Speaker 1: My world stopped that day. I was just stuck in
Speaker 1: this cycle of, Oh my gosh, what's going to happen next,
Speaker 1: What's going to happen next? Or could this happen to me?
Speaker 2: The underlying psychological phenomenon is that they are doing to
Speaker 2: themselves what the killer didn't.
Speaker 3: Do to them.
Speaker 1: Why am I here but not them? Why wasn't I
Speaker 1: one that they took. There's so much that goes with
Speaker 1: surviving something like this.
Speaker 3: This is the Idaho Massacre, a production of KT Studios
Speaker 3: and iHeart Radio, Season two, episode eleven, Those Left Behind.
Speaker 3: I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KAT Studios, with Stephanie
Speaker 3: Leidecker and Gabriel Castillo. At the center of the horrific
Speaker 3: murders that took place on November thirtie teenth, twenty twenty two, are,
Speaker 3: of course the victims, and it's of the utmost importance,
Speaker 3: not just from a reporting standpoint, but from a human
Speaker 3: perspective to keep their memories alive.
Speaker 1: If you knew Ethan, he was never angry about anything, You.
Speaker 4: Would never get upset.
Speaker 5: Everybody loved him, and I feel so lucky so I've shared.
Speaker 4: So many great memories with him.
Speaker 1: Sanna was the funniest person I knew, and maybe laugh
Speaker 1: every time I spent time with her.
Speaker 5: She was my baby sister, but she was so much
Speaker 5: wiser and experienced so much more in life than I
Speaker 5: ever have. Maddie was the best, spreading love to all
Speaker 5: those that were close to her. Every time I talked
Speaker 5: to her on the phone, she would end the conversation with,
Speaker 5: I Love you.
Speaker 3: Kitty was a rental child out of five.
Speaker 2: She was always competitive.
Speaker 4: She was smack dad met.
Speaker 1: Also, there was enough never a day that she didn't
Speaker 1: want to race her brother because she was determined that
Speaker 1: girls were faster than boys.
Speaker 3: Not only were their families devastated, but so too were
Speaker 3: their friends and the community at large. For those left behind,
Speaker 3: the healing may have only begun, and it may for
Speaker 3: some last a lifetime. Try and get some understanding of
Speaker 3: the impact left in the wake of the murders. Stephanie
Speaker 3: and I have reached out to a psychiatrist specializing in
Speaker 3: survivor's guilt, as well as speaking with Whitney Galloway, a
Speaker 3: brave young woman who has been through and is still
Speaker 3: healing from survivor's guilt. Stephanie and I had the honor
Speaker 3: of meeting Whitney while working on a documentary on the
Speaker 3: Pike Khanni murders, which is covered in detail in our
Speaker 3: other podcast, The piked In Massacre. Here's Whitney then Stephanie.
Speaker 1: Well, for me, I mean, it did take me a
Speaker 1: long time to process everything, get through it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was eighteen at the time, So at eighteen, you don't
Speaker 1: really expect to have to deal with the emotions, the
Speaker 1: after effects, the really the I mean, it's basically PTSD
Speaker 1: of what you get from something like that to happen.
Speaker 6: You and I met with Courtney a couple of years ago. Now,
Speaker 6: Courtney and I I think were in town for Wagner's
Speaker 6: trial and had been reaching out to you, And I
Speaker 6: can still picture you sitting on that wooden swing, just
Speaker 6: sort of like.
Speaker 4: Who are these two people coming up to my house
Speaker 4: right now? Is this safe?
Speaker 6: For anyone who's not familiar with the Pike County murders
Speaker 6: and the massacre in Pie County. They lost their lives
Speaker 6: really tragically at the hands of another family of four.
