True Crime with Kendall Rae - They Poisoned His Root Beer Float & ALMOST Got Away With It: The Case of Harold Allen
Episode Date: September 12, 2024Some people just don't realize that divorce is an option. That seemed to be the case for Harold Allen's wife, Marsha, who worked in tandem with her daughter, Ashley, Harold's step daughter, to kill Ha...rold by poisoning him. After trying three times before, on the fourth try, they finally succeeded. But they weren't going to get away with their plan so easily. IBMA Foundation: https://bluegrassfoundation.org/ Donate to NCMEC through my campaign! https://give.missingkids.org/campaign... Shop my Merch! https://kendallrae.shop This episode is sponsored by: +Zocdoc +Smalls - For 50% off your first order, head to Smalls.com/KENDALLRAE and use code KENDALLRAE +Liquid IV - promo code: KENDALLRAE +3 Day Blinds - For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/KENDALLRAE 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 to True Crime with Kendall Rae.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
I am so happy to have you and if you're new, welcome.
Let's get into this case you guys.
We have quite a wild one this week.
A really very sad story that is very frustrating when you
hear the details of how this happened and mind-blowing to think that the two
responsible for Harold Allen's death almost got away with it. Quite possibly
could have. And it really got me thinking about how many people actually do get
away with murder. I mean we all know it happens. We see how many people actually do get away with murder. I mean, we all know it happens.
We see how often people almost get away with it
and tells us that people probably do get away with it.
But just how often,
just how often is someone's death considered to be an accident?
And so no one is ever held responsible.
No one even knows that they were murdered.
This case I found in my request form,
which is always linked below if you didn't know,
but I started looking into the details of it
and just looking at the case coverage in general.
And I realized that there's barely been any coverage
on this case, a little bit, but very, very minimal.
And so I wanted to bring awareness to Harold's story today.
Unfortunately, with there being such little coverage on it,
there isn't that much information about Harold Allen himself, which is a bummer because I
really like to learn as much as I can about the people that I cover and I
think it's really important that we remember people for who they were
before what happened to them. Unfortunately, there isn't, like I said,
that much on Harold, but I still wanted to cover it today.
As you'll hear me say in this episode,
Harold seemed, from what I do know,
to have been a very good man.
Obviously, I don't know everything about him,
but from what has been reported,
he seemed like a really solid, mellow dude down to earth,
just living a pretty normal life with his stepchild
and his wife who he loved dearly and really almost out of nowhere his life
just ended. And besides the fact that his very sudden death was a major tragedy
and a shock to friends and family, no one at the time realized that there was
anything deeper to it, but there was. But before I get too ahead of myself,
let's start by talking about who Harold Allen was,
as far as we know.
I really love this little fact,
but Harold was also known as Peanut
by a lot of his loved ones.
And he was born on September 29th, 1970
in Scottsburg, Indiana,
to his parents, Allen Sr. and Carolyn.
And he also had two brothers,
James and Matthew. And from what's been reported about him, Harold seemed to be a really good and
hardworking man. He loved motorcycles, bluegrass music, his friends and his family, and worked
very hard at his job at Azen USA, which is an automotive components and systems manufacturing company. And in 2022, he was 52 years old and living in Freetown, Indiana with his wife, Marcia,
and her adult daughter from a previous relationship, Ashley Jones.
Now, I can't say for certain when exactly the two of them met and got married, but I do know that
above all else, this man really cherished his wife. And if you're watching this
episode, then you're already seeing it in the pictures. But the number of photos of them
smiling, of them traveling around, having experiences together, I mean, it looks like
he couldn't have been happier, which of course, we never really know what's going on behind the
scenes and Instagram pictures, Facebook, all that can be very
deceiving. There seems to be a lot of photos of them in different cities and all these cool new
places and again you can't judge a book by its cover but they do look like a happy loving couple
at least on film which is what makes what happened to him even more devastating. It was December 20th
2022 and that afternoon a 911 call was placed
to report that Harold was found unconscious.
And by the time that paramedics arrived at their home,
it unfortunately was just too late.
At just 52 years old, Harold passed away.
And like I said at the beginning of this episode,
his sudden death was a major devastation
and shock to his family.
