Speaker 1: Pushkin. This episode contains occasional course language, and we've used
Speaker 1: some voice actors to bring emails to life.
Speaker 2: I've been trying to understand how my brother's ex wife,
Speaker 2: Leslie Minuchian thinks. My journey so far has been like
Speaker 2: tunneling through the matrix. I've been gradually digging deeper into
Speaker 2: the world Leslie lives in. Actually, it's kind of like
Speaker 2: two worlds. It seems like Leslie has a fantasy world
Speaker 2: where she invents characters and a Hollywood movie about her life,
Speaker 2: but she also lives in the real world where people
Speaker 2: like my brother Greg are drawn into her spirals.
Speaker 3: Oh, I was absolutely like a serving dark mate.
Speaker 2: Greg called me the other day, and I guess he's
Speaker 2: been thinking about that too.
Speaker 3: Like who's the most prime target for an American female
Speaker 3: con artist with flat hair? It's great, warts you couldn't
Speaker 3: have lined it up better. Honestly, I would suggest I
Speaker 3: was the most obvious target. I was looking for the
Speaker 3: North American accent. It was done in the day one man.
Speaker 2: So do you think that she actually knew that as well?
Speaker 2: And I guess it just made things easier for her now.
Speaker 3: She didn't know that because she didn't know who I was,
Speaker 3: but it was the collision of multi fraudster versus the
Speaker 3: other side being someone wanting to believe in the American treatment.
Speaker 2: So far, I found out about the trouble Leslie got
Speaker 2: into before she came to New Zealand. But now I
Speaker 2: want to know about what happened after Leslie left Greg
Speaker 2: the Dragonfly and New Zealand behind. And the only way
Speaker 2: to find out more is to get closer to Leslie. Literally.
Speaker 2: I'm on her home turf in California with my other brother, Simon.
Speaker 1: It's hot and sunny, like California should be.
Speaker 2: We're doing our best detective impressions in Hawaiian shirts and
Speaker 2: a muscle car. We're definitely more flood of the Concords
Speaker 2: than true detective. All right, we have a car running
Speaker 2: a gentle rumble in her background. It's a per per,
Speaker 2: but we've got good leads and we're determined to find
Speaker 2: out more. We are today heading to a northern Californian
Speaker 2: town called Passer Robles. I'm following this trail to find
Speaker 2: answers for my family and to find Leslie. Let's at
Speaker 2: the road, sweet, I'm Molly Watts, and this is Snowball.
Speaker 4: We do not even call her by her name anymore,
Speaker 4: so we call her.
Speaker 5: The Black Widow.
Speaker 2: She has a laugh that could you know you hear
Speaker 2: it across the room.
Speaker 3: How did she get over on you? How did this happen?
Speaker 4: She was just kind of reckless with everything. I don't
Speaker 4: think she ever thought she would actually get caught.
Speaker 2: And he basically said, when I got home, there was.
Speaker 6: A bong load, a martini and a blow job, and
Speaker 6: I just didn't think about it.
Speaker 7: I don't think she'll talk to you. I think she'll
Speaker 7: see you and she'll run out the back door.
Speaker 6: I've had sony dreams of like talking to her. I
Speaker 6: just want to ask her, like, oh God, like why
Speaker 6: did you do this?
Speaker 2: Where we're hitting is about three and a half hours
Speaker 2: northwest of la Driving into wine country, there's vineyards and
Speaker 2: boosed up baby boomers everywhere. It was only four years
Speaker 2: after Leslie left my brother Greg and the failing Dragonfly
Speaker 2: and in Zed when she popped up hair and passerobles
Speaker 2: running another restaurant. This one was called Phenomenal. That's phenomenal
Speaker 2: with an F. A review of Leslie's new restaurant appeared
Speaker 2: on trevel Passo dot com.
Speaker 8: The whole phenomenal concept was extremely well thought out and
Speaker 8: executed by owner Leslie Manukian. Her prior experience of owning
Speaker 8: and operating a burger Barron Lake Tahoe, a California cuisine,
Speaker 8: fish and steak restaurant in Maui, and an artsy breakfast
Speaker 8: cafe in New Zealand taught her what is required to
Speaker 8: launch a successful business in the food and wine space.
Speaker 8: That and eating in forty seven countries in seven years.
