Speaker 1: This episode contains references to suicide and sexual violence. If
Speaker 1: you need help, If you need support, refer to our
Speaker 1: show notes.
Speaker 2: I'm going to pick up the Talia and it looks
Speaker 2: like she is there.
Speaker 1: Yep, there she is. Hello, how are you doing? Long
Speaker 1: time they see goes back cold.
Speaker 2: I hope sugar freeze okay, taipe one diabetes tend I've
Speaker 2: made about eight years ago for me, and so like
Speaker 2: sugar and carves.
Speaker 1: And all that stuff just poison poison.
Speaker 3: When I was in jail, I got diabetics too, Okaya,
Speaker 3: which is a weird place to give it because you
Speaker 3: eat healthy food.
Speaker 4: I would have thought.
Speaker 1: So. Yeah, it's the first exchange I had in person
Speaker 1: with the Tylia Burgess for thirteen years, Just like I
Speaker 1: had in twenty eleven. I offered to pick her up
Speaker 1: from a home in South Auckland and take her to
Speaker 1: our interview. Part of this was so I could chat
Speaker 1: with her and get to know her a bit more
Speaker 1: easier into having a conversation with me. Part of it, bluntly,
Speaker 1: given her reluctance both then and now, was to ensure
Speaker 1: she'd actually show up for the interview. It was over
Speaker 1: a decade since we'd last laid eyes at each other,
Speaker 1: and after a year of trying to get her to
Speaker 1: talk to me on the record again, it was a
Speaker 1: little surreal, but then we slipped right back into chatting
Speaker 1: for the thirty minutes it took to get to the
Speaker 1: Herald offices.
Speaker 2: I have been in Womens a couple of times for
Speaker 2: various stories.
Speaker 3: I went on to meet an interview to meet an
Speaker 3: interview in this Canadian peace smuggler called Pinky, Pinky, Pinky.
Speaker 1: Do you remember peeking?
Speaker 2: I remember thinking there would have been Would that be
Speaker 2: during your second stip?
Speaker 4: Were your first my first stint?
Speaker 1: I was going to say, to be back then, right, yeah?
Speaker 5: And blonde here yeah, well, big booth.
Speaker 1: Like so many people online know, Natalie is a bright
Speaker 1: and interesting person to spend time with. I found it
Speaker 1: the same back in twenty eleven when I first exposed
Speaker 1: her as the Facebook predator, a woman who was hunted
Speaker 1: by police after ensneering dozens of teenage boys using false
Speaker 1: online personas always like Ethan Williams and Sam Baker. Some
Speaker 1: of those boys were as young as thirteen. One of
Speaker 1: those boys, a judge said, came close to taking his
Speaker 1: life as a result even for those who are older,
Speaker 1: like Peter Russell of Christchurch. There was an emotional cost
Speaker 1: in Natalia's mind games. This is a story I thought
Speaker 1: was over when Natalie was sent to prison for her
Speaker 1: second long term stint in twenty thirteen. I had hoped
Speaker 1: that she'd learned her lesson. I had hope she had
Speaker 1: moved on, But she hadn't. She got out of prison
Speaker 1: and pretty much started all over again, using photos from
Speaker 1: Crystal Jenna, among others, to create brand new personas. This
Speaker 1: time she targeted older men, many in Australia, as well
Speaker 1: as continuing her habit of approaching mothers and daughters to
Speaker 1: forge pseudo familial relationships. After years of struggles, Crystal asked
Speaker 1: the police for help, and they didn't. She asked Facebook
Speaker 1: to stop Natalia stealing her images from its platform, and
Speaker 1: they didn't. As is often the way in journalism, when
Speaker 1: nothing else works, there is the media. So Crystal emailed
Speaker 1: me and well you know the rest. Now, after a
Speaker 1: year long investigation, it's finally time for Natalia and I
Speaker 1: to talk again. Over that year, I've discovered just how
Speaker 1: much I missed the first time I investigated in Natalia.
Speaker 1: I've also discovered just how little I knew about her
Speaker 1: and what I've now learned, Well, for me, that changes
Speaker 1: everything about this story. My name is David Fisher, and
Speaker 1: this is the final episode of Chasing Ghosts the Puppeteer Natalia.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for taking time to talk to
Speaker 1: me today. I'm really grateful for it. I've been trying
Speaker 1: to speak to you for a year and here we are. Now.
Speaker 1: What is it that led you to sit down with
Speaker 1: me today.
Speaker 5: I just think it's now that I'm not mentally unwell,
Speaker 5: I need to address why I keep doing this, and yeah,
Speaker 5: you've been really got in the past to debrief stuff
Speaker 5: and help me get through stuff.
Speaker 1: So the interview happened a few weeks ago, actually, on
Speaker 1: the day the first episode of this podcast came out.
Speaker 1: It had been a long time coming. As I detailed
Speaker 1: last episode, in the decade plus since I'd last interviewed Natalia,
Speaker 1: I have more appreciation now for the fact that she's
Speaker 1: not well and the insight I gained this year from
Speaker 1: doctor Justin Barry Walsh, forensic psychiatrist with a specialization and
Speaker 1: people who are fixated or obsessive. That gave me a
Speaker 1: richer understanding before sitting down with Natalia to understand just
Speaker 1: how difficult this interview might be. I also know from
Speaker 1: my interactions with Natalia that it could be very difficult
Speaker 1: to accept what she says at face value. That might
Speaker 1: sound harsh, but she has spent actual decades living a lie,
Speaker 1: so it's complex, or will be. Before we get into
Speaker 1: the hurt that Natalia has caused. I wanted to understand
Speaker 1: more about her life. Last episode, I spoke of how
Speaker 1: Natalia was adopted a Simon baby, welcomed into the home
Speaker 1: of a Parloringy Salvation Army couple, and then raised in
Speaker 1: part on the West Coast. She arrived halfway through the
Speaker 1: school year, and as she tells it, those friendship groups
Speaker 1: were already formed for a new kid. It was hard
Speaker 1: to find the place she was meant to be.
Speaker 5: It was hard. That's when I started feeling and making
Speaker 5: up lies.
Speaker 1: It didn't help. Natalia told me that her parents were
Speaker 1: church officers who, as Salvation Army clerics, wore uniforms, and
Speaker 1: when she stood in front of a mirror, the girl
Speaker 1: she saw looking back didn't look like anyone around her.
Speaker 5: I have two Palany parents, a Palany brother, and then
Speaker 5: I'm Samoan Palay, So it was kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 5: how do I fit into this family scenario?
Speaker 1: From West Coast to christ Church Primary school to high school,
Speaker 1: these were moves that further distanced to her from her
Speaker 1: peer group. It wasn't until Natalia moved to Auckland in
Speaker 1: her late teens that she first started online, which goes
Speaker 1: back to use that days, back to two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: and back to Chickadee.
Speaker 5: Jesus, I haven't heard that of Asias.
Speaker 1: Chickadee was Natalia's first online persona in those early days
Speaker 1: of social media. This is when Natalia discovered she didn't
Speaker 1: have to show her true self to the world. But
Speaker 1: when Bibo arrived in two thousand and five, she realized
Speaker 1: that true self could be anybody she wanted it to be.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about that, about how all of this.
Speaker 5: Began, All this began, what was on It wasn't Bibo,
Speaker 5: That's what it was on. It was on Bibo? And
Speaker 5: I think I started off with a character called Amy
Speaker 5: and Rachel. Amy and Rachel they were my first two characters.
Speaker 1: And how did they come to be? How did you
Speaker 1: come up with the idea for Amy and Rachel?
Speaker 5: I just think because I didn't like who I was,
Speaker 5: So I went to America stole pictures of a girl
Speaker 5: of America and it just started from there. And when
Speaker 5: I realized that this Amy girl was getting so much attention,
Speaker 5: I needed a friend otherwise people have stad no believe it.
Speaker 5: And then Rachel was created.
Speaker 1: And with those masks in place, Natalia set out to
Speaker 1: meet people, well, she set out to meet men. And
Speaker 1: the people that you were meeting in real life, did
Speaker 1: they expect to meet Rachel or did they expect to
Speaker 1: meet Natalia Rachel? And how did that work out? When
Speaker 1: you did have that meeting?
Speaker 5: Some went okay, as I can remember, like I can't
Speaker 5: remember fully back then. Some went okay, somewhent difficult, somewhere
Speaker 5: more than.
Speaker 1: Unpleasant, unpleasant in what sort of a way.
Speaker 5: I put myself into situations with guys that were very violent,
Speaker 5: and when they found out the truth, they weren't very nice.
Speaker 1: One of those encounters is, in Natalia's mind, the reason
Speaker 1: for Laura West, his sister Abby, even Kaylie Littali, the
Speaker 1: identity she modeled on Crystal's photographs. It all goes back
Speaker 1: to an encounter Natalias has happened around two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: she met a man online she calls Karl, and arranged
Speaker 1: to meet him in person. After that real world meeting,
Speaker 1: she says, a group of young women mocked her on Facebook.
Speaker 5: She called me fat, she got me ugly, show me.
Speaker 5: Isn't it good for Carl to go back to where
Speaker 5: I belong?
Speaker 1: Among that group of women, according to Natalia, were Crystal, Jenna,
Speaker 1: and Sophie Jarrett. You remember that Sophie had her photos
Speaker 1: SOLN back during the Laura West phase, many of them
Speaker 1: used as the basis for Laura's sister Abby. Her photos
Speaker 1: were used again alongside her friend Crystal's after Natalia got
Speaker 1: out of jail in late twenty fifteen. I've got to say,
Speaker 1: there's elements of this story that just don't hold together,
Speaker 1: but it seems significant to Natalia.
