Scamanda - BONUS: Amanda’s Early Exploits: Was she ‘sick’ even back in college?

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

Hear from two people who knew Amanda years ago - before the blog, before Lisa and Steve - back when she was a college student and Resident Advisor. What was she like during her time at San Jose State? And what exactly was she doing? Be prepared!  Scamanda is a Lionsgate Sound podcast: http://lionsgatesound.com Hosted by Charlie Webster. Listen to another Lionsgate Sound podcast hosted by Charlie Webster, Died & Survived: https://link.chtbl.com/diedandsurvived?sid=sc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm John, I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student at the University of London.

I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student at the University of London. I'm a student atas, it's Charlie again and I'm joined by Nancy in the studio. We have been contacted by so many different people and two people that we wanted to get on the line to speak to us to tell a bit more is Kenaric and Lenin. Kenaric was a supervisor of the resident of Visas at the San Jose State University and it was

around 2006-2007 which is when Amanda was at the University and she was a resident adviser. As somebody that's English I've had to learn what resident advisers and Lenin was a resident adviser with Amanda. So Kenrick, you were the supervisor that looked after the resident advisors. Well, welcome along and thank you so much. Can you describe to us a little bit about that role? Sure. Well, my role was the assistant director of the department and with that came a bunch of different tasks. I actually supervised her supervisor,

but the interesting thing about Amanda, she was very involved in our program. So she worked for me in my office as a student assistant. She also worked as an RA for a couple of years, and then she later became a graduate assistant, which was a level of supervisor amongst the staff members, right? So she did that for about a semester and in my role I hired and trained all of the staff, I did staff conduct and a variety of different things throughout the department. So you

trained Amanda? Yes. And she was around 19 and 20 at this time. I would say so. She was already in R.A. when I had arrived in 2006. I think I might have gotten her for the last year that she was in R.A. when I came in in August of 2006. And Lenin, you were a resident advisor with Amanda. What kind of things did you do? So yeah, I mean, in our role as resident advisors or RA's for sure, it saves us time, syllables. But it's an agusiah to learn what an RA was learning. That's why.

Yeah. But yeah, in our jobs, we, we're students actively ourselves. So we lived on campus. we lived in the residence halls, are the dorms depending on who you're talking to. And we had about, I would say, about 80 or so students assigned to each of us. And on the floors that they lived, we would meet with them. If there were roommate issues, we would kind of do this thing where we hold up what we call this our duty phone or on call phone

overnight, so we would respond to our crisis. We would obviously host events and activities to build community and engagement. So it's kind of like, you know, if you're familiar with other university settings, it's like the perpetual welcome week, your orientation or something like that. But we're doing it year round.

We're actively working within our communities. And so we end up having like a reasonably sized team to achieve that with our supervisors and their lives. Letting Utoli just reminded me of something. And these tidbits just keep popping up. I actually ended up living on her floor because I negotiated housing for a couple of years and I lived on her floor, I think for a year or two. And so I got to see her as an RA. And so she was kind of like my RA even though I was a professional staffer, but that's funny.

So I really want to dig into this. So I suppose the first thing I want to ask you is, when you found out what Amanda was doing, was either of you surprised? When I first found out about it, I was about 50% surprised, and the other half of me was like, ah, this all makes sense now. I'm really surprised at some of the things

that I'm learning more and more as I hear the podcast. But you're not surprised that she's done this. That's a surprise. Some of it makes sense. Yeah. Why? As a student assistant with, I got to work with her closely.

And I've had people, other people in my life, who've gone through cancer treatment and have fought cancer. And some of the behavior it just didn't line up like she was never wanting to talk about, which is fine. That happens every with with some people, but it just didn't line up with how someone would look and how someone would feel. She was always very energized and very bubbly and very outgoing, which is a wonderful quality of her. I never saw the pain of what cancer folks would go through, right? And so that immediately made me question some of the authenticity of what she was experiencing. Lennon, what did you think? What was the Monday light? Because, you know, I suppose you could argue