Speaker 2: That's only a bit cheeky Leslie telling people about her
Speaker 2: successful bars and Tahoe, Hawaii and now an artsy breakfast
Speaker 2: cafe and in zed Lucky. The journalist who wrote that
Speaker 2: didn't check references. So here's another grand opening, another hospitality business,
Speaker 2: and maybe this time things turned out differently. Nah. Before
Speaker 2: we came to passer Robeles, I tracked down the people
Speaker 2: involved with this restaurant and it sounds messy. Here we are,
Speaker 2: Simon driving through passer Roobuls. The streets are really wide,
Speaker 2: The houses look like they're made of lego in that
Speaker 2: they have a tiny little stoop, and that they're all
Speaker 2: perfectly trimmed and painted. Hello, we're all right to park
Speaker 2: this monstrosity of a car. Here are we? This is
Speaker 2: the real owner of that restaurant phenomenal. He's happy to talk,
Speaker 2: but I've changed his name to Cameron in person. He
Speaker 2: doesn't want to have any more personal or professional impact
Speaker 2: from what happened to him. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 2: He's a business guy, engineering background, big build. He's got
Speaker 2: a gray goaty. Cameron invited Simon and I round to
Speaker 2: his really nice house. It's on a hill with a
Speaker 2: view of trees and other big villas in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: To get up to his front door, we climbed a
Speaker 2: rock staircase through a terraced garden. It's a blue sky day.
Speaker 2: Is it always like this? Yes? Pretty much, so we're
Speaker 2: sitting out on the balcony. Cameron says that when he
Speaker 2: first met Leslie, he had just been through a divorce.
Speaker 2: One night, he was having dinner with his mum and
Speaker 2: Leslie was their waiter.
Speaker 4: She seemed to indicate that she was worldly, adventurous and
Speaker 4: wanted to have the zastralafe and just enjoy life.
Speaker 2: So they start dating. They were only together a few
Speaker 2: months when things jumped to the next level, and.
Speaker 4: Next thing I know, she was just there a lot more,
Speaker 4: and she's like, well, hey, I shouldn't be paying rent
Speaker 4: when I'm here a lot anyway, so I'll just move in.
Speaker 4: And it just kind of happened. It wasn't like a discussion,
Speaker 4: It just kind of kind of unfolded.
Speaker 2: Cameron was okay with that though. He thought it'd be
Speaker 2: fun to have Leslie around, and it sounds like he
Speaker 2: was right. Cameron's friends remember Leslie joining me cr We.
Speaker 9: Instantly became friends. I mean, she was easy to talk to,
Speaker 9: she was interesting and interested in everyone. I mean it
Speaker 9: was just so so easy to get along, and she
Speaker 9: always had fun things. You know, she always came up
Speaker 9: with fun things to do, and you definitely had the
Speaker 9: sense that she like came from money.
Speaker 2: But another of Cameron's friends I spoke to Rickens, Leslie
Speaker 2: wasn't his usual type.
Speaker 6: She seems very nice. I did think that she was
Speaker 6: an odd match.
Speaker 1: Didn't seem his uh, you know, his typical cup of kea.
Speaker 6: For a relationship way, but very outgoing.
Speaker 9: I just different differences.
Speaker 6: Even in her appearance. She's loud, she has you know,
Speaker 6: large hair, long nails, paint.
Speaker 3: So I think that it was a kind of an
Speaker 3: out of character relationship for him.
Speaker 2: Cameron's mate asked him what he saw in Lesley?
Speaker 5: How did she get over on you? How did this happen?
Speaker 6: And he basically said, when I got home, there was
Speaker 6: a bong load, a martini and a blowjob, and I
Speaker 6: just didn't think about it. I just said yes and
Speaker 6: I signed.
Speaker 5: We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Lisley was also adventurous with all her worldly experience. She
Speaker 2: encouraged Cameron's desire to travel and they started planning a
Speaker 2: trip down Undone.
Speaker 4: I've never been to Australia, so I thought that would
Speaker 4: be great, Let's go to Australia. I was in the
Speaker 4: process of actually getting scuba dive certified, and so the
Speaker 4: goal was to go down there, do some wine tasting
Speaker 4: in Brosa, go see Melbourne, make sure I see all
Speaker 4: the sites, and just make a trip out of it.
Speaker 5: So flights were booked, hotels are booked.
Speaker 2: But Lisley's checkered past was about to interfere with their
Speaker 2: plans because back in New Zealand, my dad was still
Speaker 2: trying to figure out what had happened and where Leslie
Speaker 2: had gone. Dad was reading about book deals, movie stars
Speaker 2: and boats, and Leslie's emails like you heard last episode.
Speaker 2: He thought it all might be real, and he was
Speaker 2: wondering how Leslie could get away from New Zealand and
Speaker 2: her guarantee of the Dragonfly Bank loan without paying a cent.
Speaker 2: So Dad arranged for a private investigator to find Leslie
Speaker 2: to see if all the glitz and glamour was legit
Speaker 2: and to see if she would forfeit her boat to
Speaker 2: help pay off the loan. And this American PI he
Speaker 2: found her at Cameron's house. We know what happened next
Speaker 2: from Leslie's perspective because she emailed a friend about it.
