Something Was Wrong - S18 E9: [Gaby] Beyond the Shame

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

*Content Warning: attempted murder, domestic violence, interpersonal violence, emotional abuse, and fraud. Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips: somethingwaswrong.com/resources SWW Merch: merch.cameo.com/store/somethingwaswrong Follow Something Was Wrong on IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcastFollow Tiffany Reese on IG: instagram.com/lookiebooArtwork by the amazing Sara Stewart:@GreaterThanOkay - Instagram.com/greaterthanokaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I'm going deep into my wife's family history, digging up the cold case of her murdered great-grandmother. And did I mention that I'm looking into whether the murderer was actually the beloved family patriarch? Binge all episodes of Ghost Story, add free right now on Wondru Plus. Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences. It discusses topics that can be upsetting and triggering such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, suicide, child abuse, and murder. Content warnings for each episode are at the top of episode notes. And confidential and free resources for survivors can be found linked in our episode notes as well as on our website, something was wrong.com slash resources.

Some survivor names have been changed for anonymity purposes. Testimony shared by guests on the show is their own and does not necessarily reflect the views of myself, something was wrong, broken cycle media, or wondering. The podcast and any linked materials should not be construed as medical advice, nor is any of the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. Thank you so much for listening. Don't know me well Head on Head on It comes on Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Nobody has you to to

one My name is Gabby. I'm someone who will know your life story within minutes. Oh, I'm not sharing any of mine. Very personable, I want to get to know about people. I'm driven. I'm an entrepreneur. I own my own company, educated. Really outgoing, spontaneous. I love to decide that one day I'm going to drive up to the mountains and do a 14-hour which is hiking mountain that is over 14,000 feet. I met Jimmy September of 2026 months into the pandemic. I at the time had been single for eight years. Personally, I was ready for a relationship. We had been speaking on Tinder for under 24 hours. I actually had a date already planned for the evening that I met him and that day ended up canceling. So I asked if he had wanted to go to dinner and he agreed.

So we met at a barbecue restaurant. He was standing in line. As soon as I saw him, I was pleasantly surprised that he was actually better looking than his pictures. He was tall, built from his profile he had shown that he had two kids for me that meant he was caring and responsible. He presented himself as this kind and naive guy. He was successful and entrepreneurial with his own company. We had quite a few things in common. Like our upbringing, he had an absent father who ended up passing away, but was

in and out of jail. His mom had kept them away. So he wasn't a present person in his life. I never met my father. We shared in that. We also had pretty emotionally absent mothers. I had a teenage mom who was busy working and raised in Mexico with very harsh rules and family life. His mother had been a drug addict who lost custody of him and his siblings. They were then separated and he was taken in by his grandparents. He went off and joined the military, which is where he met his ex-wife. He told me that that ended because she had cheated on him. They together had his eldest child. The story was that he had primary custody and then the mom stole the son away during one of her visits.

So he was trying to get full custody of him again. And then he had a second child with his ex-girlfriend, who was this terrible person. And so he was also working to try and get more custody than his 50-50. Really presenting himself as this great guy, hardworking, trying to make the best life for him and his children. He was former military. He had been a medic and seen a lot of hard things in combat, saving other soldiers' lives, which gave him PTSD. He had also served in Guantanamo Bay as a secret operative, befriending criminals, so he knew when people were lying.

He's this great honorable guy that has done all of this. He was in school to get his masters. Everything seemed great. We are having a great time. We close out the restaurant, we go next door to a bar, we close out the bar, we decided to go walk around the neighborhood. It's on that walk that we end up having our first kiss.

My date with Jimmy was actually kind of like a last hurrah before my second knee surgery. I had blown my ACL skiing my original surgery day had gotten canceled because COVID happened. It didn't get rescheduled until September of 2020. I had surgery within days of our first date. Mind you, I'm in crutches for at least a month. He then offered to help me in healing.

This was my second knee surgery. The first one I was living by myself, which I was doing again. It's really hard to be on crutches and to cook for yourself and to do all these things. So when he offered to help, it played into what a gentleman, what a helpful person. I had ran a background check and it gave me traffic violations. Here's this guy who had told me he was such a great guy and was in the military and so honorable. So I was thinking, oh, the worst thing this guy has is traffic violations, green light.

In the beginning of our relationship, he made it clear that I needed to be sure that I was going to stick around because he does not introduce other women to his children. So if he was going to do that, I needed to be loyal and not be like these other women who had left them. I needed to be devoted because he was really looking for a strong woman to be his kid's stepmom. Did that feel like a lot of responsibility to you? No, it felt like he was serious about me. You wanted me in all of their lives. What an honor that this is, how he sees me already. I'm absolutely in. I want to meet these kids, make sure that I'm a source of love for them. Again, I bit into the story. The pandemic was great for isolation. I don't think he had met any of my friends by this time. He had one

friend that I was never allowed to meet. The only time that he would hang out with him was when I was at a town. I did meet his mom eventually, but it wasn't this soon. I don't believe that at this point, he hadn't met anyone in my life. One of his kids lives out of state. The other one, he has 50-50 custody. So the one that he has 50-50 custody of, I became very involved with very quickly,

being there making him meals, making him dinner, prepping his lunch box, anything that he needed while I was at his place. I had bought them bed covers because the ones that they had were kind of falling apart, so I had redone the room. Very involved. For one of his sports seasons. Jimmy actually was the head coach and I had joined in to be the assistant coach. So I was very involved in these kids' lives. When spirit day happened at their school, if we had him for the night, I was making sure that he had whatever the theme was for the next day because Jimmy could care last, but I was going to make sure that it was participating and involved. Anything he

needed, I was there for him. I went through a lot trying to help that situation. I joined a step parents poor group. I got into therapy trying to be like, what are the tools I need? September 28th is when the real intimidation started. He had pulled out a large kitchen knife. I was standing towards the front door. We're arguing about something and he starts walking towards me. I'm in crutches and he's just coming at me. He put it down and came after me to be like, I'm sorry.