Or at least I should say to most of his family.
There were two people who were not surprised or devastated about his death.
And that was his wife, Marsha, and her daughter, Ashley.
Because of their selfish, evil, inhumane actions, Harold's friends and family were robbed of what could have been several more decades, really, of life with him.
And the worst part about it all is they almost got away with it. Almost, but really could have.
However, they didn't, thankfully, and that is because quite frankly, they are idiots.
And I am glad that they were as dumb as they were. So let me explain what the two of them
did and how they ended up getting caught. So the beginning of the end started on September
19th, 2023, almost nine months to the day to when Harold passed away back in December
of 2022. And on that day, after now living alone in the house that she once shared with her husband,
Marcia called the cops to report that her home had been burglarized.
And the police were quick to identify the two that they believed were responsible.
And their names are Steven Andrew White and Nathaniel Kane Napier.
And for the purposes of this episode,
we're going to be focusing more on Stephen White.
And that's because he was the one to provide the police
with some very interesting information.
According to Stephen, he and Nathan were the ones
to break into Marsha's home.
However, according to him, it wasn't their idea.
According to court documents, Stephen said that Ashley,
as in Marsha's daughter,
was the one who orchestrated the entire thing.
And apparently Marsha had even said
that she suspected it was her daughter
because she was the only other person
that knew the code to their gun safe,
which had been opened during the burglary.
But that's not all that he told them.
According to an affidavit, Stephen told a lieutenant
that Ashley and her mother straight up murdered Harold
by poisoning him.
And keep in mind, this is nine months after he died.
This is the first time that any suspicion
is being drawn to his murder at all.
And luckily this was an accusation
that authorities took seriously.
So the very next day on September 20th, detectives spoke to Marcia, but she, of course, adamantly
denied having anything to do with her husband's death.
And I assume that she was trying to be very forthcoming and just, you know, I'm so innocent,
you can look me up and down and through everything I have and you're not going to find anything.
And she very confidently handed over her phone,
which I really get a kick out of that
because homegirl clearly did not know
that when you delete something from your phone,
there is no deleting it.
Police are going to find everything in your phone,
what was on your phone at any point in time.
Official documents say, quote,
in Marsha's cell phone phone there were many text messages beginning
in November 2022 between Marcia and Ashley in which the two discussed poisoning Harold. Ashley
was living with Marcia in Freetown, Indiana until sometime after Harold died on December 20th, 2022.
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And of course, to make all of this make sense, we are now going to go back in time
to where this all started unfolding
before Harold was killed.
And before that, I have two quick disclaimers.
Since there is such little and for the most part,
fairly poor coverage on this case,
I noticed that there were a few varying accounts
of what type of poison was used and when it was used.
Not for all of them, because yes,
there were multiple different types of poison,
but for some of them, it got quite confusing
trying to figure this out.
Some sources say one thing,
some sources say something different.
It's just one of those cases
where there's a lot of mixed reporting going on
and it's hard to make sense of it all,
especially because some of them
don't even provide specifics,
which is really, really annoying.
So that's one thing.
And then the other thing is
I'm going to be referencing court documents
and the affidavit quite a few times
as we go through this case.
However, neither of them have been fully published. So when I reference them, I am
referencing articles that reference them. And I'm guessing that those sources put
in FOIA requests to get the information and didn't publish them in full. So the
actual documents are not available online. Definitely made things a little
harder and obviously I wish I did have these documents because they would definitely clarify a lot
of questions I have, a lot of discrepancies in the reporting.
And instead I sort of had to piece things together from a bunch of different sources
and try to make sense of it as best as I could.
And just to be safe, I'm going to tell you everything that I did find that I feel pretty confident about but I will clarify
When there is a detail where I'm less certain, but yeah tangent over. Let's just get into it
So like I mentioned earlier text between Marsha and Ashley regarding the murder of Harold Allen began in November of 2022
And in these texts the two of them are talking about foxglove seeds
And if you didn't
know, foxglove is actually a really beautiful flower. It's a pinkish purple flower that's
yeah, very beautiful to look at. But what I didn't know about it is it's highly toxic.