Speaker 10: A private investigator showed up at my door. Dave Wartz
Speaker 10: hired him to find me. I kindly invited him in
Speaker 10: and we had a long talk about all the accusations
Speaker 10: that they have made against me.
Speaker 2: The PI found Leslie so convincing that from the report
Speaker 2: he sent back and her emails, it seems like she
Speaker 2: managed to flip him to her side. Leslie even refers
Speaker 2: to him as my PI at the end of her
Speaker 2: email to her mate. Even though the PI was working
Speaker 2: for my Dad, he ended up giving her information, including
Speaker 2: one crucial piece of intel.
Speaker 10: The PI told me, I have a warrant for my arrest.
Speaker 2: In n said it wasn't a warrant for arrest, but
Speaker 2: the cops told me that they would be alerted if
Speaker 2: Leslie set foot in New Zealand. And those flights that
Speaker 2: Leslie and Cameron had to Australia only a week later,
Speaker 2: they were connecting through New Zealand. If they went on
Speaker 2: their holiday, Leslie might have had to have a little
Speaker 2: chat with the Kiwi cops. So she panicked. Leslie had
Speaker 2: to come up with an excuse as to why they
Speaker 2: couldn't get on that plane.
Speaker 4: Next thing I know, she says, there was She came
Speaker 4: up with a couple different stories and so but the
Speaker 4: final story that we landed on was that there were
Speaker 4: so many major storms happening in Australia at the time.
Speaker 5: There's that the Great Barrier Reef was going to be cloudy.
Speaker 4: We weren't going to be able to scuba dive there
Speaker 4: because you wouldn't see anything. So the whole purpose of
Speaker 4: you know, one of the purposes to go there is
Speaker 4: to enjoy the scuba diving and snorkeling and stuff. So
Speaker 4: it was based on weather.
Speaker 5: At the time.
Speaker 2: They were meant to be meeting some friends in Australia
Speaker 2: and they caught a different excuse from Leslie in an email.
Speaker 10: I have the worst news ever. Cameron and I are
Speaker 10: not going to make it to Australia. As you know,
Speaker 10: Cameron uses air miles for travel to Australia. Well, we
Speaker 10: were printing down all of our arrangements and Cameron noticed
Speaker 10: that our names were spelled wrong on our ticketing information.
Speaker 10: I'm so upset. I do not even know where to begin.
Speaker 10: I have been on the phone all night canceling and
Speaker 10: changing bookings.
Speaker 2: So their tickets were void because Cameron got their names
Speaker 2: wrong on the booking. It's a testament to how doggedly
Speaker 2: Leslie can tell us story that everyone just let it slide.
Speaker 2: Leslie was spinning an even more important story for Cameron.
Speaker 2: It was Leslie's greatest hit story of being a successful
Speaker 2: restaurant heur, and predictably, it wasn't long before Leslie started
Speaker 2: suggesting that Cameron should invest a ton of money in
Speaker 2: a new restaurant, and like a lot of people before him,
Speaker 2: Cameron was keen.
Speaker 4: So I thought, between the tourists, you know, if she's
Speaker 4: already done it four or five times, this would be
Speaker 4: an easy situation. I can invest in this, I can
Speaker 4: do this and make a nice successful business in the
Speaker 4: local area here.
Speaker 2: Eventually Cameron agreed and they launched Phenomenal. The restaurant started strongly.
Speaker 2: The headline of that review you heard before was the
Speaker 2: phenomenal story of a great new Pessa Robels Restaurant Love,
Speaker 2: a pun title, Cameron says. Lesley wasn't actually employed at
Speaker 2: the restaurant, but as his girlfriend. She was helping out
Speaker 2: with a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 4: She went and basically told everybody that was her restaurant,
Speaker 4: and most people found out much later that she didn't
Speaker 4: even put a penny in there, not a dime, not
Speaker 4: a dollar. She did spend time in there, but you know,
Speaker 4: she was just kind of reckless with everything, including when
Speaker 4: we were purchasing equipment. You know, we were buying equipment,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, next day, know, she was
Speaker 4: returning something and then going and getting some other piece
Speaker 4: of equipment, the same piece of equipment with a lease,
Speaker 4: and so the money flow would just be crazy in
Speaker 4: the fact that wait, I just bought a new ten
Speaker 4: burner stove and now all of a sudden, I'm leasing one.
Speaker 4: Where'd that money go? And so it was it was
Speaker 4: things like that where it just didn't make sense.
Speaker 2: As Cameron talks about how Leslie was involved at his restaurant,
Speaker 2: I've got deja vo, Cameron says, strange stuff was going
Speaker 2: on with the accounting. Phenomenal was a tap us joint,
Speaker 2: but it sounds like it was the book that were
Speaker 2: getting cooked, or at least a bit scrambled.