That's what the text messages reflect. He was sorry that he had caused me to think that I was in danger. He wouldn't do it again. He's supposed to be my protector. The dialogue with myself was, I'm in danger, but he was abandoned. And this is why he reacts this way.

I've been in this situation and I actually know how to navigate around it. I remember thinking you've been through this level of abuse before so it was still not as shocking to my system as it should be. My reaction is I understand he had a moment, he's saying sorry, it's safe enough for me to return. Still managing to go back because I love him so much and he's been through so much. I'm not gonna abandon him. I know he's a good person.

After the knife incident, there's now more arguments and accusations he's starting to instill that fear and intimidation. We begin this cycle pretty soon into the relationship. The first incident I called one of my friends and she had said, get out. If I tried to leave, he would then try to take my keys or my phone away. If he got my keys, he would throw them. One time he threw them into a bush and it took us near an hour to locate them. I never told anyone that he was physical about his attacks. Between September and December, it wasn't happy months that we had. It's all building. So by the time that the cops are called the first time, while it is a significant event, it's not like that's where it started. By December, we had an established relationship. Now, three months into it, the actual physical abuse starts.

The first time the cops were called, I called them myself, and the neighbors also called. He had too much to drink, which was an issue. He drank a bit, and it wasn't always evident because he would hide it. So sometimes I didn't know that he had been drinking or how much. It was silly to say to the cops that we were arguing over which actress was playing Amy Winehouse in the biopic. He got so angry with me, I was sitting on the couch and he came and sat on my right hand side with his left elbow, which is his stronger arm because he's left-handed. He elbowed me full force in the ribs.

One of the children was present during that. The cops came and he wasn't arrested. I was trying to gather my belongings so that I could leave the house and he was grabbing my bag each time and throwing it so everything would fall out. So my things are scattered at this point and I don't know what to do. So I call the cops.

The 911 operator had told me to just get out of the house and wait for the police. I had my own place so I said, I'm gonna leave but I just want my things. I have this thing with my belongings. I don't know if it's because I grew up fairly poor but I don't like leaving my belongings places. I felt like I need my things.

Well at the same time I have to get out of here. A general and pumping and the operator being like you need to get out. She can hear everything, she can hear him screaming. So she's telling me you need to leave and then you can come back for your things another day. I had not told them that he had struck me really hard in the ribs. They just thought it was a dispute. One of the things that was so shocking to me was that he argued with the police screaming at the top of his lungs that they had no right to be in his house, that they needed an arrest warrant. He knows how the police system works

and was able to combat with them and they just left and told me to leave. And that's how we dealt with the first situation. Well, in my right mind, I should have not come back. I certainly did to grab my things, which included like prescription glasses. I think when that happened, he saw that I covered for him. After this December event of 2020, 2021 is full of abuse. We are going through this cycle heavily. Honeymoon abuse, Honeymoon abuse. He's punching and dunting my car. He's tackling me, spraying me with a keyboard cleaner, which if you've never been sprayed by a keyboard cleaner, that burns.

And it left a permanent mark on me. He is starting to fight with people at parties that we go to, threatening them physically. It's touching me inappropriately at work events in front of the kids as well. There is no level of control. It doesn't matter where we are. I only praised him because I didn't want people to know. All they knew was his good behavior that he showed when he was around them. Even when he got into a verbal, almost physical education out of friends, party,

he wasn't in the wrong in the discussion. So therefore, he was justified in getting upset, but they also didn't know that there was a background of that. I covered it up. I made him seem great to them. This nice come guy who's always put together and treats you so well is all the sudden having this reaction to being treated wrong by these other people.

So even that went through not being detected. The times it was most detected was by strangers. There was two times that he got aggressive and pub like I knew the dangers of them doing that. You're protecting me right now, but when we go home I'm gonna pay for that protection. I would try to be like I'm buying a vine and get them to go away as quickly as possible. There was actually an incident in Costco. Jimmy refused to put on a mask in Costco. He threw the biggest fit. He got down on his knees, creating such a scene in the store. The man is looking at me and I'm telling him, I'm like giving him pointers. I'm like, the more you

talk to him, the worse it's going to get. He's one of those guys that would say I wish someone would because he wanted that fight. Definitely someone who likes conflict. It's happening and I am slowly crumbling inside. I'm not telling anyone what's happening. I didn't cover the bruises though. If you looked at my wrists or my upper arms,

I constantly had marks, his finger marks, especially his thumbs. I didn't bother to cover them, but no one ever said anything either. They were just part of my daily life. Like if you have a necklace that you wear every day, those bruises were there every day. They would fade and go away and then they'd come back. At this point, I had gotten a job, so I was in the office five days a week. I'm basically never home.

Just thought of being at home. I was going crazy, but that became my norm. Go home, cook dinner, watch TV. I also don't watch TV. I can't tell you how many TV shows and movies I watched in the time that I was with him. And if I wasn't there, then he constantly accused me of cheating or if I was with my friends, what were they saying about him? Do they not like him? If I wanted to go to the gym, I was being a whore and trying to get attention and only going because I wanted to be seen by the boys. If I went on family vacations, I was off on my own looking for someone.