Interestingly around the same time that they were texting about these poisonous seeds,
investigators discovered that Marsha was simultaneously googling how
much foxglove is fatal, what happens if you eat foxglove seeds, and how long does
foxglove take to kill you. Ashley was even allegedly cautioning her mom that
foxglove seeds are traceable, so basically that she needed to be careful.
Now here's where it starts to get a little complicated. We do know for a fact
that on November 27th, 2022,
Harold went to the ER because he said
that the left side of his face was feeling numb,
which I can imagine would be a very, very scary feeling.
Obviously something you wanna be seen for right away.
And not only that,
he also just generally wasn't feeling good.
He was having some major stomach problems.
And we also know for a fact that he was re-hospitalized again on the 30th for
symptoms that included vomiting, diarrhea, a fever, and chills. So he was in pretty
bad shape. And all of these things he was experiencing are symptoms of consuming
foxglove. And sources even report that it was in fact
the foxglove that caused these hospital visits.
Here's a direct quote from Fox 59.
The document said that Marcia Allen and Ashley Jones reportedly attempted to poison Harold
Allen by putting the root of the foxglove into chili and a brownie given to Harold Allen.
This resulted in two hospital visits in late November
where Harold Allen reported numbness
on the left side of his face
as well as gastrointestinal issues.
Here's the thing though,
and you know, one of the points
that makes this case so confusing is
it has also been reported that it was a different type
of poison that made him experience these symptoms
and go to the hospital.
It's been reported that earlier in September of 2022,
Ashley ordered Pong Pong seeds from eBay.
And that is definitely something I had never heard of,
but similar to Foxglove,
Pong Pong seeds are also very, very toxic.
Again, I had never heard of Pong Pong seeds
or Pong Pong fruits, so I wanted to look it
up, and from what I found, they are balls of the skeletonized fruit of Cerbera o'dalum,
or suicide tree, pong pong.
Within each fruit is a kernel that is extremely toxic, and a single kernel can be fatal if
eaten, and it poses a risk to both pets and people.
And sources say that these pong pong seeds
that apparently she could just order online
arrived in mid-October and Ashley and her mom
waited until November to grind them up
and put them in brownies to poison Harold with.
So basically, according to those sources,
the pong pong seeds are what caused
the initial hospital visits in November.
Here's a direct quote from the source, Law and Crime.
Jones, Ashley and Martha Allen allegedly received the pong pong seeds in the mail
in October of 2022, ground them up in a coffee grinder,
and then put them in a batch of brownies on November 26, 2022.
So clearly we have two different sources here saying two different things,
and that's unfortunately
not where the confusion ends.
Let's say it was the foxglove that caused those initial hospital visits that was put
into those brownies.
Well that doesn't make a whole lot of sense because a lot of other sources say that they
didn't get the foxglove seeds until December.
So if the brownie poisoning happened in November then the math doesn't, but again, I don't know if it's just incorrect reporting. Also, why were there texts between
Ashley and her mom on December 2nd talking about how to handle the plant? Like how to not get
poisoned while touching it? If they had already used it to poison him at that point instead of
the pong pong, then why would they just now be talking about this?
You know? Which maybe they just didn't think about it before. I don't, I really don't know.
And it's possible that there was more than one brownie incident and maybe I'm just overthinking
this. This was all just really annoying trying to figure out what exactly happened but it's probably
best to just look at the big picture here. which is that Ashley and Marcia were texting about poisoning Harold and googling
questions about certain poisons and they allegedly put some type of poisonous
seed into a brownie with the intent to kill him as early as November. And I say
allegedly because at this point no one has been convicted. But one thing that I
can definitely confirm is that regardless
of the type of poison that they put into the brownies, these two women were very
pissed off that it didn't work. In November, right after it was apparent
that Harold wasn't going to die, Marcia texted Ashley, I am irritated and can't
sleep peacefully. I need this to be over. I wish it would reach its climax and be done. LOL. LOL.