Speaker 4: One time, Pugenie called me and said, by the way,
Speaker 4: we're shutting your electric off, and I'm like, what are
Speaker 4: you talking about. I repaid him and they're like, no,
Speaker 4: you're like six grand in the hall and I'm like, no,
Speaker 4: I have these receipts. I sent him the receives and
Speaker 4: they said these are fraudulent. She took the logo from
Speaker 4: their website, put it onto a blank piece of paper,
Speaker 4: wrote it out, this is your receipt for this dollar
Speaker 4: amount for this account and had that in the books
Speaker 4: as if she had paid it.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just the electricity bill that wasn't getting paid.
Speaker 2: Quite early on, someone stuck a flyer on the windows
Speaker 2: of the restaurant saying, shame on you, Phenomenal restaurant. You
Speaker 2: are doing business at the expense of local subcontractors. Pay
Speaker 2: your bills. When I asked Cameron if I can see
Speaker 2: some of this stuff, he takes me inside. Cameron goes
Speaker 2: to the filing cabinet and comes back arms full. He
Speaker 2: dumps his papers on the polished wood dining room table.
Speaker 2: You've got a couple of red folder's hair. One of
Speaker 2: them's caught black widow written on it.
Speaker 4: So most of my friends we do not even call
Speaker 4: her by her name anymore. She's not worthy of being named,
Speaker 4: so we call her the black widow.
Speaker 2: Of course, the black Widow is famously eight sis romantic
Speaker 2: partner off to a little while. Right exactly, Cameron spreads
Speaker 2: out a bunch of papers on the table in front
Speaker 2: of us and starts to take me through what happened.
Speaker 4: So what I have in front of me here are
Speaker 4: a bunch of bank documents. And you know, the thing
Speaker 4: is that, you know, when you're running a business, you
Speaker 4: don't typically run it through a lot of cash based things.
Speaker 4: You want to make sure there's a paper trail. But
Speaker 4: for whatever reason, she chose to go and withdraw cash.
Speaker 4: So I can't prove that she's taking this cash and
Speaker 4: put it in her pocket or her bank accounts. But
Speaker 4: all I can do is say, well, here, okay, this
Speaker 4: month alone, there was six thousand dollars withdrawal by cash,
Speaker 4: five thousand dollars, five thousand dollars. There's another five thousand.
Speaker 4: There's another three thousand that's in thirty days withdrawal of cash.
Speaker 2: Cameron could keep going next month and he does another.
Speaker 4: Five thousand dollars, two thousand dollars, three thousand.
Speaker 2: While all this was happening, Leslie wasn't being paid like
Speaker 2: she was on the phenomenal staff. Cameron says the deal
Speaker 2: was until the business started making money. He was covering
Speaker 2: everything like food, rent and overseas holidays. But maybe Leslie
Speaker 2: thought she was entitled to some money in the meantime.
Speaker 2: It's just the next thing he shows me looks like
Speaker 2: a murky way for Leslie to sort herself out with cash.
Speaker 2: He pulls out some scans of checks. He reckons Leslie
Speaker 2: forged his signature on.
Speaker 5: Oh look at that.
Speaker 4: It happens to be to her father, Andrew Manukian for
Speaker 4: six hundred and fifty dollars minimum credit card payment. Is
Speaker 4: what it's showing here, not my signature.
Speaker 2: Then there's a real big boy. Cameron says he made
Speaker 2: the mistake of leaving a blank check around for emergencies.
Speaker 4: You know, this is something that is the most disturbing.
Speaker 4: Thirty thousand dollars thirty eight hundred and fifty dollars made
Speaker 4: out to cash. I have no idea where the money went.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm an idiot for allowing that to happen.
Speaker 2: I mean that's actually probably physically quite a lot of piper.
Speaker 2: Like I would imagine going up to the bank teller
Speaker 2: and handing that chick across, and I would sort of
Speaker 2: have to go into the vault and you know, get
Speaker 2: a bag and manage your approval and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff.
Speaker 5: So it goes on and on and on.
Speaker 2: I mean, did you think about going to the police
Speaker 2: when you found this?
Speaker 5: Yes, it's too painful to go through.
Speaker 4: That part of it was the survivability piece, is that,
Speaker 4: you know, I still had to move on in my life.
Speaker 4: I didn't lose my house, but I was close. I
Speaker 4: did lose my car. I had to let that go,
Speaker 4: you know, And so there's been so many things along
Speaker 4: that way that I'm like, you know what, I just
Speaker 4: need to figure out a way to survive. And not
Speaker 4: only that, it's a small town, so you know, it
Speaker 4: was better for me to just suck it up, understand
Speaker 4: that I made a mistake with who I partnered with,
Speaker 4: and chuck it up as a life experience and move on.
