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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Once upon a Time I disappeared. I was one person

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Speaker 2: one day and the next someone else, both the same

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Speaker 2: woman I'd always been, and also utterly eerily unfamiliar. There

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Speaker 2: was a story in this, I felt, one built around

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Speaker 2: a universal question, how do you know who you are?

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Speaker 2: Answers would be grounded in the body and bound to memory.

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Speaker 2: But for many years I could not write it. I

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Speaker 2: couldn't figure out where to begin, and I had no ending. Moreover,

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Speaker 2: trauma had scrambled my understanding, the need to make meanings.

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Speaker 2: Stymied by an inability to see, I was unable to

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Speaker 2: sink beneath the surface of events down to the truth

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Speaker 2: of who had done, what and why.

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Speaker 1: That's Karen Palmer, author of several novels and the memoir

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Speaker 1: She's Under Here. Karen's a harrowing story of a vulnerable

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Speaker 1: young woman who finds herself in the wrong place, at

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Speaker 1: the wrong time, in the wrong circumstances, without the tools

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Speaker 1: or experience to recognize the danger she's in until finally

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Speaker 1: she does. It's also a story of extraordinary resilience and

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Speaker 1: the power of love to transcend seemingly impossible odds. I'm

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Speaker 1: Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets that

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Speaker 1: are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others,

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Speaker 1: and the secrets we keep from ourselves.

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Speaker 2: I am an adopted only child, and my parents were

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Speaker 2: transplanted New Yorkers. They were both children of Irish immigrants

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Speaker 2: who moved to New York City, probably around the turn

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Speaker 2: of the century. And both my parents grew up during

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Speaker 2: the Depression, and my father went off to World War Two,

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Speaker 2: and my mother, who was I guess about five years

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Speaker 2: younger than him at the time he left the neighborhood

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Speaker 2: in New York. She was still in high school and

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Speaker 2: he kind of knew her from seeing her around, but

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Speaker 2: he didn't know her know her.

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Speaker 3: By the time he got.

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Speaker 2: Back after the war, she was all grown up and

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Speaker 2: she had a job as a secretary down on Wall Street,

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Speaker 2: and she caught his eye as a returning serviceman. He

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Speaker 2: was still wearing his uniform and going out drinking, you know,

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Speaker 2: with his friends. And my mother used to tell this

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Speaker 2: story that when she first saw him, she was very disdainful,

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Speaker 2: you know, she called him, oh, those flyboys, you know

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Speaker 2: that they were showing off in their uniform, and she

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Speaker 2: was at the time engaged to marry a navy guy,

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Speaker 2: and within two weeks of having met my father, she

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Speaker 2: broke off her engagement and was wildly in love with

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Speaker 2: this man that she thought was not for her on

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Speaker 2: first sight. My mom was the youngest of seven children,

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Speaker 2: and my grandmother raised all the kids on her own

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Speaker 2: because her husband had run off with another woman in

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Speaker 2: the middle of the depression. So, you know, these kids

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Speaker 2: lived in Hell's Kitchen in you know, in a small apartment,

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Speaker 2: all seven of them.

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Speaker 3: The boy that was just above.

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Speaker 2: Her in age died when he was seven years old.

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Speaker 2: He fell down an elevator shaft in the building, and

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Speaker 2: so there was, you know, there was a certain amount

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Speaker 2: of that kind of Irish tragic aura to her family,

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Speaker 2: whereas my father's family was more what they used to

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Speaker 2: call lace curtain Irish, so they, you know, my mother

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Speaker 2: would have put it that his family put on airs.

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Speaker 2: There were only three children in his family, which was

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Speaker 2: quite unusual for that era to only have three. So

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Speaker 2: they had they had different kinds of upbringings. And after

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Speaker 2: the war, my dad was very ill. Towards the end,

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Speaker 2: he came down with something that they thought was Hodgkins lymphoma,

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Speaker 2: and Walter Reed gave him these massive doses of radiation

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Speaker 2: to treat it. When it turned out that wasn't what

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Speaker 2: he had, but it had the side effect of making

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Speaker 2: him sterile, which they didn't know for many years. You know,

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Speaker 2: in those days, they didn't put the lead apron over you.

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Speaker 2: They just you know, blasted you. So they tried for

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Speaker 2: ten years to have a baby and couldn't, and then

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Speaker 2: they adopted me. So I was brought into this this

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Speaker 2: situation where my dad, who was a fairly serious alcoholic,

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Speaker 2: cleaned up his act for a couple of years while

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Speaker 2: they were adopting me, you know, because they had social

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Speaker 2: workers come around and interview them and all that. My

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Speaker 2: mom was very hopeful that the marriage, which had gotten

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Speaker 2: rocky over those ten years, would get back on track,

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Speaker 2: and he cleaned up for the adoption, but as soon

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Speaker 2: as it was all over, he was a heavy drinker again.

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Speaker 2: He was a binge drinker, so you never knew when

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Speaker 2: he was going to go off. He would be fine,

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Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden he'd be holed up

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Speaker 2: in the bedroom, you know, with bottles of whiskey and

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Speaker 2: wouldn't come out for two weeks, and the situation in

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Speaker 2: the house was tense and there was a lot of fighting.

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Speaker 2: And my mother was extremely religious and wouldn't have gotten

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Speaker 2: a divorce because she believed, you know, you get married,

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Speaker 2: you make the value in it for life. But she

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Speaker 2: was extremely unhappy in the marriage, so she put a

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Speaker 2: lot of her attention on me as her child and

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Speaker 2: the only one in the house that she could talk to,

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Speaker 2: because she and my father had really a very bad marriage.

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Speaker 1: And you were in la by that time, right, Your

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Speaker 1: parents had moved west.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, my parents moved west right after the war, and

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Speaker 2: then ten years later they adopted me. They were the

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Speaker 2: only ones in their families to move. Everybody else stayed

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Speaker 2: back east. Everyone and my dad wanted to be a

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Speaker 2: newspaper man. He had a brother in law who worked

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Speaker 2: for the Washington Post, and he admired this brother in

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Speaker 2: law so much that he thought that what he wanted

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Speaker 2: to do after he got out of the service was

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Speaker 2: worked for a newspaper. So he faked his graduation from

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Speaker 2: high school for his mother's sake, so that he could walk,

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Speaker 2: you know, in the auditorium up on the stage and

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Speaker 2: pretend to get his diploma. When he did not in

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Speaker 2: fact graduate, because he had ditched so much school as

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Speaker 2: a youngster. But when he got out of the army,

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Speaker 2: he went on the GI bill to Columbia for a

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Speaker 2: year and study journalism, and rather than go all the

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Speaker 2: way through a degree program, he was very impatient, and

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Speaker 2: he thought the best way to get a job on

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Speaker 2: a newspaper would be to first work for a small

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Speaker 2: town paper, which after my parents got married, they lived

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Speaker 2: for a year in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and he got

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Speaker 2: a job working on their newspaper, and then from there

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Speaker 2: they moved to Los Angeles, and he went through this

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Speaker 2: series of maneuvers, you know, with phony clips and you know,

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Speaker 2: all this stuff in order to get a job at

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Speaker 2: what was then called the Herald Express, which was kind

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Speaker 2: of a slightly yellow newspaper, very sensationalist, and that was

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Speaker 2: his first newspaper job.

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Speaker 1: Karen grows up on a steep hill in Silver Lake,

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles, as an only child in a neighborhood without

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Speaker 1: many other kids. She learns early how to keep herself company,

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Speaker 1: building elaborate inner worlds to fill the quiet. Her mother's

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Speaker 1: attention is intense consuming, her father's is almost non existent.

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Speaker 1: Karen lives in the space between too much and not enough,

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Speaker 1: and then at fifteen, everything shifts. She becomes pregnant. In

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Speaker 1: her Catholic family. During that era, there is no debate

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Speaker 1: about what will happen. She'll carry the baby, and the

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Speaker 1: baby will be placed for adoption, and so forms a

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Speaker 1: certain symmetry.

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Speaker 2: She was very volatile during that time. On the one hand,

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Speaker 2: she was supportive in her way, given that there was

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Speaker 2: only one outcome for this, but she was you know.

