal does drive a pickup truck. Anyway, so he says that he had gotten up for work at, like, 530, so it's, like, dusk. It's, like, dark except for, like, where the sun's starting to come up. I understand what dusk is. Anyway, he's pulling a hay wagon along this road. As one does.

And so his brakes on his truck are not great. And so he's having to go pretty slow. And so he's pulling along and he's like about to pass the Harris's house. And he sees this woman that he didn't know at the time, but now has opened the paper and recognizes her. It's Michelle Harris. He sees her at the end of the driveway. The headlights from his truck are shining directly on her.

He knows without a doubt it's this woman. Although five, six years have passed by this point. Okay, whatever. I'm still on board. Anyway, he's like, she was standing there. She was fighting with some guy outside of a truck, and the guy was, like, yelling at her just to get in the damn truck. Mm-hmm. Okay.

This goes completely against the prosecution's case, which was that Cal had killed her in the middle of the night and hit her somewhere on the property. Someone is seeing her at 5.30, 5.45 in the morning. Did he see the guy? On September 12th. He sees a guy. Oh, 5.45 in the morning. Did he see the guy? On September 12th. He sees a guy. Oh, come on! And so the defense is like, this is a new witness.

This is someone who says they saw Michelle alive after the prosecution is saying she was already killed. Yep, yep, yep, yep. And so they file a motion to get the verdict thrown out. Yeah. And it is successful. Good. They throw out the conviction.

Oh, my God. And they're like, we got to do it all again. This is Mr. Toad's wild ride. Yes. Okay. So they do a second trial. In, I don't know, you know, sometime. Wait.

They did a... Yes, so the conviction gets thrown out and the prosecution's like, all right, we'll try them again. What? Their case is even worse and it was already bad. So they're like, great, bring it up. Let's do another trial. So they try them again in August of 2009, obviously. I said I didn't know when.

I know when. It's just further in my notes. This is nuts! It's before a different judge this time because they asked for a change of venue. I don't know. Some other fucking judge is over it now. Okay. They moved it to a different county.

Yeah, they didn't want people reading about it in the newspaper and coming forth with new ideas. The prosecution puts up the exact same case essentially and they're like, new ideas. No, so the prosecution puts up the exact same case, essentially, and they're like, yeah, great. And this time, the defense calls fucking Tubbs to the stand. Yeah, and he's like, yeah, I saw this woman that I know is, I'm 100% sure was Michelle Harris, and she was standing there at the end of the driveway.

And they call his parents to testify. And they're like, yeah, that's he would have driven right by there for sure. How did he know for sure it was September 12th of that particular year that he did that? I don't know. He was sure. All right. OK. I'm sorry to question, Tubbs.

Was it Kevin? Yeah, Kevin Tubbs. That is an unfortunate last name. And I should know. Yeah, so Kevin Tubbs is like the defense's star witness. And he's like, I don't know.

I saw Michelle Harris alive after the prosecution is saying that she would have been dead. And then the prosecution like cross-examines him, and they're like, how could you have known that it was her? You know, the sun was only barely showing in the east. It was dusk. You know, most of the sky was still dark, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's like, yeah, I know what dusk is. Yeah, that's exactly what I said. And he said I was driving really slow because my brakes were bad.

My headlights were directly on her. And I saw her face closely enough that when I saw that picture in the paper, I just was 100 percent certain it was her. I don't know. I know. It's a little bit too convenient, isn't it? Yeah, it's way too convenient. So then how could – eyewitnesses are notoriously terrible. And this one isn't even like – yeah, this is something I just saw yesterday.

No. This is something. Six years ago, seven years ago at this point. And yet somehow I know the exact day. Yeah. Yeah. So the prosecution tries to discredit Mr. Tubbs, Kevin Tubbs. tries to discredit Mr. Tubbs, Kevin Tubbs.

