Something Was Wrong - S15 E5: [Diana] The Devil in Disguise

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

*Content warning: sexual, physical and emotional violence involving children, childhood abuse, sexual abuse of a child, rape, child sex abuse materials, human trafficking, and suicide. For free and confidential resources, please visit: somethingwaswrong.com/resources S15 Artwork by the amazing Sara Stewart @GreaterThanOkay - Instagram.com/greaterthanokayTo purchase SWW merch, please visit: represent.com/store/somethingwaswrongSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to something was wrong early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. I'm Candace DeLong and on my new podcast, Killer Psychy Daily, I share a quick 10 minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the cold-butter killers you read about in the news. Listen to the Amazon Music Exclusive Podcast Killer Psychy Daily in the Amazon Music exclusive podcast killer psyche daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences as it discusses topics that can be upsetting such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence.

Content warnings for each episode and confidential and free resources for survivors can be found in the episode notes. Some survivor names have been changed for anonymity purposes. pseudonyms are given to minors in these stories for their privacy and protection. Testimony shared by guests on this show is their own and does not necessarily reflect the views of myself, broken cycle media, or wondering. The podcast or any linked materials should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional expertise or treatment. All persons are considered innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.

Thank you so much for listening. You think you know me, you don't know me well At all, at all You don't know anybody until you turn to me Hi, I'm Diana. I met Paul through Tinder. I had recently gone through a divorce with Scott. I was just looking for something fun and I connected with Paul online. We started chatting just through text, very casual, for a couple weeks and then we agreed to go on an date just to kind of see if we had a connection. He picked me up and we went to a restaurant which was a favorite where I'm from. We're chatting away, getting along really well, laughing. We went to a park

afterwards. We sat underneath a gazebo and it was feeling very quickly like this was not going to just be a fling, which striked both of us as odd because we had both agreed we are not looking for a serious relationship. He was currently going through a divorce and I was still finalizing my divorce with Scott. Neither one of us were really looking for any kind of commitment, but that first date was very different. I remember sitting under the gazebo, I'd lean into him and we were joking and I was like, you know, I'm a pretty big deal. And he's like, oh yeah, and I was like, yep, I sure am. And he jokingly said, well, good, because I got a 10-foot dick. So I got a 10-foot dick. The best way that I could describe him as a person and the aura around him was very

commanding. It was almost this prestige about him, like I want to talk to him. Who is that? He had these eyes that were very intense and very kind. They almost sparkled. It was the strangest thing. He was very handsome whenever I was first talking to him and talking to my friends.

He just had this way of captivating you and making you feel like regardless of who else was around you, you were the only important person in the world. We weren't intimate on our first date. Within the next weekend, we had our second date and we went to the movies and went back to my place and that's where we were intimate for the first time. We still weren't even serious. We weren't like, oh, this is going to be a relationship. We were still in the mind frame of, this is a hookup. He lived in the country and it was like an exclusion

away from the world where we could have fun, hang out and watch movies and have sex. He always had a way of making me laugh and telling me how beautiful I was all the time, how special I was, and I was so caring and empathetic. The way that I cared for my own children, he said that that was something that stuck out for him. The way that I attended to my children and talked to them and doated over them, he said that's when he knew that he fell in love with me. I was trying to be mindful of the type of person I was bringing around my children.

He didn't grow up in the same state and join the Marines right out of high school. He was in several different countries when he was in the Marine Corps. And then he joined a police department to become a full-time police officer and did some time with the police department to become a full-time police officer and did some time with the police department. Then 9-11 happened and a cousin of his was killed overseas and he wanted to reenlist again.

He reenlisted into the army at this time and spent a year in another country that was not Iraq. Then he was sent to another base and was there and he spent a year in another country that was not Iraq. Then he was sent to another base and was there and he spent a year in Iraq. So he had a long history of being in the military. He was a retired police officer. We have a lot of family members who were retired military and that was something that was very much celebrated. In my eyes, these are people that you trust. You trust people in the military. You trust the people that are in law enforcement because their job is to serve and protect.

The military, their job is to serve and protect so that we can have the rights and freedoms that we do. I felt very proud, like, look at this guy, look at everything that he's done, he's so amazing, he has all these stories about his time as a cop and his time overseas, and all of the different countries that he's visited. I was very proud to be his girlfriend. We met in July, and after that, we started spending every weekend together, possible, my ex-husband, Scott, that I had my daughters with. He would have the girls every other weekend,

and he even offered to take them more. So when I had a weekend free, I was at Paul's house. Within a matter of three months, it was very serious. I knew it was serious because when it was Sunday and it was time for me to go back home, to go pick up my girls and get ready for work, I was crying. I remember being so heartbroken like,

I don't wanna be away from you another minute. I wanna see you every single day. The next day, he asked me if I would be okay with him moving in, he was going to give up his rental, if I said yes. At that point in time, we were so deeply in love. I was like, yes, absolutely. Move in. Three months. Move in. How did your ex feel about that? He wasn't happy partly because I think he still wanted us to possibly work out, and I told him that's not going to happen. The fact that another man was involved in the care and decisions of our daughters, that

they loved him so much, and they had such a great relationship with him from the get go. I think that really bothered Scott. He was dealing with his own stuff too. I'm sure it didn't help any. He's like, you're moving too fast and I'm like, well, you know, it's not like we're getting married tomorrow. He wasn't happy. I asked the girls, how would you feel about Paul moving in? And they're like, oh my gosh, yes, the dog can come and it's going to be great and we're going to go fishing and we're going to go do this and we're going to go do that. We used to go fishing all the time and go swimming at the lake. We'd already met his friends and we got along really good. So they were super excited. They were up for it.