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Speaker 2: She early on took me to the doctor and she

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Speaker 2: was kind, which was very unexpected. I expected her to

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Speaker 2: be furious. But as the pregnancy progressed, she became obsessed

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Speaker 2: with what she termed my lack of remorse.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 2: It's like she was looking for something from me that

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Speaker 2: she wasn't seeing. And part of the form that that

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Speaker 2: took was that because I was adopted myself, and because

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Speaker 2: the implication of that was that my birth mother had

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Speaker 2: also had sex.

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Speaker 3: Outside of marriage, you know, So.

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Speaker 2: I always felt that she at that point it was

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Speaker 2: when she first started to think of me as less

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Speaker 2: her child and maybe more related to the woman who

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Speaker 2: gave me up. It's like she didn't understand me once

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Speaker 2: I became a teenager. We were very close to when

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Speaker 2: I was a child, but once, you know, the hormones

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Speaker 2: hit and the rebellion and all that normal teenage stuff.

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Speaker 2: She was beside herself and wanted desperately to control me

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Speaker 2: and I wasn't having it, and so she didn't know

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Speaker 2: what to do.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes so much sense. And then you're sent

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Speaker 1: to this institution called Saint Anne's where you're going to

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Speaker 1: have the baby. Do you know at that time that

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Speaker 1: you were also adopted from Saint Anne's. Did you know

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Speaker 1: that that's where you started out your life?

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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I did know.

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Speaker 2: One thing my parents did about my adoption is I

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Speaker 2: don't ever remember not knowing, so they must have told

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Speaker 2: me really early on. And I was raised to feel

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Speaker 2: that I had been chosen and that it wasn't that

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Speaker 2: somebody didn't want me. It's that my adoptive parents wanted

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Speaker 2: a child so badly that they, you know, they went

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Speaker 2: and picked me out of all the so their children,

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Speaker 2: and that was kind of the fairy tale that they

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Speaker 2: constructed for me. I knew I had been born in

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Speaker 2: Saint Anne's because it was not far from our house,

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Speaker 2: and I think my mother must have talked about it

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Speaker 2: so that when I got pregnant, it was, you know,

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Speaker 2: rather than look for some home for unwed mothers that

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Speaker 2: was at a distance, which I got. I have never

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Speaker 2: thought about this before. That might have made more sense.

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Speaker 2: She just picked this place where I had myself been born.

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Speaker 2: They had a hospital ward in this facility, so it

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Speaker 2: wasn't just dorm rooms in a place to live while

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Speaker 2: you were waiting out your pregnancy. You also gave birth

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Speaker 2: on the premises.

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Speaker 1: Karen gives birth to a son when she's just sixteen.

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Speaker 1: She holds him for only an hour, an hour that

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Speaker 1: feels both infinite and unbearably brief. The decision to relinquish

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Speaker 1: him has already been made. Verurse reassures her that it'll

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Speaker 1: be fine. She'll have other children. The nurse tells her.

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Speaker 1: Karen receives one polaroid snapshot of her child, the only

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Speaker 1: trace of him once the door closes. In the meantime,

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Speaker 1: unbeknownst to her, another loss is looming. Her father has cancer,

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Speaker 1: information that's been kept from her until after she returns home.

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Speaker 1: When he dies soon after his illness is revealed to her,

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Speaker 1: she is suddenly a teenager carrying two profound absences at

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Speaker 1: once and all. Before finishing high school, Karen takes a

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Speaker 1: part time job at an office supply company. She's seventeen,

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Speaker 1: her boss, Gil is thirty six. Here with Gil, her

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Speaker 1: vulnerability becomes a kind of magnet. She is raw from

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Speaker 1: all she's endured, grief, secrecy, shame, and Gil steps into

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Speaker 1: that space. There is an intoxicating world of attention and attraction,

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Speaker 1: a heady combination that distracts Karen from a sense that

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Speaker 1: something might be a miss, And in those early days,

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Speaker 1: what happens between them begins to shape the rest of

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Speaker 1: her life.

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Speaker 2: I was drawn to him initially because after the experience

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Speaker 2: I had with the pregnancy and giving up my son,

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Speaker 2: I could no longer deal with teenage boys. It's like

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Speaker 2: they were a completely different species to me now. And

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Speaker 2: he was older, and he had a business, and he

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Speaker 2: was so interested in me, you know. It's like he

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Speaker 2: wanted to know what I had to say, and I

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Speaker 2: was so grieving. Something that I have thought since is

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Speaker 2: that I mistook grief for maturity.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 2: I thought I was a way more mature person than

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Speaker 2: I was because I had had this hard experience, and

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Speaker 2: so I didn't see the age difference. Clearly, when I

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Speaker 2: look back on what he was doing now, it seems

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Speaker 2: very clear that it was grooming. I would not have

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Speaker 2: had the language for that at the time at all.

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Speaker 2: And then also, it was the seventies and you had

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Speaker 2: Roman Polanski and you had Jack Nicholson, and you had

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Speaker 2: all these semi famous men running around with teenagers and

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Speaker 2: nobody thought anything of it. So there was also this

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Speaker 2: atmosphere of anything goes and a level of promiscuity that

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Speaker 2: disappeared once the AIDS crisis hit.

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Speaker 3: So this was just ahead of that.

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Speaker 2: And again I had been through this experience and I

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Speaker 2: thought I was perfectly prepared to step into a life

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Speaker 2: with someone this month than me.

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Speaker 1: So how long before you marry him?

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Speaker 2: Well, we lived together for I think six years, so

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Speaker 2: it's like we were married, but we didn't actually do

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Speaker 2: this ceremony until I was twenty two.

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Speaker 1: And how did your parents feel about it? Your mom,

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Speaker 1: because your dad had passed away.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think my mom. See this is sort of

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Speaker 2: a terrible thing to say about her, but I think

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Speaker 2: my mom, who never really liked him that much, she

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Speaker 2: you know, she recognized him. He was also a New Yorker,

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Speaker 2: he had moved from New York to California after being

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Speaker 2: in the service, and I think she felt like she

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Speaker 2: had his number, but he was older. She thought he

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Speaker 2: would take care of me, and she also thought that

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Speaker 2: he would understand this experience I had gone through and

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Speaker 2: not think of me as spoiled goods, you know, because

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Speaker 2: I think that's the way her mind ran is she

250
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Speaker 2: you know, some part of her was like, well, no

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Speaker 2: man is ever going to want her like what she did,

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Speaker 2: and so she swallowed it, even though she was wary.

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Speaker 1: But Karen doesn't feel like spoiled goods, not at all

254
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Speaker 1: for starters. She feels very mature and also does not

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Speaker 1: believe her teenage pregnancy to be a disqualifying thing. Besides,

256
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:34,480
Speaker 1: Gill is intoxicating sexy. He also tells her that he'll

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Speaker 1: take care of her always, that he'll be there for

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Speaker 1: her no matter what, that as long as she's with him,

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Speaker 1: she'll be safe. There are red flags waving all over

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Speaker 1: the place, but she's a teenager and she doesn't see them.

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Speaker 2: There's a word I ran across when I was working

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Speaker 2: on the project that it's like the frog the boiling

263
00:16:56,720 --> 00:17:04,000
Speaker 2: frog metaphor, But to me, it's more specific it's called mithradatism,

264
00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:10,720
Speaker 2: which is the process of ingesting self administering small amounts

265
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Speaker 2: of poison so that when you get the full dose

266
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Speaker 2: it won't affect you. I feel like I participated in

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Speaker 2: some of the things that I saw in him that

268
00:17:24,359 --> 00:17:27,159
Speaker 2: should have been huge red flags, like you know this

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00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:31,360
Speaker 2: this sort of petty criminality, and you know, selling stolen

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Speaker 2: goods and having multiple identification and I thought, oh, this

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Speaker 2: just makes him interesting. He's kind of an outlaw. And

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Speaker 2: I went from seeing him that way to as I

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00:17:46,119 --> 00:17:50,400
Speaker 2: got older and I had children and I grew up,

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Speaker 2: then it became clearer and clearer to me that he

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Speaker 2: was actually a very dangerous person. And I spent fourteen

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00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:02,679
Speaker 2: years learning that lesson. So it is a long time.