Speaker 2: So it all happens again, allegations of fake documents, forge checks,
Speaker 2: mysterious lumps of cash going missing. Then Leslie gets to
Speaker 2: walk away. Only this time it was Cameron's conscious choice
Speaker 2: not to pursue her, even if he wanted to change
Speaker 2: his mind. Now it's probably too late. There's a statute
Speaker 2: of limitations on fraud in California of three years. We
Speaker 2: sit around the dining room table talking for ages and
Speaker 2: Simon starts to wonder, if Cameron didn't talk to the cops,
Speaker 2: then why us.
Speaker 1: Obviously you decided not to kind of approach anyone else
Speaker 1: about it. What made you talk to Olian leads us
Speaker 1: to be sitting here together?
Speaker 4: So I guess, first and foremost, I think the fact
Speaker 4: that I had it bad, but your brother Greg had
Speaker 4: it way worse.
Speaker 5: In your parents.
Speaker 4: So for me at that point in time, it was
Speaker 4: kind of like, well, you know, what if there's a
Speaker 4: way that I can somehow help and whether it's helped
Speaker 4: this be successful or help her to be stopped or
Speaker 4: to somehow help someone else have closure.
Speaker 5: That was pretty important to me.
Speaker 2: But it turns out it wasn't that easy inviting us
Speaker 2: to come over. Cameron's partner has been sitting with us
Speaker 2: this whole time, nodding a head to what she already knows,
Speaker 2: and at times looking pretty shocked as she finds out more.
Speaker 11: When Cameron told me about it, initially, I could just
Speaker 11: see this black cloud above his head and he was
Speaker 11: just for a few days there, he didn't know if
Speaker 11: he wanted to do it or not. And I was
Speaker 11: excited about the possibility of this happening because I knew
Speaker 11: just from the outside looking at Cameron, that he needed
Speaker 11: to process it because I, in my opinion, he kind
Speaker 11: of put a lot of things, just checked it under
Speaker 11: the rug and just wanted to pretend it didn't ever happen.
Speaker 11: And I knew that.
Speaker 4: I just kept putting it in a file cabinet. It's like,
Speaker 4: you know what, let's just let's just look at this
Speaker 4: ten years from now. Let's laugh about this in ten years.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 11: I mean, he did have an inkling that maybe someday,
Speaker 11: you know, he would be happy that he didn't throw
Speaker 11: away some of these papers, but I knew he needed
Speaker 11: to process all that that had happened to him. And
Speaker 11: once that happens with any trauma, once you are able
Speaker 11: to actually finally process it all, you can really then
Speaker 11: go on with your life.
Speaker 2: That's when Simon and I start to realize this stuff
Speaker 2: is still present for them. They've got this nice house
Speaker 2: on a hill and they're doing well, but the betrayal
Speaker 2: of your trust, that kind of thing takes longer to
Speaker 2: get past.
Speaker 1: Did this kind of change the way you'd look at
Speaker 1: kind of going into business or even going into relationships
Speaker 1: after that?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 1: Do you did it negatively affect you like that?
Speaker 2: Or?
Speaker 5: Unfortunately?
Speaker 4: The bad part of that is, you know, it's it's
Speaker 4: like trust your employees, trust your people, but verify. And
Speaker 4: I definitely don't have as much trust for the people
Speaker 4: in my lives, and so therefore I definitely have to
Speaker 4: verify them a lot more. I mean, I think I
Speaker 4: appreciate the things that you have around you a lot
Speaker 4: more than I did before, because you know, I was fat, dumb,
Speaker 4: and happier or whatever, and just you know, I was
Speaker 4: I was doing well, and I was I was making
Speaker 4: my bills, and you know, after that it's kind.
Speaker 5: Of like, well, wait, what makes you happy?
Speaker 4: And I truly was not happy during that period of
Speaker 4: my life because there was the probably the highest stress
Speaker 4: level I've ever had in my life.
Speaker 2: So this whole experience did have a lasting effect. These
Speaker 2: that phrase it's bitter to have loved and lost than
Speaker 2: they've loved at all. With this relationship, Cameron definitely lost.
Speaker 2: But was the love you were with Leslie for a
Speaker 2: couple of years. Did your relationship get to that point
Speaker 2: where you think she loved you?
Speaker 5: No, not at all.
Speaker 12: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't think she was ever in love with me.
Speaker 4: I think that she was in love with the opportunities
Speaker 4: and the lifestyle.
Speaker 7: No.