Speaker 5: As dating they met Carl, and they were very mean
Speaker 5: about it. So I took her image and Sophie's image,
Speaker 5: and Natalie's image, and Ashley's image and Colle's image.
Speaker 1: So they became what five people whose image you were
Speaker 1: going to use for false profiles? YEP. One thing that
Speaker 1: trips Natalia up here is the name Natalie. That's the
Speaker 1: name of the woman who became the face of Laura West.
Speaker 1: You might remember I took Natalia to meet Natalie and
Speaker 1: she promised she swore to never again use her image.
Speaker 5: Not Natalie, not Natalie Nettley, another Natalie Least, just get
Speaker 5: that really clear. Through the fol good on the get
Speaker 5: bombarded again. She was the worst and she was his
Speaker 5: ex girlfriend and she was the worst. And then Ashley
Speaker 5: in Crystal and Sophie kind of just chimed in.
Speaker 1: She again assures me that she's never used Natalie who
Speaker 1: was Laura's image again. But Natalie who's Laura is one
Speaker 1: of the keys to the story because she's connected to
Speaker 1: all the other characters that existed at that time. And
Speaker 1: Crystal I checked with her about these bullying claims, and
Speaker 1: her earliest knowledge of Natalia was within the last ten years.
Speaker 1: That's how long Crystal says her image has been used.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that can happen online. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, because you've spent lots of time online. Is
Speaker 1: it possible it's one of those things that happened that
Speaker 1: they don't even remember.
Speaker 5: Possibly we were young, but you remember, oh yeah, Netalie
Speaker 5: was horrible.
Speaker 1: Why I asked Carrie something on seventeen years later. It
Speaker 1: baffled me. Some long ago altercation online that doesn't fit
Speaker 1: with what I know, that doesn't resonate with the women involved,
Speaker 1: that even if it did happen, Natalia accepts they may
Speaker 1: not even remember.
Speaker 5: So why because I hated those girls?
Speaker 1: This story is one Natalia put forth as if it
Speaker 1: explains everything. It explains nothing. There were many many faces
Speaker 1: used by Natalia that never did anything to her, and
Speaker 1: maybe that's the case here too. When Natalia started using
Speaker 1: Crystal's photo, that was after Natalia had been to jail.
Speaker 1: That's when she switched from talking to adolescence to catfishing
Speaker 1: adult men. Her focus went from New Zealand to Australia.
Speaker 1: These were, she had told me, conscious decisions to avoid
Speaker 1: being caught. Natalia told me she had also changed the
Speaker 1: scale on which she operated. Is there a particular way
Speaker 1: that she go about constructing a profile to make it
Speaker 1: more believable.
Speaker 5: I used to have the whole family, sister, cousin, best friend,
Speaker 5: like I'd make a whole family for them, But now
Speaker 5: now I'm just like nussed up at one person's enough.
Speaker 5: I can't deal with anybody else.
Speaker 1: Not exactly one person. There was Crystal and Sophie, but
Speaker 1: that is still quite a switch from the broadcast of
Speaker 1: characters she had used to build worlds in the past.
Speaker 1: It was around this point in the interview when we
Speaker 1: started to get deeper into what Natalia had been up
Speaker 1: to since we'd last spoken in twenty eleven. I asked
Speaker 1: her about taking photos of the children of Crystal's friends
Speaker 1: in order to build the narrative of Kaylie Rose. We
Speaker 1: know this from Crystal and her mum, Lucil, and from
Speaker 1: Jada Moran, a man Natalia spoke to briefly in character
Speaker 1: as Kaylee. Danika, and Lisa, the mum and daughter Natalia
Speaker 1: lied to for six years, also recall being sent photos
Speaker 1: of Kaylee's daughter. The only person who doesn't think that happened, though,
Speaker 1: is Natalia herself.
Speaker 5: I haven't done any children, not since Laura.
Speaker 1: Well, it was Danika's recollection of Lisa's recollection that you
Speaker 1: had done so, And actually in the message chains that
Speaker 1: are there, you write about having a daughter. When I
Speaker 1: say in the message chains, I do have screw of
Speaker 1: messages between Kaylee and Danika which include photographs of a child,
Speaker 1: a child of one of Crystal's friends.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I had a daughter, but I didn't use any
Speaker 5: images for her. I haven't done that since Laura.
Speaker 1: And I stuck with this because I had the actual
Speaker 1: photographs sent by Kayley, photos of Crystal's friend's child at
Speaker 1: a birthday party, shopping in the mall, celebrating Christmas. That's
Speaker 1: not something that you can recall.
Speaker 5: No, I do remember giving Kaye a child, but not
Speaker 5: any pictures. Could I let my lesson with Laura?
Speaker 1: What do you think that lesson was not to hurt
Speaker 1: a child. We've reached a place I've come to think
Speaker 1: of as the reality chasm. Almost all of us live
Speaker 1: on one side of this chasm. Here in the real
Speaker 1: world where you're listening to this podcast. Across that yawning
Speaker 1: expanse is a place some visit on occasion, some more often,
Speaker 1: where reality isn't something you can grasp firmly. It is
Speaker 1: instead a tenuous thing, slippery creature that escapes and slithers away.
Speaker 1: And with its absence, there is a world that's foreign
Speaker 1: to almost all of us, a place where Natalia can
Speaker 1: be whoever she wants to be. When I interviewed Natalia,
Speaker 1: I asked her about the scenarios the car crash on
Speaker 1: which Laura died, the characters who fell in love, pregnancy, miscarriage,
Speaker 1: self harm, Where did those things come from?
Speaker 4: Me?
Speaker 1: And that's what's happening in your life for things that
Speaker 1: you wish were happening in your life, for both and
Speaker 1: so you could live that out through the false personas,
Speaker 1: share the things that were real, and dream about the
Speaker 1: things that learned.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oddly, when I asked Natalia about the death of Laura
Speaker 1: West and her memories of Emma and Bernie, who you've
Speaker 1: heard from a lot in this podcast, this was her response.
Speaker 1: If we go back to twenty eleven, and that was
Speaker 1: just after the Laura West persona had been killed off,
Speaker 1: and there was a really large group of characters that
Speaker 1: were around Laura that became very involved. Is that right?
Speaker 5: I actually can't remember back that far. Sorry. I remember
Speaker 5: killing her off, and I just can't remember why I
Speaker 5: did it and how I did.
Speaker 1: It in a car crash.
Speaker 5: That sounds about right.
Speaker 1: And do you remember Bernie and Emma a mum and daughter.
Speaker 1: Emma would have been about sixteen when you met her online.
Speaker 5: Great Auckland, christ Church.
Speaker 1: Wellington outside christ Church.
Speaker 5: Not off the top of me head, I don't.
Speaker 1: Later, while clarifying one thing. I similarly asked her about Jake,
Speaker 1: the guy she catfished, the guy who wanted to do
Speaker 1: an interview and then ghosted me. You remember Jake briefly
Speaker 1: from episode.
Speaker 5: Two one, Jack Jake. I can't remember these names. These
Speaker 5: names are like, it's Jake, Okay, thank you Jake.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the names because because it was so
Speaker 1: long ago.
Speaker 5: I've done it to too many people since him.
Speaker 1: How many do you think in the.
Speaker 5: Last year, maybe twenty.
Speaker 1: There's one name that Natalia did remember, Peter Russell.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I remember Pete. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the context of Peter, Natalia remembers Emma. You recall
Speaker 1: that Emma and Peter were together until her supposed cousin
Speaker 1: Laura West aka Natalia, showed up. Emma told us how
Speaker 1: she ended her relationship with Peter so Peter and her
Speaker 1: beloved cousin Laura could be happy together.
Speaker 5: She sued to me, and I m I was like,
Speaker 5: what's up, and he goes on, thanks, I'm falling in
Speaker 5: love with this girl.
Speaker 1: And I was like, you need to bow your heart,
Speaker 1: you need to do what you need to do. But
Speaker 1: that's not how Natalia remembers it.
Speaker 5: That's not true. Peter was single when I met him.
Speaker 1: And things with Peter took a really terrible turn during
Speaker 1: twenty ten. Is that something that you recall?
Speaker 5: I remember that, but people forget. If it was that
Speaker 5: heartbroken over Laura, why did he move on? And then
Speaker 5: he was in another complete happy relationship and I left
Speaker 5: it alone.
Speaker 1: It's such a thing as a rebound relationship.
Speaker 5: No, he was happy. I saw the bitches.
Speaker 1: I then asked Natalia about how Rawn has long blamed
Speaker 1: her for Peter's self inflicted death.
Speaker 5: Like the court of law when she told me to
Speaker 5: court found me not guilty, So I don't know how
Speaker 5: to reconcilt it. What chounts me to go back to
Speaker 5: jail for twenty years?
Speaker 1: Found you not guilty? Where do you mean the coroner's
Speaker 1: hearing that was held.
Speaker 5: I don't know, if something because the police couldn't charge
Speaker 5: him with manslaughter because there was no evidence according to them.
Speaker 5: That's well they told me, right.
Speaker 1: So there was the police inquiry into Peter's death. Whether
Speaker 1: you were responsible for that? Yeah, do you feel any
Speaker 1: responsibility for that? I realized that this is a long
Speaker 1: time ago. But when I'd interviewed Raywan, I was struck
Speaker 1: by really felt it by her grief, and I'm wondering
Speaker 1: how you deal with that because she's out of the
Speaker 1: world there thinking that she'll fault.
Speaker 5: There's nothing I can do to change your mind, but.
Speaker 1: You don't feel that responsibility.