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Speaker 1: Karen and Gil are seven years into their relationship when

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Speaker 1: their daughter, Erin is born. Erin is followed four and

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Speaker 1: a half years later by another daughter, Amy. Gil already

280
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Speaker 1: has kids from his first marriage, and Karen sees him

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Speaker 1: as a loving and involved father, a huge draw given

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Speaker 1: her own father's emotional absence, so she ignores a lot

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Speaker 1: of things. There's the fact that he denies owning a gun,

284
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Speaker 1: a lie. There is physical violence. Gil is regularly unfaithful,

285
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Speaker 1: and Karen is diagnosed with numerous venereal diseases. Even as

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00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:47,359
Speaker 1: Gil gaslights her, telling her she must have picked them

287
00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:51,000
Speaker 1: up on toilet seats, but then he goes too far.

288
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Speaker 1: He locks her in a broom closet.

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Speaker 2: There was a breaking point because that particular incident actually

290
00:19:01,600 --> 00:19:05,280
Speaker 2: happened during a phase in which things were pretty good

291
00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:08,760
Speaker 2: between us. You know, he had gotten a new job,

292
00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:12,760
Speaker 2: and he was doing well in the job, and the

293
00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:16,119
Speaker 2: kids were at a really fun age, and you know,

294
00:19:16,119 --> 00:19:18,520
Speaker 2: it was cyclical. Things would be good and then they'd

295
00:19:18,520 --> 00:19:21,560
Speaker 2: be bad, and good and then bad, but they were good.

296
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Speaker 3: We were living in Marin.

297
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Speaker 2: County and we were due to go into San Francisco

298
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Speaker 2: that day with the girls, just to spend the day

299
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Speaker 2: in the city, and they were out in the car.

300
00:19:32,840 --> 00:19:35,119
Speaker 2: I was getting some stuff ready in the house to

301
00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:38,880
Speaker 2: bring in the car, and he came back in and

302
00:19:39,280 --> 00:19:42,240
Speaker 2: shoved me in the broom closet and locked it and left.

303
00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:47,760
Speaker 2: I cannot remember that it was precipitated by something. Perhaps

304
00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:51,679
Speaker 2: it was, but I really think it was just casual cruelty.

305
00:19:51,920 --> 00:19:55,159
Speaker 2: You know, he was annoyed for some reason that I

306
00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:57,760
Speaker 2: wasn't aware of. You know, he was always telling me

307
00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:00,439
Speaker 2: things like, get your head out of your ass. You know,

308
00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:04,040
Speaker 2: you're being dumb, you're stupid, you know, all those kinds

309
00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:08,600
Speaker 2: of criticisms. And so he, for whatever reason, did this

310
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Speaker 2: and then left me in there for several hours. And

311
00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:15,800
Speaker 2: I had a lot of time to think. When I

312
00:20:15,880 --> 00:20:17,760
Speaker 2: was in there. You know, I was a young mom.

313
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Speaker 2: I had these two young kids, I had a job,

314
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Speaker 2: I went to school. I never had any time to myself,

315
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Speaker 2: and I had some time to myself in this closet.

316
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Speaker 2: And by the end of my time there, what occurred

317
00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:34,520
Speaker 2: to me, because I couldn't think of a precipitating event,

318
00:20:35,440 --> 00:20:39,400
Speaker 2: was that he didn't love me. You know, I thought, oh,

319
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Speaker 2: this is a revelation, he doesn't love me. But the

320
00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:48,520
Speaker 2: more important thing that I came to after that event

321
00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:53,360
Speaker 2: was that I realized I didn't love him anymore. And

322
00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:57,440
Speaker 2: that's what changed everything, was my falling out of love

323
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Speaker 2: with him.

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00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:03,560
Speaker 1: An other important revelation is soon forthcoming when Karen and

325
00:21:03,600 --> 00:21:05,800
Speaker 1: her family take a trip to la and stay with

326
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Speaker 1: their friends, Vinnie and his wife.

327
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Speaker 2: We had been friends for such a long time, and

328
00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:16,600
Speaker 2: because we knew each other while we were involved with others,

329
00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:19,760
Speaker 2: we never thought of each other as for us. I

330
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:22,840
Speaker 2: thought he was wonderful, I thought he was interesting. I

331
00:21:22,920 --> 00:21:27,640
Speaker 2: thought he was very sexy guy, very smart. I never

332
00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:31,160
Speaker 2: thought of him as someone for me, and I don't

333
00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:33,640
Speaker 2: think he necessarily thought of me as.

334
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Speaker 3: Someone for him.

335
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:36,920
Speaker 2: Like I used to joke around with him that of

336
00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:40,640
Speaker 2: all my husband's friends, he's the only one that never

337
00:21:40,640 --> 00:21:44,520
Speaker 2: made a pass at me. So we didn't see each

338
00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:47,920
Speaker 2: other that way. And then on this trip, I don't

339
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 2: remember for sure what was going on with him and

340
00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:52,680
Speaker 2: his wife. Things weren't good between them. He was really

341
00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:56,760
Speaker 2: unhappy and I was really unhappy. And we took this

342
00:21:56,840 --> 00:21:58,920
Speaker 2: walk in the middle of the night because we were

343
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:02,280
Speaker 2: making too much noise talking and we were told, you know,

344
00:22:03,040 --> 00:22:06,600
Speaker 2: or get out and go talk somewhere else, so we did,

345
00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 2: and at some point over the course of this walk,

346
00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:12,800
Speaker 2: we just kind of looked at each other and it

347
00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:18,840
Speaker 2: was like, oh, you you know, we had no idea,

348
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:22,000
Speaker 2: and it was really just like it was the thunderbolt.

349
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Speaker 1: And after that thunderbolt, fairly quickly you're both resolved that

350
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:32,880
Speaker 1: you have to be together, and you both end your marriages.

351
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Speaker 1: And this is when Gil, who already was such a

352
00:22:40,320 --> 00:22:44,399
Speaker 1: dangerous human. This is when he sort of kicks into

353
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:50,119
Speaker 1: high gear. Yeah, and it seems like he's willing to

354
00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:55,159
Speaker 1: let you go, but he is definitely not willing to

355
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:56,920
Speaker 1: let you go with Vinnie.

356
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Speaker 3: Right.

357
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:03,560
Speaker 2: Although I sometimes if I think about this, it was

358
00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:07,480
Speaker 2: worse because it was Vinny, but I think it wouldn't

359
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:11,119
Speaker 2: have mattered as soon as there was somebody else in

360
00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:11,720
Speaker 2: the picture.

361
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 3: He would not have tolerated it.

362
00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:16,879
Speaker 2: It was a thousand times worse because it was a

363
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:22,280
Speaker 2: friend of his, So that had the effect of accelerating

364
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:25,920
Speaker 2: every awful thing he did in his effort to get

365
00:23:25,960 --> 00:23:27,920
Speaker 2: me to do what he wanted me to do.

366
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Speaker 1: So there's this night that you're on the phone with

367
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:36,960
Speaker 1: Vinnie and you're making plans and you think that you're

368
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 1: in a safe space to be talking to him, and

369
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:44,040
Speaker 1: that it comes clear that Gil has been lurking right there,

370
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,920
Speaker 1: and you know, it's very sort of chilling moment. There

371
00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:51,200
Speaker 1: are so many places where it feels like this could

372
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:54,080
Speaker 1: just be it right here, and you know he's kind

373
00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:57,120
Speaker 1: of like you hang up and he's muttering like what

374
00:23:57,160 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: to do? What to do? What should I do? And

375
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:03,720
Speaker 1: you ask him what are you thinking? And he says

376
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 1: snakes and filths, baby snakes and silts. What did that

377
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 1: mean to you?

378
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 2: I think what it meant to me is that what

379
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:19,440
Speaker 2: went on in his head was so much worse than

380
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 2: anything I could have imagined. It wasn't just him him

381
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 2: lying there. He was lying on the floor with his

382
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,680
Speaker 2: head partly into the room, and the room was dark,

383
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:32,440
Speaker 2: so I didn't see him. So he had been lying

384
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 2: there listening, and I thought it was okay to talk

385
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 2: because he had gotten very drunk and passed out, so

386
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 2: I assumed he was asleep. And it's not like he

387
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 2: could have said to me, you know, you did this

388
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 2: terrible thing to me, or you're betraying me, or it wasn't.

389
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:56,760
Speaker 2: I'm hurt, you know. I we're married and you're my

390
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:00,640
Speaker 2: wife and we have children, and I'm hurt to discover

391
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 2: that you're doing this.