And they brought up this incident in 2006 where Tubbs was arrested at a gas station in Owego after he was unable to pay for his purchase. And he sued the state for false arrest after that and excessive use of force, which I would agree does seem like excessive use of force. We're arresting people because they can't pay for their whatever. Like excessive use of force. We're arresting people because they can't pay for their whatever. So they are alleging that he has made all of this up as a way to retaliate against the state police. Really?

Yeah. They accused him of that on the stand and he became angry and belligerent at that accusation. OK, now hold on. OK. How would. So, yeah, so they arrested him. He because he couldn't. All I know is that he couldn't pay for a purchase.

I don't. And they arrested him. He sued them for false arrest and I'm guessing an excessive force and it didn't go anywhere, I'm assuming. And so then. All right. The prosecution said, oh, so you're really pissed about that? So you've just made this whole thing up to make the state police look bad. It seems a little far-fetched. I agree. But his story seems far – it all seems far-fetched.

I totally agree. Mm-hmm. I totally agree. Sounds like bullshit that you would remember this random woman from, you know, five, six years earlier. It also seems kind of like bullshit that this would be a weird revenge thing. Correct. Correct. Case goes to the jury. Jury deliberates for more than a day.

This jury, again, asked the judge for clarification on what reasonable doubt is. And then they return a verdict of guilty of second degree murder. Wow. Yes. And Cal was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, Cal appeals his conviction on the grounds of, like,

no evidence whatsoever. Yeah, I mean, kind of. And then also, like, that the jury had been prejudiced by seeing publicity about the case. That there were jurors who were questioned if they knew if they had information about the case. And there were several that said they had heard it, but they were still allowed to be

jurors because they said that they could not take that information into account. So he appeals his conviction. And his conviction was overturned. Wow. Yes. In 2012, his second degree murder conviction was overturned. Wow. Yes. In 2012, his second-degree murder conviction was overturned, and it was ruled that he should have a third trial. Oh, my God. This is one of my favorite cases you've ever covered.

So he, while he's awaiting his third trial, he's able to bond out. So he's out on, like, $500,000 bond. And he's, like, you know, able to like live some kind of life, see his kids, whatever. Then a third trial is set. They are granted a venue change. So it's going to go to a whole nother county, which means there's a whole nother judge. And in January of 2015, Cal Harris's third murder trial begins. Oh, my God. Okay. This new venue.

Yes. Less rural? I don't know. Schooherry County. Hmm. It's a similar rural upstate county. Oh, shit. 125 miles away from Tioga. Okay.

I've got a theory about these juries. I think they are the type of jury that is going to assume that the police catch their guy. Yeah. Yeah. So there's just, yeah, there seems like there's just an assumption that the prosecution is correct. Yes, absolutely. Okay, so for those keeping score, we are now on our third trial with our fourth judge because the first judge had to recuse themselves from the case. So, I mean, there's just so many people involved in this by this point. So, for this trial, the defense kind of takes a new take. So they are going to argue that the state police focused on Cal and only Cal and failed to look at other people. See, that seems like the way to go because that other guy had a rape charge. He'd been in prison for 10 years.

And they presented another suspect of their own that had never been mentioned in the prior trials. So it was this guy named Stacy Stewart. He was one of Michelle's coworkers at Lefty's and someone that she kind of hung out with after work pretty regularly with other people. And she'd once given him a ride. So he was from Texas originally, but he'd come to the area to work at some steel plant and then also sometimes worked at the bar or whatever. So the defense presented testimony from, OK, most some of this was given outside the presence of the jury because some of it could be prejudicial. I'm not really sure how much of it was given in front of the jury. But the gist of this testimony was that this former girlfriend of this guy, Stacey Stewart, she was a Texas parole officer. And she claimed that during a relationship that

she had with this Stewart guy, that he told her that he'd murdered someone. Oh. Yeah. Who? Yeah. Who? No further questions. No. Okay. And that he'd also said at some point that he knew how to hide a body. What the fuck is wrong with people?

Mm-hmm. How many dudes in this case are going to brag about this shit? And so the defense puts him up as a potential suspect. Sure. Like, absolutely. Put reasonable doubt up wherever you can. Yeah, this is somebody else who interacted with Michelle potentially in the days before she disappeared. And, yeah, I mean, if he's telling people he murdered someone, maybe it was Michelle. All right.

