True Crime with Kendall Rae - Love Triangles, Poison, & an Innocent Plea – The Suspicious Death of Tom Kolman
Episode Date: September 12, 2023In 2011, Linda Kolman was involved in a love triangle with her husband and her husband’s best friend. What started out as an affair turned into a knowing and consensual… almost competition. The tw...o men were still friendly, but each wanted Linda to choose him. One day when Tom, Linda’s husband, didn’t turn up for work, and was later found dead in his car, alarm bells started ringing. Donate to NCMEC through my campaign! https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/kendall-rae/c438796 Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - kendall@INFAgency.com
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Hello everyone and welcome back. I'm so happy to have you here with me today to discuss yet another case. And if you're
new and welcome, be sure to subscribe. So today we're going to be talking about a case that
is still unsolved to this day. And I think you guys are going to have very mixed opinions on it.
I can't even decide what I fully think. so I definitely want to hear from all of you.
But anyway, let's get started talking about the suspicious death of Tom Coleman.
So he was born on March 22nd, 1967, to his parents Marie and Thomas Sr. in Queens, New
York.
And to be honest, there isn't much information available about his early life.
I was able to learn that he had two brothers Kenneth and Robert, and one sister named Wendy, and that he was a massive fan
of the New York Giants.
Tom got married to his first wife, Michelle Weber, and from the very beginning, it was
always clear that Tom loved his children, that he was meant to be a father and cared more
about his children than anything else in the world.
As they were growing up, he volunteered as a little league coach.
He was very involved in that.
He tried to be as involved as possible in his children's lives,
while also maintaining his career as a physical therapist in Sogartese, New York.
But sometimes life just doesn't go as planned,
and that was the case for Tom and Michelle.
I'm not sure exactly how far into their marriage,
the two decided to end things,
but eventually
Tom's children went and lived with Michelle in Colorado and he stayed in Socrates.
But Tom did try to keep as much of a relationship with his kids as possible, he would talk to them,
pretty much daily, if not every week at least. And as the years went on, Tom began dating again,
and eventually he met a woman named Linda,
who was also divorced and had a child from her first marriage, and it didn't take long for
the two of them to fall in love, and eventually the two of them decided to alope in Las Vegas.
They had a very small, yet romantic ceremony, and Tom and Linda's parents were both invited,
and in addition to both bringing kids into this new family, they also had a child
together of their own. Linda says that she knew Tom would be happy no matter what, but when they
had their son, Tom cried tears of happiness. He was just overjoyed. Of course, he was going to be
happy no matter what, but he was stoked to have a son. But by no means did he walk away from the
family that he already created. His daughter Jillian says that it really did feel like they were just one big family
rather than blending two different ones.
Even though they were half siblings, it never really felt like they were half family.
And a lot of that was because of Tom.
He wanted to make sure that everyone felt included, that everyone felt special, and he was
just so dedicated to his family.
And that left very little time
for him to have his own hobbies and to have his own friends. I mean, sure, he had friends,
he had acquaintances, of course, but he was never that close to anyone outside of his family.
That is until he met local dentist Gilberto Nunez. Gilberto or Gil was also living in Ulster County
and he had a wife and a kindergarten
age son.
And he was first introduced to the Coleman family at kindergarten orientation.
Both of their sons were the same age.
They did karate together and they really liked each other.
And obviously it's pretty common for parents to become friends with the parents of kids
that their kids are friends with.
Tom and Gile had a lot in common and they
ended up becoming really good friends and eventually Gil was as close to the Coleman family
as he possibly could be. Seriously, not only was he Tom's best friend, but he became Linda's
boyfriend. Yes, you heard that right. That was a pretty big jump forward in the timeline
So let me back up a little bit and explain how that all unfolded because
Gill and Linda didn't start dating right away
So the three of them met in 2009, but it wasn't until late 2010 that
Gill and Linda became more than friends and it all started at their children's karate class
Linda would always take her son Ryan,
Gil would always take his son and so during their practice they would hang out and chat and eventually
they started hugging goodbye. Eventually that hug turned into a kiss on the cheek goodbye and
eventually it turned into a kiss on the lips and moved forward from there. One day, he calls up Linda and tells her that he is crazy
about her and eventually she finds herself hanging out
at his dental practice and forming a relationship.