Speaker 5: I feel partly responsible because what I did up to
Speaker 5: the day that he broke up with me was probably
Speaker 5: not a very good idea. But then, like I said,
Speaker 5: he moved on, he got a new relationship, he was happy.
Speaker 1: Natalie was right in the fact she was never held
Speaker 1: responsible for Peter's death. There was a coronial hearing about
Speaker 1: Peter's death, as I mentioned in that bit of the interview,
Speaker 1: but the contents of it were sealed. As to Peter
Speaker 1: moving on, I can't speak for how happy he was
Speaker 1: before he died, or if he truly moved on from
Speaker 1: this relationship. From what I know of Natalia, she puts
Speaker 1: a lot of weight on relationships as being a source
Speaker 1: of happiness, hence why she sought them out with such
Speaker 1: great regularity over the last twenty years. I don't think
Speaker 1: Peter entering into another relationship after Laura West necessarily wipes
Speaker 1: away the impact of Natalia's deceit. However, while Rayvend blames Natalia.
Speaker 1: Those who knew Peter at the time have spoken of
Speaker 1: other difficulties in his life before his death, and in
Speaker 1: my experience of covering cases like this, there's really a
Speaker 1: single cause for suicide regardless. I think Peter's death is
Speaker 1: a shadow that will follow Natalia for the rest of
Speaker 1: her life. His death after his involvement with her was
Speaker 1: a big part of the narrative back in twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: both in my coverage and in other interviews she did,
Speaker 1: and the names Natalia Burgess and Peter Russell will in
Speaker 1: some way forever be linked. She spoke to me in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven about how much his death impacted her at
Speaker 1: the time, and during our recent conversation, Natalia acknowledged again
Speaker 1: the impact of his death, but she didn't seem to
Speaker 1: really grasp the impact her actions had on other people,
Speaker 1: which I pushed her on near the end of our conversation.
Speaker 1: You seem to have become really aware of yourself and
Speaker 1: the things that are inside you that cause you difficulty.
Speaker 1: I am sensing less awareness of the pain that you've
Speaker 1: caused out there in the community, which has been incredible.
Speaker 1: It really has been a huge amount of pain. Do
Speaker 1: you have trouble understanding the difficulty that you've caused others?
Speaker 5: I just don't get the grips of it.
Speaker 1: Tell me more about that.
Speaker 5: I understand that I've hurt people, and I've understand that
Speaker 5: I don't have any empathy. I'm sorry, but I don't.
Speaker 5: There's one thing I don't have.
Speaker 1: Is that like a thing that you think you should have,
Speaker 1: but it's gone. You never grew it.
Speaker 5: I had it when I was young, but then I
Speaker 5: just caring about people as soon as they started bullying me.
Speaker 1: This was not the first time she'd referred to difficulties
Speaker 1: in her childhood and teenage years and the impact those
Speaker 1: had on her. Several times during the interview, she referred
Speaker 1: to life changing at fifteen.
Speaker 5: Since the age of fifteen, everything has just gone done uff.
Speaker 1: What do you mean Since I.
Speaker 5: Turned fifteen, I met certain people at certain things, and
Speaker 5: that just led my life down like a merry go
Speaker 5: round of bad decisions.
Speaker 1: It was an age she kept referring to, but not
Speaker 1: saying fully what she wanted to. She referred to an
Speaker 1: incident when she was fifteen when her brother found her
Speaker 1: overdosing on drugs and her hurt and how that affected him,
Speaker 1: but there was clearly more to the story. My producer
Speaker 1: Ethan eventually asked her outright what had happened.
Speaker 5: Then, I was raped by my best friend in the
Speaker 5: whole town were.
Speaker 1: And that's the point of change that sticks in your mind.
Speaker 5: Because no one believed me, because everyone thought up to
Speaker 5: that point that I was not a version. I'd been
Speaker 5: on drugs, but he was one that was sup playing
Speaker 5: me with the drugs and the alcohol. It was bad
Speaker 5: enough I got around school, and that was my first
Speaker 5: proper incident with it, when this girl from school found
Speaker 5: out about it, when it spreaded around the school, so
Speaker 5: I went and makes the crap out of her.
Speaker 1: You know, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't surprised that there
Speaker 1: would be the Natalia, a pivotal moment where life didn't
Speaker 1: suffer just a subtle shift, but a tectonic shake. Her
Speaker 1: distress at not being believed, a rejection of those who
Speaker 1: didn't believe her, and then turning to those who did,
Speaker 1: no matter how unhealthy and how dangerous that choice was.
Speaker 1: Last episode I talked about there been two interviews in
Speaker 1: this podcast series that had a real effect on me.
Speaker 1: One of those was Raymond, and the other is Natalia.
Speaker 1: It's this interview. Our interview ended shortly after that point.
Speaker 1: While I had a lot of answers to a lot
Speaker 1: of questions, or at least Natalia's version of answers, there
Speaker 1: was a lot I felt I still didn't understand about her.
Speaker 1: The interview had come together overnight, with Natalia wanting to
Speaker 1: be collected early the next afternoon. For me, it was
Speaker 1: important to interview her before she changed her mind. I'm
Speaker 1: just not convinced. I went about it in the best way.
Speaker 1: I brought it from a South Auckland home into the
Speaker 1: central city, into the New Zealand Herald offices with all
Speaker 1: the lights and cameras and all that who and then
Speaker 1: hit her head on with the one thing she really
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk about. It was her voice I
Speaker 1: was hearing. But for me, the answers she was giving
Speaker 1: weren't enough. But then, sort of like Crystal Jenner's email
Speaker 1: two years earlier, another arrived in my inbox just a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago, I thought my chat with Natalie. It
Speaker 1: was the first time she had spoken properly since twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: It turns out five years ago she sat down for
Speaker 1: a long form interview, one that has never seen the
Speaker 1: light a day until now, and in it, finly, I
Speaker 1: think we meet the woman behind the puppeteer.
Speaker 7: I'm doctor nikiy Osborne. I have a pitched in psychology
Speaker 7: and my role is to try and understand how forensic
Speaker 7: scientists make decisions about forensic evidence. But my general interest
Speaker 7: in psychology really drives me to try and understand why
Speaker 7: people think the way that they think, and why they
Speaker 7: do the things they do and what motivates them.
Speaker 1: Met Nikki. She's also been on our television screens as
Speaker 1: a reality TV contestant on the local versions of The
Speaker 1: Bloc and The Bachelor, which is relevant to what happens next.
Speaker 1: Around twenty nineteen, Nicki was looking to make her own
Speaker 1: podcast series.
Speaker 7: In twenty nineteen, I had a bit of time on
Speaker 7: my hands, and like many others, I decided I wanted
Speaker 7: to start a podcast, and my interest was really in
Speaker 7: New Zealand's justice system and what is and isn't working
Speaker 7: and how the individuals who experienced.
Speaker 5: The justice system could help.
Speaker 7: To inform steps that could help to make it better.
Speaker 7: And so I put a post out on Instagram asking
Speaker 7: if anyone wanted to talk to me and tell their stories.
Speaker 7: And the very first email I got was from Natalia.
Speaker 1: And here's that email, read by NICKI.
Speaker 7: Good morning, Niki. I saw your post on Instagram and
Speaker 7: I'd like to put my hand up. I've been in
Speaker 7: jail for eight years, in and out, and I'm more
Speaker 7: than happy to tell my story. Thanks Natalia Burgess.
Speaker 1: PS.
Speaker 7: I loved you on the block.
Speaker 1: As we know, Natalia has an affinity for local TV,
Speaker 1: namely long running soapop for Shortland Street, so it's no
Speaker 1: surprise to me that she was drawn to Nicki. This
Speaker 1: feeling became, if anything, more solid when during Natalia's interview
Speaker 1: with Nicki, I heard Natalia say this, and you're very.
Speaker 4: Friendly and your face is very good.
Speaker 1: Look at It reminded me of sitting at that truck
Speaker 1: stop thirteen years earlier, watching Natalia with Natalie the face
Speaker 1: of Laura West, and Natalia constantly reaching out to touch
Speaker 1: Natalie's arm, almost disbelieving, starstruck. Nicki interviewed Natalia twice once
Speaker 1: for an extended period and had started to shape it
Speaker 1: into an episode. Then she got a job and the
Speaker 1: podcast plan went on the back burner and it sat
Speaker 1: there until Nicki heard episode one, and that's when she
Speaker 1: got in touch.
Speaker 7: I was making breakfast and I finished this episode of
Speaker 7: whatever I was listening to, and then my phone just
Speaker 7: automatically went onto the next podcast that it thought I
Speaker 7: would like, and it was Chasing Ghost the Puppeteer, and
Speaker 7: I get five minutes in and I was like, why
Speaker 7: does this sound familiar? And then guy had seen headline
Speaker 7: come up on New Zealand Herald, maybe the day before,
Speaker 7: and then my brain started to go, hang on a second,
Speaker 7: this is all connected, and I just ran to my
Speaker 7: computer and I looked up who I'd interviewed, and I
Speaker 7: was like, oh my gosh, it's Natalia Burgess. And then
Speaker 7: I emailed you, and I didn't know why, but I
Speaker 7: was like, I need to email David and let him
Speaker 7: know that I've spoken to Natalia.
Speaker 1: So that is how we came to be sitting together
Speaker 1: talking about Natalia.
Speaker 7: But I did reach out to Natalia and let her
Speaker 7: know that I'd like to talk to you and share
Speaker 7: this side of her story, which I don't think was
Speaker 7: captured in the first few episodes, which would some of
Speaker 7: her more vulnerable moments and part of why she is
Speaker 7: the way she is. And so she gave me permission
Speaker 7: to share that with you.