Speaker 6: Jake Wagner, who is the youngest son of this foursome,
Speaker 6: was a mother father into some He's the youngest. Whitney
Speaker 6: knew and had a lot of contacts with in the
Speaker 6: month if not longer leading up to the murders, and
Speaker 6: her very best friends Hannah Gilly had lost her life
Speaker 6: that night, really tragically, and you know, you knew the
Speaker 6: whole family, you knew all of the victims. But that
Speaker 6: really fishtails into why we're talking right now. You know,
Speaker 6: massacres are not in common, thank god. But then there's
Speaker 6: Idaho where also four young adults lost their lives. Two
Speaker 6: of the surviving victims were in the home at the
Speaker 6: time of the murders, and families have been ripped apart
Speaker 6: and devastated. So we thought it was like a nice
Speaker 6: way to take a breath and talk to you a
Speaker 6: little bit about that impact and what that's like and
Speaker 6: what your journey has been like.
Speaker 1: I mean still to this day, it's been eight years
Speaker 1: since they were taken from us, and I still struggle.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say you can't get over it,
Speaker 1: because I feel like it's not something you can get over,
Speaker 1: but you learn to live with it.
Speaker 3: Here's doctor Carol Lieberman, a board certified psychiatrist known as
Speaker 3: America Psychiatrist as well as the Terrorist Therapist. This comes
Speaker 3: into play because doctor Carroll has dedicated much of her
Speaker 3: career in the last twenty three years helping people cope
Speaker 3: with the aftermath of nine to eleven, I began our
Speaker 3: conversation simply asking for the definition of the term survivor's guilt.
Speaker 2: Survivor's guilt is generally used to mean someone who was
Speaker 2: in a very traumatic situation and who survived it when
Speaker 2: other people didn't, and who is left with a feeling
Speaker 2: like they didn't deserve to survive. They should have done
Speaker 2: more to save the other people. They feel that they
Speaker 2: should have done more, or something that they did do
Speaker 2: made it worse for the people, you know, kill the
Speaker 2: other people, helped to kill the other people. They're punishing themselves.
Speaker 2: They feel they deserve to be punished because they survive
Speaker 2: this horrible thing, and so they are basically continuing the
Speaker 2: trauma by continuing to punish themselves. They didn't get killed
Speaker 2: or injured, perhaps, but they deserve to and therefore I'm
Speaker 2: going to ruin my life. And that's not conscious, you know,
Speaker 2: they don't say that to themselves necessarily consciously, but they
Speaker 2: become stuck in the trauma. They become because they feel
Speaker 2: they should have died they don't want to or can't
Speaker 2: proceed with their life. It's like they did die, and
Speaker 2: so it can be totally totally debilitating. It's not the
Speaker 2: same thing as PTSD, although it's kind of mentioned in
Speaker 2: the DSM the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as being sort
Speaker 2: of related to PTSD post dramatic stress disorder. But so
Speaker 2: it can show with symptoms of anxiety depression PTSD different
Speaker 2: kinds of psychological symptoms, but where they're the underlying psychological
Speaker 2: phenomenon is that they are doing to themselves what the
Speaker 2: killer didn't do to them.
Speaker 3: Here again, Whitney talking about the impact the April anniversary
Speaker 3: of the murders have on her. At the time of
Speaker 3: the recording, the anniversary was upcoming.
Speaker 1: It's almost like your body holds that trauma from that day.
Speaker 1: Your body will hold it. Your body will always remember it,
Speaker 1: even though say it's like twenty five years down the road.
Speaker 1: It's like this month, I'm getting headache, I'm anxious more.
Speaker 1: I talk to a therapist.
Speaker 4: I've been in.
Speaker 1: Therapy for a year now because I didn't realize what
Speaker 1: I was doing because of the murders. But she explained
Speaker 1: it to me, said, you know, your body holds in
Speaker 1: that trauma and it remembers trauma, and so where April
Speaker 1: was such a big month to me, it made sense.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm anxious more. I'm having nightmares. I wake
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night. I feel like
Speaker 1: I won't remember the day till it's the day, but
Speaker 1: my body won't let me forget it.
Speaker 6: I guess that's really true. I think that would probably
Speaker 6: apply to any real loss. Suddenly it's the eight year anniversary.