with what you were just saying, Kenrick, that, well, people show things, show their pain in different ways, right? Yeah, you know, and I think it's thinking back to the totality of the question of being surprised and then also, you know, what it was like. I still work in higher education and so I think I'm at a point where I don't know if I'm get too surprised about the behavior of people, unfortunately, but when I look at the cultivation of a skill set to do these things, I'm not surprised. And what I mean by that is on one end, and this isn't a promotion for people to become RAs to become scam artists. But, but, but it's this idea of learning how to turn it on

is something that is a skill set. I think we all do it. We all go through our lives and some of us who are the most successful are become continually successful, or find our definitions of success is our ability to acknowledge how to turn it on, turn it off, recharge all these other things. In the case of the kind of work we were doing

and how it may be translated to Amanda is, when you live where you work, how do you turn it off? And the work we did, we probably get about an hour or two. So I look at that, like literally you get back in your room and that's the only time you really get a chance to stop smiling or stop putting up the bold face. Once I discovered that it wasn't real, I kind of was like, wow, okay, this is something I'm not surprised by

because I think there had always been an element of putting on the show. So wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, guys, right? So this was back in 2006, kind of 2007 time. She started a blog in 2012 to remind everyone, which is when she said she was diagnosed with cancer, with Hodgkin's lymphoma. So hang on, we're talking about it as if well she put on this good face. So did she say she had cancer then? Yeah.

What? Well, she definitely had, I don't know this for fact, I'll say this, I think she started off very, very small and realized that maybe she could do this to get out of stuff like classes or work or what have you.

And then she just saw that it was a success and started building on it right and said, I can do this, I can make some money out of this or something. I don't know that for a fact, but. So when you say I don't know for five, but she was saying she wasn't very well. She was saying she was sick. Yes, I remember her being sick. And I remember that coming up because when you're looking at your peers and there's 1400 residents in one building, right? Pretty big building. 1400 residents in one building and there's only 15 RAs, you know, we got to work. And

so anytime someone was excused, you felt it. She was sick and looked at our chick, I'll say. Quite a bit when it came to the extra duties of what was asked of us. Because one of the things we also found out through somebody who was a boyfriend of hers back around that time was that she was saying she had loopholes. Does that ring any

bells for either of you? Absolutely. Yeah. And I just want to pick up on, you know, you were saying Camryerca, she's always really smiley. Like in all the photos we've gone through from her blog post and this is years and years and years, she is always really smiley. And one of the things that people said about her was she's so charming and lovely and I mean I've met her and she was smiley and lovely even though she'd been just been sentenced. Can you describe a bit more of what she was like and what the interactions were like? Was she kind and a good person? Or how would you describe that? Yeah, and this is the difference between what she's done versus how she appeared, right? Because she was very much everything of our help

or she was, I mean, if you met her, you would immediately melt into her wanting her to be a good friend of yours, right? I thought she was very bubbly, very personable. She actually was a very hard worker, so I don't want to take any of that away from her. She did, I think she did her job and she did it well, and you know, her accolades prove that. She was, it seemed to many of us

that she was a good person, and she was generally doing things to help people, and was really caring about other folks. I think, like I shared earlier, it's 24-7 and we're around each other all the time and you can, you can be genuine and I would totally agree with the standpoint of the hard work and the way she shows up. Like her creativity, her when she's on, she can win. She would win. Like I think there are a number of things. I think her biggest strength in the work that we did

was around programming and engagement, like really showcasing obviously a great speaker, very energetic, super welcoming. And those are qualities that when you think about interviewing someone for a role like this, stand out and interview. I think for some of the other things that, you know, a FLRA would track in that we would feel and that we definitely felt it at the time was,

but yeah, but how many of your students do you actually know? Like you've got any other residents, do they think you're a resource or do they engage it to you outside of the space? So I think that we were seeing things and tracking things in a light where it was, I think we felt it once again as peers, but I think from a showing up standpoint,

like even myself, like at the time even being, you know, in that window, friends with Amanda, I think if it was like time to do something, you wanted her to be on your team because you know she wanted to win. So it's like, and so she was gonna show up and put on as best she could. So like, there's so much productivity there

from that lens and engagement. And so I totally see, yeah, like Ken were sharing that, that sort of energy of, oh yeah, she is someone you upon meeting or like, oh, there are so many, I can almost look up to. Yeah. But let me once you agree that some of that