392
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 3: It was you're going to pay.

393
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 2: The stuff that's running through my head is all about

394
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 2: how you're going to pay.

395
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.

396
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:34,760
Speaker 1: Karen does what she has to do. She gets her

397
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:39,160
Speaker 1: daughters and goes drives hours and hours away to Carlsbad,

398
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:41,760
Speaker 1: where her mother is now living in a mobile home. Park.

399
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: It's a kind of practice run, a rehearsal for leaving

400
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 1: Gil for good. When they arrive, her mother's reaction is blunt,

401
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: almost dismissive. Why are you leaving him? Is it the drinking?

402
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 1: Karen tells her the truth that she's in love with

403
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: someone else. Her mother scuffs love, She says, grow up.

404
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:09,119
Speaker 1: A woman disappointed by love too many times has little

405
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 1: patience for her daughter's hope. While Karen is hiding out,

406
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: Gil tracks her down. She hopes their conversations will be reasonable,

407
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:21,879
Speaker 1: but reasonable they are not. He wants her to come home,

408
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 1: and in truth, Karen wants to come home to her

409
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:29,680
Speaker 1: older daughter, Erin has school routines a life Aarin doesn't

410
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:33,119
Speaker 1: want to disrupt. Gil promises he won't be there, that

411
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: he'll clear out so that she and the girls can

412
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:40,879
Speaker 1: return safely. So she drives back, bracing herself, and what

413
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 1: she finds when she walks through the door will mark

414
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:46,640
Speaker 1: yet another inflection point.

415
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:53,159
Speaker 2: We left in the late afternoon and got home probably

416
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:58,439
Speaker 2: around midnight, so the kids were very sleepy, and we

417
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:03,160
Speaker 2: came into the apartment. Apartment was dark, and it had

418
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 2: you know that feeling even when you can't see the

419
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:09,200
Speaker 2: feeling of an empty house or in an empty apartment.

420
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:13,919
Speaker 2: It's like I could feel that he wasn't there. But

421
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 2: there was this very faint smell of fire, and I thought, well,

422
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,399
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know we had a fireplace, so

423
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 2: he had a fire, but he's not here. So I

424
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:31,879
Speaker 2: put the kids to bed, and I was putting toys away,

425
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 2: but my gaze falls upon this row of pictures that

426
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:38,919
Speaker 2: we had on the wall over the kid's toy box,

427
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 2: and like, there's something wrong with the way the pictures

428
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 2: look to me. So I got up and went over

429
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 2: to them and looked at them, and they seem normal,

430
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:55,119
Speaker 2: until I realized that in one of the frames, you know,

431
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 2: the matting is there, but the photograph is gone. And

432
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 2: I couldn't, for the life of me, remember what the

433
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:05,720
Speaker 2: photograph was. And then the next one, which was a

434
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 2: picture from our wedding, his head has been cut out

435
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 2: of the picture. So it was on the steps of

436
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 2: the church and the wedding party standing there, and I'm

437
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,959
Speaker 2: standing beside him, and all the you know, the grooms

438
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 2: are on one side and the bride'smaids are on the other,

439
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 2: and he's taken this big chunk out of the photograph.

440
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:30,440
Speaker 2: What it made me think then, is, oh my god,

441
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 2: what has he done to the photographs? So I ran

442
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 2: into the kitchen. We had this cabinet where we kept

443
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 2: all our you know, photo albums and paperwork, you know,

444
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 2: all the stuff that we that we owned, the lease

445
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 2: and the birth certificates and all that kind of stuff.

446
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 2: And I pulled out the box where we kept the

447
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 2: recent snapshots of the girls, and they seemed to be fine,

448
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 2: like the pictures. I was worried that he had done

449
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 2: something to the pictures of the girls and that I

450
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 2: would have lost them, and they seemed to be fine.

451
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 2: But as I was shuffling through them, I saw that

452
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 2: there were more of these photos of him.

453
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 3: With his head cut out.

454
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 2: And it took some looking at them to finally realize

455
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 2: that he'd only done that in the photos where he

456
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 2: was with me, you know. There were other photos of

457
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:20,920
Speaker 2: him with the kids or with friends or his family

458
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 2: or whatever, and there he is in the photograph is intact.

459
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 2: But in these photographs where we're in it together, he's

460
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 2: cut his head out. And I got scared. So I

461
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 2: pulled out my mother's photo albums. When she retired to

462
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 2: this mobile home park, she gave me all the family

463
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 2: photo albums because I think she was trying to.

464
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 3: Ease the emotional clutter.

465
00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 2: You know, she was starting a new phase of her

466
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 2: life and she was not a big one for dwelling

467
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 2: on the past, and she knew I loved all that stuff,

468
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 2: like I loved the family photo albums. So I open

469
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 2: up like my baby book, you know, where my mom

470
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 2: had all my pictures, and they were all gone, everything,

471
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 2: and it was gone, all of it. And then I

472
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:14,520
Speaker 2: pulled out other albums you know that my mom had

473
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 2: from her family in New York. Everybody gone, everybody whatever

474
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 2: pictures we had in my dad all gone.

475
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 3: So he had gone through.

476
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 2: And again, because of the smell of fire, I assumed

477
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 2: that he had burned all this stuff, and that is

478
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 2: in fact what he did.

479
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: You know, it's striking me that the psychological warfare of

480
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: that is particularly I mean, it would be awful for anyone,

481
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: but it's particularly awful for an adoptee. It's like, yes,

482
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: you've had your adoptive family, all proof of it ripped

483
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: out from underneath you, having also, as an adoptee, never

484
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 1: known anything about your birth.

485
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 2: Family, right right, It wasn't erasure yeah, you know, it's

486
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 2: like he was trying to erase me.

487
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: But Gil takes the erasure further. When Karen opens her

488
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: lock box for which Gil knows the combination, she opens

489
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: the envelope where she's kept the single existing polaroid of

490
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: her newborn son, and it's gone. The envelope is empty.

491
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: Gil has burned it.

492
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 2: After finding all these this discovery that he'd burned everything,

493
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 2: I did finally go to bed and slept for a

494
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 2: couple of hours, and then I got up and started

495
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 2: making breakfast for the girls. And I was carrying the

496
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 2: pot of water over to the stove to boil it

497
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 2: for oatmeal, and in between the burners there was a

498
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 2: single bullet sitting there between the burners. So that was

499
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 2: this message that he had left for me to find.

500
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: So you proceed to hide further, you and Vinnie. You

501
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: go away from there with the girls.

502
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 3: Ninety miles south.

503
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 2: Ninety miles is how far you can go without having

504
00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 2: to petition the court night.

505
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: So you go right to the edge. Yeah, and you

506
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: sinal lisun an apartment there. Gil doesn't know where you are.

507
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: And then again there's one of these moments where it

508
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: seems like maybe a reasonable conversation can be had. I mean,

509
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: tell me about that.

510
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 2: Well, Vinnie was just there initially to help me move in.

511
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 2: He still had his business down in Los Angeles and

512
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:42,840
Speaker 2: was living there, and we were trying to figure out

513
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 2: how we could live together without making the situation worse.

514
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 2: So we were willing to wait on moving in with

515
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 2: each other until, you know, until it's settled down a

516
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 2: little bit. So I do finally talk to Gil and

517
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,959
Speaker 2: he says he wants to meet me at a restaurant

518
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 2: halfway between Santa Cruz in our apartment in Brinn, and

519
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 2: he has some stuff he wants to give me, and

520
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 2: he just wants to talk. And it felt to me like, Okay,

521
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 2: he gets it. Now, he gets it. Now I've left.

522
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 2: I've left, I've moved, you know this ninety miles and

523
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 2: I would have never gone so far if he hadn't

524
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 2: been so threatening, you know, because the idea was that

525
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 2: he wouldn't be able to just get in the car

526
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 2: and come down, you know, that he'd have to make

527
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 2: arrangements to come down because it's too long a drive otherwise.

528
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 2: So I thought, well, okay, I'll go talk to him,

529
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 2: and I do remember Vinnie didn't want me to do it.