This woman literally said LOL when talking about poisoning her husband. It's hard to put into
words how evil that actually is, right? It's...my god. And then her having the nerve to say,
I am irritated and can't sleep peacefully. You know who's also not been sleeping so peacefully
lately? Harold. He has
been in the hospital in immense pain, has no idea what's wrong with him, and you are sitting here,
you know exactly why, and you're just not sleeping peacefully and you're irritated because it's not
working fast enough. You want it to hit the climax and just be over with. It's... people will never
cease to amaze me with how truly evil they can be. And then Ashley responds
to her mom and just says agree, which is outrageous. And unfortunately there is one more confusing
element to the poison that I need to explain. Sources say that on December 1st, 2022 Ashley
placed an Etsy order for foxglove and water hemlock, which is another highly toxic
plant. The source said that the poison was delivered on December 8th, and over the course
of the next few days, they allegedly put the poison in a variety of things to try and kill
Harold. This included some chili, a margarita, and a soda. And here's what's a little confusing though, and it's the same old run around,
but basically some articles, some sources are saying that it was the water hemlock that was
used to poison those things and other sources are saying it was the foxglove. Ashley even later
admitted that her mom put the foxglove in the brownies and chili. So if that's the case,
what's the deal with this water hemlock?
So yeah, very confusing here. But what really matters is the big picture. And that's that these
two, Harold's wife and his stepdaughter were making multiple attempts to poison him, actually
followed through on those attempts with more than one type of poison and none of it was working. So what did they do? They resorted to a different
type of poison and luckily this part is crystal clear. On December 13th, 2022 Ashley placed an
order for ethylene glycol which is the main ingredient in antifreeze which we have definitely
heard before in other cases and one week later on the 19th the package was delivered.
And we know this because Ashley texted her mom when the package arrived and said,
the mail is here with a smiley face. Yeah. So Marcia then gets this text message with the
smiley face letting her know that the mail is here and she reacts to it with a heart.
These two just blow me away.
And then she followed that up later on with a message that said Harold was all in for
root beer floats.
And that was truly the beginning of the end.
On December 20th at 7.55 a.m.
Marcia texted her daughter asking her to come over mentioning that Harold was acting drunk
and loopy and hours later at 2.59 p.m.
911 was called and it's actually believed that Harold had passed away long before this call was
ever placed and that his death was the results of ethylene glycol poisoning. Like I said earlier
though at the time foul play was not suspected in his death. And that's because Harold did have
diabetes. And so while his death was absolutely without a doubt tragic and really shocking,
it didn't really raise any major red flags. And as I explained earlier, it wasn't until the
burglary in September of 2023 that the police even caught wind of any of this. So let's talk
about what happened once the police did figure this out
and where the case stands as of today.
Between September 19th and October 13th,
so almost a month,
investigators were uncovering
all of those incriminating text messages
and started to put the pieces together
about what truly caused Harold's death.
And because what they found was incredibly damning,
of course they were granted a search warrant
for the home that Harold and Marcia shared,
the home that Marcia was still living in.
And that search warrant was executed on October 16th,
during which they seized several electronic devices.
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But before they could even process any of that additional evidence, the police ended
up getting a call from Marsha's family, asking for them to perform a welfare check on her.
And when they did, they found out that Marcia was no longer alive.
And it has been reported that her death was the result of a suicide.
However, no cause of death has been officially released.
So we're not completely sure there.
And I'm sure some of you, maybe a lot of you are wondering if maybe Ashley
could have had something to do with it.
Well, turns out she could not have because she had actually been arrested two weeks earlier
on October 3rd on charges related to the burglary.
And she was also charged again on October 18th, this time though, for her role in her
stepdad's murder.
And at the time, her charges included one count of murder, one count of felony murder,
one count of conspiracy to commit murder, and one count of product tampering resulting in serious bodily injury.
And I briefly mentioned this earlier, but Ashley did end up admitting to some things.
After her arrest, she admitted to a small role in Harold's murder, but only that she was the one who ordered the ethylene glycol.
She was adamant that it was her mom who did the actual poisoning, not her.
A woman is now facing a murder charge after burglary led police to uncover a
conspiracy to kill her stepfather. Ashley Jones is in the Jackson County jail on a
burglary charge, but she's also facing charges in the death of Harold Adam.
Alan, now he died in December of last year. Last month, Alan's widow, Marcia Allen,
reported a burglary at her house that police linked to her daughter.