Speaker 1: And when I listened to Nicki's interview with Natalia, I
Speaker 1: can see why she didn't have an issue. They had
Speaker 1: fun together and instead of hitting Natalia head on with
Speaker 1: questions about catfishing, Nicki's interview was really an invitation for
Speaker 1: Natalia to talk about herself, which she did for hours.
Speaker 7: She probably talked ninety percent of the time and I
Speaker 7: just had a few prompts every now and again. But Yeah,
Speaker 7: I found her really easy to engage with. It was
Speaker 7: definitely pleasant spending time with her. She's yeah, she is engaging.
Speaker 7: And the way she told her stories and I went
Speaker 7: on a ride with her. As she's telling the stories,
Speaker 7: there were moments where I was tearing up hearing her experiences.
Speaker 7: And she's just smiley and she laughs a lot. She's
Speaker 7: got this scute little giggle.
Speaker 1: I found when I put it all together, my research,
Speaker 1: Nicki's interview, my interview, I could really see Natalia, and
Speaker 1: i'd like you to see her too.
Speaker 8: If you just say your name and that you understand
Speaker 8: that you're being recorded, and that at any point you
Speaker 8: feel uncomfortable, you can just say no, I don't want
Speaker 8: to answer Okay, so my name.
Speaker 4: Is Natalia Urdus, and I understand that he's recording this
Speaker 4: for her podcast.
Speaker 1: Here's what struck me about Nicki's interview with Natalia. When
Speaker 1: I sat down with Natalia, we both knew we were
Speaker 1: there to speak about her catfishing behavior. It meant Natalia's
Speaker 1: guard was up. She knew there would be pointed questions
Speaker 1: about a pattern of behavior that had previously sent her
Speaker 1: to prison. When talking to Nicki, Natalia wasn't guarded because
Speaker 1: the interview was so broad in scope. As I listened
Speaker 1: to Nicky's audio, this was the moment when I realized
Speaker 1: this was Natalia talking about herself, almost musing out loud,
Speaker 1: rather than responding to direct questions about something that had
Speaker 1: deeply hurt her parents and sent her to jail. In fact,
Speaker 1: there are times when Natalia sounds reflective and genuinely introspective.
Speaker 4: I just want to let people know that, you know,
Speaker 4: there is another side to life, Like you, you can
Speaker 4: go through that tunnel, but there's always that little bit
Speaker 4: of light that just shines a little bit through, like
Speaker 4: that little little hole in the ceiling that you can
Speaker 4: just see but you can't touch it. So that's my
Speaker 4: aim is to make sure that people know that they
Speaker 4: can actually touch their light.
Speaker 1: I should note there is some difficulty in recounting Natalia's
Speaker 1: life as told by Natalia. That's because it's sometimes impossible
Speaker 1: to know what is real and what she has made up.
Speaker 1: But between my interviews with Natalia in twenty eleven and
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, in this interview by Nicki in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: there is some consistency. I can imagine many of you
Speaker 1: listening may be inclined not to believe anything Natalia says,
Speaker 1: and that might include her story of being raped. But
Speaker 1: for what it's worth, I believe that's the case largely
Speaker 1: as she told Nicki the story as well, and the
Speaker 1: scarring impact actually more of an open wound, is plain
Speaker 1: to see.
Speaker 4: The cops were called, and the cops were like, why
Speaker 4: are you so angry? I was like, because I got
Speaker 4: raped and no one believed me.
Speaker 1: The consequence of that disbelief was her rejection of those
Speaker 1: who didn't believe her and the embrace of those who did.
Speaker 1: Part of that, according to Natalia, was a relationship with
Speaker 1: a young man with gang links whose gang boss dad
Speaker 1: put her on the streets as a prostitute took a
Speaker 1: share of her earnings and applied her with drugs when
Speaker 1: she talked about being in pain. This led to more trauma,
Speaker 1: as she told.
Speaker 9: Nicki, Yeah, yeah, I got raped one night and the
Speaker 9: cops never took it seriously because of the prostitute and
Speaker 9: because of my age. Are like, well, follow, you're standing
Speaker 9: out there at seventeen.
Speaker 5: Don't come crying to ask when stuff like that happened.
Speaker 4: That was their response.
Speaker 1: The drugs, the addiction that followed the sex work. When
Speaker 1: asked when she felt to disconnect with the real will
Speaker 1: begin when the voice is started, it is this period.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my voices started when I was about sixteen and
Speaker 4: a half. And do you know what brought them on?
Speaker 7: If there was an incident that happened, what do you
Speaker 7: associate with the voices starting?
Speaker 4: So it was probably the heroine that I was on
Speaker 4: and the fact that I was rape.
Speaker 1: Just in case you were wondering, Both Nicki and I
Speaker 1: checked with Natalia and her well being before and after
Speaker 1: our interviews, but it wasn't just trauma or heartbreak that
Speaker 1: Natalia shared. She also spoke to Nicki about her time
Speaker 1: living with her parents again in Auckland. You might recall
Speaker 1: the questions Natalia says she had as a pacific a
Speaker 1: baby in a European home and how she fits into
Speaker 1: that family scenario. And yet, as she told NICKI, home
Speaker 1: was a safe place with enormous meaning.
Speaker 4: So my mother's kitchen growing up was always filled with
Speaker 4: Sunday ROAs. No matter what it was, Sunday ROAs had
Speaker 4: to sit down and heaven meal together. Chocolate cakes the
Speaker 4: law because she used to bake the stuff. And I
Speaker 4: always remember the smell of like gingerbread baking for Christmas
Speaker 4: and shortbread. It was so buttery, creamy in your mouth.
Speaker 1: Not only is home a safe place, but her adoptive
Speaker 1: father is her champion.
Speaker 4: I'm very much a daddy's girl. Dad and Move bonded
Speaker 4: because I'm adopted. So Dad and Move bonded quicker than
Speaker 4: me and Mom bonded. I think, I mean, me and
Speaker 4: Mom get on, but we don't get on get on
Speaker 4: like we tolerate each other. I think the best way
Speaker 4: to put.
Speaker 1: It, even by Natalia, is telling she was challenging at home.
Speaker 1: She talks of taking and using her mother's credit card,
Speaker 1: taking money saved by her younger brother, of acting out
Speaker 1: at home in a way that made her uncontrollable.
Speaker 7: So if you could give any message or words to
Speaker 7: your parents, like imagine I'm your parents and you want
Speaker 7: to say how you feel about them and their role
Speaker 7: in your journey, what would you say to them?
Speaker 4: I love you and I'm so going to make you
Speaker 4: proud one day. And I'm glad that even though all
Speaker 4: of this stuff opened, I'm so glad that you adopted
Speaker 4: me and didn't leave me, leave me as a baby.
Speaker 4: Because yeah, and I love you dad like I love
Speaker 4: my dad like nothing else. Like I'm such a daddies girl.
Speaker 4: My dad's amazing. Yeah, I break his heart all the
Speaker 4: time and I do stupid stuff. But yet he'll always
Speaker 4: you know, he'll always stand by me, and he'll always
Speaker 4: be if I go to court, he's my number one supporter,
Speaker 4: and he'll stand there and he'll go. My daughter ain't
Speaker 4: a bad girl. She's just an idiot, you know. He's like,
Speaker 4: she's actually quite intelligent when she puts in mind to stuff.
Speaker 1: As Natalia tells it, drugs led to poor life choices
Speaker 1: and that led to the police being called. But there
Speaker 1: was always something else going on. There were always his
Speaker 1: struggles with the voices. After being released from prison in
Speaker 1: late twenty fifteen early twenty sixteen, Natalia moved back to
Speaker 1: her parents' South Auckland home for a period of years.
Speaker 1: It was relative of calm in prison. There had been
Speaker 1: a new diagnosis of schizophrenia and new treatment pathways that
Speaker 1: seemed to be helping. There was also support in the
Speaker 1: form of Legacy, a network for women that is part
Speaker 1: of the evangelical Destiny Church. The Natalia Legacy became a
Speaker 1: constant in her life over a number of years. It
Speaker 1: was a place where she formed bonds, made friends, where
Speaker 1: she was surrounded by people who helped her feel that
Speaker 1: she had value. It was a period in Natalia's life
Speaker 1: that she shared with Nikki, something that had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with her online behavior, something in the real world
Speaker 1: that showed Natalia could see beyond the life in which
Speaker 1: she was tramped. Natalia tells of a former gang member friend,
Speaker 1: someone she would smoke he with, who invited her to
Speaker 1: a Destiny Church service. After the service, Natalia went around
Speaker 1: the side of the church with the man and discovered
Speaker 1: he had reformed.
Speaker 4: I was like, you know, have you got anything on you?
Speaker 4: And he's like, no, have you Like yeah? For the
Speaker 4: part for me. He's had it's going and he took
Speaker 4: the pipe off my hand and smashed it in front
Speaker 4: of me. I was like, you ken ay, that just
Speaker 4: cost me sixteen dollars and you just smashed it. He go, yeah,
Speaker 4: we don't need it anymore, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: doing is I need?
Speaker 1: Destiny gets a hard time. The church leaders, Brian and
Speaker 1: Hannah Tamaki, faced a lot of criticism for an opulent lifestyle,
Speaker 1: and Brian particularly for some of his public comments. For
Speaker 1: all their controversies, though which have admittedly become more regular
Speaker 1: since the COVID nineteen pandemic, there's another side to the church,
Speaker 1: mainly through its support groups Man Up and Too Tangata.