was in the manipulation of all of this is that I feel like she showed up like an A plus student to the people who mad like supervisors, maybe teachers, people who were making decisions who had the power to make some of that. But she wanted those people to know that she's fantastic and she's great and she can do all the stuff and she looks good in front of them. So that later possibly they could be sympathetic to her cause. Like you in a way, Camryrick, because you hired her, right? As a, you hired her as a grad assistant. So she actually worked for you,

so you must have seen those qualities in her. Absolutely, absolutely. Like I said, some of them just did not, it didn't match up, it didn't match up. Can you tell us about this residency program that Amanda was part of a sort after residency program, where students got three thousand dollar pay plus room and board but then Amanda mysteriously left after about six weeks which is unusual. That's actually the

graduate level position that she was employed and she we hire both graduate students and undergrad for the RA position but there's a level of assistant residents life, our results life coordinators are professional folks that have gone through grad school and all that stuff and then we have assistant resident life coordinators that might do a bunch of supervising and some other tasks. But she entered into that role for, I want to say like maybe six to eight weeks or something like that. And we had gone through the process of getting her hired because we had to make sure that she was a grad student that was the number one priority. And to us, she was a great candidate because she had already known our department,

had known our program, and she could easily transition into the role having all of those skills that we didn't have to necessarily retrain her on. And so it was really interesting after six or eight weeks, she was gone. She was like, she resigned and she didn't give us a reason. She just was done.

And that role did pay for, we paid tuition, we paid, um, remember, and we also gave, I want to say about a $3,000 stipend a month to all of our grad students. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. Do you mind if I'm just gonna bring Nancy in? I've got Nancy in the studio with us,

and I'd love to bring Nancy in at this point. Nancy, do you think there was a particular reason why it was around that six to eight weeks time frame? Yeah, I mean, for me, I noticed, you know, she had racked up a lot of education debt when we were looking at the bankruptcy, and I couldn't figure out how that worked. And I do know like once you come around

about the six week mark, you can withdraw and usually get a reimbursement of the funds for your tuition. There's like a cutoff point. And then if you get out before you get reimbursed, so I always thought that was the situation. What do you think about that, Cameron?

You're not in your head. I think that is brilliant, to be honest with you. I mean, aside from having the debt, but I, to have figured out that as a way to make someone, I'm not suggesting that people do that because clearly this is one of the outcomes. It's like, but she, it's crazy that if that's what she did, she got room and board for a period of time. She got the monthly stipend

and then she got us to pay for her tuition, which, you know, could be upwards of $10,000, and then after a while she just left and got reimbursed for the amount, because after we leave the money, we have nothing else to do with it. It just leaves our hands, and it now goes into the students account. And so she clearly, and I never ever thought about that, but it would have meant that she would have gotten all of those funds as she withdrew from those classes. Kenrick, when you posted on Facebook about the podcast commander and about knowing a mander, he said something wasn't right and loads of people commented on that and felt the same.

What was not right from either of you? Do you think was there any obvious lies or things at the time on any complaints made or anything that made people question her. I think, you know, we all kind of secretly had these feelings, but never outright said it to one another. But it was, you know, it's stuff that we each observed, you know, it might be that I'm feeling she called out sick, but yet she's going to a party. Or you see her all dressed

up to go out on a date or something, right? And so some of those things just didn't make any sense and then it makes it raises eyebrows. And I almost wish that we were brave enough to say something to one another back in those days. I think something, Kenrik alluded to earlier, is this idea of looking good for those that matter. I think there were times where a person recognizes their accolades exceeding their actual effort and they don't thrive in that energy.

I would say, or at least I would say, is a good, reasonable person would not choose to thrive in that energy. If I gave credit to Kenrick right now for something he knew he didn't do, he would probably say thank you so much, but actually a few other people contributed to that success. And one of the things that I think stood out was,

there were often more accolades than were actually achieved that Amanda would speak to. And those of us in the know were like, you didn't do that. Like, you know what I think that that was probably the grand struggle, right? It was just kind of like this idea. That's not true.