Speaker 4: I never really felt any love from her. You know,
Speaker 4: there was at times some respect that was about the
Speaker 4: only thing, like hey, you're successful in your career. But
Speaker 4: for the most part, no, it was more like, you know,
Speaker 4: two people just going out and having fun. At times
Speaker 4: when we go places, it was more about like let's
Speaker 4: go have fun. It wasn't about any kind of a
Speaker 4: romantic situation.
Speaker 2: There's one other perspective I wanted to get from this
Speaker 2: time in Cameron's life. Cameron's daughter was living with them,
Speaker 2: when Lesley moved in, she was around ten at the time.
Speaker 2: Now she's eighteen and off at college. I wanted to
Speaker 2: hear how all this went for her. Cameron suggested I
Speaker 2: give her a call.
Speaker 6: Like when I met her, I you know, thought she
Speaker 6: was fun. She's really like kind of tough and like
Speaker 6: unlike other women that I had met or are, they're
Speaker 6: like female like I don't know figures in my life.
Speaker 6: So I thought she was like kind of cool at first.
Speaker 6: She would always like wrestle with me and like rough
Speaker 6: house and like you know, talk about like being tough
Speaker 6: and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: Kimeron's daughter sees that Lesley was sort of a play
Speaker 2: night rather than a parent figure.
Speaker 6: Like I remember one time, like when we were playing basketball,
Speaker 6: like I threw the basketball at her and it hit
Speaker 6: her in the boobs, and she just like got so
Speaker 6: mad at me, Like she started yelling, you did that
Speaker 6: on purpose, you fucking manipulate a bitch, Like what the
Speaker 6: fuck are you doing? And like she just would just
Speaker 6: go off suddenly, and I just like would be totally
Speaker 6: freaked out and like.
Speaker 8: Not know what I did.
Speaker 6: Uh, And and my dad would always like say, like, oh,
Speaker 6: she's just she's never been around kids. She just doesn't
Speaker 6: really like know that you're not supposed to do that.
Speaker 2: As time went on, it sounds like their interactions became
Speaker 2: more hurtful.
Speaker 6: She's like, oh my god, honey, you must get made
Speaker 6: fun of so much in school for your mustache and
Speaker 6: for your and for your your your body hair, like
Speaker 6: I remember I did, like and she was like being
Speaker 6: like relates, like trying to be relatable like I remember
Speaker 6: I did, and like, you know, I didn't have like
Speaker 6: a mother who would like help me with that kind
Speaker 6: of stuff like your mother, you know, like your mother
Speaker 6: or your mother obviously like isn't talking to you about this.
Speaker 6: But I can like help you and teach you how
Speaker 6: to shave your legs, and I can give you this
Speaker 6: cream that you can just put on your lip and
Speaker 6: it'll get rid of the hair. And at the time,
Speaker 6: like I was like ten, so I didn't even have
Speaker 6: any like not like I didn't even notice it. I
Speaker 6: had never been made fun of it, and I like
Speaker 6: was just like I don't know, kind of like suddenly
Speaker 6: like self conscious about this thing.
Speaker 2: Cameron's daughter has thought a lot about it since.
Speaker 6: Okay, this is really hard to say, I've actually like
Speaker 6: in the aftermath of her like leaving and whatever. Like
Speaker 6: I've had so many dreams of like like talking to her,
Speaker 6: just because like I felt like there was never any
Speaker 6: closure there, but like, oh God, like why did you
Speaker 6: do this? I like a part of me believes that
Speaker 6: she's just like a really broken person that just have
Speaker 6: a lot of issues and just can't help but to
Speaker 6: recavoc wherever she goes.
Speaker 4: I always wonder, I mean, all of the time and
Speaker 4: effort that she put into creating scams and creating all
Speaker 4: these things, if she just took the brains of that
Speaker 4: and did something right with her life, she could probably
Speaker 4: be successful.
Speaker 2: It's unreal because our dad had just sold his business
Speaker 2: just before they bought the Dragonfly, and he invested sort
Speaker 2: of two hundred grand cash and then guaranteed the loan
Speaker 2: for them. She didn't invest a single cent and the
Speaker 2: whole thing. Yet she had this opportunity we were talking
Speaker 2: about it today, where like it was a beautiful place
Speaker 2: and it was in a nice part of New Zealand,
Speaker 2: and it had a great start and everyone she could
Speaker 2: have if she ran it, well, it could have been
Speaker 2: a great life. So again, I don't understand why Leslie
Speaker 2: seems to mess up these great opportunities in her life.
Speaker 2: By now, I sort of expected to find a bigger purpose,
Speaker 2: a master plan, some kind of reason for all this.
Speaker 2: Like you'd think there would be a bigger payoff for Leslie.
Speaker 2: Even if these tens of thousands of dollars are going
Speaker 2: into her own pockets, is it worth her? In the end?