I worked in the medical field for pretty much my entire adult life at this point in time. We hadn't been married yet. I decided I want to go back to college. I've wanted this degree my entire life. I was always too scared to do it. I thought I wasn't smart enough and he's like absolutely Quit your job. I will take care of everything. I will take care of the bills. I'll take care of the house. He was retired military so he wasn't working. He was 100% disabled. I was like, are you sure? That is a heavy burden to carry. And he's like, no, absolutely. You need to follow your dreams. You deserve this. So I did. I quit my job. And I went back to college full time. That was two years of school and training and clinicals. He continued to lift me up and praise me and tell me how wonderful I am. There was never really any

point in time where I was like, this isn't right or any kind of red flags like, oh, maybe I should be careful about that. He proposed within that first year. We were actually married within that first year. It all happened so quickly. People say a whirlwind romance, and I never understood what that meant until this relationship. It was constant uplifting of me. It was constant love doting on me and showing me how much he appreciated me as a mother and how good of a mom I was to my kids

and how good of a mom I could be to his children. It was just constant showering of affection. 2020, when my sister was struggling with mental health issues. She was having issues with my two nieces, teenage stuff. Family services had gotten involved and they said, we need a place for these kids to go. And I jumped at the opportunity and Paul jumped at the opportunity. He's like, absolutely, we're not going to let them go into the system.

They're going to come live with us. We will make it work. They were with us for a short period of time and then my sister made a plan to get them back, which we were fully supportive of. We ultimately wanted to reunite them with their mother. Very quickly, they had to come back. This time time they were with us for almost a year. We had started the process of getting certified as foster parents because it was more of a long-term placement rather than short-term. So there was that whole process, background checks,

fingerprints, making sure that nobody had any kind of criminal background or anything that needed to be of any concern. We had to give statements and we actually had to have friends write letters of recommendation saying, oh yeah, they're great people and they're great parents. They stayed with us for the better part of the year. There was a little bit of adjustment because at this point in time, now we have six kids. We have my two daughters. We have his two kids. Now we have my two nieces. So six teenage kids was definitely interesting.

I loved having them all in the house because they all had their own unique personality. I mean, there were squabbles because they're teenagers, but my daughters were very excited to be able to have their cousins live with them. They had always grown up very, very close. My nieces were also excited about it, especially being able to go to a smaller school

versus a very large school that they had gone to before. It was almost like a fresh start for them to be able to come and stay with us, get away from the busy city. It was definitely like a fresh start for them to be able to come and stay with us. Get away from the busy city. It was definitely something that we had to navigate through different personalities, sporting events, and visitation with their mother while she was working her programs. It was busy at this time. I was freshly graduated from college now and working in my new role.

It was a lot to take on, but I was happy to do it. September 30th of 2021, I was at work at the hospital. I work in the operating room. I'm a surgical technologist, so if you've ever seen a medical show, the person who hands the doctor everything that they need in the surgery, and set up the instruments, that's what I do. I had just finished my first surgery of the day, and my phone was in my back pocket. I recall like going off a couple times, and I had to ignore it, of course, but I checked my phone, and I had 15 missed calls and messages from my neighbor. They all looked very frantic as if something was happening.

I didn't even read them all or listen to the voice mails. I just called my neighbor and I said, what is going on? I'm at work. And he said, is everything okay at your house? I was like, well, obviously, I don't know. I'm at work. What are you talking about? He said, I think you need to go home. There's like 15 cop cars in your driveway.

I remember just being completely shocked. Like, what are you talking about? You've got to be seen things. He's like, you need to go home. I think something's wrong. So, I called my husband. He wasn't answering the phone, being that he was a veteran with PTSD. I was very concerned that maybe he had done something to himself, and I was frantic at this point. I went to my boss and I said, I have to go home, I have to leave. Right now, something has happened. The cops are at my house, I can't get a hold of my husband. I think he has done something to himself.

I think he's maybe killed himself. They're like, absolutely, go. Do what you got to do, it's fine. If you're into true crime, the Generation Y podcast is essential listening. We started this podcast over 10 years ago to dissect some of the craziest and most notable murders, crimes, and conspiracy

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I'm driving down the pack roads doing 90 miles an hour. I decide to call county dispatch. I give them my address and I'm like, I need to know what is going on. My neighbor just told me that there are a bunch of cop cars in my driveway, I can't get a hold of my husband. What is going on? So they look it up in their system and they're like, man, we don't show

that we have any deputies at your home. And I said, well, clearly there is. She puts me on hold and she says, someone's gonna call you here in a few minutes. So I'm panicking, still driving, trying to get home as fast as I can. Someone calls me from a few minutes. So I'm panicking still driving, trying to get home as fast as I can. Someone calls me from a blocked number and I answer it and he says, man, where are you at currently? And I said, I'm driving home. What is going on? He said, how soon can you be here? And I said, I am less than

five minutes away. And he said, good, because we were getting ready to come to your work to talk to you. So now I'm really panicked. When I pull into my driveway, all the cop cars are gone. There's just two people there and they're dressed in plain clothes. They informed me that they are with the FBI and Homeland Security. And they said, we need you to have a seat in our car. We need to have a discussion. I sat in the front seat of this FBI agent's car and they said a recorder on the dash and he hit record. At this point, I'm starting to get really worried. He informed me that they had been watching my husband for a period of time and that he has been arrested for sexual exploitation of a minor and production and manufacturing of sexual exploitation pornography. I remember saying, you don't understand.