530
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 2: He's like, don't do it, and I'm like, no, if

531
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 2: you'd think after all these years, i'd know better. But

532
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 2: as you say, it looks like a moment where maybe

533
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 2: it can break the other way. So I got there first,

534
00:33:57,080 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 2: and I was waiting for him, and he finds drives

535
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 2: in in some strange car that I don't know, and

536
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 2: he gets out of the car and he's all banged up.

537
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:09,360
Speaker 2: He's clearly been in some kind of accident or gotten

538
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 2: in a terrible fight or something. And over the course

539
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 2: of this conversation, which seems like okay, he's got stuff

540
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 2: in the car, some kitchen goods that he's going to

541
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:22,840
Speaker 2: give me, and he's trying very hard to get me

542
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 2: to tell him where we are. It wouldn't give him

543
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 2: the exact address I wanted to settle in.

544
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 3: I wanted to have.

545
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 2: A couple of weeks free of being hounded before I

546
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 2: let him know where we were. And he made me

547
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:40,719
Speaker 2: feel so bad about keeping that secret and seemed so

548
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 2: contrite that, against all my better instincts, I told him,

549
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 2: and the instant I told him then he told me

550
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:54,799
Speaker 2: that he would throw me in the back of his

551
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:58,760
Speaker 2: car and drive me out to the desert and bury

552
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 2: me where no one would ever find me.

553
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 3: So I learned nothing.

554
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: So Gil now knows where Karen, Vinnie, Aaron, and Amy are.

555
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: Shortly after the encounter in the parking lot, Gill leaves

556
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 1: a bunch of dynamite twined together in Vinnie's truck, with

557
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 1: a lit cigar in the center, presumably so that when

558
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 1: the cigar burned down far enough, the truck would explode.

559
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: The cigar burned out before it could detonate the bundle

560
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:35,320
Speaker 1: of dynamite, but if it had, the truck was parked

561
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 1: right underneath the bedroom window where her girls were sleeping.

562
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:43,359
Speaker 1: It was a lot of dynamite. When the police came,

563
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 1: they told Karen that it was enough to blow the

564
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:51,279
Speaker 1: building sky high. But the police did nothing. There was

565
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: seemingly nothing they could do. There was no proof it

566
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: was Gil, and they didn't like to get involved in

567
00:35:57,600 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: domestic conflicts.

568
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:03,279
Speaker 2: It was very frustrating because we couldn't really get any

569
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 2: help out of them, and I didn't have any proof

570
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 2: because even though I was in this abusive marriage, I

571
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:13,400
Speaker 2: had never gone to a shelter.

572
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 3: I had never talked to a psychologist.

573
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:19,799
Speaker 2: I never knew anyone that had been abused, which is

574
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 2: probably incorrect, but no one ever told me, so I

575
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:26,719
Speaker 2: never knew anyone that was abused, So I didn't know

576
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 2: what I was dealing with early on, and then when

577
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 2: I finally did know what I was dealing with, they

578
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,280
Speaker 2: either didn't take it seriously or couldn't do anything.

579
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 1: And something else is on the horizon too, something incredibly dangerous,

580
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:46,399
Speaker 1: frightening and malevolent, something that perhaps, had Karen's mom been

581
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:48,920
Speaker 1: able to grasp just how bad it was between the

582
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 1: two of them, how high the stakes could have been avoided.

583
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 2: I had sent our older girl, Aaron, down to see

584
00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 2: my mom for a week after out. We had lived

585
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 2: in Santa Cruz for about a year then, and she

586
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 2: went down there for a vacation and I stayed up

587
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 2: in Santa Cruz with Amy and Vinnie had work to

588
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 2: do and he couldn't come up, so I was there alone.

589
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:14,439
Speaker 2: So she was down there. She had a great time

590
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 2: with mom, you know, they did all the beach things

591
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 2: and went shopping and they had a lovely time. And

592
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:24,760
Speaker 2: then my mom calls me to tell me that Gilla's

593
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 2: there and that he wants to go back on the

594
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 2: airplane with Aaron and what should she do? And I

595
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:34,799
Speaker 2: was sort of flabbergasted, like what is he doing there?

596
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,839
Speaker 2: How does he even know she's there? And what does

597
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 2: he mean he wants to come back? And she says, well,

598
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 2: he says he has to get back to San Francisco.

599
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 2: He's got some business stuff he's got to do, and

600
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,719
Speaker 2: he wants to spend time with Aaron on the plane.

601
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 2: So I thought, well, okay, will you be sure to

602
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 2: put them on the plane, like see them on because

603
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 2: he had been making noises that he was going to

604
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 2: take the girls, and I just didn't think he would

605
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 2: do it because I didn't know what on earth he

606
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 2: would do with them. He wasn't working at that point,

607
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 2: and he was doing a lot of drugs and drinking,

608
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 2: and he was such a mess, and I thought it

609
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:21,879
Speaker 2: was a threat and not something that he would actually do.

610
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 2: So they got on the plane, and it turned out

611
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 2: my mom did not see them onto the plane, and

612
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 2: I found out later that he had tried to take

613
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 2: Aarin on another flight that went to New York and

614
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 2: the only reason he didn't get on that flight was

615
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 2: because she could read and she made a stink, And

616
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 2: so they went This is when you could buy a

617
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:48,160
Speaker 2: ticket at the gate. There was no security, there was

618
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 2: no nothing. You just walked up to the gate and

619
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 2: purchased your fare. So they went to San Francisco and

620
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 2: I met them with Amy at the airport. It was

621
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 2: very late, and she was, you know, half asleep and

622
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:05,400
Speaker 2: very heavy in my arms. And they came off the

623
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 2: plane and I needed to hug Aaron, and Amy was squirming.

624
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:15,359
Speaker 2: She wanted down, and he was holding his arms out,

625
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 2: and so I gave her to him to hole and

626
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 2: it was just so instinctual. I mean, I spent fourteen

627
00:39:23,200 --> 00:39:25,520
Speaker 2: years with this man, and he was their father. And

628
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 2: I passed her over, and then we started walking to

629
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 2: baggage claim, and again at some point Aaron was behaving strangely,

630
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:38,719
Speaker 2: and I bent down to talk to her, and when

631
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 2: I stood back up, Gil and Amy were gone. And

632
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 2: what they had actually done is walked straight through the

633
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:48,719
Speaker 2: airport and out and got on a bus. But I

634
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:51,320
Speaker 2: didn't know that. I spent hours and hours trying to

635
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:52,360
Speaker 2: find them in the airport.

636
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:59,120
Speaker 1: And at this time Amy's three and Erin's seven.

637
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 2: Amy was two and a half and Aaron was seven.

638
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:03,359
Speaker 3: Yeah.

639
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 1: This then proceeds to unfold over a period of ten

640
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 1: days where you don't know where Amy is and Gil

641
00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: has her.

642
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean we looked everywhere for her. We did flyers,

643
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:21,440
Speaker 2: We went to police stations, we checked with bus stations,

644
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 2: and did what we could do, and nobody could really help.

645
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 2: I mean, the airport wouldn't even let us put the

646
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,879
Speaker 2: flyers up. They said they would distribute them to their

647
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:33,719
Speaker 2: security people and they would keep an eye out, but

648
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 2: it was not very helpful.

649
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:39,720
Speaker 1: There's this eerie moment right where I mean, it's all eerie,

650
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 1: but there's this moment where you do get the least

651
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 1: get a tip that there is a man living in

652
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: a building with a child and something doesn't seem right.

653
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 1: But then the tip doesn't pan out because the child

654
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: is a boy. Right, Except that's not what happened.

655
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:01,440
Speaker 2: No, And if I had no, I still don't think

656
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:04,399
Speaker 2: it was them, because I think by that time he

657
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 2: had already left the city. He couldn't afford to stay

658
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 2: in the city anymore. He went north and stayed. It

659
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 2: was up in Santa Rosa, which is a town maybe

660
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 2: an hour and a half north of San Francisco. Yeah,

661
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 2: but this idea that oh, it's a boy it couldn't be.

662
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:21,320
Speaker 2: Her turned out to be sort of a red herring

663
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 2: because he had changed her appearance to make her look

664
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 2: like a boy.

665
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:29,360
Speaker 1: He dyed her hair and cut it short. Yeah, so

666
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 1: after ten days he does get in touch, right, But

667
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:39,239
Speaker 1: what he wants in exchange for returning amy to you

668
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 1: is that you promise to give up Vinnie. That's the

669
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:47,239
Speaker 1: only way that you're getting your daughter back is if

670
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 1: you promise. You swear that you are going to give

671
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 1: up Vinnie.