Speaker 1: Whatever you feel about Brian, I believe these groups genuinely
Speaker 1: save people. I've said it at lunch with a dozen
Speaker 1: two Tangua to members, all with criminal convictions, some murderers,
Speaker 1: all Harley Davidson writing leather jacket wearing tough guys, and
Speaker 1: heard them talk of turning their backs on crime, learning
Speaker 1: how to be better dads, being better husbands. So I
Speaker 1: can see how legacy a sisterhood to match the two
Speaker 1: Tangata brotherhood would be great for Natalia, faith has always
Speaker 1: been a part of her life, and now she had
Speaker 1: a group which looked past people's backgrounds to a place
Speaker 1: where they could make a new life.
Speaker 4: And so I started going to Legacy, and Legacy has
Speaker 4: shown me I'm confident I can be the woman that
Speaker 4: I want to be. You know, the past is the past,
Speaker 4: and yeah, if I keep holding on to it, then
Speaker 4: I'll never move forward. I still have the voices. Now
Speaker 4: I know how to cope with the voices I can
Speaker 4: get for a day.
Speaker 1: It's not to say Legacy solved everything like Man Up
Speaker 1: or Too Tangata. It offers a framework into which a
Speaker 1: life gone crooked can be reshaped, and it offers support
Speaker 1: in company. But it isn't a mental health service. Here.
Speaker 1: I say, Destiny can't perform miracles. And we know that
Speaker 1: because during this period, as Legacy was helping Natalia rise
Speaker 1: up and see herself differently, Natalie was living a lie
Speaker 1: online as Kaylie, wearing Crystal's face. I have the message
Speaker 1: reads time stamped and dated. Around the same time, Natalia
Speaker 1: explained to Nikki why she wasn't going to jail again.
Speaker 4: I think the last leg that I did that kind
Speaker 4: of woke me up because suddenly what I was doing
Speaker 4: was I was missing with people's lives, like and the
Speaker 4: Facebook predator stuff like that. That woke me up when
Speaker 4: I got expusted for that, because I actually didn't think
Speaker 4: I was doing anyone any harm, because I didn't think
Speaker 4: like when I stole someone's photo to do the Facebook page,
Speaker 4: I was like, I wasn't using any of their you know,
Speaker 4: name details or anything like that. I was just using
Speaker 4: their photo. So I thought it wasn't hurting them or
Speaker 4: anyone else or what I was doing. But when it
Speaker 4: all came out to light, like like I have one girl, Sophie,
Speaker 4: like like she was the nicest fun out of a
Speaker 4: whole group of girls, this girl called Sophie, and like
Speaker 4: she just said to me, even though you didn't use
Speaker 4: any of my details, you know, you use my face.
Speaker 4: She used my daughter's face, and you created a whole life.
Speaker 4: And now I live in fear that one of those
Speaker 4: voice that you talk to under my photo, if they
Speaker 4: ever see me, they're gonna, you know, yell and screaming
Speaker 4: me like you broke my heart, you lied to me,
Speaker 4: and you know, And that woke me up.
Speaker 1: It didn't wake her up too much, there's evidence Crystal
Speaker 1: and Sophie with a face of false profiles from twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen three to twenty twenty two. It's easy to simply
Speaker 1: say Natalia is flat out lying here. She's certainly sincere
Speaker 1: in her assurances to Niki, and it may be that
Speaker 1: she believed what she was saying at the time she
Speaker 1: was saying it. It may have even been true at
Speaker 1: that particular moment in twenty nineteen, on that particular day.
Speaker 1: And that's in spite of this exchange with Nikki.
Speaker 7: Do you feel remorse for what you did?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I do know, especially to like ones like Sophi
Speaker 4: and Crystal that you know using their face has damaged
Speaker 4: your life, and like I used Sophie's daughter, that's not
Speaker 4: right because that child, you know, has the right to
Speaker 4: be a child without her image.
Speaker 1: Being That's right. Natalia is speaking of remorse for using
Speaker 1: Crystal in Sophie's image at the same time as there
Speaker 1: is evidence she is doing exactly that. She also confirms
Speaker 1: here that she had been using the image of Sophie's daughter,
Speaker 1: despite her saying when I interviewed her that she had
Speaker 1: not done that since leaving Jalen twenty fifteen. It's confounding
Speaker 1: until you consider her mental health. I spoke earlier about
Speaker 1: the reality chasm and how across this divide is the
Speaker 1: place where Natalia builds online characters. These Frankenstein like creations,
Speaker 1: a pieced together from her life, her imagine life though
Speaker 1: she encounters, and those she dreams of encountering. It's a
Speaker 1: place where promises she's made to others to herself can
Speaker 1: be promises that somebody else has made. Some truths remain,
Speaker 1: but they're a part of the Frankenstein or the Puppeteers monster.
Speaker 1: You might remember Danika's de stress at the death of
Speaker 1: her grandmother and Kaylie comforting her, offering an empathetic role
Speaker 1: call of loss.
Speaker 7: Grandma died of old age, Vickiy of cancer in May
Speaker 7: last year, and Liam, when he was fifteen he was murdered.
Speaker 1: You remember I was skeptical of those claims. Kaylie was
Speaker 1: not related to the real Vicula tally, and there isn't
Speaker 1: any sign of a fifteen year old liamb being murdered
Speaker 1: in New Zealand in the last twenty years. But when
Speaker 1: Natalia spoke to Nicki, she did speak of losing her grandmother.
Speaker 4: Losing nan on a couple of weeks ago. She was
Speaker 4: the only person in the world other than my dad
Speaker 4: that used to tell me that I was worth it
Speaker 4: and that you know, one day I'll make her proud.
Speaker 7: What type of life do you think would make her proud?
Speaker 4: Drug free, boyfriend free, Yeah, and a job like she
Speaker 4: used to say to me, maybe you can do anything
Speaker 4: you want when you put your mind to it. You
Speaker 4: are very clever. You you just hide it very well.
Speaker 4: And then I laugh and I'm I'm not clever, and
Speaker 4: she's like, you are very clever, You're very smart.
Speaker 1: Like, thanks, Nan, isn't that just how we want to
Speaker 1: be seen? And Natalia, how did she see herself? NICKI
Speaker 1: asked her, just that give me the elevator pitch. She said,
Speaker 1: a short, sharp summary that might happen over two minutes
Speaker 1: in an elevator.
Speaker 4: So in two minutes, I'd say, Hi, I'm Talia, I'm
Speaker 4: ex drag edic, and I have a fantastic life now
Speaker 4: thanks to legacy. And I've changed my life around because
Speaker 4: of legacy and because of the positive people around me now.
Speaker 4: And what you see now is what you get. There's
Speaker 4: no fake shit, there's no Facebook shit, there's nothing like that.
Speaker 4: It's just purely me and if you don't like me,
Speaker 4: well that's not my problem.
Speaker 1: And at another point in Nicki's interview, she asked this.
Speaker 7: What would you go back and tell your fifteen year
Speaker 7: old self if you could just be you, babe and
Speaker 7: you're worth it?
Speaker 1: If only they were that easy. When I met with
Speaker 1: Nikki just the other week, I asked her for her
Speaker 1: thoughts on her interview with Natalia.
Speaker 7: When I was interviewing Natalia, I didn't have all that background,
Speaker 7: and so I've been learning about her through your podcast.
Speaker 7: And the way that I wanted to tell my story
Speaker 7: was really just to give her a voice and a
Speaker 7: platform to tell her story. And I have a lot
Speaker 7: of empathy and compassion for her, and then hearing the
Speaker 7: impact that her actions have had on other people was
Speaker 7: really confronting for me because I just hadn't really considered
Speaker 7: all of that because it was I was quite just
Speaker 7: kind of focused on this on individuals telling their stories.
Speaker 7: And something I'm wrestling with in my own mind is like,
Speaker 7: I have so much empathy and compassion for Natalia because
Speaker 7: she's been through so much and the mental health struggles
Speaker 7: that she has, and in some ways I was leaving
Speaker 7: that cloud my judgment of her to the point where
Speaker 7: I was almost making excuses.
Speaker 1: For her behavior.
Speaker 7: But actually, until she's held accountable and she takes account
Speaker 7: for herself, I don't think she's going to stop. Because
Speaker 7: she is very self aware, she's intelligent, she can create
Speaker 7: complex narratives and hold all of that together.
Speaker 5: But there's still very.
Speaker 7: Much an element of her blaming the people she's talking to.
Speaker 7: She blames the prison system for enabling her to have
Speaker 7: access to phones.
Speaker 5: Still in there, there's still very much.
Speaker 7: An element of blaming other people and not saying she
Speaker 7: didn't sure say that she's done the wrong thing and
Speaker 7: that she is aware that she's hurt people. But it's
Speaker 7: still if she's allowed to do it, I think she
Speaker 7: will keep doing it.
Speaker 1: When I set out to investigate Natilor again, producer Ethan
Speaker 1: and I knew there needed to be a point to
Speaker 1: this podcast. Initially we figured that there was a gap
Speaker 1: in the law. It's something that was raised as far
Speaker 1: back as twenty eleven.
Speaker 4: Is it's not a criminal arrestler. I feel an at
Speaker 4: least case is so extreme. It's at the most extreme
Speaker 4: end of cyber arrestment. Yeah, that it could be used
Speaker 4: to shake us on all right and say, Okay, this
Speaker 4: probably doesn't happen every day, does it?
Speaker 1: And has been a constant query from the victims I've
Speaker 1: spoken to, why.
Speaker 10: Can the government not step in and put protocols in
Speaker 10: place to protect people? Surely there must be something out
Speaker 10: there that you know the government can can don't.