He's the moral compass of right and wrong. He was a retired cop. He was in the military. Like, you obviously have this mixed up. You've got the wrong person. They're very adamant. And they said, man, you have to understand. We have gathered mountains of evidence.

We can show that to you tomorrow whenever you bring your children to be interviewed. But there's no doubt in our mind that he did these things. I'm asking questions. Like, are my children okay? Did he do something to my kids? What is going on? They informed me that they had served a search warrant

on our home and had taken a lot of electronic devices into custody, including my desktop computer laptop. A couple of our kids at that point in time were grounded for something I can't even remember. Their phones were on my desk and they confiscated these phones as well as my husband's phone, Apple Watch. They gave me instructions, they gave me their cards, they said, tomorrow morning you are going to meet us at this location. You need to bring all of the children with you. You can't tell them what he's been arrested for. You can tell them that he's been arrested,

but you just can't say what it's for. Because whenever we question them, we want to make sure that the kids had zero information as to why they were there. I felt like I was out of my body watching myself walk into my home and everything is a disaster. Things are displaced all over the house. I felt very violated. They had gone through all of our personal belongings, my drawers, my dresser, my intimate things.

I just remember standing in my kitchen, thinking, what the hell just happened? I called my best friend. She was working from home. I said, I need you to get over here now. She was so shocked and I said, you don't understand. Paul has been arrested. This is what it's for.

She said, I'll be there in 10 minutes. I'm bawling my eyes out. I don't understand what is going on. I don't even have all of the details at this point in time. Just what his charges are. Obviously, I want to scream at him and ask, what the hell did you do? So we sat down with my best friend and we made a list of things

that I needed to do right at that moment. I needed to contact an attorney for divorce. She even mentioned at some point in time, I would probably want to get a power of attorney over him to where I could make decisions on his behalf because we had vehicles that were in both of our names that if he was going to be going to prison I cannot afford to have all of these vehicles. I had to think about the future not knowing exactly what was going on at that point in time. I decided to pick up the kids from school early that day. I did not know if any of our other neighbors had seen the police. I was thinking, oh God, what if somebody else saw the police here? News in this town travels fast. So in my mind, I was thinking it only takes one person to send a text to one of my six kids saying, hey, why were the cops at your house? I didn't want them to get the information that way. So I decided to pick them up early. They could see that I was upset,

and I'd been crying, and my makeup was smeared. I got all of them into the car, and they all just had this shocked look on their face like, what happened? I told them, your dad, your uncle Paul for my nieces has been arrested. I can't talk about why. We'll know more tomorrow. And I'm sorry. And I love you. And you are loved. And no matter what happens, we'll get through this. Not only do I have my two children, I have his two children and my nieces. So I'm trying to take in the consideration of six other people's feelings and making sure that they felt safe and reassured that we were there for one another. When I told the kids that he was arrested and I couldn't discuss why all of the kids were completely shocked. They were all crying, saying, what?

No, why? I don't understand except for my oldest niece, Tessa. She was in the passenger seat of my car. She was not crying. She just sat there and stared out the windshield. I didn't think anything of it at the time. It was shocking for all of us. Nobody is going to all have the same cookie cutter reaction

to the news that I just gave them. As time went on that evening, I was consoling the children. My two daughters were worried, is daddy coming home? Is he okay? All I could say is, I don't have those answers for you right now. We will know more tomorrow. My oldest niece, Tessa, was very bubbly, giddy, giggly. It seemed kind of out of character at that time. Everybody else is sad and crying and confused, and to her it's just another Thursday.

It's as if nothing happened. I was not able to sleep. I was laying in bed crying the majority of the night going through the worst-case scenarios in my head of what he could have possibly done to my children, to my nieces, disgusting, disturbing thoughts that I could not make go away. I was praying to God the entire time, please, God, please, please, please, my kids, my nieces,

his children, keep your hands on them and protect them. Please don't let this be true. We all want to think that our loved ones could never do something as heinous as sexual exploitation of a minor. It literally was every parent's worst nightmare and now this was my life. The next morning was September 31st. We had to have all of the children at this place that they told us to meet. The children would undergo interviews at a child advocacy center. The FBI would be there along with some detectives from our local county and an advocate from children's services. I had contacted Paul's best friend who lived a little over an hour away and asked him if he could go with me for emotional support. I needed an adult to talk to. That was not an FBI agent. And of course, he came and rode with me there. We got to the Child Advocacy Center and the kids were like, oh, I want to go first. I want to go first. I want to go first. And I'm like, guys, we don't know who

gets to go first. We'll figure it out. We're all sitting in the waiting room. And they said, we're going to go ahead and take Tessa back first. I hope that's okay. It may be a little bit. So if you guys want to go to McDonald's and bring some lunch back, we'll let you know if there's anything that we need from you and we may come out and ask you to step in.

So the kids were watching TikTok on their phone. They didn't seem too scared or worried to them. This was just a formality. I still haven't eaten anything. I hadn't even eaten breakfast the day that he was arrested, so it would have been Wednesday. And now it's Friday. I was too nauseous to even think about putting food in my body at this point in time.