Yeah. It's not real specific testimony, but. I mean, if they didn't look into him or. Yeah. I don't know. He moved away shortly after Michelle disappeared, went back to Texas. Oh, shit. And he could not be located to have him testify or question him at the time of this trial.

Hmm. Okay. Okay. Okay. So at this third trial, Tubbs takes the stand again. And he said that, you know, he remembered, you know, he was driving slowly because his brakes were bad. We get it. Bad brakes.

And he saw somebody with a truck fighting with Michelle. And he, at some point, identified a photograph of Stewart as the man that he had seen standing outside that truck. No, come on. Uh-huh. Really? Yeah. Sure. Why not?

Because that can't, come on. Uh-huh. And he described a black or dark blue Chevy truck, and that's what he saw, and that matched the truck that Stewart drove at that time. Did it really? Yeah. Are the police feeding him this? That's a great question. No, because this is for the defense.

Oh, right. He's testifying for the defense. This is, okay. Yeah. I don't know what to make of Tubbs. I mean – I know. Yeah.

So again, in cross-examination, the prosecution is like, how can you be so sure all these years later that that was Michelle and that was Stacey Stewart? And he was like, I remember. And Stacey Stewart is memorable to me because he had really big ears. But Stacey Stewart is memorable to me because he had really big ears. How fucking dare you? You dropped that little bombshell with too much joy on your face. Oh, goodness gracious. So that case went to the—or, sorry, this trial, whatever. The jury was given the case in May of 2015, and they were deadlocked.

Well, thank you. Yeah, finally. And so the prosecution was like, all right, I guess that's it. We've tried three times, and we're just going to be done now. Just kidding! They fucking didn't! No. They were like, all right, let's do it a fourth time.

Oh, my God. So Cal Harris. Are they continuing to try to investigate this thing? Cal Harris was tried a fourth time in March of 2016. This time he chose to have a bench trial before just a judge. That's a good idea. That's a really good idea. So fourth trial, fifth judge for anybody who's keeping track.

Yeah, but a judge is probably going to be much more likely to look at the actual evidence against him, which is jack shit. Yeah. So the case is exactly the same with the exception of one new. Tubbs remembered another person. One new witness for the prosecution this time his name was gregory farr he was a convicted murderer had spent some time at auburn correctional facility with cal okay he testified give me a break that cal told him that he overheard cal no threaten another prisoner.

And he said, quote, I'll make you disappear like I made my wife disappear. No. No. Yeah. No. That's right. Things that didn't happen. So they put him on the stand and he testifies to this.

And then like in the middle of his testimony he pled the fifth. What? Yeah. I need to know everything. That's all I know. He later claimed that like a private investigator had threatened him. A private investigator

hired by Cal had called and threatened him and said you will not testify or we'll make sure it's the last time you testify. And so that's why he pled the fifth. But for what it's worth, Cal did have a private investigator working for him. And he did admit that he called this guy, this far guy. But it was just to question him so that they could then

cross-examine him on the stand. Yeah. Hmm. OK. This whole thing is terrifying. But ultimately, this guy, Gregory Fart, his entire testimony was stricken from the record. But we thank him for it. Right.

Because we are all entertained. That's right. What a bunch of bullshit. Yeah. The rest of the trial was basically the same. They had a little bit more information about this. Was Tubbs back? Yeah, Tubbs. Tubbs again took the stand and he told the same story.

Do we need to hit it again? He was driving slow down the road. His brakes were bad. It was dawn. It was dusk. It was dusk, excuse me. Wait, isn't dawn in the morning and dusk is at night? Yes, it is.

I probably said it wrong this entire time. You've said it wrong the whole time. All right. Did Tubbs say it wrong or did you say it wrong? I said it wrong. I don't know who to believe. I'm pretty sure I said it wrong. Anyway.