So anything that I did that did not include me being right in front of him, and even sometimes when I was right in front of him, I was up to no good, but was just so much easier to stay at home and not have to deal with him hounding me. Him being mad or him getting upset, but it was crushing my soul. I was getting so unhappy. At this point, I was in his complete control. It doesn't feel good. And at some point too, I started to push back. Josh the Misski was reported missing in October of 2019.

Before he disappeared, he was spotted by park rangers in Olympic National Park, and it told us family that he had given all of his things away to someone and was in trouble. Then people started turning up with his vehicle and various belongings. I'm Marissa Jones, host of The Vanished, a podcast that covers unsolved missing persons cases that have been overlooked or forgotten by the mainstream media, just like this one. Every week I look into a new case, sharing the details of their mysterious disappearance, from interviews with family, friends, law enforcement, and even suspects, in an effort to reveal the truth. The Vanished has even aided in getting long overdue arrests through our in-depth interviews.

There is a human behind the headline, and my goal with this podcast is to raise awareness and help family members find their vanished loved one, or at least a sense of peace. Follow the Vanished on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts, or you can listen to the vanished ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. By February of 2022, I'm telling him you can't tell me what to do. Talking back a little bit more because I'm dead inside I am so unhappy and it's not only him like I'm unhappy at this job because it's not my company that I love. I'm not happy all around. I'm a bit of a human. February starts getting even worse because I am now not just taking it. This month is the first time that he tells me I'm going to beat the shit out of you.

Afterwards he's like, I didn't mean it. I know I'm crazy. So still that same cycle. He is now dragging me out of the house. He is taking my keys away. He took my wallet away. He kept it for me for a couple days. He also tells me again how the mother of his second child

had gotten that child vaccinated. He had told me before that he had a plan on how to kill her. This was the second time that he had said he was going to kill her. His reactions are never appropriate. On that day, I had even told my boss I might have to leave because I was thinking he's going to do something crazy. I need to get home and calm him down. I ended up staying through the end of my work day. He was still heated when I got to the house, but he had calm down some. March, we're supposed to have a date night and we get into an argument about phone use. He stood in the doorway and physically threatened me,

he tells me you better be fucking gone by the time I get out. I grab my things to leave. As I'm trying to walk through the doorway, he says, I order you to stay. And I said, you told me to leave. He then does this forward movement towards me and says, I dare you to take another step. I'm gonna beat the shit out of you. I had moved my things out after that March 31st incident and that was a cycle that we went through. It takes women an average of seven times of leaving before actually getting out of a relationship.

I moved my stuff out so many times. On the morning of April 7th, we got into another argument as it's progressing. He held me against the front door by my neck, strangling me while one of the children is at home. Once he let go, I had the finger marks across my neck that you could see. I have images of because they were evident. It also made it hard to swallow and speak for a couple days. One thing that I heard after was that strangulation can be a hidden cause of death because it will compress your esophagus.

It will later collapse. It is also a predecessor for murder. If your partner has strangled you in the past, the risk of them murdering you increases by 10 times. Two weeks later, on April 21st, we had been arguing in the morning because my friends had asked me to go golfing. I had asked him for permission, which bothers me to even say, but I did.

I said, is it okay if I go golfing? At first, he said yes. So I messaged my friends back and I said, yes, I can go. And then he started arguing, why didn't they invite him? I had explained to him that he had told me he was going to be working late, so he wouldn't make tea time. It wasn't that they didn't invite him.

I just knew that he wasn't gonna be able to make it. He then says, are they setting you up with someone? Are you cheating on me? It was a huge argument. He's like, you're not going and I said, I'm going. He followed me out to my car, didn't let me close the door. He finally let me close the door. He screamed at me from the sidewalk. I have no idea what he says. I drove away because at this point, I'm late to work. The entire day, we are arguing about this. He's calling me out work. What are you doing? Who are you with?

It's just out of control. He texts me that he's done with work early and I said, okay, can you be ready? And I'll stop by for you and I'll ask my friends to add you on to the reservation. He then informs me he's made other plans and that starts a whole other fight. I go ahead and go golfing without him and then head home. He's not there. I make a banana bread. I take a bath and it is about 10 PM at this point.

So I message him and I said, where are you? On the Monday of that week, I had worked late and he took issue with that. So I had to promise him that I wasn't going to work late anymore. It was kind of the same situation where I was like, where are you? It's really late. You just had me promise on Monday not to come home late. You're doing this exact same thing.

He tells me that I need to get out of the house. I said, well, this is where I live. I'm not going to get out of the house. He stopped responding. Eventually, he gets back home and he starts grabbing my things and throwing them out the door. I said, you need to stop and he continued

and I said, if you keep throwing my things, then I'm gonna throw your things as well. There were seven shirts that I grabbed of his and threw them out the door. He grabs me at the door. He is probably double my size. He is able to grab a hold of me to where I can't move. I can't get out of his grasp.

He carries me to the bedroom. He throws me on the bed. I'm on my back. He gets on top of me and he says I'm going to kill you and start swinging. At this point I am definitely in fight mode, he has told me his intention, I fully believe him, this is something that everyone says is the look in their eye changes and they are now unrecognizable. So I thought what I was able to do was get my legs from underneath him and start kicking.

As he was hitting me, I was also screaming. I kicked him and I just kept kicking until he got off of me. Once he got off of me, I turned to the nightstand because I know that my phone is there. I go for my phone and he sees what I'm doing. He immediately goes after me to grab my phone away from me which he is able to successfully do. So now I can't call for help.