A couple hours have passed. That Tessa has been back there in the interview. I'm thinking, dear God, please tell me he did not do anything to that little girl. They open the door and they say, we need you to come back here. We have some things that we need to discuss with you. I'm terrified shaking like a leaf nervous I feel like I'm gonna throw up. I don't know what they're going to tell me and I don't know how bad it is So I enter this room with the FBI Homeland Security County deputy children services and test is not in the room She's in another room now the agent who was at my home the day before, he was seated next to me and he said,

do you remember when I told you yesterday that we were going to go over the evidence that we have and explain to you why we know we have the right person? And I said, yes. He said, as soon as Tessa sat down, she immediately started bawling her eyes out and all of it came out. I just looked at them, I said, all of what came out. He said, your husband Paul was on an online kick account. And to join this group that he was on, you had to produce live photos or videos of you actively sexually abusing a child. He provided photos and videos of him sexually abusing your niece Tessa.

He also sent photos of my daughters and my other niece talking to the other members in the group about all of the things that he wanted to do to them sexually. The things that he had already done. He was actually talking to someone about making plans to go across state lines for something called a teddy bear party where essentially he was wanting to exchange my two daughters and my two nieces with another person's children for child sexual assault. Fortunately the person that he was talking to was an undercover FBI agent. All I wanted to do was throw up. I was absolutely shocked and devastated. How did this happen?

How long had it been happening? Those were answers that I didn't have. The county deputy had informedosed that Paul had been raping her over a period of time and she was just glad that he was finally caught. It would all end. He was facing federal and state charges. They informed me at this time that he would likely be spending the rest of his life in prison, it would be anywhere from 30 to 85 years, 85 if he got the max on every single count. They said that Paul was the worst of the worst, typically when they catch pedophiles in these online groups, fantasizing or sharing pictures of child pornography that they got from somebody else. Not to say that it's not as bad because it is as bad, but for them to catch a hands-on offender, those are the most dangerous pedophiles out there. dangerous pedophiles out there.

So they said that they were done with Tessa and that they would interview all of the other children. Mind you, Tessa's interview was hours long. They interviewed all the other children and their interviews were a couple minutes. They told me that when Tessa was ready to talk, that she would. that when Tessa was ready to talk that she would, we were leaving the child advocacy center and Tessa came out. Her mascara was running down her face and she was so upset. I took her in my arms and I just held her and she looked at me and she said, why are you being so nice to me? I remember being so shocked. Like, why would I not? I'm so sorry that he did this to you. I promised her right then and there. I would make sure that he was going to spend every possible moment in jail and that he was never going to hurt her again.

When we got home that night, I took every picture off of the wall that had him in it, anything that had his name on it. I don't care, it's gone. I took all of it down. I don't wanna look at it. If I don't wanna look at it, I know she doesn't wanna look at it. My house looked completely bare because every memory that I ever cherished,

every family photo, things that I had bought for him that were personalized for his military experience, little trinkets with his name on it, celebrating the person that he was. All of it was gone. I couldn't stomach to look at it a moment longer. After I did that, I sat down with the kids. I did not tell them what he had done to Tessa. That was not my place. The FBI told me that I could tell them that he was arrested for crimes against children that were

of a very inappropriate nature. I sat them down and I said, your dad, your uncle Paul, will not be coming back here. I'm sorry, I know that this is shocking. I know that you are upset and you have every right to be upset. You are all entitled to your feelings. I love you and I'm here for you. We are going to get through this no matter what, but he will not be coming back. I'm also having to tell this to his children. Without going into too many details, also knowing I have to have a phone conversation with his ex-wife. And I was not looking forward to that. I had to contact family services since we were foster parents

and let them know what test I had disclosed. There is a protocol that has to be put in place and they were gonna have to be re-interviewed by child protective services. I didn't know and they were going to have to be re-interviewed by child protective services. I didn't know if they were going to take my nieces and put them in another foster care home. I didn't know what was going to happen. I spent the majority of the evening contacting people, my friends, very few select family. I remember, how do you even have a conversation with someone and tell them that the man of your dreams.

The person that you loved and cherished and held so high in regard to his military and police experience has been arrested for sexual exploitation of a minor and statutory rape and sodomy of a minor. I had to contact Paul's ex-wife, let her know what had happened. I said, I know that we have custody of the kids, but I'm sure that it's not going to matter much now because he's going to be spinning the rest of his life in prison. So we need to contact the attorneys and find out the legal way of what needs to happen from here. That was something that we were going to have to wait on. Because now it's Friday evening

and the attorney's offices are all closed at this time. She said that she would contact the attorney and find out where we go from there. I knew my step-kids, the one who was under 18, was going to be going back and living with his mom in another state. I was sitting at my desk Friday night after the interviews, after finding everything out, and I just felt very frantic. Like I needed to check on my kids. I hadn't heard them talking in the other room. And I felt this overwhelming need to check on them.

I got up and I felt light-headed, but I started quickly walking towards the other side of the house, hollering for the kids. Hey, guys, come here. And he talked to you. And that's all I remember because when I woke up, I was on the kitchen floor. And all of my children in my nieces were around me crying. I don't know what has just happened. And I'm confused. My daughter Gracie, she's the oldest, she's crying. and she says, Mommy, you haven't been eating. You've been so upset, you haven't been eating. And you fainted. I stood up and I looked in the mirror and my eye is

completely black and blue already. I have a huge cut above my eye. My glasses are broken. Apparently, I fainted again and I quickly woke up and Gracie is shoving kettle corn in my mouth. Mommy, you have to eat. I know you're upset and I quickly woke up and graces shoving kettle corn in my mouth. Mommy, you have to eat. I know you're upset and I know you're sad, but you need to eat. It was the sweetest yet saddest thing that my 12-year-old daughter recognizes that her

mommy is so sad that she hasn't eaten in days and she's stuffing kettle corn in my mouth. At that moment, I knew I had to take better care of myself, regardless of what he had done to me and done to us and done to my niece. I had to be there for them. I had to make sure that I was taking better care of myself so that way I could be the best possible mother and aunt, because now I was all they had. I made a phone call that night to a woman that served in the military with Paul. She was in Iraq with him.