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Now Gilles' dental practice was the most important thing in his life. And if you ask anyone who worked for him, they would say the same. People who are close with Gilles would describe him as
an incredibly kind and generous person, especially when it came to his work.
He would often do free dental work on women from shelters, and he would drive elderly patients to
and from their appointments. He always went out of his way for people, and he was just a very
likable person. And it's these positive descriptions, positive things about him that have made people
extremely confused about what would later be said. But in 2010, early 2011, all anyone knew about
Gil is that he was Tom's best friend. He was a kind dentist and a good father. Tom and Gil spent
a lot of time together. They loved watching the New York Giants and they spent a lot of time
having deep talks with each other.
I mean, they were close. Meanwhile, Tom and Linda had kind of hit a rough point in their relationship
right before she started having this affair with Gil. They were having financial issues,
kind of just hitting that slump and marriage, you know, they're raising their child, and things
just weren't the same as they used to be. And I'm not sure if some of that played into Linda
then forming this romantic relationship with Gil.
And at the time, Gil was also in the process
of separating from his wife.
And Tom was fully there for his friend
during that entire period.
Meanwhile, Gil is sleeping with his wife.
And for many months, it seemed like Gil was completely fine with what he was doing.
It didn't seem like it was bothering him or causing him any regret.
And didn't feel like he had to do anything about it until one day, he must have felt he did.
In July of 2011, Gill purchases a burner phone with the intention of anonymously telling Tom what was up.
Later on he said that he did this
because if he were in Tom's shoes,
he would wanna know the truth now why he didn't just man up
and tell him himself, I don't know.
So it gets this burner phone and he decides
to pose as a woman named Samantha
who has inside knowledge that Tom's wife
was sleeping with a dentist. And even though he didn't directly say his name in these messages
I mean Tom obviously knew who it was and this is when it gets even weirder because Gilden stopped there
He starts texting Linda and tries to convince her that Tom is having an affair as well and that part part wasn't true. So I don't know what
Gills intention or purpose was when doing that. But it did lead to Tom and Linda having a
discussion about these messages they got and possible affairs happening. And as soon as they did,
Linda just completely came clean to Tom, told him everything, told him how she had been sleeping
with his best friend
Gill. And I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that Tom was deeply hurt by this. I mean,
this was his best buddy sleeping with his wife. So he was hurt by both of them and he spent the
first couple of days being really angry at Gill and ignoring him completely. But eventually what you will be surprised to hear
is that he forgave Gil. And I don't mean just like forgive and then, you know, say,
peace out. Let's never speak again. He fully forgave him. Gil begged and pleaded for his forgiveness
on his hands and knees. And Tom decided to forgive him, and not only did he just forgive him,
and this is when it gets very strange,
he decided to let him continue sleeping with his wife.
He gave his blessing, essentially, to their affair.
According to Linda, it seems like Tom was okay
with her continuing this relationship
because he wanted her to sort out her own feelings
and make up her own feelings and make
up her own decision.
Now, I am a little shocked by this, but their adults can do whatever they want with their
relationship.
This continued for a while, and Tom would text Gil and say things like, your girlfriend
is baking, and Gil would respond and say, I love her so much. Interesting. But at the end of the day, he wasn't going to force her to stay with him.
He wanted her to see both of them and come to her own decision about who she wanted to be with.
And it didn't take Linda long to come to that decision.
In October of 2011, about three months after the affair was exposed,
Tom and the kids went away on vacation
to celebrate their wedding anniversary.
And Linda says that it was on this trip that she realized how selfish she had been and
how the only person that she wanted to spend her life with was Tom.
So now she had to break this news to Gill and end the relationship.
But for one specific reason, her and Tom decided that they would wait to tell him
until after the holidays. And the reason they decided to do this was because of Gilles' mental health.
And let me explain. So going back to that burner phone where Gilles pretended he was a woman named
Samantha, he didn't want to admit that he was faking his identity to expose his own affair.
He was embarrassed.
So he lied about it for a few weeks.
But eventually, Gile found out that Tom was planning to hire someone to figure
out who this mystery Samantha person was.