I am now cornered in the closet. Anytime he's taken a step towards me, I'm screaming. He stops because he knows now that someone is probably able to hear me. He would switch from, I'm so sorry, I love you, I'm so sorry, do you love me? Those the first time I said no. Even if I said this is not what Lovis supposed to be like, any other time I assured him that I loved him. So he switched again and started coming towards me and I would start screaming. He ended up walking towards the front door to throw out more of my stuff.

And when he did that, he opened the door to a police officer. The police escorted him to the front line. Another policeman came in. He got me. I was in tears. He told me to calm down and talk to him. And so I proceeded to tell him what had happened. And he took his police report.

We're sitting in the dining room. And so I can hear what Jimmy is telling the officers outside. He is saying that it was just verbal and the meantime the officers have been informed that I have a busted lip and a black eye. So they know the reality of what's going on inside. He is telling them that all he wants is for me to be removed from the home that I am not a resident there. They ask him how long have I been living there? He says six months. So they say the legal way to do things. I think they could tell what was true and not in addition. They could tell the size difference.

One of the statements that really stands out from one of the police officers was explained to me how someone half your size gets their foot up to your face. I was able to get my foot up to his face because he was on top of me and I was kicking him off. And that's something that I admitted to the police. I admitted I did kick him. I fought for my life. And that was the way I was able to get him off of me. He was taken into custody that night. When the cops got him, he had my phone in his back pocket and was charged with the obstruction of phone as well. They had an investigator come and speak to me. She had documented all the injuries that she could see. The investigator also informed me that this was Jimmy's third DB offense,

which I did not know. Learning that he had a DB past was shocking to me. I am a complete emotional mess. I was just so broken down crying. No idea what I'm supposed to do. He said, can I call someone? And the cop said, go ahead. I walked away and I came back and he said,

did you make the call? And I said, I don't know who to call. So I never called anyone. There's this shame related to it. Who can you call to let them know the situation? And there was no one that I could think of. I know people would have come if I called. It's the shame.

Even to tell my story, you have to go beyond the shame and you have to forgive yourself. I stayed at the home by myself that night. I barely slept. The following day was his first appearance where they were going to read him his charges and tell him when his next court date was going to be as well as setting bail. I was able to attend virtually by going to a center. They were so helpful with providing services. I was able to see where I could take his dog so that they would hold her for him. However, there were some other things that I had to learn. The first being that they ask women if they would like to request leniency for their abusers

bail. I remember saying, let me think about that. Immediately thinking it was not right to ask someone that because someone who has been manipulated and abused is likely to say yes. I said no. I was one of two women that showed up that day for charges. There was about 15 charges that were being seen that day. The other woman that showed up did ask for leniency. We get an automatic protection order. She did ask for that to be lifted. It was an example to me of how deep you can get into things. It was a reflection

to me of how I have acted before. She was actually very helpful to me in her opposing actions as to what I was doing. I didn't want to be in this anymore. After that, I knew I had to get out of the house on the second night. I ended up calling one of my friends and think goodness she was willing to come over. I said I cannot lift myself off the ground. Can you please come get me? She came. I said we have to take the dog to this shelter and they'll watch her for some time because I didn't know how long he was going to be in jail if he was going to be bailed. for some time because I didn't know how long he was going to be in jail if he was going to be bailed. She said, we need to get you out of here. We need to get you to safety. We'll come back and grab the dog tomorrow. That's what we did. I packed all my remaining items

and we left. The following day, I came back to grab the dog and was on the phone with a friend, luckily. As soon as I pulled up, I saw that his truck had been moved. I immediately started shaking, I'm telling my friend to stay on the phone with me. I had signed up for Vine, which is a program that alerts you when an inmate is going to be released. I hadn't received anything, but his truck was moved. I know that he was talking to some neighbors about them holding his keys for him and watching out for his truck. So I didn't know if that was a situation or if he had actually been released. I called the police department.

I said, I need to be assured 100% that he is still in jail before I go inside. They go ahead and connect me to the jail and they inform me that he had been released in the early morning hours. I proceed to let them have it because what would have happened if he had not moved his truck I would have walked right into his home with a very angry

abuser and would have been open bait at that point. I tried to express this to them. Do you understand the sort of danger that you could have put me in? After that, I went ahead and dropped off the key. I just left it at the front door. Even though he was put in jail, going to court and waiting for them to actually hear this case, and the meantime he's just out and about, I was a wreck for the four months that he was out. There are women who go through this for years where the cases just put off. They have to live in this fear while their abuser is out on the streets. It's really life-changing. It's a trauma that you really have

to work hard at working through. At this point, he has been bailed out. The District Attorney's Office had been asking me to help them build a case. They felt confident that even if I didn't help them, they had a strong core case. However, anything would help them. I go into detective mode. I had kept images of any time he put a bruise on my body whether that be the restraining marks on my wrists and upper arms or when he threw me into things and I got a bruising from that I kept record. When I started reviewing things and going through some text messages and images, we had 20 incidences. I was resistant to help the DA for a couple reasons. I knew Jameet was gonna get records of everything, so I didn't want to anger him. I don't want him coming after me. I've been hit with the truth and know

what I need to do now, but it's still I don't want to hurt him. I was very careful with what I shared. I gave him limited items. One of the things that was outstanding for me was that he had these two DV incidents from prior years 2015 and 2016. I wanted to know what happened. Was it the same type of abuse? The investigator told me how to get those vials, but the instructions were actually incorrect. I went to the wrong county. They gave me the run around a little bit and I said I have resources to get this information directly from someone. So I searched his ex-wife and asked her if she would speak to me and not let Jimmy know. His ex-wife agreed to

speak with me and to keep it confidential between us, which I really appreciated. I wasn't sure how much she knew about me even though we had been together for nearly a year and a half. She stated that she knew my name, but that was about it. I began asking her questions, were they actually married, were they divorced? Did she actually cheat on him? She answered yes to all of them. I was actually shocked that she had cheated. I thought for certain that was something he had made up. I began to ask her if there was any domestic violence in their marriage and was it recorded. She informed me that there had been a lot of DB incidents but nothing had been recorded. They got together when they were both in the military. Similar to me, there was strangulation, punching, pushing, kicking, lots of emotional abuse, lots of lies.