Speaker 1: Well, sorry, it turns out our laws are pretty good.
Speaker 1: I explored this deeply interviewing senior police and the senior
Speaker 1: manager at net safe, the agency charged with helping create
Speaker 1: a safer online space. Back when Natali was first doing this,
Speaker 1: police for creative and finding laws through which they could
Speaker 1: prosecute Natalia. Those ill fitting laws have been replaced by
Speaker 1: a better law, the Harmful Digital Communications Act. If there's
Speaker 1: a problem now, it's the pipeline to justice. Thirteen years ago,
Speaker 1: Natalian's behavior was unusual now, while it's still unusual in
Speaker 1: its own right, that online space is littered with what
Speaker 1: police call volume crime, the sorts of crimes that happen
Speaker 1: in such great number it becomes difficult to properly investigate
Speaker 1: each and everyone. Such a proliferation of this type of crime, suggested,
Speaker 1: the problem is the environment police are trying to manage
Speaker 1: that vast online space that's dominated by megacorp style internet
Speaker 1: companies that make enormous profits even as critics ask why
Speaker 1: they can't be better corporate citizens. I conducted more interviews,
Speaker 1: thank you, especially to University of Canterbury lecturer Mark Rickerby
Speaker 1: and Victoria University Associate professor Ian Welch, and I learned
Speaker 1: what many suspect that the Internet it's a mess. Yes,
Speaker 1: there are things Meta could do to improve Facebook and
Speaker 1: to reduce or even possibly eliminate those who behave as
Speaker 1: Natalia does.
Speaker 11: Here's Ian Welch My reading of what they're advising. People
Speaker 11: are saying, well, we will provide these tools to let
Speaker 11: you manage your privacy, but it's up to you to
Speaker 11: check how you know that they're can figured it correctly
Speaker 11: and all the sort of stuff. If you get it wrong,
Speaker 11: well you know that's kind of your problem. You could
Speaker 11: provide better tools to help people. We could provide a
Speaker 11: view for people of their own account that says, hey,
Speaker 11: look there's this person over here. It looks very much
Speaker 11: like you. Do you think this might be someone trying
Speaker 11: to pretend that it's you, and then they could report it.
Speaker 1: But every tweak shaves that profit margin even thinner. And
Speaker 1: that's not what the mega corps are about. Rather, they're
Speaker 1: about slaving the audience and the advertisers to its profit machine,
Speaker 1: sort of uroverus the snake devouring itself. Here's Mark Rickerby
Speaker 1: from Canterbury University.
Speaker 12: And at the end of it all the idea is
Speaker 12: that this is this is how these platforms die. But
Speaker 12: the problem that we face is, Okay, these platforms, maybe
Speaker 12: maybe they're dead in terms of the value that they're generating.
Speaker 12: You know, there's no longer a sort of surplus for
Speaker 12: the users. It's and it can be a very negative
Speaker 12: experience for a lot of people. But they're still here,
Speaker 12: you know, so that maybe they're dead, but they are
Speaker 12: still businesses, they're still making money, they're still with this
Speaker 12: incredible reach around the world, and they kind of they
Speaker 12: roll on as these sort of zombie zombie platforms.
Speaker 1: This is not how I thought the zombie apocalypse would go.
Speaker 1: I sought answers from Meta. I wanted to know what
Speaker 1: it thought about how its platform Facebook could be so
Speaker 1: effectively weaponized and used against others. I sent a list
Speaker 1: of links to Natalia's fakes and her own page is
Speaker 1: a point of reference. As it turns out, Meta doesn't
Speaker 1: really do engagement. After eight weeks, I got an unusually
Speaker 1: bland statement.
Speaker 13: We took action against the Facebook profiles that were flagged.
Speaker 13: We encourage users to report any profiles they suspect to
Speaker 13: be inauthentic, and.
Speaker 1: The action I took it gave me a sense of dread.
Speaker 1: That's because along with the fake profiles, Meta deleted Natalia's
Speaker 1: actual profile. I know how important Facebook is to Natalia,
Speaker 1: for all the havoc she causes. Her own page has
Speaker 1: been a constant in her life for fifteen years, and
Speaker 1: as far as I've been able to tell, not directly
Speaker 1: used for catfishing. Do you have a favorite platform that
Speaker 1: you use? Is there a particular social media that you
Speaker 1: prefer to use over others?
Speaker 5: I like Facebook.
Speaker 1: What is it about Facebook that you like?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I think it's just because it's so easy to just
Speaker 5: start up with account, and you don't have to have
Speaker 5: numerous long lists of stuff. You're just going to email
Speaker 5: or a phone number.
Speaker 1: With her page deleted, I felt I'd taken from her
Speaker 1: something I imagined was important to her. So I apologized,
Speaker 1: and then she said I made a.
Speaker 5: New page so I could keep up with my friends
Speaker 5: and the page that I like to follow.
Speaker 1: Is it really that easy?
Speaker 14: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I just use myself a number because a new cellphone.
Speaker 1: Should it be harder?
Speaker 5: Yes, should be should be way harder than just to
Speaker 5: be able to stick a number and then put a
Speaker 5: photo aph and while are you've got a profile? That's
Speaker 5: Facebook's fault.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, though, I don't think there is anything our government
Speaker 1: can do to stop someone like Natalia. You'll be introducing
Speaker 1: one law to stop one woman, and that doesn't really
Speaker 1: feel like the answer. Natalia is forty now, truly an adult.
Speaker 1: She's intelligent and capable, with an image in her mind
Speaker 1: of the woman she wants to be, of the friends
Speaker 1: she'd like to have, of the life she would like
Speaker 1: to live. But she's also very unwell. Natalia previously she
Speaker 1: had a diagnosis a borderline personality disorder. It's a mental
Speaker 1: health condition which has people experiencing intense and overwhelming emotions.
Speaker 1: It's hard to keep relationships and they fret about rejection
Speaker 1: or abandonment. On the drive into the studio for the interview,
Speaker 1: she told me that diagnosis had shifted or been compounded
Speaker 1: by new diagnosis. When she's in prison. Natalia explained she
Speaker 1: had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia. This is not the
Speaker 1: illness betrayed on television as one of split or multiple personalities.
Speaker 1: Schizophrenia is a mental health condition that affects how you think, speak,
Speaker 1: and relate to people and the world. It can include
Speaker 1: delusions and hallucinations. When I interviewed Natalia, she estimated she
Speaker 1: had created up to thirty identities over the years. If
Speaker 1: that's a real number, and I would have thought there
Speaker 1: were more, and each of them were in contact with
Speaker 1: around twenty people a year. It doesn't take much time
Speaker 1: to pass before we get into thousands of lives touched
Speaker 1: by Natalia. It's an extraordinary impact.
Speaker 7: What things that you would say to the victims of
Speaker 7: your crimes. I would say, I'm sorry and and I'm
Speaker 7: sorry for hurting so many people Like It wasn't until
Speaker 7: the Facebook stuff came out that I realized how many
Speaker 7: people i'd actually heard, you know, like the.
Speaker 4: Girls that I used like. I didn't realize that they
Speaker 4: were scared to go out because of what I'd done,
Speaker 4: because I thought, Oh, they don't even know your real name.
Speaker 4: I was just like, I never thought about that from
Speaker 4: any of that angle, because I was just like, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm lonely. I just wanted to have friend.
Speaker 1: When Nikki asked about Peter Russell, Natalia sounded different. Normally
Speaker 1: defensive on the subject of Peter, she would usually shift
Speaker 1: blame quickly, not so much this time.
Speaker 4: Every day I think about it because I shouldn't never
Speaker 4: have played my games with him. I should never have
Speaker 4: gone that far with him. Even though he committed suicide
Speaker 4: after he broke up with my faith, I still feel like,
Speaker 4: you know, if I hadn't been appelated him and made
Speaker 4: him feel like he was loved and then wasn't loved
Speaker 4: and then loved again, it would have been you know,
Speaker 4: may be different.
Speaker 1: I doubt there will be enough for petersbun Raven, but
Speaker 1: it's the closest I've heard to true contrition from Natalia.
Speaker 1: Back to Nikki and Natalia.
Speaker 7: Are there any other things that you want to say
Speaker 7: to anybody who's listening, whether it's to a general audience
Speaker 7: or whether it's two specific people who you may have affected.
Speaker 4: In general, I just say, be careful on the antitet,
Speaker 4: be careful who you trust, because not everyone is a
Speaker 4: genuine like I've learned that, like I have not been
Speaker 4: genuine and it's like, you know, I think I save
Speaker 4: another catfisher from doing what I did and get in
Speaker 4: jail time. I'd love to just stop doing it because
Speaker 4: you don't realize how many people you're hurting. You think
Speaker 4: you're not hurting anybody because you're not using real details
Speaker 4: or real names or anything like that. For you are
Speaker 4: because that photo you caart circulate and like one of
Speaker 4: your friends could bump into that person.
Speaker 1: Like you know, and just when you think she gets it, there's.
Speaker 4: This New Zealand's too small to play catfishing for, you know,
Speaker 4: in America, all good, play it all you like, because
Speaker 4: it's big enough you won't get caught. But New Zealand
Speaker 4: is way too small to catfish because suddenly someone's gonna know,
Speaker 4: somebody even knows their actual photo.
Speaker 1: An essence, don't get caught. It's almost impossible to know
Speaker 1: how many victims there are out there. Even while writing
Speaker 1: the script, I heard from one woman who commented on
Speaker 1: a Herald story about Natalia. Her name is Samantha and
Speaker 1: whose story goes back to two thousand and six, when
Speaker 1: Natalia catfished her then boyfriend and stole her face and
Speaker 1: details as well. That led to some major consequences in
Speaker 1: her personal life. Here's her words read by a voice actor.