Speaker 6: I know that's been just a few days. It's been
Speaker 6: heavy on our hearts as well, and all of them,
Speaker 6: all of the victims family is in Pie County in general.
Speaker 3: I asked doctor Carroll if it's common for people to
Speaker 3: experience exacerbated symptoms around anniversaries.
Speaker 2: Yes, that can happen. You know, anniversary reactions are really interesting.
Speaker 2: A lot of times people aren't aware that SUSI and
Speaker 2: such a date is coming up, but then when the
Speaker 2: date happens, all of a sudden, you know, either they're
Speaker 2: filling things in their body, they can't get out of
Speaker 2: bed or something like that, you know, because they're so depressed,
Speaker 2: or they do something that is totally out of character
Speaker 2: because part of their mind does realize that it is
Speaker 2: this anniversary.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: A good example, of course, is nine to eleven. Every year,
Speaker 2: when the anniversary happens, it triggers memories. And even if
Speaker 2: again even if the people aren't necessarily thinking, right, people are, oh, well,
Speaker 2: September eleventh, when the day comes, I mean, that's a trigger,
Speaker 2: of course, But even things like planes flying overhead making
Speaker 2: a loud noise, or what they were eating, for example,
Speaker 2: people who were eating a certain thing for breakfast that day,
Speaker 2: and then whenever they have that again, it reminds them
Speaker 2: of that morning when they were eating it, and then
Speaker 2: nine to eleven happened, or they don't have it again
Speaker 2: on purpose.
Speaker 3: Stephanie and Whitney continue their conversation about grief and its
Speaker 3: cyclical nature. Here again Stephanie, followed by Whitney.
Speaker 6: It creeps up on you right suddenly you think you
Speaker 6: have it all tucked away, and then that's I guess
Speaker 6: the thing about grief, it's a whole.
Speaker 4: It's a whole that maybe doesn't have to be filled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that doesn't ever get filled, but you find
Speaker 1: a way to work around it, I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: For me, like I went so many years without any
Speaker 1: help out without talking to anybody, Like, no one could
Speaker 1: really relate to what I mean, besides the family obviously,
Speaker 1: but you don't want to go and keep bringing it
Speaker 1: up to them because that's such it's a traumatic thing.
Speaker 1: So trying to find a friend or a friend that
Speaker 1: would even remotely understand what it was like is hard,
Speaker 1: especially at such a young age. It just it's it
Speaker 1: was hard. But therapy has helped me tremendously. I know
Speaker 1: some people just don't.
Speaker 6: Don't believe in it, right, they don't know some people
Speaker 6: like are resistant to therapy. And we're not condoning it,
Speaker 6: we're prescribing it one way or the other. I too,
Speaker 6: believe in it. We don't want to burden people with
Speaker 6: your grief. You don't want to theme week by, you know,
Speaker 6: being on a loop and feeling like you just have
Speaker 6: loss that you can't get out of the way.
Speaker 1: Like it consumes your whole life. I got to the
Speaker 1: point where it felt like my whole this was my
Speaker 1: whole life. I felt like my my world stopped that
Speaker 1: day and I was just stuck in this cycle of
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, what's gonna happen next, What's going to
Speaker 1: happen next? Or could this happen to me? Is this
Speaker 1: gonna happen to me? Who can I trust? Who can
Speaker 1: I not trust? Or my door's locked or my windows locked?
Speaker 1: Am I safe?
Speaker 5: I still have that.
Speaker 1: I'm learning to start to trust people. It takes a
Speaker 1: long time, a very long time, and not for me,
Speaker 1: at least, it took a long time. I feel like
Speaker 1: if I had somebody else that I could relate to
Speaker 1: with what was going on, it would probably help me
Speaker 1: a lot more and a lot sooner.
Speaker 6: And I think You're not alone in that. I think
Speaker 6: that kind of says two things. One granted, both of
Speaker 6: these cases, both in Idaho and in Pike, are extreme. Right.