She also had felt that he was unfaithful to her. We continue on a conversation. I fill her in with what has happened. I let her know that her son was present during what I thought was one of the incidents, but it ended up being a couple. She's very kind to me and urges me to be careful. If I'm going to leave, I hadn't told her that. He had already been arrested and he was out of jail, so I had to fill her in on the time frame. She informs me that she is wife number two.

informs me that she is wife number two. Wife number one, he also met while he was in the military and stationed in Japan. They had gotten married out there and from what she knew, he caught her cheating and he took a baseball bat to the car. That was the story there. She also informs me that when they got married, he seemed very nervous about getting their marriage license. That was because he was technically still married to wife number one. I'm guessing that because it was overseas, it didn't get tracked over. But she found that out because she found the divorce papers that hadn't been signed and had been served to him after they had gotten married. So at one point he had two wives. She then continues

telling me stories about another woman and she was not wife number one. She was wife number three. She did not say anything against him. She ended up leaving the country that they were stationed in. She kept everything to herself. He told me the reason that he left the military was because he was done with it and he didn't want people telling him what to do, but in reality, he got released with other than honorable for beating his second child's mom, which is who DV cases one and two ended up being with. I am trying to get in contact with anyone that I can from his past. I'm trying to build who this person is.

It is one of the scariest things to realize that you don't know who your attacker is. You thought you were in love, you thought you knew them, you've been living together. This is who you lay next to every day, and it turns out you know nothing about them. I just needed to know who was I really dealing with. Wife number one, we were not able to find because I don't have a last name, I knew her first name. I finally was able to pull the correct records for DB Incident 1 and 2. They were slightly similar. She was attacked while she was in bed.

He attempted to take her phone away from her. He was not able to take her phone away from her. He was not able to take her phone away from her. I don't believe he's strucker, but there was bruising that she had on her body from him. The second charge was a violation of the protection order against the victim from the first domestic violence that was reported. He's defiant of the law, he thinks he's above the law, but he's now proven that even with the projection order, you are not safe. I reached out to his third wife, and she was very helpful. She told me about all the lies, she went back through her messages, and realized that there was a time that he punched her and she said,

I completely forgot about this. I don't remember this happening but it's clearly written out in the messages. So she sent that over to me. Wife number three also informs me. She had also found postings that he made on Craig's list for hookups. So she knew that there was more going on. I was shocked to learn that. In our conversation, which is all over messaging, she states that the mother of the second child had this first DV charge.

Jimmy had downplayed it and said that he was the victim. The third wife was able to fill me in on that incident a little bit more. She had messaged the woman who was the second child's mom. She messaged her that they had been married and she was noting that he was taking a little long in the picking up of the child she just wanted to see what was going on. But when this message came through, he was in bed with his second child's mom and she gets this message from wife number three. She learns that they are, in fact, continuing a relationship and that he is over there currently in the second child's mom's bed.

Why are you married to wife number three and living with wife number three? And that is where there is a violation of the charge. In the police report, it states that the children are present. I believe they were in their rooms but the children aren't hearing what's happening. One of the things that's amazing to me is it's not taken as seriously that the children are present and they're witnessing it, whether it be with their eyes,

whether it be with their ears. It's a traumatic thing to hear someone screaming and asking someone to stop. I am in a terrible space. I grow very paranoid. My mental health is declining. I have two therapists at this point. One, the county assigned to me is a DB specialist

and then I have my own personal one and they are both worried. They're like, this is not getting better. You need to find a way to make yourself feel safe, travel somewhere, just get out of here. It was affecting my work because I work at these huge events and to have to monitor that many people.

It's frightening. There's no way I could keep track of 5,000 people in a crowd and know that I was safe. All my clients were understanding to my face and I think they truly were in their hearts. But it's not fun to have to own a company and tell your clients, I did it this guy who tried to kill me and he's out. And he remained out for four months. In those four months, you can imagine how taxing that is to be aware of your surroundings

and stay away from someone who is likely coming after you. I went on a family vacation in between his arrest and the court date in Florida, where across the US and I still didn't feel safe. I felt afraid at all times that he was gonna know where I was. In the discovery of things after I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, my PTSD was terrible, daily. I was having nightmares of him being on top of me

and beating me. I would wake up in a panic. Now I could hear my heart beating in my ears, even now it's hard to talk about that feeling of what a panic I was in. I was so paranoid. I hated being outside. I hated being stuck in traffic.

That was one of the things that I couldn't deal with. I couldn't deal with being stuck somewhere where I couldn't exit. Imagining him pulling up next to me in traffic, all I thought is he's going to kill me. If I went anywhere to a restaurant to the gym, my back could never be to the door. Being at home, all the windows had to be closed, and mind you, he doesn't even know where I live at this point. I moved around the lot for this reason. I would move from place to place like every few weeks, just to make sure that I was one step ahead of him, the doors had to be locked.