672
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 2: Yes, which of course I did instantly. I swore that

673
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 2: I was not telling the truth, but I swore it instantly.

674
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:07,360
Speaker 1: This is the moment when everything breaks open. After the

675
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: terror of not knowing where her youngest daughter is or

676
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 1: what Gil might have done, Karen returns home and turns

677
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: to Vinnie with a single, urgent sentence, We've got to run.

678
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 1: They had talked about the possibility before, in the abstract,

679
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 1: what they would do if things didn't get better, But

680
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 1: this is different. This is now. The situation has been escalating,

681
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: despite everyone around them continuing to insist that no one

682
00:42:36,560 --> 00:42:39,959
Speaker 1: can sustain this level of rage forever, that it'll peter out.

683
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 1: But it won't. It hasn't. It's only grown, and then

684
00:42:45,280 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 1: comes a threat that makes the decision for her. Gil

685
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:51,880
Speaker 1: takes Amy and warns Karen that if he ever breaks

686
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 1: her promise to him, he'll take her again, or take

687
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 1: both girls, or kills them all. That's the moment she

688
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 1: understands they can't wait, can't plan, can't hope for a

689
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 1: safe window. They have to disappear immediately. What follows is

690
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:13,120
Speaker 1: essentially a DIY witness protection effort. With no guidance, no support,

691
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 1: and absolute secrecy. Karen and Vinnie gather what they can,

692
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: decide to change their names and start driving east.

693
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 2: We went that direction because I was told Gil that,

694
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 2: you know, I would never live anywhere except on a coast.

695
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 2: I was used to being near an ocean, and so

696
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 2: the middle of the country was not ever a place

697
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:40,360
Speaker 2: that I contemplated moving to. So I figured, somewhere in

698
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 2: the interior it makes sense to go there, because he'll

699
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 2: look for me first in places like Washington and Oregon,

700
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 2: and you know, maybe Florida and North Carolina, places that

701
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:55,080
Speaker 2: he could see me living.

702
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 3: And so we drove east, and.

703
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:03,280
Speaker 2: Vinnie, whose sister and or husband had lived in Colorado

704
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 2: for a while, had once spent a day in Boulder,

705
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 2: and he thought it was a cute town and it

706
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:12,760
Speaker 2: had a university, and it was, you know, forty minutes

707
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:16,480
Speaker 2: from a big city, so we could probably find jobs.

708
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 2: And just on a whim, that's where we wound up

709
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 2: deciding while we were driving.

710
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:26,439
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and also there's such a flurry of things

711
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 1: that you're deciding things that no one ever thinks about

712
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: unless they were suddenly in a position of having to

713
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: think about, which is, well, what does that mean? We

714
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:37,279
Speaker 1: don't have any id at what do you do about that?

715
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:40,040
Speaker 1: How can you rent a place to live, much less

716
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 1: buy a place to live if you don't have documentation?

717
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:45,399
Speaker 1: And so you do end up for a little while

718
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:48,560
Speaker 1: in a condo that was empty, that hadn't sold yet,

719
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:51,440
Speaker 1: and the landlord, you know, there were these angels along

720
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 1: the way. No, yes, definitely you didn't ask too many questions,

721
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:58,080
Speaker 1: but also who at a certain point if you did

722
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: let them into your i mean, letting anybody into your

723
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:05,279
Speaker 1: circumstances felt like the most dangerous thing imaginable.

724
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:06,200
Speaker 3: It did.

725
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: Yes, So tell me about I mean, just a little

726
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 1: bit about buying the house, because this is again like

727
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: you're relying on the kindness of strangers. Or the reliability

728
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 1: or the trustworthiness of strangers, because at a certain point

729
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 1: you have no choice but to do that.

730
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:24,720
Speaker 2: Well, something we had when we ran is we cashed

731
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:28,800
Speaker 2: out our bank accounts and you know, took what cash

732
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 2: we had and put it in a paper sack that

733
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:35,239
Speaker 2: we had under the front seat. So we had this

734
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:39,520
Speaker 2: small stake of money and we weren't sure what we

735
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 2: would do with it. It would it be enough to

736
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:44,080
Speaker 2: buy something in you know, leaving California, it's like the

737
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:48,160
Speaker 2: prices are completely different when you go into the interior,

738
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 2: and Colorado was just coming out of a pretty bad recession,

739
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:57,040
Speaker 2: and so prices were very depressed. And this realtor that

740
00:45:57,160 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 2: had exchanged painting this condo for rent. I think he

741
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,479
Speaker 2: looked at us and he thought, well, Okay, this nice

742
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 2: young family and they, I don't know, they might like

743
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 2: a house. I'm going to show them houses. And we

744
00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:13,319
Speaker 2: would go because it was kind of a fun fantasy

745
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 2: to go look at this stuff. And he would drive

746
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:19,359
Speaker 2: us around Boulder and we'd walk around houses. And there

747
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 2: was this one house that Vinnie kind of fell in

748
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 2: love with, and in a way that it wasn't with

749
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:29,319
Speaker 2: the other ones. I could tell he wanted it, and

750
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:32,400
Speaker 2: he thought it was doable, and I'm like, no, we can't.

751
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:34,840
Speaker 2: We'll never get alone. We don't have any paperwork, We

752
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 2: have nothing. So he said, let's talk to the realtor

753
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:42,959
Speaker 2: and tell him enough of our story so that he'll

754
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:48,080
Speaker 2: understand why we can't give him a credit report, why

755
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 2: we don't have any work history. And the realtor was like, well,

756
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:54,839
Speaker 2: this house has been on the market for a really

757
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:58,400
Speaker 2: long time, and I think maybe the owner can be

758
00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 2: talked into carrying the note on it rather than having

759
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:04,880
Speaker 2: to go through a bank. And he thought it was

760
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 2: probably a decent deal for her because if it turned

761
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 2: out that we defaulted, then she would just keep our

762
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:13,440
Speaker 2: down payment and put it up for sale again. It

763
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:15,719
Speaker 2: was not the worst thing in the world, although you know,

764
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:17,800
Speaker 2: she wanted to sell it, and I'm sure she wanted

765
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 2: a regular sale, so she agreed to that, and then

766
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:26,960
Speaker 2: she demanded a credit report, and we couldn't do it.

767
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 2: So we wouldn't tell anybody our real names. We never

768
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:34,919
Speaker 2: did all the years we lived in hiding. We never

769
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:37,879
Speaker 2: set our real names to anybody.

770
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:38,160
Speaker 1: Including to each other.

771
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 2: Oh well, to each other, yes, I mean. And we

772
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:44,560
Speaker 2: fiddled with our identification stuff, so that the name I

773
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,879
Speaker 2: was born with is Carrie the first name, and I'm

774
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 2: Karen now because I wanted to change it to something

775
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:53,400
Speaker 2: that was close and that if I could, you know,

776
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 2: was signing something.

777
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:56,879
Speaker 3: If I screwed up, I could kind of cover it up.

778
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 2: So I picked the name that way, and then we

779
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:04,319
Speaker 2: told people that Carrie was a nickname, so you know,

780
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:05,880
Speaker 2: so Vinnie would call me Carrie.

781
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:07,879
Speaker 3: Other people called me Karen, but.

782
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 2: It was not you know, that way, we could still

783
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:13,919
Speaker 2: be who we were anyway, This lady, the realtor, said,

784
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 2: let's call her up and put her on speakerphone and

785
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 2: you can give her a shortened version of what you

786
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:22,279
Speaker 2: told me and maybe she'll take mercy on you. And

787
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 2: so we did that and Vinnie did all the talking

788
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:29,400
Speaker 2: because I was a wreck. And at the end of

789
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 2: it he said to her, well, this is the situation.

790
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 2: We cannot give you our real names, and we can't.

791
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 3: Show you this stuff. This is what it is, and.

792
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 2: We understand if you want to pass and don't want

793
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 2: to do it, and it's a small world. You can't

794
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 2: even tell anybody the story we've told you. And she

795
00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 2: was very quiet for this long moment, and then she

796
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 2: told us a story about a safari she had been

797
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:57,560
Speaker 2: on in Africa. She was an academic and she had

798
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:00,319
Speaker 2: been on a safari with a bunch of academics from.