And so Gile decided to pivot to a new, even dumber plan, rather than just
admitting the truth to Tom and Linda.
He decides to tell
them that he is in the CIA, and that he has a contact in the agency who could help figure
out who was sending those texts. And I'm sure most of you know that impersonating a federal
agent is a serious crime. And surprise, he was not in the CIA. So his genius plan was to pay someone he knew 500 bucks to pretend they were in the CIA and
convinced Tom and Linda that it was someone else sending these text messages from Samantha. Now the details on this whole CIA thing very a little bit from source to source. The important thing to know is that it never happened
and that Gil ended up deciding to tell them
the truth eventually.
But here's where his mental health comes into the picture.
During all of this, Gil calls Tom
and leaves him a very cryptic voice message.
And it sounded as if he was considering taking his own life.
Of course, Tom was worried. He calls
police and asked them to go check on him. And when they did, Gil kind of brushed the whole thing off
as a moment of weakness. And because of all of this, Tom and Linda were concerned that Gil might
actually take his own life if she were to break up with him. So they decided she would maintain the relationship
at least until after the holidays.
And that was the plan.
And then the unthinkable happened.
So Thanksgiving of 2011 was like any other holiday
for the Coleman's.
They ate, they drank, they watched football.
Everything was more or less the same as it always was.
And Gil was around.
He was under the impression that Linda was making a decision
on their relationship, but says he didn't know what she had decided yet. So Linda is keeping up
the relationship with Gil and also things are better for her and Tom. Now many people say that
it was very obvious from Linda's body language that she had already made her decision
and that Gill may have possibly caught on that she was going to break up with him, but there
is nothing to confirm this. We have no idea if he knew.
We'll get back to your podcast after this break.
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And that all becomes very important soon, because on Monday, November 29, 2011, Tom Coleman
was found unresponsive inside his car. That morning, Linda woke up to an empty bed, as
she did most mornings on the weekdays
because Tom would go to the gym before heading to work and this day was no different. But what was
different was this day, Tom hadn't sent Linda any text messages and this is something that he would do
pretty much every morning while he was getting ready for work while he was at the gym, he would send his wife a few texts. And so when he didn't, she began to wonder. And then she got even more concerned when someone
called from Tom's work and said that he didn't show up that day. And it was very unlike Tom to just
not show up for work. So she got so worried, she got in her car and started to retrace his steps.
And that's when she found
Tom's car at the far side of the planet fitness parking lot in Kingston. And when she looked inside,
he didn't appear to be moving. And at first, she actually felt a little bit of relief because it
looked like he had just fallen asleep. His seat was tipped back almost into a horizontal position
and his pants were in buttoned. So she opens the door thinking she's going to wake
him up, they're going to laugh about it. And then he didn't wake up and she knew something terrible
had happened. Linda frantically called 911 and when EMS arrived, unfortunately there was nothing
they could do. Tom was already gone. And right off the bat, there was little concern that Tom's death was anything other than natural causes. I mean, he's in his mid-40s, he was a little bit overweight,
so it seemed more likely than not that he had suffered a heart attack. I mean, there was no physical
sign of trauma and the only so-called strange thing they noted was the fact that his car was at the
back of the parking lot, which was a little weird. I mean, you'd expect someone going to the gym in the early morning, which is park
right up front. But again, that was the only thing that stood out at first. At the scene,
itself, Linda appeared like any grieving life she was extremely distraught. And there was
zero indication that she knew anything about his death prior to arriving at the parking lot.
There was, however, one person who seemed a little overdramatic when he showed up.
I'm sure you can guess who that was.
When Gil got there, investigators said that he broke down on his knees and was hysterical
that his best friend was gone, which seems like an understandable reaction to me, however,
I wasn't there, and investigators say that his demeanor was a bit performative.
So a few hours later, Linda goes to the station to answer a few questions about Tom's health,
because at first, this was seen as an open-shot case. She shared with the officers that Tom had
sleep apnea, and high blood blood pressure and this alone seemed to confirm
what they already believed. But because his death was what they called an unattended death,
meaning no one was there to corroborate what actually happened, they decided to perform
a standard autopsy and toxicology. And while they awaited those results, some very shocking
information came to light. Remember earlier how I mentioned how investigators
thought it was strange that Tom was parked
at the back of planet fitness?