So I think like just those little bit of embellishments, it was tough because there was, I think at the time, and I'll say this is, at the time, there were so many of us working so hard and we were collectively being successful to have one person make it seem like they were only successful is the part that kind of stuck with people.

It was like this idea that you were somehow a, the reason everything took place. And this is, I would say a rough week, I had another friend that I lost a cancer this week, I would say, a rough week I had another friend that I lost a cancer this week, who had had a long battle. I can think of a 12-year battle. She's had with cancer and it was a way that came back. And I can remember her cutting her hair and I can remember, you know, all these moments, and seeing her journey and thinking to myself, there's a real piece of this and you only get so much

from a picture, you only get so much from a moment. But I think that part that didn't sit well was this idea of it just felt a little done up. And it's tough now because of the timeline, like I think as well as a foundation of this was, you know, years ago, 10, 15 years ago. So I think it's not like we use social media the same ways we used to.

So everything seemed authentic, and I can remember giving out reach when I saw the post. But then there's just a point where you start to be like, I know what my direct friends and family who've gone through this can't do. And you seem to be able to do everything under the sun, where they have children or different things. I'm like, I just know everybody who can't do a number of things and are hyper limited and how they can interact with life. Who are going through these battles,

and it really did seem like a miracle. And that's where you're like, that's almost too good to be true, but you don't wanna be a skeptic about wellness, and that's the hard part. Who wants to be that person that says, you don't have cancer, but. Yeah, can you just prove to me,

your medical records please? And I think that's one of the things we, you know, we want to, we want to raise awareness and stop people doing this, but also make sure we don't become, we don't push out the skepticism where, you know, oh, question people because not for a second, are we saying that because it's really important that we don't and Lenin thanks for sharing about that because really sorry about the loss of your friend and I think that's what, considering some way, to such as all of us in some way,

we all have a story whether it's ourselves or our family and I know that's something very upsetting and close to Nancy's heart because Nancy, you lost your sister. Yeah, absolutely. Like, I think I had said earlier that I'm familiar with folks. I've had a couple of folks in my life who have had struggles with breast cancer and a couple of folks who have lost

their lives because of it. And for me, having experienced their hardships and their day-to-day trials around that, it always seemed off. There's no way that someone who claimed what she had would have that much energy to be able to do certain things. The level of energy did not match up with someone who was thrown through what she was thrown through. And certainly people handle stuff in different ways, but my experience did not yield what it was supposed to. I just want to ask you both a question I wonder, did you know anything about her before you met her? Is it, did you know anything about her past, where she came from, what kind of background she is? I just think of like when I went to university, you know, people, I got to know people and

you know, told them a bit about where I was from and I don't know my family and did she ever, do you know anything more about her from that perspective? No, no, no. I really didn't. I don't know if she was trying to be very mindful of how much she shared because she didn't want to get caught. When I would ask her questions about what she was going through, so I was inquisitive wanting to learn more and also wanting to see how I can possibly support her.

She was a little evasive and wouldn't get into much depth about what she, which was at the time I thought, okay, maybe it's her business and I shouldn't be asking that, whatever. But she never outright said, no, I don't want to talk about that. She just kind of beat around the bush and just made up stuff about it, right? Or hardly even talked about it. When I think about how most of the team's conversations would go or my conversations with her directly, if we were like, you know, because at night we'd be on duty

together. So we'd sit at a desk for three hours, you know, and so that'd be a mix of class and life and what we're doing this weekend or all these other things. So we would get, you know, probably 10 times out of the semester, so probably 20-ish times a year. I probably would get a solid three hours with her that wasn't even like any other social time.

But more times than not, it was it was mostly school, current school, like, you know, university related. I always I did know her faith was big to her. I was a religious studies major. So, so that was a component that she was speaking to, at least around that time, was this idea of at least wanting to get into church. I don't know if she was involved in a church, I can't even try to think of like, we had some like student Christian clubs and I couldn't recall if she joined any of them. And then, no, a lot of her other time and energy

at the time, which I remember her cousins coming by, but I think I've now discovered that those weren't her little cousins, the girls that would come over. But they would come over. Hi, Anna, I'm sorry, Lennon. I'm just gonna pick you up on that, who? She, yeah, she would have two young ladies.