Speaker 2: Leslie doesn't seem to end up with much. She's not
Speaker 2: a master criminal. Some of these fake documents look like
Speaker 2: she's made them with real life scissors and glue. Her
Speaker 2: deceptions always seem to catch up with her. And then
Speaker 2: Leslie's whole world gets turned upside down yet again, and
Speaker 2: she has to move to a new place. So why
Speaker 2: does she do it?
Speaker 5: We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Cameron does mention one thing I've heard before, something that
Speaker 2: might explain some of what she does.
Speaker 4: I know her parents helped her and support her. There
Speaker 4: was definitely one credit card that I remember that she
Speaker 4: had said something about, like she ran up a credit
Speaker 4: card and her parents paid it off for her, and
Speaker 4: so therefore she had to give them money at various
Speaker 4: times to help pay off the credit card that she
Speaker 4: ran up, and it was a big number but I
Speaker 4: just remember she would sometimes have to make payments to
Speaker 4: her parents.
Speaker 2: This kind of thing was going on when Leslie was
Speaker 2: in New Zealand. Two. There's an email her mum Betty
Speaker 2: sent warning Leslie about using their credit card.
Speaker 13: The last time you had it was for two days
Speaker 13: and you ran up two thousand dollars on it, of
Speaker 13: which although I was promised to pay back, it never
Speaker 13: came as usual.
Speaker 2: So maybe Leslie is constantly in debt, and maybe the
Speaker 2: one debt that she can never really run away from
Speaker 2: is the one she owes to her parents. Cameron spent
Speaker 2: a fair bit of time with Leslie's parents. They even
Speaker 2: moved up to paser Robles for a while when things
Speaker 2: were going well. By the time Cameron was trying to
Speaker 2: figure out the phenomenal financials, kind of surprisingly, Leslie's mum,
Speaker 2: Betty came to help with the books. One night, Betty
Speaker 2: was in the restaurant office when Cameron was realizing how
Speaker 2: bad things were, and Betty said something that stuck with him.
Speaker 4: At some point in time, we were discussing something and
Speaker 4: I said, well, this is unacceptable. We can't be running
Speaker 4: a business in this way. And then Betty was like
Speaker 4: what's going on? Because I don't raise my voice very often,
Speaker 4: and I was like, this is just insane, how can
Speaker 4: this be happening? And then she's like, oh, oh, she's
Speaker 4: done it again, And it was just this revelation, like
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, she just knew what had happened
Speaker 4: and where we are. And Betty picked up her purse
Speaker 4: and left, never to be seen again.
Speaker 2: Cameron had seen enough. He kicked Leslie out, and he
Speaker 2: warned the bank what he suspected was going on.
Speaker 4: And she went in the day that I shut it
Speaker 4: off and was trying to withdraw a large sum of
Speaker 4: money and they said, nope, you're off the account. She
Speaker 4: apparently started crying and saying that's not fair. That's my business,
Speaker 4: this is my company, this is all these things right there.
Speaker 4: So the president of that bank told me all this
Speaker 4: soul story.
Speaker 2: So Lislie was gone from another restaurant, another mess. This
Speaker 2: time Lislie didn't go far. Cameron has a clue for
Speaker 2: us about where Leslie might be now. He's actually been
Speaker 2: kind of getting running updates about where Leslie is from
Speaker 2: a pretty strange source. For some reason, when they were together,
Speaker 2: his email address got added to her loyalty account with
Speaker 2: a big American pharmacy chain.
Speaker 4: And so somehow I get these emails that says, every
Speaker 4: time she makes a purchase, I get a.
Speaker 5: Receipt for what she purchased. And at first it was
Speaker 5: kind of comical.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, great, so she's buying gummy worms, some
Speaker 4: Nike wool, some crazy mescara or whatever. Oh wow, okay,
Speaker 4: so she must have a call this weekend and oh hey,
Speaker 4: you know, now she's got the munchies because she's buying
Speaker 4: all these snack things. And it was it was quite
Speaker 4: comical to know that she was still in the area
Speaker 4: and at the same time going she hasn't changed a thing.
Speaker 2: Cameron tells Simon and I the receipts have been coming
Speaker 2: from a place called San Louis Obispo.
Speaker 5: Saint Louis OBISBA.
Speaker 4: How far is that from here, Cameron, it's about thirty
Speaker 4: minutes from here.
Speaker 2: That's us. So Simon and I jumped back in the car.
Speaker 2: Next stop on road trip to Snowball. It's an easy
Speaker 2: drive through a valley. San Luis Obispo is a tidy
Speaker 2: little town, mostly one and two story buildings surrounded by
Speaker 2: green hills, but there is something about this place that
Speaker 2: starts to freak me out. We are entering what is
Speaker 2: probably Leslie's town, so she might see us nervous again.