Well, when they looked at surveillance cameras
from the area to get a sense of what may have happened,
they noticed a car that wasn't Tom's
pulling into the back of the lot around 4.30 a.m.
Not long after that, maybe 10 or 15 minutes,
Tom's car pulls right next to the original car.
And keep in mind, this is a big parking lot with plenty of open spaces.
The only reason Tom would have pulled next to this vehicle is if he knew who was in it
and why they were there.
And just take a guess, who investigators believed was driving that first car.
None other than Gill.
Even though the footage taken was extremely far away
and very grainy, they believed that the car was a white SUV.
And who did they see driving a white SUV into the parking lot
the morning that Tom's body was found?
Gill.
So three days after Tom's passing,
Gill was also brought into the station
for what investigators called information gathering.
And I cannot make this up,
but when he was speaking with detectives,
Gill sort of just offered up all this information
about the affair that he was having with Linda.
And he told them the truth
that not only did Tom know about the affair,
but he was okay with it
and allowed the two of them to continue to date
after the fact.
And he says he told them all that
because he knew they were going to eventually figure it out and he didn't want to seem like he was hiding anything.
And in this conversation, Gil also mentioned that he was aware that Tom had sleep apnea and that becomes an important detail later on.
Now as you can imagine, investigators were having trouble believing that this affair was so drama-free and Tom was just cool with it. Obviously, it's not very common for a husband to find out that his wife is having a fair
with his best friend and just accepts it and lets it continue.
And yeah, that is actually what happened, but two investigators that seemed super sus.
And the White SUV being a possibility made them concerned.
So they wanted to see if maybe the two of them were still together. So they decided to take a closer look.
Gil said that he still loved Linda. But if they were acting all lovy-dovey and happy
in the wake of this horrible event, it seemed possible to investigators that maybe he had
something to do with it. But all of this really turned up nothing. Linda said that she and
Gil were having an affair when she was confronted about it, and from everything the two of them were telling them,
it seemed as if Tom really was just fine with it. They searched their phone records,
Gil's car was even tracked, and nothing suggested that the two of them were still dating.
And the phone records also seemed to indicate that there really were no problems between Tom and Gil.
Literally up until the day Tom died, the two of them were texting like they were best friends.
There was no animosity, no jealousy, no anger, nothing.
But even when nothing's solid to go off of,
investigators kept looking deep
because they couldn't shake the idea
that they could be persons of interest.
And by this point, there wasn't even a definitive cause
or manner of death
because the medical examiner said everything was undetermined pending toxicology reports.
So investigators just had to wait.
But finally, after two months, the results came in and they were shocking.
The report showed that Tom had trace amounts of medazolam in his system.
If you don't know, medazolam is a medication commonly used by doctors and dentists to help a patient relax,
or go to sleep before a medical procedure.
And so of course, alarm bells are now going off for investigators because
Gil is a dentist because there were no signs of a heart attack or an aneurysm,
his cause of death was labeled acute medazolam poisoning.
But the traces of it were very small, so how could it have
killed him? Well, it turns out that even in small doses, medazelam can kill someone if they
suffer from a condition such as sleep apnea. And we know that Linda and Tom both knew that he
suffered from this. Now, Linda actually worked at a hospital. So, investigators looked into the possibility
that she was the one who had gotten the modazzlam.
However, she was quickly cleared of any involvement
when it became clear that no modazzlam
was missing from the hospital that she worked at.
And they also couldn't find any evidence
that she obtained it elsewhere.
So, they kind of gave up on Linda,
but they weren't ready to give up on Gill.
In February of 2012, he was brought back in for questioning, and for seven hours he was
battered about his possible involvement in Tom's death, but at no point did he waver
from what he'd been saying all along.
He didn't do it.
He was confronted about the fact that Madazlam was found in Tom's system, and he denied
knowing anything about it.
He even seemed to be confused about what this drug was in the first place.
But then he quickly acted as if he didn't know what it was.
He's also asked about his car and if he was at fitness that morning.
And again, he denies it.