Speaker 15: In twenty ten, my friend's home was rated by the
Speaker 15: police looking for me and computers and evidence of these
Speaker 15: alleged things I've been doing, Only it wasn't me at all.
Speaker 15: I remember telling the police at that time that I
Speaker 15: wouldn't have known who she was if she walked up
Speaker 15: and slapped me in the face. Nothing came of that
Speaker 15: until I was called in twenty eleven by a Manico
Speaker 15: homicide detective and asked to go on to the station
Speaker 15: for questioning. I still have a few issues with debt
Speaker 15: collectors because of her. I was shocked to see her
Speaker 15: face on my news feet I've spent years trying to
Speaker 15: forget her and the horrible things that were said about
Speaker 15: me online by other members of the public. It's something
Speaker 15: no one should ever have to go through.
Speaker 1: I asked Nikki about the impact of Natalia's catfishing on
Speaker 1: her victims, and this is what she said.
Speaker 7: For some of her victims that went for years, and
Speaker 7: they're going to be pulling a part every element of
Speaker 7: that and going over different parts.
Speaker 5: You know, if I had figured it.
Speaker 7: Out sooner ord And to me, that is probably the
Speaker 7: worst part, is that the loss of trust in your
Speaker 7: own ability to think and understand the world when it's
Speaker 7: not their fault at all, And the reason that they
Speaker 7: were vulnerable is because they were trusting and genuine and
Speaker 7: wanted to connect, and now they're punished for that. In
Speaker 7: the case of physical trauma, where somebody else has attacked you,
Speaker 7: it's easy to blame them and to understand that they've
Speaker 7: acted in a way that has affected you. When you
Speaker 7: have a mental attack, then you also can go through
Speaker 7: the blaming of yourself for allowing that to happen, when
Speaker 7: that's not fear on yourself.
Speaker 1: You're not a passive victim. You were actively involved with
Speaker 1: the individual. So where does this leave us? Natalia says
Speaker 1: she getting good help right now. She has a new
Speaker 1: care worker who she speaks enthusiastically about.
Speaker 5: So, I'm medically controlled from my schizophrenia, but I still
Speaker 5: have anxiety and thoughts.
Speaker 1: Thoughts that make you feel very uncomfortable. Yes, And in
Speaker 1: terms of the support that's around you, have you found
Speaker 1: a place where you're able to feel safe and stable.
Speaker 5: Yes, So I've got a new support worker. I go
Speaker 5: to church with my dad. I'm looking for a job,
Speaker 5: but that's hard with my background.
Speaker 1: She spoke about this back in twenty nineteen too.
Speaker 4: It's all I want is just that one chance. And
Speaker 4: you know I can prove some of it that, you know,
Speaker 4: if they give me a chance, I'll like I'll work
Speaker 4: extra hard, I'll walk you long hours.
Speaker 7: What skills do you think you have.
Speaker 4: I'm very good with phones and I'm very good with computers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Natalia does have a great sense of humor. She's
Speaker 1: no longer involved in Legacy. In one sense, that's a
Speaker 1: sad loss of a positive bond. In another sense, someone
Speaker 1: with Natalia's complex mental health needs is really outside Legacy's
Speaker 1: ability to manage fine when she's on AMDs, not so
Speaker 1: great at other times. She lost contact with Legacy when
Speaker 1: she met a guy and moved north to live with him.
Speaker 1: In the time it lasted, there were no fakes that
Speaker 1: I have found. I thought it might have been my
Speaker 1: investigation that steered her away from catfishing, but she told
Speaker 1: me her new man didn't want those fakes as a
Speaker 1: part of their life together. When was the last time
Speaker 1: you created a false profile? A year ago and there's
Speaker 1: been nothing in the last year.
Speaker 5: No, because my ex partner found them and deleted all
Speaker 5: of them.
Speaker 1: So those pictures aren't in circulation, aren't available to you anymore.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: I should note that this contradicts what Natalia told me
Speaker 1: earlier in the interview that she created twenty or so
Speaker 1: profiles in the last year. It's hard to know if
Speaker 1: one or both of those statements are lies, or if
Speaker 1: this is just another thing that Taria got wrong across
Speaker 1: the reality chasm. I didn't pick up on this during
Speaker 1: the interview, perhaps because this came around the time Natalia
Speaker 1: had told me she had stopped and I felt like,
Speaker 1: I've been here before. How can I know that's true?
Speaker 5: You can't. It's my word against your word and every
Speaker 5: other girl that I've ever stolen pictures from.
Speaker 1: NICKI asked her a similar question. How could she believe
Speaker 1: her when deceit was so much a part of her life.
Speaker 7: You've talked about some of your crimes have been fraud,
Speaker 7: some of your crimes have been deception. So how do
Speaker 7: we know that you're not being deceptive in any of
Speaker 7: the stories you're telling now?
Speaker 4: Because finally, it's my truth.
Speaker 1: At the time, Natalia spoke with Niki. She was still
Speaker 1: using Crystal and Sophie's faces to create false characters, So
Speaker 1: not true in twenty nineteen, and possibly not true now.
Speaker 1: There's much I've heard from Natalia that's not true, things
Speaker 1: that live across the reality chasm. And then there's something
Speaker 1: Natalia said to Nicki in twenty nineteen. These are words
Speaker 1: spoken at a time when she's still running false characters online.
Speaker 1: It's a time when she's still not being honest about
Speaker 1: what she's doing. I also think it's very hard for
Speaker 1: her to do, so, much harder than it is for
Speaker 1: most of us who don't need to navigate the reality
Speaker 1: chasm on a daily basis. So these words I found
Speaker 1: so arresting were likely not true at the time because
Speaker 1: she was still using Crystaline Sophie's faces to create false personas.
Speaker 1: But I'd like these words to one day be true
Speaker 1: for Natalia, And I just hope.
Speaker 4: That someone that's a thing just gets a little bit
Speaker 4: of self confidence and know that you know they're worth it.
Speaker 4: Doesn't matter what you've done, who you've done it with,
Speaker 4: everybody's worth it. And if you love yourself, then That's
Speaker 4: what my best friend told me. She said, love yourself
Speaker 4: and then other people will love you.
Speaker 1: Two.
Speaker 4: You got to love yourself first, and that's a hard
Speaker 4: one for people to be, like, oh, yeah, I love myself.
Speaker 4: But I can now say, yeah, I love my stuff. Yep,
Speaker 4: I'm fat and I've got glasses, but who cares. I
Speaker 4: still love myself.
Speaker 1: When I listened to Natalia speaking, this is what I
Speaker 1: hope for her. I hope she will find a place
Speaker 1: for herself in this world and stop hurting others. One
Speaker 1: thing I reminded Natalia of which you may remember from
Speaker 1: episode two, was how Natalie, the woman whose face was
Speaker 1: the face of Laura West, joked about the fact Natalia
Speaker 1: had had more romantic luck with her photos than she had.
Speaker 1: It's something Natalia remembers as well. Thirteen years on.
Speaker 5: I remember that comment because I was like, what the hell?
Speaker 5: That was the most randomist comment out of that whole
Speaker 5: conversation that I remember.
Speaker 1: What they meant by that was that you'd drawn in
Speaker 1: a lot of people over the years with your personality
Speaker 1: over messaging or over the phone. Have you tried just
Speaker 1: being you?
Speaker 5: No, because since the age of fifteen, everything has just
Speaker 5: gone downe stuff.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you this that and I'd sent
Speaker 1: to you before that I've always enjoyed our engagements, and
Speaker 1: I really appreciate our engagements, even though they're on difficult subjects.
Speaker 1: You have a really bright, EFFI bubbly personality. Do you
Speaker 1: see that in yourself?
Speaker 5: I used to be able to till I turned fifteen.
Speaker 5: I mean, after I turn fifteen, rething just downhill.
Speaker 1: I can see that you're having a hard time hearing
Speaker 1: me say.
Speaker 5: It's really uncomfortable because I don't know how to take it,
Speaker 5: because I'm so used to be calling the fat bitch
Speaker 5: and black bitch, the parents who don't want you, the
Speaker 5: parents who adopt you, that if they could have changed
Speaker 5: it now, they would change it now.
Speaker 1: I do mean it's sincerely. I know Natalia does not
Speaker 1: get the last word. It's true. I do want the
Speaker 1: best for her, but it's important to remember as she
Speaker 1: sets forth to find that place where she loves herself,
Speaker 1: that the damage remains. Months ago, I spoke to Bernie
Speaker 1: and Emma, the mum and daughter who lived in a
Speaker 1: small town near Christchurch with Emma's three children. I made
Speaker 1: contact with Bernie and Emma again to let them know
Speaker 1: the first episode was out, and that's when I found
Speaker 1: out from Bernie that Emma had gone.
Speaker 14: After we received Jaicole. We discussed that and it brought
Speaker 14: up some feelings of why she's still doing this. We
Speaker 14: were quite shocked, and we both thought it was a positive,
Speaker 14: you know, talking about it. We're not the only ones.
Speaker 14: Things were trying for a couple of weeks, and then
Speaker 14: I noticed Emma going down, not going down in a
Speaker 14: dark hole, but going out more, which she was entitled to.
Speaker 14: But you could see a big change in her. And
Speaker 14: then she moved out and sadly to say, she's relapsed
Speaker 14: and I don't look my daughter anymore.