Speaker 6: We have heard, like we heard a statistic that the
Speaker 6: likelihood of you being in a massacre of this level
Speaker 6: or losing someone you love in a manner like this
Speaker 6: is as common as being killed by a vending machine
Speaker 6: falling on you. It's that rare, right, So, on the
Speaker 6: one hand, there's comfort in that these are extreme cases.
Speaker 6: But for someone like you, or for any of the
Speaker 6: students in Idaho or family members you know, you realize,
Speaker 6: like the flame was really close, and it's hard to
Speaker 6: reacclimate to the world that you want to be safe
Speaker 6: when you realize, huh, the Boogeyman was really close or
Speaker 6: with somebody that I knew.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or they say like, you know, monsters are not real,
Speaker 1: but they actually you know they are, They really are.
Speaker 1: For me, when I talk about it now, I don't
Speaker 1: feel as a shame like I don't feel like I'm
Speaker 1: being a burden to anybody to talk about it, because
Speaker 1: it did happen to me, and I did have to
Speaker 1: work through it, and I can talk about it, and
Speaker 1: I'm allowed to talk about it. It was such a
Speaker 1: significant thing in my life, and it was such a
Speaker 1: traumatic thing in my life that I'm allowed to feel
Speaker 1: a certain way. I'm allowed to be sad one day,
Speaker 1: I'm allowed to celebrate their life when day. No one
Speaker 1: can tell you you're being too much over something like that.
Speaker 1: No one can tell you how to feel about it.
Speaker 1: No one can tell you, oh, you've been sad long enough,
Speaker 1: We're done. I'm at the point now where instead of grieving,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm still grieving, but I want to remember
Speaker 1: the good things. I want to remember. You know, I
Speaker 1: do have these amazing people in my life. I do
Speaker 1: have pictures to look back on, and I'm allowed to
Speaker 1: watch videos and laugh about in things that we joked
Speaker 1: around about. I'm allowed to say I miss her or
Speaker 1: yeah it's a lot to some people, but the right people,
Speaker 1: it won't be a lot to talk about.
Speaker 6: And I think that makes you such an amazing source.
Speaker 6: You know, I know one thing for sure that you
Speaker 6: do not heal alone. Nobody heals alone. And you don't
Speaker 6: have to be connected to a massacre to understand loss
Speaker 6: and to have trauma comes in so many shapes and
Speaker 6: sizes and in so many different ways. And sometimes people
Speaker 6: feel like my pain wouldn't nearly be as big as
Speaker 6: their pain. You even thought that for a second. Well,
Speaker 6: I'm not the family, so I shouldn't be able to
Speaker 6: feel this much pain. Which is you know, grief and
Speaker 6: love are so wildly connected, and they're so incredibly closely tied,
Speaker 6: and if you stuff that stuff down, it can really
Speaker 6: turn on you. It turns on your body, it turns
Speaker 6: on your decision making. We start making decisions from a
Speaker 6: place of loss as opposed to a place of gain.
Speaker 6: Loss is loss.
Speaker 4: You might have just a bigger well to pull from from.
Speaker 6: Many people listening are sad so they don't have that
Speaker 6: best friend like you had in Hannah.
Speaker 3: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 3: a moment. I asked doctor Carroll about Whitney's complicated feelings
Speaker 3: of being unable to feel her own grief because she
Speaker 3: felt it was so much worse for the victims and
Speaker 3: their families.
Speaker 2: A part of survivor's guilt is not feeling that you
Speaker 2: deserve any treatment, therapy, or any sympathy for what you
Speaker 2: did experience as part of the trauma, and so feeling
Speaker 2: like experiencing grief or experiencing some of the things that
Speaker 2: perhaps the families of the people who were killed and
Speaker 2: so on feel. It feels self indulgent to experience grief
Speaker 2: and to any into you know, when people would say, oh,
Speaker 2: that must be so hard for you to lose your friend,
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah. And of course in her case,
Speaker 2: actually you said she was friends with the people who
Speaker 2: did this. What makes Whitney's case particularly complicated is that
Speaker 2: she feels guilty that she didn't stop it because she
Speaker 2: knew the people who did it.