799
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 3: All over the country.

800
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:04,800
Speaker 2: And in the evenings they would sit around this campfire

801
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 2: and get drunk and tell stories. And there was a

802
00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:10,760
Speaker 2: young woman who one night was telling a story about

803
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 2: having had an affair with a married man, and she

804
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:16,480
Speaker 2: was very upset and she was crying. And the woman

805
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:20,359
Speaker 2: whose house we wound up buying said she realized as

806
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 2: the woman was talking that she was talking about her

807
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 2: next door neighbor. But she recognized the man in the story,

808
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:32,240
Speaker 2: and so she said to us, it is a small world,

809
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:37,240
Speaker 2: I understand, And she agreed to carry the note.

810
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 3: As you say, another angel.

811
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: Will be back in a moment with more family secrets. Karen,

812
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 1: Vinnie and the girls live that house in Boulder for

813
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:04,640
Speaker 1: a good long time. They've tried to build new lives

814
00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:07,880
Speaker 1: for themselves, and for four years there's no sign of Gil.

815
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 1: But then Karen hears from her mother her mother's house

816
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 1: has been broken into and there's only one thing missing,

817
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 1: her address book. This is nerve wracking, of course, but

818
00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:23,480
Speaker 1: still Gill stays away. Then Karen's mom gets a call

819
00:50:23,560 --> 00:50:26,840
Speaker 1: from one of Gil's older daughters. Gil has been arrested

820
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:28,760
Speaker 1: for murder and is in prison.

821
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:31,239
Speaker 3: It was a.

822
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:35,400
Speaker 2: Garbled story which didn't get straightened out for a while

823
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 2: on my end, because I just thought, oh my god,

824
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:42,920
Speaker 2: he finally did it. He finally killed somebody. And I

825
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:47,720
Speaker 2: don't know if the garbling was my stepdaughter or.

826
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 3: If it was my mom.

827
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:51,640
Speaker 2: I kind of think it was probably my mom that

828
00:50:51,800 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 2: she got the story wrong. What I eventually found out

829
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:59,879
Speaker 2: that he did was he was charged with a temp

830
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,879
Speaker 2: did murder where he had one night he was back

831
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:06,319
Speaker 2: living in New York in the apartment he grew up in,

832
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 2: and there was a bar across the street that was

833
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 2: very noisy, and apparently at two o'clock in the morning,

834
00:51:12,560 --> 00:51:15,200
Speaker 2: he went down there with a gun and started firing

835
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:18,399
Speaker 2: into the bar because he was mad at them because

836
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:20,879
Speaker 2: they were making noise. I mean, it's the whole thing

837
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:25,560
Speaker 2: is just outrageous in my mind. But that's what actually happened,

838
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:31,759
Speaker 2: and that was plea bargained down to illegal possession of

839
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 2: a weapon, and then he went off to prison for

840
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 2: a number of years for.

841
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:41,200
Speaker 1: Karin how and where did it? I mean, because now

842
00:51:41,239 --> 00:51:46,080
Speaker 1: there's a lot of years go by, you begin to

843
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 1: publish novels, your daughters grow up, they go to college,

844
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 1: they start lives of their own. And yet what is

845
00:51:55,080 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 1: so palpable is always this sense of han like is

846
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:07,560
Speaker 1: it ever over? And what would over even mean? You know,

847
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:10,960
Speaker 1: you learn that he's back out of prison, does it

848
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:14,279
Speaker 1: continue to feel for you like your one ring of

849
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:16,680
Speaker 1: a doorbell or one knock on the door away from

850
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 1: there he is he's finally caught up with you.

851
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 3: Yes.

852
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 2: I always felt like that, and I felt like that

853
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 2: long past when he was probably capable of doing that, because.

854
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 3: It was a black hole.

855
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:37,360
Speaker 2: And also I had such unresolved guilt about having taken

856
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 2: the girls away. You know, I did the thing that

857
00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:45,000
Speaker 2: he did to me, and I did it permanently, and

858
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 2: so like, what does it mean to take a man's

859
00:52:47,719 --> 00:52:52,360
Speaker 2: children away? Even a man as disturbed and dangerous as this,

860
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:56,520
Speaker 2: The children are still part of what makes him human.

861
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:03,760
Speaker 2: And so I struggled for years with feeling like should

862
00:53:03,760 --> 00:53:05,799
Speaker 2: I try to reach out and see if there's a

863
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:08,919
Speaker 2: way to have some kind of rapperschement here? Is there

864
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:12,399
Speaker 2: a way to resolve this? And of course, I never

865
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:16,040
Speaker 2: did it because I was fairly certain, I would say

866
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:20,759
Speaker 2: ninety nine point nine percent certain that it was just

867
00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:24,480
Speaker 2: me fantasizing again about the way it could be and

868
00:53:24,520 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 2: not the way it was.

869
00:53:30,200 --> 00:53:33,279
Speaker 1: Karen has begun to have success as a writer. Her

870
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 1: first novel is published in nineteen ninety six, followed by

871
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:41,400
Speaker 1: a second novel, but her story, this story continues to

872
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:44,880
Speaker 1: hunt her. She decides to fictionalize it to write it

873
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:47,719
Speaker 1: as a novel. The girls are now grown and out

874
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:50,840
Speaker 1: of the house, so Karen decides to take herself on

875
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:56,080
Speaker 1: a solo writing retreat. While there, the edges blur. Revisiting

876
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:58,840
Speaker 1: this time is just too much for her, and she

877
00:53:58,960 --> 00:53:59,600
Speaker 1: breaks down.

878
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 2: Was unexpected. We decided at a certain point that we

879
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:09,200
Speaker 2: were going to sell the house in Bolder and move

880
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 2: closer to the ocean and go live in a place

881
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:15,360
Speaker 2: that was kind of smaller and quieter even than Bolder,

882
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:17,880
Speaker 2: and get more for our money.

883
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 3: The house in Boulder had appreciated quite a bit, and.

884
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:24,319
Speaker 2: We thought we could sort of semi retire, which was

885
00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:28,400
Speaker 2: really totally unrealistic, it turns out, but that's what we thought.

886
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 2: And I was in charge of reconnaissance and went out

887
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:35,560
Speaker 2: there and looked around and looked for a house to

888
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:39,879
Speaker 2: get and all this stuff. And I was by myself

889
00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:45,160
Speaker 2: in this place that was very mysterious to me, and

890
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 2: trying to write this novel which fictionalized the absolute worst

891
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:53,959
Speaker 2: time in my life, and I was trying to disguise

892
00:54:54,280 --> 00:54:59,160
Speaker 2: elements of it and also be true to it. And

893
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:03,239
Speaker 2: I start did disappearing. You know, all the stuff that

894
00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:05,400
Speaker 2: I had been through, I had never had a breakdown.

895
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:09,280
Speaker 2: I certainly had very rough times, but I was always

896
00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:13,880
Speaker 2: pretty sound mentally. And this was the first time in

897
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:20,560
Speaker 2: my life where I felt completely unsound, and it was it.

898
00:55:20,520 --> 00:55:21,240
Speaker 3: Was not good.

899
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:26,120
Speaker 2: Trying to write about this in that way was definitely

900
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:26,719
Speaker 2: a part of it.

901
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:32,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes so much sense to me. The haunting continues, right,

902
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:36,000
Speaker 1: and you don't write that book, which is great because

903
00:55:36,040 --> 00:55:38,160
Speaker 1: then you write this book, which is the book that

904
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:39,760
Speaker 1: you needed to write, Right.

905
00:55:40,520 --> 00:55:41,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.

906
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 1: But you know, you kind of everyonce in a while

907
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 1: you look up to see if there's any news of Gil,

908
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:50,719
Speaker 1: Is there anything that you can find? Is there any

909
00:55:50,800 --> 00:55:53,479
Speaker 1: and there's you know, usually the same couple of things

910
00:55:53,480 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 1: that aren't useful, you know, just he's been a person

911
00:55:56,600 --> 00:55:59,759
Speaker 1: of interest in various places or whatever. But then there

912
00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 1: is this moment what year is it when this happens

913
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 1: where you're searching for Gil and you learn that Gil

914
00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:08,040
Speaker 1: is dead.