Oh, you're so bummed. Yeah, so this trial, all the information is essentially the same. What did the judge say? So bummed. Yeah. So this trial, all the information is essentially the same. What did the judge say? The judge mulled over it for like 10 days after the completion of testimony.

And he returned a not guilty verdict. Yes. Yeah. Cal Harris was acquitted of the murder of Michelle Harris. Yeah. This was devastating to Michelle's family because this means that he cannot be tried again. Well. I mean. Yeah.

It would be, but what if he really didn't do this and he's been through four murder trials? I know. I mean, he might have done it, but he might not have, too. There's certainly no evidence that he did it. Yeah. And there's plenty of reasonable doubt. There's plenty of reasonable doubt. And by this point, he's missed out on that he did it. Yeah. And there's plenty of reasonable doubt. There's plenty of reasonable doubt. And by this point, he's missed out on his kids' lives. I mean –

Yeah. Following his acquittal, he did like an interview with 2020 and he said, finally, some calm in my life. And he said that it was like right after that, he also learned that one of his sons had been accepted into college. And so it was like a really great day for their family. Cal's children do not believe that he had anything to do with his wife's disappearance, their mother's disappearance. In 2020, David Beers, this private investigator that Cal had originally hired to look into Michelle's disappearance. He thought he was hiring him to find – well, he said he was hiring him to find Michelle. So he later then worked for the defense team and he published a book about Cal's case called The Weight of Injustice.

And he argues strongly for Cal's innocence. He said he's a victim of sloppy police work. strongly for Cal's innocence. He said he's a victim of sloppy police work. And he said that the lead state police investigator, Susan Mulvey, told an attorney at Cal's car dealership within two days of Michelle's disappearance that she would prove that Cal had murdered her. And this was before they'd ever found that blood spatter evidence at the Harris home. And so he believes this was totally like a case of tunnel vision where they looked at Cal and only Cal. He also said that during the discovery phase, the prosecution had turned over the results of lie detector tests for Early, for Brian Early and the two co-workers, Michael Casper and something Hakes.

I only have his last name here. I can't remember his first name. They all passed. But they had also given a lie detector test to Stacey Stewart. And the results of that test were never disclosed and never given to the defense. Oh, shit. Yeah. Which it's a lie detector test, but. Still, shit. Yeah. Which, it's a lie detector test,

but... Still, though... Yeah. That should be disclosed to the defense. Uh-huh. Yeah. I cannot believe

this went to trial four times. Four times. Cal Harris has filed a malicious prosecution lawsuit in federal court. He has named the state police, the Tioga County Police, the district attorney's office. He's also listed individual prosecutors and investigators and his housekeeper, Barb Thayer, in that.

Well, it's not her fault. Yeah. Yeah, so the suit claims that the named defendants were negligent and or malfeasant, failing to pursue leads that could have identified other suspects as well as altering evidence to incriminate Cal. He is seeking both compensatory and punitive damages. Damages. And as far as I can tell, it is still working its way through the court system. Wow. Michelle Harris has never been found and the investigation into her disappearance remains open.

Holy shit. I think it is terrifying that that went to trial. Yeah. They got two convictions. That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. There is no evidence that Cal murdered Michelle. Right.

There's evidence that he's a douche. Oh, yeah. He's a total douche. Yeah. Although I would be willing to bet that this experience really has changed him. I mean, I don't know. It might make him more douchey.

It might. It might crank up the douche meter. I don't know. It would for me. I guarantee you that. Yeah. God, I... You took me on some twists and turns today.

I know, right? God, that's so sad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think Michelle is for sure dead. I don't have a clue who killed her. Could have been her husband. Could have been her husband. Could have been Stacy Stewart.

Could have been that one of the guys that saw her that night. She was last seen with that night. Yeah. Huh. It troubles me that we can't find Stacey anywhere. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Well, oh, gosh.

I don't even know what to say because I'm like – I'm feeling so terrible for Cal. But then, of course, there's part of me that's like, well, what if he did murder her? What if he did murder her? It's very possible he murdered her. If he did it though, he pulled off the perfect murder? Yeah, I – I don't know. I don't know.