Speaker 3: She has said, why didn't I stop it? Of course,
Speaker 3: no way to imagine this would have happened, But yes,
Speaker 3: you're exactly right.
Speaker 2: You know, so it's extra extra guilt. It's not just
Speaker 2: that she survived, you know, but she blames herself. It's
Speaker 2: just self blame. I mean, this kind of thing could
Speaker 2: cause not only things like depression, anxiety and all of that,
Speaker 2: but actual physical you know. I hate to say it,
Speaker 2: but I mean like things like cancer, things like other
Speaker 2: kinds of diseases or disorders. If you keep showering yourself
Speaker 2: with all of this guilt and blame and you know,
Speaker 2: year upon year, that is very, very unhealthy. It could
Speaker 2: cause all kinds of systems in your body to go bunkers.
Speaker 3: As a reminder, we met Whitney while working on the
Speaker 3: Pike County documentary.
Speaker 6: Do you feel like this by talking even just through
Speaker 6: the process of being in a documentary and sort of
Speaker 6: talking it out, did that shift things a little bit
Speaker 6: for you?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I was nervous at first to do
Speaker 1: the documentary, but in a way it was kind of
Speaker 1: healing for people to see not only did it affect yes,
Speaker 1: it affected their family, and I could not imagine what
Speaker 1: it would be for a family member, but as a
Speaker 1: close friend, there's just it. It was healing for me
Speaker 1: because people got to see it from my point of view.
Speaker 1: People got to see how not only did the Wagners
Speaker 1: did what they did to the Rodents and the Gillies,
Speaker 1: but it was so many more people than what they
Speaker 1: probably realize. I mean, like I said in the documentary,
Speaker 1: they changed my life that day. Even today, I'm still
Speaker 1: not going to be the same, which it would expect
Speaker 1: someone to be the same right after something like that,
Speaker 1: but no, it was actually kind of healing to be
Speaker 1: able to voice what they did to not only the
Speaker 1: family but to everybody else.
Speaker 6: I think that's the whole point of these things, right,
Speaker 6: even this podcast, it's like sometimes people assume, oh, it's
Speaker 6: just like to unpack a grizzly event, and truly that's
Speaker 6: not the case. I think it's two part One, to prevent.
Speaker 6: If you don't know that these types of things happen
Speaker 6: in the world, it's really hard to avoid them or
Speaker 6: identify red flags and things that are really easy to
Speaker 6: do in retrospect in somebody else's retrospect. Even so it's
Speaker 6: like a safety thing. And then also to keep the
Speaker 6: victims alive. In the case of Idaho, not too similarly
Speaker 6: to Pie County, that trial still lies ahead. The Idaho
Speaker 6: trial looks like it probably will be set for next year.
Speaker 6: That's a long time for the general public to lose
Speaker 6: sight of the lives and the humans that were lost,
Speaker 6: and it's important that we keep them alive because people
Speaker 6: should be mad as hell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, be mad, voice it, be mad. Don't sit and
Speaker 1: think that they won. No one's won yet. No one
Speaker 1: has won a single thing until that day. And that's
Speaker 1: another thing, is that feeling if and when justice comes
Speaker 1: is a feeling no one will ever understand that has
Speaker 1: that they've not had to be through. You might cry,
Speaker 1: you might scream, and if you feel you need to
Speaker 1: do that, do it.
Speaker 3: In the Pikes in Ohio case, three of the four
Speaker 3: accused murderers have been found or pled guilty. One member's
Speaker 3: trial is still upcoming.
Speaker 1: When we got the partial justice that we have. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was pregnant at the time, but if I could
Speaker 1: have been out in my yard jumping around and pop models,
Speaker 1: you know, I would have done it. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there's just so many emotions that come with that
Speaker 1: part too. You have all this grief and then this
Speaker 1: happens and it's like you're you just can't contain it.