That's when investigators found text messages between Jones and her mother
planning the death of Harold Adam.
Alan, the police questioned Marcia Allen, but they did not arrest her at the time.
Then on Monday, Allen was found dead in her house.
The cause of the death is not known.
Police say yesterday Jones confessed
to buying poison off the internet,
but said her mother was the one
who put it in Harold Allen's drink.
But what I'm about to tell you
will probably make you think
that she could have had a bigger role in this after all.
During the course of their investigation,
detectives got a hold of
the text messages between Stephen White and Ashley. If you don't remember, Stephen White is the guy
from the burglary who ratted them out. And what they found paints a much different picture than
what Ashley was trying to paint. In July of 2023, Ashley was texting Stephen and I cannot believe
in today's day and age people are still dumb enough
to do this but apparently they are. And basically she told him that she was the one behind it all
and that her mom couldn't have pulled it off without her like truly bragging that she was
the mastermind. And let me just read you some of those texts because they are outrageous to say
the least. She says, ha ha ha yeah she ain't gonna be able to do shit.
She wouldn't have even succeeded with this last thing without me.
I planned it all.
She was gonna use insulin like 1983.
So something else was hatched and we both know that bitch wasn't the one planning
etc.
She just fucking fucked it all up, made it less lucrative, wouldn't even make it to
go get a will.
She couldn't even get into a dead man's phone without me, to get all of his retirements
and savings he had hidden.
Hell she got $4,500 from his PayPal account because I showed her how to scam it as him
before they find he's gone.
She's fake AF.
She didn't give me shit out of that.
So yeah, she's here saying her mom is too dumb to have pulled any of this off without
her yet
She is the one who's dumb enough to send all of this over text messages to Stephen
so not only does this paint Ashley as
quite frankly an idiot
But also supposedly playing a much bigger role in all of this and it also points to their motive from these messages alone
Which is what we really have to go off of,
it sounds like the women just wanted Harold dead
for his money.
But it also sounds like they didn't get very much
and that Marsha didn't share what she was able to steal.
Which makes me wonder, and of course,
this is just speculation,
but I'm sure a lot of you are wondering the same thing.
Does that mean that Ashley's motivation for the burglary
was to get some of that money from her mom?
And it doesn't end there because recently,
in August of this year, very recently,
additional charges were added.
According to court documents,
the Jackson County Sheriff's Department uncovered emails
which outlined further attempts to kill Harold.
And in late July of this year, those emails were linked to Ashley.
So by August, her charges were changed to the following.
She now faces two counts of murder, one count of conspiracy to commit murder, one count
of consumer product tampering, and two counts of attempted murder.
Prosecutors in southern Indiana have added attempted murder charges that are asking for
a life sentence for a woman accused of working with her mother to kill her stepfather.
Harold Adam Allen died in December of 2022.
Months later, investigators discovered he died after drinking a root beer float tainted
with anaphylase at his Jackson County home.
His stepdaughter Ashley Jones was charged with murder.
Her mother, Marsha Allen, died for an apparent suicide after she was questioned by police.
Now new court documents include text messages between Jones and her mother indicating they
poisoned Harold Allen twice before, but he survived.
So as of today, when I'm recording this, and of course things do get delayed and changed
all the time, but Ashley's trial is scheduled for January of 2025, which is just a few months away. And I'm sure we're going to get a lot more information
out of that. And I am very curious to see how Ashley is going to plead. Is she going to end
up pleading guilty in exchange for maybe a lesser sentence? Or is she going to plead not guilty
and really stick to the story that
she wasn't the one to actually commit the poisonings?
I also have to mention that Harold is not the only one that Ashley is accused of killing.
Yes, you heard that right.
Now legally speaking, it's unknown if authorities are actually looking into this, but Ashley's ex-husband's uncle believes
that there is more to his nephew's death,
as in Ashley's husband's death.
Before everything happened with Harold,
Ashley was married to a man named Tyerson,
and in 2019, he was found dead inside of his home.
And this happened just days after he had received
an inheritance from his great grandfather.