They frequently called each other brother and sister. I dreaded having to call her and tell her all of these heinous, horrible, disgusting things that had happened to my niece and my children having their photos sent to other pedophiles. I said, I need to know that you're sitting down right now and she said, yeah, what's going on? And I said, Paul has been arrested. These are his charges. This is what's happened. I can't discuss certain things because it's private to the person that it happened to and he did understand that. She was completely shocked. She's like, what? There has to be a mistake. I told her, no. There's no mistake. They have photos and video he shared to this online account of what he had been doing to the children. And I remember saying, of course, he's going to blame this on his

traumatic brain injury. And then I didn't hear anything for a couple of seconds. She said, what are you talking about? What traumatic brain injury? I went over the details that he had told me as to what happened in Iraq. He broke his back, tore all the ligaments on the bottom of his feet, and he had a traumatic brain injury, and that's why he had disability. And she said, Paul was never hurt in Iraq. We never saw combat. We never engaged in any fire. He lied to you. I remember thinking, I don't need this situation to get worse. Please, please tell me this situation isn't going to get worse.

I've already married a monster who has sexually violated my niece, taken photos of my children innocent photos of their first day of school and shared it on an online group for petafiles. And now you're telling me that he lied about his injuries in Iraq? She was just as flabbergasted that he was making up his injuries. And I said, if he didn't get hurt in Iraq, why is he disabled? Why does he have a total disability?" And she said, when we were in Iraq, he had a complete mental breakdown. They found him in his chew with his gun in his mouth. They took away all of his guns after that. He went home on a little R&R, came back and had a desk job. He was no longer

an MP. He was being stripped of everything. I thought you knew. I'm like, no, I didn't know. I thought he was injured and I racked. This is what he said. The only thing I could do to manage everything was to just keep going. I didn't have a choice. My work family has become my family. And even they at the time were just like, how are you even here? How are you working?

And I said, I don't have any other choice. I have to keep going because they depend on me. I can lay down and I can cry and drink myself into a oblivion because that's what I want to do or I can get up every day and go to work and show my kids what it looks like to face the biggest heartbreak and disappointment and try to pick up the pieces and move on with your dignity because he wasn't going to take that. He may have taken a lot of things, but he was not going to take my dignity.

I had to have him sign power of attorney so that way I could sell his truck that was in both of our names and possibly looking at selling our home because in a very small town, word travels fast and my children are being bullied at school because they'd gotten out in the news. There was a news story about it. So now all of the kids at school knew what he had done. And we're teasing the kids about it. During the time that everything came out in the news and the kids started getting bullied. I made the decision to pull them from school. They did online learning for a couple weeks just until the media storm kind of died down a little bit in schools.

They find new things to talk about. And after talking to the kids' therapist, they all agreed that that was the best decision at that time. When it was time for the kids to go back to school, I had had meetings with the principals for both the high school and the elementary kids and the counselors, making sure that all services were available to the children and informing them of what I expected to happen. I wanted to make sure that any kind of bullying or talking about the case would be shut down immediately from all teachers. I wanted to make sure that I had the support of the school behind me, and they were very supportive

and making sure that the kids felt safe and that this was a space that they could go to and get away from it. It was very successful. They were able to go back to school and get back into the sports that they liked and extra curricular activities. It had taken about a week off of work

to finalize certain things, make sure that the divorce was being taken care of, and power of attorney papers were being signed. I had a lot of things that I had to make sure were taken care of, things that had to be sold to pay for this divorce attorney. Eventually, I had to go back to work, and I had a lot of anxiety going back to work. People look at you differently when you've gone through something that is so public. You can't go through it without people knowing things come out in the media and there's news stories.

I had people messaging me, people that I hadn't talked to in years saying, oh my gosh, I just saw this on the news. Is that your husband? What happened? Are you okay? What did he do? And I actually got off of all social media and I had my kids get off of all social media to minimize the amount of contact that we had with the outside world. It was nobody's business what he did. It was not something I wanted to discuss with people that I either worked with or were family members. It just wasn't something that I wanted to discuss or was ready to discuss.

So going back to work was extremely hard. I had so much anxiety. People look at you differently. It's a mixture of empathy and pity. It's almost like I could read their expressions on their face of, oh, you poor thing. Or, how did you not know, or were there any signs? And these were questions that I wasn't willing to go over yet. It was very hard getting past the looks and the stairs and oh yeah that's

her. Did you hear what happened? I hear the gossip at work. I hear it in the halls. It wasn't easy but I dove into my work and I tried to make myself as busy as possible during my work day. So that way it could be my escape from my reality. It was nice to be able to finally get back to a time where I could focus on the surgeries in front of me and not focus on the details of this disgusting case and what he had done to my family. I had contacted Paul's mom that Friday evening after the interview with my niece, Tessa, and having that conversation with her that her son was arrested and jailed and most likely not going to ever be getting out. These were his charges.