Speaker 1: It made me feel like we accomplished something it wasn't.
Speaker 1: And no, it doesn't bring them back. That was one
Speaker 1: hard feeling I had. It doesn't bring them back, but
Speaker 1: they got the justice they deserved.
Speaker 4: What would you say?
Speaker 6: Would you have any words of advice to anyone who's
Speaker 6: gone through this level of trauma or some level of trauma,
Speaker 6: whether that's they're a victim of a violent crime, or
Speaker 6: someone they love very deeply is the victim of a
Speaker 6: violent crime, or in your case too, you had it
Speaker 6: in both sides because you knew the victim and the perpetrator.
Speaker 4: Well, that's also equally scary.
Speaker 6: You know, you shared space with someone, you were texting
Speaker 6: with someone in the days after the murderers who was like.
Speaker 4: I have no idea. Hopefully they find the killer.
Speaker 6: Meanwhile, you're the killer by your own admission. Do you
Speaker 6: have any advice for anyone who's just kind of stuck
Speaker 6: in their head and doesn't have anyone to speak to
Speaker 6: about their feelings?
Speaker 4: How do you process?
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not alone. When this happened with Hannah
Speaker 1: and the Rodents, I felt alone and it took me
Speaker 1: a while to realize I wasn't alone. Always reach out
Speaker 1: reach out to anybody that you trust anyone that you're
Speaker 1: comfortable with. Take your time. It's all about your time.
Speaker 1: Like it's all about time. Do not think you're alone.
Speaker 1: You can always reach out, even if it's me. You know,
Speaker 1: anyone could ever reach out, because I've been in it.
Speaker 1: I don't care if it would be three in the morning,
Speaker 1: like please call you know. I needed that person. And
Speaker 1: so instead of moping around thinking, oh, I really wish
Speaker 1: I had somebody, I I want to be that person
Speaker 1: for somebody. So there's anything. That's all I can really
Speaker 1: think to say is just you're not alone.
Speaker 6: If you've now enrolled in school to become a social
Speaker 6: worker and a victim's advocate. And we all like to
Speaker 6: believe that in some part it is because you shared
Speaker 6: so much on the case that you know, people really
Speaker 6: were touched in a way that can't quite be described,
Speaker 6: myself included.
Speaker 4: And I think we all get to heal with you.
Speaker 6: And I think now you know that's obviously a calling
Speaker 6: for you. If people want to connect with you, you
Speaker 6: can send us any emails or any information via the
Speaker 6: KT Studio's website and we'll make sure that it gets
Speaker 6: to you.
Speaker 4: And obviously, now that you've gone to school.
Speaker 6: You're like, legitimately becoming the exact thing that you is
Speaker 6: pretty magical stuff. And I can't help but think that
Speaker 6: that's Hannah Gilly at play as your guiding light a
Speaker 6: little bit.
Speaker 3: Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in
Speaker 3: a moment.
Speaker 6: Here again, Stephanie, you were dead on about survivor's guilt,
Speaker 6: and that's something that we're kind of unpacking a little
Speaker 6: bit in this There were two surviving roommates at the
Speaker 6: time of the Idaho massacre, and it's really a big
Speaker 6: topic that gets me a bit fired up because I've
Speaker 6: read a lot of chatter online and there's been a
Speaker 6: lot on TikTok and in various various online silly sources
Speaker 6: that kind of give the roommates a lot of slack.
Speaker 6: They're like, well, why didn't the roommates call nine one
Speaker 6: to one and why did it take nine hours to
Speaker 6: finally get authorities there?
Speaker 4: And while I understand that theoretically, it.