I took my car and to get scanned for trackers. Though ex-wives were willing to help me in building my case against him and telling me about their experiences, allowing me to include it into my victim impact statement. allowing me to include it into my victim impact statement. The mom of Jimmy's second child reached out to me the day before he went in to take the plea deal, which is how I knew he was going to do that. We had not gotten along throughout our relationship. She was just very combative with me, but during this time she had stated, oh sorry she was, how much she believed me because she had gone through it herself. She also had knowledge of who his current girlfriend was at the time, so this was a girlfriend that he got between the time he was arrested and the four months that he

was out prior to going to jail. I started informing the other women. I had four versions of my victim impact statement that I had prepared. I maybe slept three hours that night and just really wanted to make sure it was comprehensive. I had three copies printed. When I showed up to court the following day, I had a deputy escort me in. He is walking with me and I walk into the court where you have to go

through a security area with metal detection scanning your bags all of that. I'm head down, gotta go, I woke up and Jimmy is right there. He is not in court. He is on his phone. I freeze. I grab the deputy. I turn him around and I say that's him. I'm trying to hold it together. This is a big day.

I have to be composed. So he says, don't worry. We're going to let him pass. And then we'll go after. We wait for Jimmy to go through security, go to the elevator, go up, and then we go ahead and proceed through the same process. We're up and we're walking towards the courtroom.

On our walk, he says, I'm going to have you wait outside. I'm going to see what side of the courtroom he's sitting at. And then we'll have you come in so that you're not near him. I remind him he's wearing a checkered button up shirt and at that point I see his eyes change and I just look at him. He's just looking at me and he says is that him? I turn around and he's standing at the most four feet away from me and I say yes. He says okay we're gonna stand to the side. So we stand to the side, allow him to pass and get into the courtroom. The WD then escorts me in, seats me right behind the DA. They send in an advocate to sit with me. The victim advocate has to leave

for a meeting. And so I said, can we take bath and break prior to that happening. She goes ahead and stands in front of the aisle that Jimmy is sitting in and allows me to walk in front of her to leave the courtroom. I use the restroom the whole time I'm like I got this gonna kick but I walk out she's standing out there waiting for me. We go back into the courtroom and she walks in to go stand in front of Jimmy's aisle. I'm supposed to pass in front of her. I see her take position and Jimmy stands up. She walks out, we move to the side and Jimmy walks right behind me. As soon as he walked behind me and there was no protection from him,

I went to the complete opposite side of the lobby area and I broke down. You really want to be a voice for yourself and now these are the women that you've learned about, but inside it is so much to heal. There's so much fear. She allowed me the time to gather myself. I said again, right behind the DA, she had to leave, but she also informed the DA what had just happened. From that, they sent in a second deputy to stand by Jimmy. My big thing was I didn't want him behind me at any point. They called us up. It was the state versus Jimmy.

I was the victim and I was able to make an impact statement. However, I was not part of the actual trial portion. Both sides made their case. The DIA had told me they would introduce me and I would be able to make a statement. The women were not allowed to be introduced into the trial. I purposely waited until we were at the point of sentencing because then I could mention them. I purposely waited until we were at the point of sentencing,

because then I could mention them. I got up, walked to the podium to make my statement. I was shaking. I had a version that I gave to the judge, the DA had one, and I had one that I was reading off of. I don't think people's victim impact statements are typically as long as mine was, but I wanted to make sure that I covered everything that had happened. I think that it's important to know how much these impact statements can make a difference.

I believe that without it, he would have gone the 60 days and two years probation. I proceeded to read 58 pages of story between Jimmy and I. It started with who he was at the beginning. It went to different areas that my life was affected. I had lost my job. The incident happened on Thursday. On Monday I reported to my job and informed them what had happened. And on Tuesday, I was like, oh, I was homeless. I had somewhere to go because I had friends, but I was homeless. I was now jobless. So only my own company was coming back, which is great. But at that point, my main source of income was that job that I had. So just really going over everything, how I had been affected,

the PTSD that I had been diagnosed with, having these dreams of him attacking me, how I couldn't be in public, the diagnosis of depression, the anxiety. I was bringing it all up. I was also making references to some of his lies, letting him know that I knew who he really was. I outlined what happens on April 21st, but make sure that the court knows that I'm

not the only one that he's abused, and nor was that the first time. I can relay 20 incidents of what had happened through our relationship, and then in the end I make my requests. I want the maximum. The state had the ability to charge him with assault for every time he hit me, but instead they only charged him once. I let the courts know that I was not happy with this. I felt that everything had been done to protect him, that had been out for four months, was so destructive

to my life. I requested a permanent protection order, and I was told at the point of sentencing that I would not be granted one. That was a civil matter, and the maximum that they could give me was a three-year protection order. I asked for maximum probation. I supported the DA's request for substance abuse program while making sure to say that I do not think that he will be rehabilitated. I requested that he am mandatory therapy, but that's not offered while in jail. He has a health condition, so I requested that be treated while he was in custody because I didn't want that to be an excuse for him to not serve time. And that was going to be their largest point of defense. I'm admittedly a crier and one of my biggest

fears with reading this impact statement was my ability to not cry. I cried more than I wanted, but I was able to get through it. The defense objected to my victim impact statement twice and the judge thankfully allowed me to continue reading. I get the strength until the last paragraph where I call him everything that we were supposed to be for each other. It shows how much I loved him and how much I believed in him and how much it ended up not being him. After I get done with my statement, he gets the chance to give a statement, which I also was not aware of. He starts with these alligator tears, saying, he's sorry, he has no idea that this is the effect that things have had on me, that I shouldn't be afraid. He also mentions,

I didn't look for her, because I thought she moved states. First of all, I would just say that to a judge. Second of all, that means if you knew that I had stayed, you would have 100% came looking for me. He cries and says he doesn't want to die. His health condition is completely treatable. The therapist had been prepping me to be ready for him to not receive any jail time. Because that's the norm. She said she had seen worse cases than mine, and they did not receive any jail time. They were put on probation for an extended period. I remember crying, thinking about him not getting any jail time, because that was just me living in fear. I told her, I said, I will never be ready for him to not get any jail time.