And investigators actually got pretty in his face about everything.
But without solid proof, they really can't do much.
So they were just waiting around for the evidence to find them.
And while this interview was taking place,
two search warrants were taking place at his home and his office.
And the hope was to find Medazlem, or anything connecting Gale to Tom's death.
And investigators do find it, but the thing is,
both bottles are in an emergency kit that is completely untouched inside his office.
Now, based on the information I gathered,
it sounds to me like what detectives were finding in the search
was also being relayed to the person interviewing Gill in real time.
And I say this because during the interview,
the two bottles of Madazelian that were found in his office
are brought up in conversation by the detective.
And Gill kind of wavers on whether or not he had it,
but finally he says that yes, he had this drug in his office. And he also explains that his fingerprints are going to be found
on the kit and on those bottles because he is the one who fills the emergency kit.
Now here's what's interesting. By saying that his fingerprints were going to be on the
vials, suggests that he knew that they would find them there. If he said they wouldn't
be there, and then they were found, that would make him look really bad, obviously. But the opposite happened.
There were no fingerprints found on the vials. And even if we consider the possibility that
he wore gloves when handling the vials, it doesn't matter, because neither vial was used.
And not only that, but everything else they tested came up empty. They really had nothing against
him. I mean, none of his DNA was found at the scene. The surveillance footage was fuzzy
and they couldn't confirm it was his car. All he really had was a hunch that maybe he
was involved.
We'll get back to your podcast after this break. Actually, wouldn't it be great if this was your break?
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[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪-
So they decided her to Linda in hopes that she can tell
them more about Gil.
And at first, Linda didn't seem to think
that Gil had anything to do with her husband's
death, but little by little, as time went on, she began to wonder, and she eventually
came to the conclusion that he was responsible.
First of all, there were those strange text messages from Samantha, and it just didn't
sit right with her or investigators that Gil was trying to secretly break them up.
And then, they learned that these text messages weren't his only attempt at trying to end
their marriage.
It turns out Gil once sent Linda an email posing as his own mother trying to convince her
to stay with her son.
Then there's one investigators find on Gil's computer.
During the search executed at his home, Gill's computer was seized,
and on it they found a fraudulent CIA ID card and report. And Linda told investigators
that she actually knew about it, but believed it at the time. She explained that Gill told
her that he was in the CIA and that he had a friend in the agency who could figure out
who was sending those texts from Samantha and could also prove
to her that Tom was having an affair as well.
And looking back, Linda says that she feels extremely foolish for believing him, but
we know that manipulative people can be extremely convincing.
And the CIA stuff is a crime and they do eventually go after him for that, but they wanted to
get him on charges of murder.
And at this point, it was obvious
that the only way they could make this happen
was by connecting Gill to the car scene on surveillance.
And in the time since investigators found
the first set of surveillance footage with the white SUV,
they went out looking for more.
Obviously the car had to come from somewhere,
so they pulled footage from stores
all around the surrounding area
until they could find a cleaner image.
And they do find several tapes, including this mysterious Y-S-E-V. But unfortunately, they
don't find anything with much better clarity. They don't see a license plate or any defining
characteristics that would make it easy to say that this is for sure, Gill's car.
Gill's car also had emergency lights inside them because he was a volunteer firefighter,
and they'd hope they'd be able to see that on surveillance footage, but again, they didn't.
So they decided to bring in a forensic video analyst and hope that he can make the connection.
And this analyst ends up determining that the vehicle is a Nissan Pathfinder.
The same car that GILDRIVES, but what it ultimately boils down to is the car's headlights.
The analyst noticed how the light beams coming out of the car's headlights cast a specific
shadow downward, and it wasn't the shadow that all Nissan Pathfinders would have.
It almost looked as if the light was damaged in some way in order to make it like that,
and so investigators tracked down Gill's old Nissan, which he had sold a few weeks after
Tom's
death.
And it turns out it has the same type of shadow.
So they drove it down the same street at the same time of night to make sure all the variables
were the same and the light pattern was a match, which gave investigators their only semi-solid
evidence against Gill.