Speaker 6: Really lack the level of empathy because until you know
Speaker 6: what happened, and really nobody does at this point. That night,
Speaker 6: one of the roommates allegedly saw the accused Brian Colberger,
Speaker 6: going down the hallway, and she identified him to have
Speaker 6: bushy eyebrows. At that moment, he would have been covered
Speaker 6: in complete blood and likely would have just murdered four people.
Speaker 6: You don't expect there to be a killer in the hallway, right,
Speaker 6: You don't think, oh, this must to be a mass murderer.
Speaker 4: We don't know.
Speaker 6: We don't know what it's like to be in that situation,
Speaker 6: and we certainly shouldn't throw stones at two people who
Speaker 6: have really survived something so horrible and likely or really suffering.
Speaker 4: This is an assumption. I don't know them, but survivor's
Speaker 4: guilt is what comes to mind.
Speaker 1: You don't know how fast that passing by was in
Speaker 1: our heads at slow mo, Oh, here's this guy walking by.
Speaker 1: She's looking in your head when you don't know the
Speaker 1: actual setup. You weren't there in my head. It's like
Speaker 1: a slow motion picture, like you know, like a movie.
Speaker 1: But how fast did they go by each other? You know,
Speaker 1: how dark was it in the hallway? How do you
Speaker 1: know what was on them? I mean, yeah, they're probably
Speaker 1: drenched in blood, but that's not something you see on
Speaker 1: a regular basis, So you're not going to look for that.
Speaker 1: You're not going to notice it probably, especially if it
Speaker 1: was dark, being college students, who knows who would be
Speaker 1: coming in and out. There's so many different scenarios in
Speaker 1: that shock does crazy things to you and now knowing
Speaker 1: what they know. I couldn't imagine being that person who
Speaker 1: now knowing and feeling like you didn't do something even
Speaker 1: though you didn't know what was going on. It's not
Speaker 1: your fault, it's not anyone's fault besides the person who
Speaker 1: did it. So don't feel that guilt that is that
Speaker 1: survivor guilt is I could have done something, I should
Speaker 1: have done something, and I didn't, but I also didn't
Speaker 1: know what was going on, and how could you?
Speaker 4: How could you?
Speaker 6: Like, the brain is not committed to understanding something so violent,
Speaker 6: it's so outside our realm that that's not what you
Speaker 6: probably connect.
Speaker 4: That got very easily.
Speaker 1: And you're at home, you think you're safe.
Speaker 4: You think you're safe. Yeah, that's very true. And for
Speaker 4: people to please show some empathy, some empathy that whoever
Speaker 4: has survived this, you know that's a long journey ahead,
Speaker 4: and you have this guilt that you know, why them
Speaker 4: not me? Or how does my life go on? It's
Speaker 4: such a mind screw.
Speaker 1: Or they should be here. Why am I here but
Speaker 1: not them? Why wasn't I one that they took? You know,
Speaker 1: it's there's so much that goes with surviving something like this.
Speaker 6: There's a lot, and our hearts go out to them
Speaker 6: as well, and we kind of encourage people to to
Speaker 6: do so as well. If anything, they just need healing
Speaker 6: thoughts their way. Yeah, anything that you would say for
Speaker 6: any of the college students or yeah, anybody who maybe
Speaker 6: brushed paths. We interviewed very recently one of the accused
Speaker 6: students because he was a teacher's assistant and she was
Speaker 6: in his class in the days leading up to the
Speaker 6: murders and the days after. If what he's been accused
Speaker 6: of is true, and again he's claiming innocence, If what
Speaker 6: is being said is accurate, then he went to class
Speaker 6: the next day and was still participating. And that a
Speaker 6: little bit makes me think of Jake Wagner.
Speaker 4: You know, kind of hits home right now. Hits home.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I was curious if you had something because
Speaker 6: again the accused now convicted, Jake Wagner and the Pie
Speaker 6: County murders. You spoke with him and connected with him
Speaker 6: right after the murders.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 1: I told him if he needed anything, and he told me,
Speaker 1: you know, I just don't know how I'm gonna go on.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I'm gonna tell my daughter that,
Speaker 1: you know, her mom is Knellinger here. After finding out
Speaker 1: about Jake and then talking to him, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a oh my goodness, you know, like, wow, you
Speaker 1: played it so well. You played everybody. Not everyone is
Speaker 1: like that. Not everyone would be able to do that.