He stated his intent. He said, I'm going to kill you. I would love to create that registry of abusers that have been actually formally charged. But I also think when you state, I'm going to kill you and you state your intent and it's followed by violence that should be taken as a attempt to kill, attempt to take my life. He, the Timden murder, he did not stop because he thought, oh, this is enough punches. I'm just going to hit her a couple times and that'll be enough. No, he stopped because I thought he knew to turn the cameras inside the house away. I noted that after the police left and I was left in the house by myself.

He had pre-meditated this attack, but because I thought and I didn't come out injured or dead, he got a misdemeanor. In the end, my case is considered a win. He ended up serving six months of job release, which is different than jail, and getting three years of probation. The judge took the time to explain to the entire courtroom why she made that decision. She could give him the maximum time in jail, but if she did that, he would likely be released for good behavior in three to four months. The only way she could assure me that he could be out of society for as long as possible was this work release, which meant that he was allowed

to leave for work and then come back for the night. I asked if the work release had them tracked on monitors and they said they did not. They simply would check in that they appeared to work and then back to the jail or home that they were staying in. The three months probation was the maximum that was allowed for this crime, so that is what was imposed there. After the explanation from the judge, I was okay with it because I wanted him to be away for as long as possible. It was my understanding that he wasn't going to be able to leave if he didn't have work, and because he owned his own company, my thought was how can you get more clients if he's in jail. One of the women shared this with me, his mom said that he was getting shifts at the Salvation Army. They also offered them with work opportunities. Obviously, I don't

want him to be able to get early release, but if this is how you can guarantee it for the longest amount of time, I'm going to accept it. The girlfriend had said she would like to speak. I said go ahead and give her my phone number. We can talk. So I spoke to these women. I said if you need help with anything, let me know. I was accommodating to them. But in the end, I did not remain friends with them. I don't talk to any of the women anymore. I feel that it's best to let everyone go ahead and move on from the situation. Those two women, the second child's mother and the last girlfriend that I know of, both remained in communication with Jimmy and began telling him about what I said during our communication. This was harmful.

I think this sometimes happens to victims where they feel they can trust someone. I also want a heat warning. I had to go back to court to get the permanent restraining order. And in his defense, he stated things that I had told these two women. So they both went back and told him what I had said, one being that I wanted him to be in prison, which is true because that's the only way I feel

women and the rest of the world will be safe from him. But he tried to play that I was doing everything I could in my power to make sure that he ended in prison. But when people go back and tell the abusers things, they need to understand that this can put people back in danger. They did help his defense. It didn't thinkfully matter in my case, but helping an abuser is not the answer at any point. It's been such a journey. Honestly, the biggest undertaking in my life,

not only having to work through what happened, but work through why I got in this situation and why I allowed myself to stay in this situation. Let's revisiting my childhood, myself worth. I hate to say that because I don't think that I am someone who has low self-esteem towards the end. I was getting sick a lot now, we're 15 months out and I'm going through a bunch of testing

because my body is still not okay, hormonally. You have to imagine how much cortisol I've been pumping into my body. We still are in the same city. So while some of the PTSD symptoms have subsided, there's always that level of awareness that you have to have. I think that what I'm going through now is still part of having had this emotional turmoil for at least two years.

My body's finally at a place where it's not as high-end and stress. My doctors are trying to figure it out, but that's a whole other journey that I've had to go on to figure out what is going on with my body. Once everything was done, I went on a backpacking trip to Mexico for a month. I bought a one-way ticket and I said, I'll be back when I'm back. Luckily, I'm in the position to do that because I'm able to work from my computer at that point. I didn't have any events that I had to be on site for. And that was the most liberating and helpful thing for me because I could feel safe. He doesn't have a passport, and he couldn't come after me.

It was also an opportunity to be with myself, an opportunity to have to trust myself again. I am navigating a country by myself, and I can't speak Spanish. It's actually my first language. I'm going to these cities that I've not been to before or I've only been to as a child and it really built myself and my soul back up, being able to be by myself and choose what I wanted to do every day and feel safe. Apart from that, I've been in therapy still. We are 15 months out now. Still have occasional PTSD dreams. It bothers me that it still makes me cry, but the last one was we were in the same place, and I couldn't pull up the protection order in time to tell people to get him away from me. So he was able to get to me. It's a continual thing. I'm certainly in a

better place. Now, you know, I can go out. I'm not paranoid that he's going to be somewhere. We don't hang out in the same areas of town. But I'll do a quick scan. It's not as persistent as it was before. It's a different life. You have to adjust. I feel safer because now people know who he is. I shared his photo with security and now we're two years into things so I feel a little bit more protected. I don't live every day, particularly afraid. I noticed my blinds didn't touch the wall at my house. I'm like, he can look through the blinds if he finds me. So it's small things like that. I still am active about. Definitely not as intense as it was before because I was not a functional human.

I am so incredibly thankful to you for being so brave and willing to share this and revisit and relive all of this for the betterment of others. I would love to hear from your perspective why you chose to share your story and what you hope listeners will get out of others. I would love to hear from your perspective why you chose to share your story and what you hope listeners will get out of that. I want to share my story because it's a common story. At the beginning of my victim impact statement, I say to the judge, I know that there's many DV cases that

come through, but I want you to listen to mine because there's so much that goes into it. Being now in several women's groups, it's not uncommon. And it's the same story. My therapist, the DV specialist, she said, it's like you guys are all dating the same guy with a different name. I think if we can help identify some of these things, let women know that they are not alone or know that they can get out of it. I would love to be part of that. One of the things that I think is hard for people who are not in an abusive relationship or have never been is understanding exactly how it works and why people don't just get out and why it takes those seven or more times to get out. There is actually a cycle to it that several organizations have put together.