She had the same reaction as everybody else, just complete disbelief. They were completely shocked, blindsided. Everybody had the same idea of him. He is the moral compass of right and wrong. There's no way that he would do these things. He was so outspoken, especially about child abuse, pedophilia, and child sexual assault. His mother had the same reaction at first. I was trying to be empathetic where I am today, on Friday, everybody else is me on Thursday.

So I'm trying to be fair to other people that it's going to take some time for people to process this. As time went on, I was trying to keep her in the loop as to what was going on. My relationship with Paul's mother was starting to dwindle a little bit more over time. She was angry with me that I filed for divorce so quickly. He was arrested on a Thursday I filed for divorce on Monday immediately and she was so upset with me that I filed for divorce so quickly and that I didn't give him an opportunity to explain. There's no way of explaining this in any kind of light that does not paint you as the monster that you are. She would call periodically and

ask to speak to my daughters because he had adopted them legally. When she was on the phone talking to them, I always had it on speaker phones so that I could moderate the conversations and she'd say, your daddy misses you so much and he loves you so much. And I had to shut that down because they were furious at the things that he had done. And they felt so violated and lied to. They didn't want to hear how much he loved them or how much he missed them. It didn't matter. My last conversation I had with her, she informed me that I needed to stop being so bitter because her son Had lost everything. He had lost his home his children all of his friends and would never have any of that back and at least I had my job My career my children my home and my friends and I needed to have some compassion for her son

We had had a decent relationship. We didn't live in the same state as his parents, but I believed that we had had a decent relationship. I was just thinking, at what point in time are you going to hold your son accountable for the things that he has done to this family? how long are you going to coddle him? I was enraged and furious, and at that moment I told her I said, you will never hear from me again. I will not talk to you, because if you think for one second that I'm going to have an ounce of compassion for the person who destroyed our lives. You are out of your mind. Not going to happen. It feels unfathomable that anyone could try to defend this kind of behavior and any capacity or blame it on anyone but him. In terms of the kids, Tessa, especially your nieces, what happened next in foster care? What is that process like?

That process was pretty painful. I was trying to be there for Tessa because she had to disclose all of this information again. I felt like we were victimizing her yet again. Having to go over everything that she had already just said to the FBI, I felt like, why can't we just get all of their information from the FBI and try to figure out a game plan from there?

Tessa didn't want to stay in the home because there were too many bad memories and I was not going to hold that against her. I can take all the pictures off the wall and I can change the decor in the house and I could move furniture around, but it doesn't change the fact that she was sexually assaulted. I wasn't going to force her to stay in the home where these things happened. She went to go stay with another foster family that she had stayed at previously and have become very supportive of her. My other niece, her younger sister, Avery,

she decided that she wanted to stay. It stayed that way for a couple more months. She said that she missed her sister and she wanted to go stay with her. And I wasn't going to hold that against her. My now ex-husband's children, one of them who is under the age of 18, had to go live back with his mother. The older one still lives close by, and I still have a relationship with him. So now it's just me and my two daughters. But it's true that whenever you go to jail,

you get that free phone call. I did get that phone call from him. I answered it because I wanted to confront him on everything that I had just learned. I answered the phone and the first thing out of his mouth was, baby, you gotta understand this isn't what it looks like. I was so infuriated and I just started screaming at him, do not call me baby.

You will use zero terms of endearment with me. We are done. I am filing for divorce. We are over. I do not support you. What you have done is absolutely disgusting. He kept trying to plead with me to listen. And I said, Paul, there is nothing that you can say that is going to make any of this okay. And he said, you don't understand. Tessa came on to me.

And it was the only thing I could do to get it to stop. He said, I knew I was talking to an undercover agent in that chat room. And I knew that if I gave them all of this information that they would arrest me, and that was the only way to make it end. The only thing that came to my mind was, how sick and disturbing are you

that you think that anybody is going to believe that a child came onto you, and you did these things because you were trying to think about your family, it was disgusting. Was that one of the last conversations that you had outside of the logistics of the power attorney, etc? No, it wasn't. Recently, my sister had been struggling with mental health issues, especially after this, she was really struggling, knowing that her daughter was sexually assaulted in my home

by the person that she cared about. He was part of our family. And when you're dealing with mental health problems, and you're not getting the proper treatment, or you're not seeking proper treatment, it can do some very bad things. Unfortunately, she took her own life. She passed away a couple months ago and I had forgotten that I still had one of his family members on my social media and I

posted something about my sister's suicide and that person had contacted his mother and his mother told him. He called me a couple days after she passed away. I'm not gonna lie. I had already had a couple drinks that night. The kids were in bed and I thought, well, let's light this fire. And I answered the phone and I said, what in God's name do you have to say to me now? And he said, I just wanted to let you know I heard about your sister. I was very short with him and I said, yeah, it's very unfortunate for our family right now. He said, I just wanted to let you know that you need to hold yourself partially responsible for her death

because you turned your back on her when she needed you the most. And perhaps your sister will find more comfort in your dead mother and father in heaven than she ever found with you. It was horrible. I feel like at this point in time, he's just letting his evil show for everybody to see. And he has no remorse in saying some of the most mean and hurtful things as if he hasn't already put our family through so much turmoil and destroyed me enough already. He has to slip that knife in there and twist it. I'm so sorry and I'm so incredibly sorry for your loss of your sister and my heart goes out to you and her and it's incredibly heartbreaking the entire ordeal. It's unfathomable. The amount of damage that this person did.