Speaker 1: So someone that's able to come in and act like
Speaker 1: nothing is wrong, or to know what they did and
Speaker 1: act like nothing is wrong, they are sick and twisted.
Speaker 6: Is there anything that you would like to say to
Speaker 6: the victims' families or friends?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sorry, you know, it's it's not easy
Speaker 1: to go through. And you guys are not alone. Sorry,
Speaker 1: a little emotional, but you're not alone, and don't ever
Speaker 1: feel like you are. And I know there's gonna be
Speaker 1: days that it's so hard, it's so hard to get up,
Speaker 1: and it's so hard to go on, and it's gonna
Speaker 1: be so hard to just to just live. I get it,
Speaker 1: and I get that there are days that you want
Speaker 1: to just go to where this person is and destroy
Speaker 1: their life. But there is some good in this system.
Speaker 4: There will.
Speaker 1: I hope and I pray that you guys get the
Speaker 1: justice you guys need and deserve, even though it doesn't
Speaker 1: bring them back. That justice is good and it feels good.
Speaker 1: And my biggest thing is you're just not alone, because
Speaker 1: for the longest time I felt alone and it took
Speaker 1: me a long time to realize I wasn't. So even
Speaker 1: though it's been eight years that day it's still so
Speaker 1: fresh to me. So I just I know how you
Speaker 1: guys feel. I've been there, still working on it to
Speaker 1: get better, even though it doesn't seem like it and
Speaker 1: it seems like, gosh, this is never gonna I'll never
Speaker 1: be the same. You might not, and that is okay,
Speaker 1: but you will. You will find a whole new you
Speaker 1: from this.
Speaker 6: Can you tell me one quick story about Hannah Gilly
Speaker 6: but just in her honor? Is there anything that immediately
Speaker 6: comes to mind?
Speaker 1: There's a song, there's a country song that says her
Speaker 1: long blonde hair, and that she loved that song because
Speaker 1: it was long blonde. How every time I hear that,
Speaker 1: I think of her, And sometimes I'll I'll be listening
Speaker 1: to a station that doesn't play country music. But then
Speaker 1: that song comes on, I'm like, ah Anna, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I miss you too.
Speaker 6: I love to see you smile, and I'm so stinking
Speaker 6: proud of you. You are a real inspiration, you really are,
Speaker 6: and I'm so excited to see what comes next for you.
Speaker 6: So here's to like, you know, passing the baton on
Speaker 6: and helping others. There's nobody better than you to do it.
Speaker 6: And our hearts and prayers are with all of the
Speaker 6: victims of the Idaho massacre and of course in Pike
Speaker 6: County as well, and we send you all of our
Speaker 6: love and then them thank you for taking the time.
Speaker 4: Sorry to have you crying in your car right now, but.
Speaker 1: Listen, I just know, I know it's how it feels.
Speaker 1: It just makes me a little emotional because I don't
Speaker 1: want anybody to feel that way, to feel like, Josh,
Speaker 1: this is it, because I've been there, and it's not fun.
Speaker 1: It's not a fun feeling, it's not a You guys
Speaker 1: are not alone, trust me, You guys are not a loade.
Speaker 4: And you will smile again at some point.
Speaker 1: Yes, you will get your spark back, is what I
Speaker 1: like to say. I'm starting to get my spark.
Speaker 3: Back more on that next time. For more information on
Speaker 3: the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at
Speaker 3: kat Underscore Studios. The Idaho Masker is produced by Stephanie Leedeger,
Speaker 3: Gabriel Castillo and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design
Speaker 3: by Jeff Torois. Music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Masker
Speaker 3: is a production of Katy's Studios and iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 3: podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 3: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.