And according to Ashley, he had died due to alcohol poisoning, which of course could certainly
have been the case. But his uncle says that she had gotten him cremated so quickly that they
weren't able to do any testing to actually confirm a cause of death. And so he thinks it's possible
that Ashley did something to him.
And he also believes that Stephen White from the burglary, who is his son by the way, knows
the answer.
News of Ashley Jones' arrest came as a surprise to many in Jackson County.
But here in Louisville, William Jones says it was no surprise.
All right, all right.
You can fool me, but you can't fool almighty.
William is Stephen White's father, one of the men accused of burglarizing Marsha Allen's home. no surprise. I'll go all but you can't fool almighty
White's father, one of the
Marcia Allen's home. This
is me. He says he's also
husband, Tyerson Jones. Th
of my nephew. William says
dead in his home in 2019.
received an inheritance f his great grandfather.
He says family members were unaware of Tyerson's death until they got a call from Ashley.
She had his body cremated quick, fast and then a hairy. So before the time I could even
ask for an autopsy or to have anything done about it.
Williams says Ashley told them he died from alcohol poisoning, but he always felt there was more
to the story. Ashley or Marsha had
set it up to where they put him
within the liquor and I think the
Steven knows what happened because
they were really, really inseparable
people. But he says his suspicions
fell on deaf ears. Jackson County
Sheriff's Department says they're
aware of the claims but can't say
whether or not law enforcement is investigating Tyrusson's death. Of course, I don't have enough information
here to make a strong opinion of my own, but if Ashley is guilty of killing Harold, I will say
it makes me wonder if she had done it before. And I'm definitely curious to see what you guys think
about all of this. Do you think it's possible she was involved in her husband's death? Were those
text messages that she had sent Stephen enough to prove that she was the mastermind behind
Harold's death? Or do you think she was just bragging in those text messages and actually
did take more of a backseat role like she initially admitted to? Which obviously she needs to be held
accountable if that's the case as well. But at the end of the day, regardless of how big of a role Ashley played, an innocent man was killed in a brutal, brutal way. It's truly
sad to think about what the end of Harold's life was like for him to have been suffering, you know,
in and out of the hospital in tons of pain, having no idea why. And behind it were people that he loved, allegedly. Of course,
I have to say that. But it's just very painful and sad. Just really heartbreaking to think
of what the last couple months of his life must have been like. And his loved ones really
say that they hope he had no idea. And chances are he probably didn't.
And of course, I completely agree.
I really hope he didn't know because it would make what he was going through so much worse.
When the police officer said, I have something to tell you and it's going to be really hard
about your brother, I think my husband's response was what could be harder
than hearing that he's gone.
But the news was harder to hear and shocked
Samantha Allen and her family.
He provided for them.
He provided this home and for them to just not value it
at all.
You know, it's evil to know that the person he thought
he was gonna love forever did this.
I hope that he never knew.
I hope that he didn't know what was happening.
And I just wanted to say to Harold's family
if they happen to see this, that I'm truly
so sorry for your loss and for how it happened,
for you to have gone through the initial grief and shock when
he passed away tragically, so young, in his 50s.
And then nine months later, have to start thinking about it
in an entirely different way.
And now you're going up against a trial and trying to navigate all of that it's got
to be so confusing so painful so infuriating and I can't imagine being in
your shoes. Now this week in Harold's honor I wanted to make a donation to
something that I think he would have found meaningful and so I did a little
research and I found an organization
called the International Bluegrass Music Association. As I said earlier, Harold loved
bluegrass music, was very passionate about it and got a lot of enjoyment and comfort out of it. And
so I think he would have been all about the IBMA Foundation. IBMA was created with the mission of
building a brighter future for bluegrass music, and
they achieve that by supporting programs and projects that focus on bluegrass-related arts
and culture, education, literary work, and historic preservation.
Among the many things they do, I found it really interesting that they fund schools
to hire bluegrass bands for school programs and really emphasize the importance of music
education,
which I also agree is very, very important.
Harold had so much more life left to live and obviously nothing is going to bring him
back.
But I'm so glad that at the end of the day, this was uncovered, that the truth came out
and that justice seems to be on the horizon. That is going to 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 Rae.
I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.