One of the first things is to tension build. This is where the abuser is going to create tension. Internally, the victim is starting to get that anxiety. You know, what am I doing wrong? How can I calm them down? The abuser has already set also that this is a using. They're the victim. You are causing this reaction to start coming out of them. They're going to start picking fights,

that's leading up to giving them the excuse to then explode. That's the second step of the cycle, which is where they're going to lash out. There was a lot of times where he would go to name calling. It doesn't typically start with physical, but you're now getting used to the cycle. He's building an issue, he's lashing out, and eventually it let up to physical. And then we get to the, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that, it's just that this happened, and a lot of times here's where gaslighting happens as well. He would say, that never happened. The incident happened again. I said, do you see what is happening? He acknowledged it, addressed it at the time. And two weeks later, he said that never happened. It distorts your reality. So even if you know you're right, you can't trust yourself.

trust yourself. Not being able to see reality or make decisions that are correct. So you question yourself and they heavily rely on that. And then it's followed by calm, which is what we're striving for the entire relationship. This is where they show that side that everyone else gets to see because these are charismatic people. There's peace in the home. This level of calm is what we go through the wholzing over for again because they can be so wonderful and then slowly it creeps again and they create another issue. They have another blow up. It's another I'm so sorry. It's a cycle.

It's an addictive cycle with With the dopamine and the cortisol, your brain starts reacting to it and wanting that calm. And so it'll put up with all of the bad to try and get to the good again. Unfortunately, it does end up getting bad. It typically doesn't stay at a certain level. It gradually progresses into worse and worse, which is what happened in my situation. It got very physical in our last incident and finally ended that cycle because I couldn't move to that next step of reconciliation. Learning that cortisol and oxytocin are actual chemicals that are running through your body and are addictive. So it's not just you being weak and unable to separate yourself. They're actually chemicals

within your brain that are affecting your thinking and strong desire to go back. I had told the DA I was done with helping. The level of emotional exhaustion that you have to go through waiting for the judicial process to take place, it's exhausting. And the fact that abusers are allowed out, I understand how people end up dead. It's too much. But I would encourage anyone who is willing and able to continue with the process. I think it helps with your healing to be able to stand up for yourself. I recommend doing victim impact statements. I fully believe that that was a game-tanger in his sentencing. Anything that you need to do to heal, I would encourage, for me,

it was becoming a detective. It was speaking to these other women and finding out who he was, even though the DA told me it didn't need to, but it was like, no, I need to, because I need to find out who the heck I was with. Whatever that process is, so long as it's not going back, I say do it. Encourage yourself to understand everything chemically that's happening within you that it's not just you being weak and crazy and wanting them back in your life. You're a loving soul. You're giving soul, but it's time to take care of you. It's time to Recognize that this is in your power. I know it's scary. I know the dangers of getting out. I think also for me, the big thing was that in my upbringing, I was accustomed to having to navigate around what

someone is feeling. There was never any clear communication. It was passive aggressive and having to hold yourself responsible for someone else's feelings, even though you didn't even know what those feelings were. It's a lot of playing into feelings of how I was raised. You're constantly on eggshells. I was accustomed to end new how to navigate. That's hopefully a lot of people have healthy opinions. But unfortunately, that wasn't my situation. When you have these generations of trauma to go back and address everything that's happened to you,

it's a painful thing. No one wants to deal with that. But when you don't deal with that, you're not healing. And so you're taking it from generation to generation and we're learning your feelings don't matter. Your experiences aren't valid. This is all the backdrop. This is everything that's building you to be this perfect victim. You're loyal, you're not going to go tell anyone, you're going to keep your mouth shut, you're not even going to say anything to your abuser. You get to a point where either that's going to be your life or you get to no one's going to treat me that way anymore. I'm done with those

behaviors. It's time to get healthy But in the end it is gonna have to be you that gets you out and hopefully it doesn't get this drastic for you Definitely reach out for help. There are resources that I have been privy to now after the fact Go ahead and take that step for yourself You owe them nothing. I think that's one of the biggest things that we feel is responsible for them. I had been told if you leave, I'm going to kill myself, but you are not responsible for their well-being. You are not responsible for their livelihood. These are adults. They're making decisions. They can continue to make decisions for themselves and they can survive without you. It's hard.

It's not easy to get out. Do all the things that you know you need to do. If you can have a support, STEM, wonderful. I did a lot of it alone because of that shame. I didn't want people to know. That daily struggle I kind of kept to myself. I didn't let people know how much I was hurting or how much I wanted to reach out, but I stayed strong within.

He really have to dig deep down and know that you deserve better. I kept saying, I know there's better than this, and I can tell you that being on the other side, life is so much better than that. Next time on something was wrong. She's getting in the Uber and she says, oh by the way there's different car and I'm like that's a weird thing. So now I'm an extra alert. So at 617 I said, are you okay?

No response. At 626 I started to say I said I'm worried. Are you okay? Please text me back. We're just at the barn. We're drinking and the ladies are sitting there. Like, what was your friend? I got this text. I'm getting a little worried. Now all the women are like, oh, oh, you need something's wrong. 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. Our theme song was composed by Glad Rags. Check out their album, Wonder Under. Thank you so much. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to something was wrong early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple

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