Thank you. And he just continues to wreak havoc every way that he possibly can. And this is something that I've discovered with trauma therapy once a week for the last year and a half now, is how much of a narcissist he truly is, and when narcissists lose complete control of their surroundings, they revert to trying to control the narrative, trying to control what other people think about you. So he had no problem twisting that knife knowing exactly how much it would hurt me. Several months after Paul's arrest, my nieces are now gone and my step-kids are gone. It's just Gracie Avery and me at home. We're going to trauma therapy once a week and the trauma therapist says Gracie needs to talk about some things with you.

Gracie had disclosed some things that had happened to her. She informed me of the grooming techniques that had taken place with her and the things that he had done. Paul had told Gracie, you're not going to say anything to your mom about this because your mom is finally happy. Do you really want to take that away from her? Do you really want to be the reason why she's not happy anymore? But you're not going to say anything about this. You're going to keep it a secret.

It'll be our little secret. She assured me that he had never raped her and she said, I'm okay. It's not as bad as what happened to Tessa. I said, it's not an issue of it being as bad, and it is okay to be angry. We will get through this no matter what, I will always be by your side, and I will always support you. These are things that she is still struggling with now in ways that it has changed her as a person. I had contacted my trauma therapist who has become a very dear friend now. And I said, what do I do?

And she said, you need to have a conversation with Gracie as to whether or not she wants to move forward with this and file a complaint. And I did. I sat down with her and I said, is this something that you want me to file a police report on? Because absolutely what he did is illegal. It's sexual abuse. It's not okay. She looked at me and she said,

well, he's going to prison for the rest of his life. Regardless of the charges that he gets for what he did to me, he's not getting out. And I said, no, not likely. And she said, well, I can't look at him in a courtroom. Mom, I can't stand up there and look at him. And I said, it's your choice. I'm not going to force you to follow complaint against him because at the end of the day, if he decides to take it to trial

and he doesn't take a plea deal or he doesn't plead guilty, you will have to stand up in front of him and court and testify against him. And she said, I don't want to do it. I can't, I can't look at him. And I said, okay, we don't have to. She seemed satisfied with the amount of time that he was looking at going away, knowing that he'll die in prison and not ever get out and not ever be able to do this to another person. But she still struggles with the lack of punishment that he's had thus far. It's hard for children to really understand that even though someone is sitting in a county jail,

awaiting sentencing, and it's been almost a year and a half now, that he's been there, he still gets some of the comforts of life, like ramen noodles and ho-hoes of snacky cakes. So it's hard for her to really feel like he's being punished until there is a definite amount of time that he's going to be in prison. She isn't fully satisfied yet and I get that. So now we just wait until sentencing to find out how long he's going away for. There is not going to be a trial. He has taken a plea deal for the federal charges. The state charges will happen at a later time after the federal is settled out. There was a plea deal given to him. One of the lesser charges for the federal system, lesser in that it had a less amount of time to serve.

They agreed to drop that lesser charge as long as he pled guilty to the major one, which carried a mandatory minimum of 15 years with a maximum of 30. So he took that plea deal and he pled guilty. Now he has been convicted of that charge. And I've talked to some of my friends about that and they've said to the extent, how can you be okay with him taking a plea deal? And the easiest way I can explain it is, if he did not take a plea deal, my niece and my children would have to stand up in front of this monster in a courtroom and testify against him, making them victims once again for the world to see now, and I didn't want that. State charges, He has multiple counts of statutory rape and statutory sawdemy endangering the welfare of a minor.

And those, themselves, can carry, I believe, another 10 to 20 some odd years. So I'm okay with a plea deal. If it keeps my children from having to testify in a courtroom and look at this monster in the face, I'm okay with that. We are still waiting as to when the sentencing is going to be from the time that someone pleads guilty. There are sentencing guidelines that take place and it's essentially a scoring system. What they are suggesting as far as whether it be the mandatory maximum of 30, they take so many things into account. I

spoke with the prosecuting district attorney and she informed me that even the smallest of things such as his former employment of being a police officer and being in the military, those are things that they take into account the depth of the lies, how he hid the things that he had done and the danger that he would be to society if he got out. It takes about 90 days and the danger that he would be to society if he got out. It takes about 90 days for those sentencing guidelines to work themselves out.

And then I have my victim impact statement as well as Gracie has hers, Tessa has one that they all went to share with the judge. They don't wanna say it out loud, being nervous to talk about such a vulnerable thing, but being able to give that to the judge to where the judge can read how it has affected them. I definitely will be standing up in that courtroom. I will tell him exactly what I think of him and what he has done to us.

And I want the judge to know what he has stolen from my children, his children, my family, his family, friends, what this does even to put a negative mark on good people who are law enforcement and the good people of our military, the things that we would think are held in such high regard how he used that to his ability to fly under the radar and be the last person that people would expect. I did write a victim-impact statement and this is what I am going to be reading in court. Paul, this is the last that you will ever see me or hear my voice, so please listen very carefully because I don't want you to misunderstand what I have to say to you. I hate you. I hate you with every fiber of my being and with every breath I have. You have destroyed my children,

my nieces, my family, your family, and you have devastated me to my core. From that very moment you are arrested for your crimes, you have blamed other people and not taken any responsibility for your actions. Over and over, you have said that you've mishandled a situation. Please tell me how you mishandled raping a minor and sharing pictures of my children with other pedophiles online. Please tell me how that was mishandled by you. You are the moral compass of right and wrong not only for me and for our children but

for your family and friends. What you have done has forever changed and affected me. My children, my nieces, everyone for the rest of our lives. Our lives consist of depression, anxiety, nightmares, suicide, and years of therapy. Never in a million years did I think I would be going to trauma therapy once a week, a year after my life changed forever. But here you are, still not taking responsibility for your actions.