Speaker 1: Emma has been restling with her own issues for years,
Speaker 1: all the way back when she was sixteen and met Natalia,
Speaker 1: who was posing as Laura. There wasn't unusual among many
Speaker 1: of those targeted by Natalia to find that there were
Speaker 1: other issues at play. It was almost as if this
Speaker 1: creative vulnerability that Natalia sensed that she was able to use.
Speaker 1: Even back then, Emma wrestled with substance abuse. You might
Speaker 1: recall that Laura West's death was almost immediately followed by
Speaker 1: Emma breaking her sobriety talking about those days, talking about
Speaker 1: Peter Russell, and Laura West. Bernie reckons it was healthy.
Speaker 14: It brought up memories that she had suppressed, you know,
Speaker 14: to hear her talk about Pete, she just shone. She
Speaker 14: was beautiful, she was smiling.
Speaker 1: They chatted about what had happened. Bernie recalled and it
Speaker 1: felt like they were working out something dark that needed
Speaker 1: to be gone.
Speaker 14: And then the repercussion of that was her memories and
Speaker 14: the demons, and it was a battle. It's hard to watch,
Speaker 14: and it was nothing I could do this. There was
Speaker 14: nothing I can do to stop this.
Speaker 6: Do you know where she is?
Speaker 14: I have no idea where my daughter is. If my
Speaker 14: phone rings private number, I'm scared it's the police. If
Speaker 14: I hear a knock on the door, I'm scared, it's
Speaker 14: the police.
Speaker 6: It's living in fear, border bird fear.
Speaker 16: The fear is that on I.
Speaker 14: Come and tell me my daughter is done an overdose
Speaker 14: and she's no longer with me now, and then I
Speaker 14: have to tell her children that Mum's no longer here
Speaker 14: in the thing. And this is a sad fact that
Speaker 14: this woman, the damage she's done, and she's not taken
Speaker 14: any acceptance all this. This is a lifetime of pain.
Speaker 14: It's the second generation that is suffering because of her sickness.
Speaker 14: She's not destroyed once. Life's keeps destroying. My grandkids don't
Speaker 14: have a mum no more, and that innocent victims in.
Speaker 4: All of this.
Speaker 1: There's three kids who Boonie is raising now without their
Speaker 1: mum and the house.
Speaker 6: And so for you, what's happening now goes back to
Speaker 6: the Talia Burgess. Is that right?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 14: The damage she's doing too, as I say, my grandkids
Speaker 14: because of her sickness. It's just ridiculous. She didn't think
Speaker 14: what the damage she was doing at the time to
Speaker 14: the damage she's done fourteen years later.
Speaker 6: One of the things that has become clear in revisiting
Speaker 6: the Tarlia's story, interviewing her and people connected to her, is.
Speaker 16: That she's very unwell and has quite a number of
Speaker 16: mental health issues that she has to cope with or
Speaker 16: doesn't cope with afy case. Maybe does it change your
Speaker 16: reflection on her involvement in your life that these underlying issues, No.
Speaker 14: I know that sounds hard.
Speaker 1: When Bernie listened to the first episode, it was after
Speaker 1: Emma had gone. It was hard for her to hear
Speaker 1: her daughter's voice. She found herself angry just so angry.
Speaker 14: I just I just don't understand it, and I don't
Speaker 14: understand her parents. I wonder if they had grandkids, how
Speaker 14: they would have liked this. The next generation been tortured.
Speaker 14: Would they accept it? That's my feeling, though I suppose
Speaker 14: I'm more a little bit bitter because they've got a family.
Speaker 14: My family's destroy it because of their family, and I
Speaker 14: can't forgive them.
Speaker 1: Bernie keeps a book in which she writes things that
Speaker 1: happen in her home, a book one day the children
Speaker 1: will be given, and she's recorded this episode in their life,
Speaker 1: part of a family history that she imagines the children
Speaker 1: will pass onward to their children.
Speaker 14: But I think it will explain a lot to them
Speaker 14: what happened with mum.
Speaker 1: And so this is where we end. It's not a
Speaker 1: place I thought I would fetch up. When I first
Speaker 1: spoke to Crystal, I told her I'd find a way
Speaker 1: to get her life back. I think it likely that
Speaker 1: now with this podcast, Crystal will have Natalia out of
Speaker 1: her life. Natalia has a great sense of self preservation
Speaker 1: and well, Crystal's just too hot to touch more. Crystal
Speaker 1: fakes will mean I return to this story again, and
Speaker 1: I think it likely the police will pay closer attention
Speaker 1: than they did in twenty nineteen. Natalia does not want
Speaker 1: to go back to prison. I have enormous faith in
Speaker 1: the power of journalism. As I said earlier in this podcast,
Speaker 1: I thought there'd be a law changed, or some shift
Speaker 1: and messas control of Facebook rps, even Natalia arrested and
Speaker 1: jailed again. But I don't think any one of those
Speaker 1: things will stop there being another Crystal or Sophie or
Speaker 1: Samantha or Natalie or any of the others whose images
Speaker 1: were stolen to bring life to Natalia's fantasies. But all
Speaker 1: of those things and more together might stop Natalia. Like
Speaker 1: Nicki says, the answer lies with all of us.
Speaker 7: That yes, the social media platforms have a responsibility to
Speaker 7: shut things down when they know about it, but there's
Speaker 7: also responsibility in humans to be good humans. I don't
Speaker 7: think the blame rests entirely on Facebook or social media platforms.
Speaker 7: The blame doesn't rest on Natalia, it doesn't rest entirely
Speaker 7: on the prison system, it doesn't rest entirely on the
Speaker 7: people that she's interacted with. We all have a part
Speaker 7: to play in this, and things that come up for
Speaker 7: me are. How do we balance compassion and empathy even
Speaker 7: for Natalia and what has led her to live this
Speaker 7: kind of life, while also making her accountable to the
Speaker 7: point that it doesn't happen again. How do we arm
Speaker 7: vulnerable Internet users with the tools to enhance discernment about who.
Speaker 5: They interact with online.
Speaker 7: How do we hold social media platforms accountable for allowing
Speaker 7: people to create multiple fact profiles over and over again,
Speaker 7: and then not to close them down even when they
Speaker 7: have been reported as fake.
Speaker 1: I think Nicky's right. There is no one magical solution
Speaker 1: that I've found that can stop Natalia, no new law
Speaker 1: or intervention specifically tailored around the extreme nature of what
Speaker 1: she has done. I came into the story expecting to
Speaker 1: find an answer. But I think this story, the story
Speaker 1: of Natalia Burgess, the puppeteer, the Facebook predator, it's really
Speaker 1: a cautionary tale for the Internet age, an example of
Speaker 1: just how bad things can get in this world that's
Speaker 1: so reliant on the Internet, this digital beast that has
Speaker 1: touched every aspect of our lives. It's a world that
Speaker 1: Natalia understands and has mastered better than most, and she's
Speaker 1: used that knowledge to hide from the issues in the
Speaker 1: trauma of her life, and in doing so, has created
Speaker 1: countless more victims. Bernie thought she was doing the right
Speaker 1: thing fourteen years ago when she investigated her daughter Emma's
Speaker 1: new online friend, but the puppeteer got the better of them. Yet,
Speaker 1: while other victims want someone to intervene, Bernie understands the
Speaker 1: scale of the issue.
Speaker 14: The way technology is today, I don't think there's anything
Speaker 14: anyone can do. Even prisoners are entitled to check their emails.
Speaker 14: There is nothing the web. Technology is so there.
Speaker 1: My producer Ethan then asked Bernie about how this whole
Speaker 1: saga has changed her approach to the Internet now, particularly
Speaker 1: raising her three jen al for grandchildren.
Speaker 14: It has made me lock every device I have up
Speaker 14: in knots and all safety measures are on the computer.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 14: It has taught us a valuable lesson.
Speaker 16: That's one thing for us, a lesson at a terrible cost.
Speaker 14: Yeah, but it's also taught the kids respect. The young
Speaker 14: ones respect it. It's not a granted you're going to
Speaker 14: use it. It's a device to be earned, and I
Speaker 14: touch what. I'm very lucky where they are concerned. If
Speaker 14: they're not sure, I might have to unlock it. To
Speaker 14: have a look at it, and as I'm happy with it,
Speaker 14: you know, as they don't go and hack things, they
Speaker 14: come and talk about it or what's that on their
Speaker 14: they're very opens. Then it's positive. But if we can
Speaker 14: change their thinking on technology, then it's a positive and
Speaker 14: they will take it into their families and say, how
Speaker 14: you've got to be really careful. I know of the story,
Speaker 14: and it's not just technology, as people be wary of people,
Speaker 14: but have trust, but never one hundred percent trust. Some
Speaker 14: people aren't who they are. It's talking.
Speaker 6: Well, that's one head. Give the family story to pass
Speaker 6: them down the generations.
Speaker 14: Oh isn't it.
Speaker 6: Let me tell you about the puppeteer, about the color. Okay, Bernie,
Speaker 6: should we stop there?
Speaker 1: You've been those things are chasing ghosts the Puppeteer. Follow
Speaker 1: the podcast and the Chasing Ghost feed on iHeartRadio or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find more
Speaker 1: on this case at inzidherld dot co dot inz ethanmselves
Speaker 1: as my producer with audio engineering by Alistair Boys. Thanks
Speaker 1: to my colleagues for lending their voices to this episode.
Speaker 1: If you have a story about this case, contact me
Speaker 1: at David dot Fisher at inzidherld dot co dot z
Speaker 1: and if you believe you've encountered behavior online that matches
Speaker 1: what we've discussed in this series, you can find help
Speaker 1: at netsafe dot org dot ZED. But if you feel
Speaker 1: at risk, don't hesitate contact police