Or there would be one young girl, and maybe like one a little older that would come over periodically and at the time it was presenting his cousins but I felt like yet she would have people over and then the guy she was dating at the time not Corey that was a big part because of sporting events he she the two of them and I would go to sporting events together as well so like I felt like the foundation of her home life outside of school was mostly at the time her current boyfriend, the family stuff with the girls and everything. So I'll tell you who those two girls were. They were Elite's children. So Elite was Corey's wife at the time, and Amanda was going to her house

and was helping those two kids and became a bit of a friend to them because Jamie had at the time cancer, which was Lita's eldest daughter, and then Jesser, who later became Amanda's bonus daughter, step daughter, as you call her bonus daughter. So those two kids, she said,

were her cousins were actually a leader's children, Jessa and Jamie. And that's the reframing, right? Like at the time I didn't even, like, you know, I wouldn't even have, no one questions that. Like, you know, like, you know, like someone brings their family over kind of thing

and everything, but yeah, I mean, I think it's, it has been interesting to see some of the overlap with these things years later And and not knowing it's like I don't think anyone could have really sat there released until Nancy Sarge was in some research But I don't know if anyone could have sat there and just said let's connect all these dots and piece these things together but I definitely feel like I think in small bites people test the waters and see what they can get away with. And I think just over time we saw these small bites turn from, hey I can't make it today because I'm not feeling well. I can't do this because I'm sick to, oh how much more can I get?

Yeah. Thank you so much, Camerick and Lenon. We really appreciate you sharing your story with us and for coming on and giving us more insight and clearly that this was going on far longer than before her blog diagnosis. in 2010, but this era that we're talking about right now is around the kind of 2006, 2007 years. So thank you both of you. Any final words? What would you say to Amanda if you saw her now? For me, I would just say why? And I think that's the biggest question that lots of folks are having about all of this is, why would you do this? Like why fake it? Why there's lots of people going through this. Talk about karma in itself that God forbid that that comes back

to you, right? Why would I mean if money is the answer that's that's not the answer. There's lots of legitimate ways to get money. And obviously, you know that now because you got caught, it's just ridiculous that this would be one of the ways that you would live your life and scheming around and you're making people trust you and just ultimately lying to everyone, you know. And I'm getting... Lenin.

It's a mixed bag, but I think it's on the most mindful in Thoffland. I would hope, or I would probably tell her along the lines of, I hope that this doesn't deter others from giving to those who really need it. I would hope that she considers and weighs the weight of every dollar that in the last 10 to 15 years that could have potentially actually helped save a life, actually help get a little more research, get a bit more medication that could have gone to someone in real need. And ultimately, I hope her faith's real because I hope that she can find some way to find a way to, I don't want to say cope, but to navigate the impact of that reality. Because if I think I would imagine if a person

took on the weight of that impact of what has occurred, it'd be very difficult to navigate. And so whether that's counseling, faith, whatever is out there, I hope that there are some real spaces for her to get help and to become a better person. Because I don't expect flawless at anyone. I've got my flaws. But the intention behind this, the effort it took to hold this up, I feel like it's just so intense that I'm hopeful to the listeners and to the families and those out there who still have a heart to give, feel like they'll still be

encouraged to find a real cause to give to. Thank you, I think that's a great message to end on. Thank you both of you, Cameron and Lenin, thanks for joining us, Nancy, thanks again for coming in the studio and thanks everybody for listening, we really appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed this bonus episode and it gives you, well, it gave us all a lot more insight into Amanda. Don't forget to give us a rate and review and if your friends haven't heard about Scamander, they should have! Thanks again, goodbye for now!

Scamander is hosted and produced by me, Charlie Webster, and produced by Jackson McLeanen. Edit and theme music by Nico Pellella. Assistant producer Casey Hertz. Assistant editor, SEMA Greywall. Additional production support from Steven Sletton, Will Hagle and Nicole Urban. Executive produced by me Charlie Webster and Nancy Moskotello. Scamander is a Liesgate Sound Production engineered by Pilgrim Media Group.