You even went as far as to blaming me and said it was partly due to our lack of intimacy. I fully believe that this is not the first time that you've done something like this. A very smart person told me that for a predator to successfully groom a child, they first have to groom the other parent. That is exactly what you have done from the moment I met you. You saw a woman who is physically and emotionally abused with two younger girls and you jumped at the opportunity. You are a very sick person and there is no help for you. You are a beyond repair.

You were right though, one thing for sure. You will die alone. Whether it be in your small cage or if God forbid you get out of prison, you will die alone. You will never know what love feels like again. You will never meet your grandchildren or even their children. You will die pathetic and alone. When that day comes, we will cry, but it won't be tears of sorrow. It'll be tears of joy that the nightmare is over.

I do hope that until that day comes, you feel 100% of the pain you have caused my family, my friends, your family and friends, and anyone else that has been affected by your crimes. I hope you feel it every day and I pray that it haunts you and your sleep. We will not allow you to hold us hostage in this nightmare anymore. We will rise above what you have done and we will go on to live happy and full lives, not because of you but in spite of you. You are not the hero that you make yourself out to be Paul.

You are at the devil in disguise. Goodbye. Incredible. How does it feel to read it? It feels amazing. I'd love to talk about how you have gone back to school and persevered through all of this. Could you speak to what life looks like for you now? Life now is very different than what it was a little bit around a year and a half ago. I still work

full-time at the hospital in the operating room. I actually have gone back to college and I'm currently enrolled in getting my degree for something called surgical first assisting. It is a lot of the same role that I currently do, but I am working in conjunction with the surgeons in the room, prepping the patient and making sure that all of the things that we need for the surgery are there. And one of the the things that we need for the surgery are there. And one of the other things that I'm learning to do is when the doctor is done performing the procedure,

the patient has to be closed up. If the doctor so chooses, I will be stepping in and closing the patient for the surgeon under guidance. It's something that I'm very excited about. It's an opportunity for me to have that financial stability for me and my daughters. And honestly, I think it comes at a good time because no matter what has happened to us in this last year and a half, my girls can look back and say, my mommy never gave up and she kept pushing. And even at almost 40 years old, she went back to college again. I feel like I'm setting an example for them on what it looks like to be a strong, independent woman. It's something that I'm very excited about. I'm excited for our future and everything that that holds. There's no way of prepping people for what you're going to have to deal with

when you do decide to go back to work or the conversations that you have to have with your children or even your family members and friends. There's no book on how to handle this. You just have to do it and hope that you're doing the right thing. There absolutely needs to be some kind of support group to be able to get women and mothers through this. It's definitely one of the reasons that I saw the value in starting the show knowing that you're not alone.

Sometimes it's everything and it makes the load feel a little bit lighter. I think that human connection is so vital to our recovery. Being able to share it with people who actually get it would be so beneficial to the people who need it. Just one of the reasons I'm so thankful to you for sharing because I know that the people who need to hear it the most will truly be so thankful to hear you share. There's nothing that you can say to your friend or your loved one who's going through this because sometimes it's easier just to say nothing. What do you say? It's every parents for nightmare. So I think so many times people just don't say anything. Luckily, I had friends at work who were always checking on me,

making sure, hey, what do you need? Do you need meals? We can bring you meals. We can bring you food. They had done a bunch of gift cards to where I could just run through a drive-through and get dinner for the kids and not have to worry about cooking.

The depression, anxiety, everything that follows suit to this. The last thing you're thinking about is cooking a meal. Everybody's very supportive, but then you get to a point where you're starting to heal and then people stop checking on you. I think some of those times are the times where I feel even more alone because even though I look like I'm healing and I look like I'm doing okay,

I still have very bad days. Sometimes the trauma after having to see the physical evidence, the photos and the videos, they're very haunting and they can still be very consuming. They're easier to push away after time, but they're still there. So the importance of still checking on your friends, even though we look like we're doing okay and we look like we're healing, we have a smile on our face again and we're loving life and we're having new adventures and we're going back to school and everything seems to be falling into place. It's a darkness that you still carry, having other women who've lived in the dark. Because that's what we did. We lived in the darkness of not knowing who this person was, the lies, the deceit.

I don't like living in the dark. So it'd be nice to have another person who has been there and gets it because your friends can always say, always hear if you want to talk. And unfortunately it's one of those things that unless unless you've really lived through this nightmare, it's hard to really grasp how much it consumes your life and how dark it can really get. I think the reason that I feel so deeply about it is that my sister's gone. She struggled so much with her mental health. I see her darkness now. I see the dark place that

she was in. Again, I cannot thank you enough for sharing your story. It's incredibly moving, the amount of vulnerability and bravery and perseverance that you have shared with me in both of our conversations. You are truly a warrior, mama bear. It's funny that you say mama bear because my kids call me mama bear. There's so many things that you hold in that you don't talk about and my journal and I try to get my feelings out on paper, but this, man, this.

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe friends. Something was wrong is a broken cycle media production, created and hosted by me, Tiffany Rees. If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones, leave a positive review, or follow something was wrong on Instagram. At something was wrong podcast.

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