I think the timing of it has so much to do with the – like it affects so much of it because had like the top investigators been on her disappearance immediately, they're probably – this probably could have resulted in very different findings I'm guessing. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. But did someone plan that? No. So that's the name of the 48 Hours episode, A Time to Kill? Because the timing of it worked out for whoever killed her. Yeah, I...

Okay. Okay. OK. So if it's Cal, then, yeah, it was timed perfectly. And that's part of the big scheme. And obviously he couldn't have known what was going to happen. But when it did happen, it's like, well, let's take advantage of this. Here we go. Yeah. But if we're going with it's someone else kind of in her orbit, then it's probably some fucked up dude who witnessed a fucked up event that day as we all did. And he did something fucked up. If Kevin Tubbs' testimony is true, Cal couldn't have killed her. Right. But who knows if his testimony is true, Cal couldn't have killed her. Right. But who knows if his testimony is true?

Eyewitness testimony is like super unreliable. Mm-hmm. But if Kevin Tubbs really saw her standing at the end of the driveway at 5.45 a.m. on September 12th, Mm-hmm. Cal Harris could not have killed her. Why could he not have killed her? Because at the end of the driveway at 5.45 a.m. on September 12th,

Cal Harris could not have killed her. Why could he not have killed her? Because it wouldn't have given him enough time to kill her and hide her body before he calls the housekeeper, Nanny. What time did he call the Nanny? 6 a.m.? Oh, yeah. 6.30 a.m.? Yeah, no, that's not enough.

Yeah. Mm. Yeah. I don't know it went to four trials. That that's a prosecutor who just I mean Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. That was

so fascinating yeah thank you m'lady you know what it makes the cool sculpting case seem insignificant i thought you would enjoy that case. I love that case. Fuck, I love that case. It's a wild ride. Yeah. appealing to get his conviction thrown out.

The appellate court cited the Robert Bierenbaum case as a no body case where they got a conviction, but they actually had some pretty strong evidence in that case. That's optional. That's all optional. Yeah, he compared it to this case where there's no evidence. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Woo.

Woo, doggies. This is a meaty boy episode. This is a meaty boy episode. My goodness. And now. You got four fucking trials to cover. I know. I know.

My goodness. So now we will move on to reading questions from our Discord. And if you want to get in the Discord and get in on these hot discussions, just sign up for our Patreon at the $5 level or higher. Ooh, Jill asks, Brandy, you mentioned on an episode a while ago that David was making you watch The Office

and you kept cringing at every episode. Were you able to survive the Scott's Tots episode? No, I died. I died that day. I know you did. This is the ghost of Brandy. That episode killed me. Yeah, it's a very cringy.

I like cringy stuff, but that one's tough. Horrible. Mimi's Krusty Muffin asked, Brandy, what was your and Kristen's go-to after-school show to watch? I was partial to Ricky Lake. We watched Ricky Lake all the time. We would get home from school, we'd call each other on the phone, and we'd watch Ricky Lake

together. Also, we loved Sally Jessie Raphael. Oh my gosh, yes. Janine Jones was also good because she had My Teenage Daughter is Dressing Too Sexy. I always liked those shows. I did, too. I did, too.

She had NSYNC on the show once. Really? Yeah. That must have been before they hit it big. It was. Ashley the Bad Bitch asks for Brandy, What is one time you'll never forget when Kristen was being extra frugal? For Kristen, what is one time you'll never forget when Brandy was extra picky with food?

Oh, my gosh. I've got one. You do? Yeah, it's one of my favorite interactions between you and Norm. Okay. Okay. It was the night when the three of us went out to dinner and that waitress was mean to you at the first restaurant.

They brought you a new plate of food. I was like, I insist you not eat that. We can't trust it. We went to a new restaurant. At the new restaurant, you ordered like a pulled pork sandwich thing with coleslaw on top. Yes. You received the sandwich.