So as investigators are compiling their findings and gathering everything they need to make an arrest, everyone was starting to move on with
their lives. Gil actually met a woman on match.com and got married. Linda
began dealing with the pain of this loss, and Tom's children worked on moving
for it as well. Tom's first wife, Michelle, if you remember who had moved to
Colorado with the kids, had to tell them what happened to their father and neither of them were the same since.
Jillian had a hard time grasping that her father was killed
and Brad had some very serious mental health issues
after this and sadly, he ended up taking his own life
at just 18 years old.
Time was moving forward, but nobody had forgotten Tom,
especially not investigators.
And finally, in October of 2015, Gil was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and
felony forgery related to the fake CIA ID card.
He only spent one month in jail before posting his million-dollar bail, and then in May of
2016, his trial began.
Now, if I haven't made this abundantly clear so far, investigators did not have much
tying Gill to Tom's murder. The best piece of evidence they had was that the forensic video
analyst said Gill's car was a match to the car scene on surveillance, but this was circumstantial
at best. They had no DNA, they had no incriminating texts, They had nothing. All the prosecution really had to go on
was the idea that Gil was an obsessive jealous man
who wanted Linda all to himself.
Emails between the two were read in court
that detail how much Gil loved Linda.
Emails that made him look aggressive.
One of them read, I'm not leaving you,
not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
The prosecution would argue that Gil realized Linda was not going to choose him after the
holidays were over, and rather than accept defeat, he took out his competition.
Of course, they pointed to the fact that he had posed as a woman named Samantha and also
his own mother in an attempt to break Tom and Linda up.
And they suggested that because these efforts didn't work, Gil resorted to murder.
They said that he knew about Tom Sleepapnea and that Medazolam, even a small dose, could
be fatal for him.
The forensic video analyst testified and the hope was that everything combined was enough
to convince the jury.
And of course, the defense had plenty of reasonable doubt on their side.
They argued that anything Gil had tried to break Tom and Linda up was all just a
joke and that he never would have actually resorted to murder. Plus, if Tom, his supposed best friend,
was totally fine with him dating his wife, why would he need to kill him? And probably one of the
biggest arguments for the defense was that a lot of potential evidence was ignored.
Remember how I explained that Thomas found lying down
in his car with his pants unbuttoned?
Well, data from his phone showed that he had recently
received an email from the website being naughty.
The defense argued that the police never considered
the possibility that he met up with someone
from that website and died as a result of that interaction.
They argued that they zeroed in on Gill from the beginning and actively ignored evidence
that went against their theory.
Now the prosecution would refute that and say you'd be crazy to believe that Tom was
killed with Madazlam by someone who happened to drive the same car as Gill and happen to
know that he had sleep apnea and who happened to work for this be naughty website?
And it was also brought up in trial
that investigators found text messages between Tom and Gil
that were deleted from Tom's phone.
And of course, that sounds suspicious,
but it turns out these text messages were just about football.
It's unclear why they were deleted or who deleted them,
but they weren't anything incriminating.
And in the end, after three weeks of testimony, the jury came back after just a few hours
with their verdict. And Gilberto Nunez was found not guilty on the charge of second-degree murder.
He was, however, found guilty on that charge of felony forgery related to the fake CIA ID badge.
Now, Linda was visibly upset leaving the courtroom
and to this day believes that Gil is responsible
for her husband's murder.
And many people believe that he is
and many people believe that he isn't.
And when it comes to my opinion,
like I said in the beginning, I just don't know.
I don't think there's enough evidence either way.
Gil was also later convicted on charges
of insurance fraud and perjury for two unrelated
cases and sentenced to 2.5 to 7 years in prison.
He was released from prison on all charges in September of 2018 and is on parole until
October of this year.
The decision that the jury made that day haunts Tom's family, friends, and supporters.
They believe that Gil got away with murder.
His license to practice dentistry was revoked,
but they don't feel like that's enough.
All we for sure know is that Tom was a loving father,
a good neighbor, a kind person,
and that he didn't deserve what happened to him.
But we may never know what actually happened.
That is gonna be it for me today guys.
Thank you for joining me for another episode.
And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
It really does help me out.
If you want to watch the video version of this show,
you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked,
or you can just search Kendall Ray.
I will be back with another episode soon,
but until then, stay safe out there. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