915
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:14,040
Speaker 2: This was Christmas two thousand and eight where the girls.

916
00:56:14,600 --> 00:56:18,360
Speaker 2: Amy was in the Navy and Aaron was back east

917
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:21,680
Speaker 2: in her first job as a lawyer, and they both

918
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:24,719
Speaker 2: came home for Christmas. We were living again in Los

919
00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:28,560
Speaker 2: Angeles by that point, and we had this, you know,

920
00:56:28,640 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 2: this very nice Christmas dinner and everybody went out for

921
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:38,399
Speaker 2: a walk. And one of the gifts that my older daughter,

922
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:43,920
Speaker 2: the new lawyer, had given Vinnie was this book that

923
00:56:44,480 --> 00:56:48,640
Speaker 2: was a guide to adoption in California, and like Vinnie's

924
00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:51,640
Speaker 2: opening it and looking at it and sort of puzzled,

925
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:55,840
Speaker 2: the girls wanted to make it official after all these years.

926
00:56:55,920 --> 00:57:00,239
Speaker 2: They wanted him to adopt them as adults. So we

927
00:57:00,320 --> 00:57:04,920
Speaker 2: had this tremendously emotional Christmas, you know, where we were

928
00:57:04,960 --> 00:57:07,520
Speaker 2: all crying and everybody goes out for a walk except me,

929
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:11,520
Speaker 2: and I was thinking, well, I don't know what happens

930
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:13,440
Speaker 2: with Gil here. It's like, is there some kind of

931
00:57:13,480 --> 00:57:16,920
Speaker 2: legal thing that he's the father? Do we have to

932
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 2: track him down and get him to sign something? And

933
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 2: so he was on my mind, and after everybody went

934
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:27,000
Speaker 2: to bed, I decided to google him, which I did

935
00:57:27,080 --> 00:57:33,720
Speaker 2: periodically without any particular information, but this on this particular night,

936
00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:37,320
Speaker 2: I googled him and I added a search term, which

937
00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:41,560
Speaker 2: was Santa Maria, California, because I had had a private

938
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 2: detective at one point track him as far as Santa Maria,

939
00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:48,320
Speaker 2: and I didn't know if he was still there or what,

940
00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:52,880
Speaker 2: but I added that term and up popped this item

941
00:57:52,960 --> 00:57:56,880
Speaker 2: that was in their little local newspaper there about a

942
00:57:56,920 --> 00:58:01,800
Speaker 2: body having been found in a park and that they

943
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:04,800
Speaker 2: initially thought it was foul play. They thought that perhaps

944
00:58:04,840 --> 00:58:11,280
Speaker 2: the person had been murdered, and then determined that they

945
00:58:11,320 --> 00:58:15,360
Speaker 2: died of natural causes. And in the course of looking

946
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:18,920
Speaker 2: at this article and another article and kind of triangulating

947
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 2: between them, it was clear to me that it was Gil. So, yeah,

948
00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 2: so that's how I found out he died.

949
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:30,600
Speaker 1: What did that? I mean, this is such a huge question,

950
00:58:30,720 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: but like, what did that feel like? There's probably some

951
00:58:34,040 --> 00:58:37,360
Speaker 1: complicated German word for all of the different feelings, you know.

952
00:58:37,480 --> 00:58:44,880
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, I was heartbroken because you know, again,

953
00:58:45,040 --> 00:58:47,480
Speaker 2: I think I still had this thing in my head

954
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:51,720
Speaker 2: that there would be some sort of deathbed reconciliation somewhere

955
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:56,840
Speaker 2: along here, and the idea that he was gone forever.

956
00:58:58,000 --> 00:58:59,280
Speaker 3: Was overwhelming to me.

957
00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:02,640
Speaker 2: There was that, but then there was also, you know,

958
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:08,080
Speaker 2: tremendous relief because right up until that moment, I still

959
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:14,160
Speaker 2: thought he was capable of finding me and doing great harm.

960
00:59:15,040 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 1: So you and Vinny have three grandchildren. Aaron has three boys. Yes,

961
00:59:20,600 --> 00:59:25,120
Speaker 1: you know, you have these daughters who have thrived, and

962
00:59:25,240 --> 00:59:29,520
Speaker 1: you have this marriage that has endured. Where are you

963
00:59:29,600 --> 00:59:32,680
Speaker 1: now in like just inside yourself in terms of your

964
00:59:32,680 --> 00:59:35,240
Speaker 1: own sense of your life and peace?

965
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:41,440
Speaker 2: You know, I think actually committing to finishing the book

966
00:59:41,640 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 2: and writing down what happened in as truthful a way

967
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:49,920
Speaker 2: as I could. I mean, it's a cliche, but it

968
00:59:50,040 --> 00:59:54,160
Speaker 2: kind of set me free, you know, where It released

969
00:59:54,320 --> 00:59:59,560
Speaker 2: my final feelings of not the kuilt, but that I

970
00:59:59,600 --> 01:00:03,360
Speaker 2: have come come to some sort of peace with this story.

971
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 2: You know, I did what I had to do, and

972
01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:10,880
Speaker 2: I think, I write this somewhere also, I would do

973
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:15,520
Speaker 2: it again. I did what I termed the only thing

974
01:00:15,560 --> 01:00:19,880
Speaker 2: I could do, and I would do it again. And

975
01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:26,160
Speaker 2: putting that in black and white settled the issue for me.

976
01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:29,880
Speaker 2: It's very weird reliving all this stuff. You know now

977
01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:32,880
Speaker 2: that it finally is out in the world. But it

978
01:00:33,160 --> 01:00:37,840
Speaker 2: settled for me, so I actually feel at peace. And

979
01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:39,480
Speaker 2: I don't know.

980
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:42,040
Speaker 3: Good is not the right word, but good about it? Yes.

981
01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:51,640
Speaker 1: Here's Karen reading one last passage from her memoir She's

982
01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:52,280
Speaker 1: Under Here.

983
01:00:55,480 --> 01:00:59,360
Speaker 2: Vinnie was in the kitchen making sauce, a pot bubbled

984
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:04,040
Speaker 2: with tomato and garlic, a frying pan sizzled with browning sausages.

985
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:09,320
Speaker 2: What happened, he asked? I told him, was it enough?

986
01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:12,280
Speaker 3: Carrie? It was? And it wasn't.

987
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:18,800
Speaker 2: I didn't know when will it be enough? I don't know, never, probably,

988
01:01:19,800 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 2: And Vinnie kissed me. What can I say about love?

989
01:01:24,240 --> 01:01:27,640
Speaker 2: How can I ever convey a depth of feeling? All

990
01:01:27,680 --> 01:01:30,000
Speaker 2: I can show you is the warmth of our kitchen,

991
01:01:30,400 --> 01:01:34,000
Speaker 2: filled with fragrant steam. All I can give you is

992
01:01:34,040 --> 01:01:37,280
Speaker 2: the sound of Vinny breathing, the rise and fall of

993
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:41,000
Speaker 2: his chest against mine, the warmth of his arms, the

994
01:01:41,040 --> 01:01:45,920
Speaker 2: feeling of utter safety and desire, desire in the moment

995
01:01:46,200 --> 01:01:50,480
Speaker 2: and desire in memory, desire that rushes or meanders or

996
01:01:50,560 --> 01:01:55,120
Speaker 2: runs underground, only to surface when least expected, with force

997
01:01:55,520 --> 01:02:00,160
Speaker 2: and full joy.

998
01:02:06,440 --> 01:02:10,240
Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly's Acre is

999
01:02:10,280 --> 01:02:13,280
Speaker 1: the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.

1000
01:02:13,880 --> 01:02:15,880
Speaker 1: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,

1001
01:02:16,240 --> 01:02:18,640
Speaker 1: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear

1002
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:22,000
Speaker 1: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight

1003
01:02:22,000 --> 01:02:26,120
Speaker 1: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also

1004
01:02:26,240 --> 01:02:30,919
Speaker 1: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder. And if you'd

1005
01:02:30,920 --> 01:02:33,360
Speaker 1: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,

1006
01:02:33,760 --> 01:02:55,840
Speaker 1: check out my memoir Inheritance. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

1007
01:02:55,960 --> 01:02:59,440
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

1008
01:02:59,480 --> 01:03:00,720
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.