You said thank you. As soon as the waitress leaves, you start scraping the coleslaw on top. Yes. You received the sandwich. You said thank you. As soon as the waitress leaves, you start scraping the coleslaw off the sandwich. And Norm is watching this whole thing and he goes, why are you taking the coleslaw off? You asked for it that way. And you said, you said, I wanted the essence of the coleslaw, but not the crunch of the coleslaw. That's correct. And he said, what? And you said, you know what, Norm?

Focus on your own plate. Wanting the essence of the coleslaw, but not the crunch of the coleslaw. That's you being pretty picky. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. slaw but now the crunch of the coleslaw that's you being pretty picky yeah yeah yeah um my um probably can't think of anything no my most recent memory is when you were fucking trying to limp along your broken water bottle refusing to buy a new one water bottles are very pricey

you were like you had the top was completely broken so you were just having to like leave it open and like drink out of the towel drink out of it like a fucking cup. And then you bought the O'Walla and you liked it. Yep. You're like, gosh, I sure wish I had another one of these. They cost millions of dollars. You couldn't possibly get a second one so that you could always have a clean one in rotation. And I did get a second one.

Yes, you did. But it took a lot of thought. Okay, a lot of planning. Ooh, okay. Redheadsfuckmorefun asks, will it be weird if we say, let's go to court with you guys at the live taping? Because I totally want to say it with you. No, please do.

No, please say it with us. Yeah, so we're having a live taping at Obsessed Fest in like a month. Yes, like a month from today. It's a month from today. I will be dead. Yes, please say the line with us. Yes, please. Lorenzo Monte Carlo wants to know, Brandy, if you only wash your hair every third day

or so, how do you deal with your hair on the off days? Just conditioner in the shower? Dry shampoo? Thank you. No, so I don't get it wet at all. If I take my shower, I clip it up. I don't get it wet. And so I do.

I do dry shampoo on the rooty roots, but I don't have to do that until the third day. First two days, it's's trained does its thing i do put either dry oil or shine spray on the ends of it because they can get a little crusty dusty yeah um have you ever tried the thing where you just wet it and condition it no i'm not gonna do that it's terrible because i don't yeah i don't like to blow dry my hair. Right. Yeah. I don't want to do that. It's one of those things that like sometimes curly hair – Yeah, they say that.

And I tell people that. People are like, I couldn't possibly go two days without washing my hair. I'm like, okay, well, then just try rinsing and conditioning it on the second day. And inside, I'm like, I don't want to do that. But it would be better than shampooing it. It sucked. My hair was so flat that day. Hell yes, Sarah

asks, should I join the board game club at my college? Fuck yes, you should. That sounds amazing. Other people who like board games, you're going to make some friends, and you get to play games. Possibly fall in love. Perhaps you could have a love connection.

You sunk my battleship. Ooh, Blaise Slays asks, if you had a chance, would you ride in a submarine? I would. That kind of scares the shit out of me. It scares me, but I would do it, I would. That kind of scares the shit out of me. It scares me, but I would do it, I think. I mean, my bravest thing that I've done in months is get that

t-shirt. No, it really would scare me. Yeah. I don't even like to snorkel. I've never snorkeled. You know, you're in something in a submarine. Yeah, I understand, but what if it cracks open and boom, you're dead? Well, yeah, I mean, I think you'd probably go pretty fast.

I don't know. That's what I'll shout to you when we're drowning in a submarine. Oh, don't worry, Brady. We're going to go pretty fast here. I'm less scared to get in a submarine than I am to just like be fucking out there in the open water. What if a shark comes up? to get in a submarine than I am to just like be fucking out there in the open water. What if a shark comes up? I mean, yeah, you're probably right.

Yeah, I am right. Thank you. It's probably like how, you know, airplanes are technically safer than cars, you know, all that boring shit. But, you know, I don't know. Please don't invite me into your seven. That's what I'm saying. Alice and Angela asks, is there cover charge for Emerald's Emerald Club?

Of course there is, because Emerald, sorry, Emerald doesn't come cheap. And also someone suggested today that when we do the any hooters, the next pair of tits comes around on a baggage claim carousel, which that is going to be expensive. First of all, I don't like how you're talking about them as if they're like tits that have been chopped off somebody's body. No, no, no, no, no. No, they're attached to a person. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, there's got to be a cover charge, right?

Yeah, for sure. Ooh, what if we did like a membership thing? Yes. Everyone, by the way, this is the strip club that we invented at the end of last week's episode. Because it was terrible. It was a terrible episode and we just had to have a tangent real hard. Yeah, we've got to – I feel like you've got to, otherwise people might just come in and like shake hands with Emeril and look at all the titties and leave.

And we can't have that. So yeah, there's got to be a cover charge. For sure. I see fat legs says, Kristen, we know you love a good age difference. How do you feel about Leonardo DiCaprio never having dated a woman over 25? I think it's fucking disgusting. And I think he has a problem. Don't laugh. I think it's fucking disgusting and I think he has a problem. Don't laugh.

I do. I think he has a problem. It's fucking gross. What? I'm glad you have such a strong opinion. I do. Wonderful. Oh, Gadriel asked, what's the worst pizza you've ever eaten?

Okay, so I didn't actually eat this. One time, Kristen ordered. There we go. A veggie pizza with artichokes and slivered almonds on it. It looked so disgusting. It wasn't good. You know, okay, that might be the worst pizza.

But, okay, one time my family ordered pizza from a local gas station, which I know sounds really grim, but it's a good gas station. Very high-end gas station, folks. The nicest.

Real cold bottles of Gatorade. Anyway, you can get a taco pizza, and you can get a hamburger pizza, and I think what happened was the pizza chef that day thought we wanted one type of pizza started putting uh refried beans on instead of sauce and like you know doing all that then realized halfway through oh shit they wanted this other kind of pizza and instead of just like being like well like you got a taco pizza cheeseburger pizza mashup it wasn't quite even that good because that kind of sounds good. But bottom line is, whatever the pizza was supposed to be, it had refried beans and sauce. But honestly, I think it tasted better than the pizza with the almonds on it.

Right? All right, Brandi, let's move on to Supreme Court induction. Let's. To get inducted in our Supreme Court, you just have to sign up on our Patreon at the $7 level or higher. And I have to stall because Brandi is not where she needs to be. I couldn't remember what episode we were on. And we are reading your names and favorite cookies. Megan Lohner.

White Chocolate Macadamia. Trish McCloud. Hot box chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream in between. I thought hot box was where you smoke pot in the car with the windows rolled up so everybody gets real high. I'm not familiar. Eunice Sun. Underbaked chocolate chip. Katie Seidenberg.

Oatmeal chocolate chip. Karen Dickey. Magic cookie bars. Megan. Sugar cookies with buttercream frosting. Serena Hagel. Chocolate chip. Evelyn.

Peanut butter blossoms. Amber Cannon. Dark chocolate pretzel cookies. Oh, that sounds so good. That sounds wonderful. Laura Kepsel. Oatmealzel cookies. Oh, that sounds so good. That sounds wonderful. Laura Kepsel. Oatmeal chocolate chip. Katie Simos.

Girl Scout Samoas. Kayla Soryung. Macarons. Chelsea Barreras. Oatmeal chocolate chip. Emily Crissip. Oh, no. Petit Ecolier milk chocolate biscuits.

Welcome to the Supreme Court. Thank you, everyone, for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Patreon. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and then head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review. And then be sure to join us next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned.

And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. I got my info from the article

Linda Evangelista is the latest to go to war against this fat freezing company by Andrea Marks for Rolling Stone. Back in Bloom, the rebirth of the indomitable Linda Evangelista by Sarah Harris for British Vogue. And Linda Evangelista shares first photos of her body since Fat Freezing Nightmare. I'm Done Hiding by Jason Sheeler for People.com.

Long ass headlines. Those headlines are too fucking long. I got my info from an episode of 48 Hours, thecharlieproject.org, ABC News, New York Daily News, and Wikipedia. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.