Speaker 2: Imagine feeling nervous for like weeks on end, and that's me.
Speaker 2: I have this not in my stomach because we could
Speaker 2: be busted at any time, and I don't know what
Speaker 2: they would mean. I don't know what it would feel
Speaker 2: like for Leslie to see us and go, WHOA, Simon
Speaker 2: and Ollie, I've always known that somebody was going to
Speaker 2: come looking for me or which has it been long enough?
Speaker 2: And she's got no idea and we're just a couple
Speaker 2: of Americans, one in a Detroit Tiger's hat and one
Speaker 2: in a yankees at cruising through town in a muscle car.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is, I think the amount of people
Speaker 1: that she's jooped like, we're not the only people that
Speaker 1: she's kind of weary of seeing, you know, Imagine the
Speaker 1: list of people that potentially could be coming to look
Speaker 1: for her.
Speaker 2: So the thing is, we still don't know where to
Speaker 2: find her, and we can't just hang out on street
Speaker 2: corners until she walks past or something. But Cameron has
Speaker 2: given us another lead. He knows someone else who lives
Speaker 2: in San Luis Obispo. It's the former wine manager from Phenomenal.
Speaker 2: Apparently she had been friends with Leslie. She's up for
Speaker 2: having a chat with us, so we head over to
Speaker 2: her place. She doesn't want to have her real name
Speaker 2: used either. It's another small town, so I'm going to
Speaker 2: call her Sarah. Here we are. I'm just pulling into
Speaker 2: the driveway a beautiful garden. I think she's there in
Speaker 2: the in the in the garden doing some weeding and stuff.
Speaker 2: This is my brother.
Speaker 7: Simon to meet you. You're not great, I'm not.
Speaker 5: Brother in between us, got it?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got a little girl to look after and
Speaker 1: job a.
Speaker 2: Bit too emotional, firm coming up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Sarah's place is right on a golf course. Like her,
Speaker 2: windows occasionally get smashed by shank shots. She met Leslie
Speaker 2: soon after everything went down and in z when Leslie
Speaker 2: came back to the States.
Speaker 7: An instant friendship. We both just moved to the area.
Speaker 7: We didn't know a ton of people, and we were
Speaker 7: part of this opening team. I was knew, I was nervous.
Speaker 2: I didn't know.
Speaker 7: I only knew one other person, and so the charm
Speaker 7: definitely drew me in. She just, you know, she has
Speaker 7: this very charismatic quality about her that she can just
Speaker 7: introduce herself and instantly want to try and make a
Speaker 7: connection with you. And it's like she uses her wide range,
Speaker 7: as she said it, of worldly experience and uses it
Speaker 7: to kind of become a little bit of a like
Speaker 7: an older sister. It will get better. Everything's okay, you
Speaker 7: are amazing, You've got so much going for you. And
Speaker 7: that was just that was her way.
Speaker 2: I've got one thing on my mind that I can't
Speaker 2: help but ask, you know, please tell us what you
Speaker 2: heard about what happened in New Zealand.
Speaker 7: Well, I heard your family's pretty terrible, pretty terrible.
Speaker 2: Simon's laughing sounds.
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, I remember, because I was going to New Zealand.
Speaker 7: She told me, never fall in love with the Kiwi.
Speaker 7: They're the worst man, the worst man. You never want
Speaker 7: to fall in love with the Kiwi. But about your family,
Speaker 7: she basically distilled it down to, was your parents were
Speaker 7: after her parents' money.
Speaker 2: But as far as we can tell, Leslie might have
Speaker 2: actually transferred my parents' money to her mom and dad. Anyway,
Speaker 2: while she was away from the US, Sarah stayed in
Speaker 2: touch with Leslie, and when Phenomenal was opening, Leslie wanted
Speaker 2: Sarah to move back and be part of it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I was a restaurant person and I always wanted
Speaker 7: to be a Simolia. And so she presented the opportunity.
Speaker 7: She's like, you know what, if you're ready to come home,
Speaker 7: just come home and be be my line director, be
Speaker 7: the person that is that buys the wine for the restaurant.
Speaker 7: You can make all the selections.
Speaker 2: And with that, Sarah became another person drawn into Leslie's
Speaker 2: restaurant dreams.
Speaker 7: But then once kind of the honeymoon period was over,
Speaker 7: I guess for the restaurant, and more rumors started getting
Speaker 7: going around about town that maybe a vendor hadn't been paid.
Speaker 7: Then you know, more seats at empty, fewer people were
Speaker 7: coming in, and Leslie really started disappearing. She just wouldn't
Speaker 7: show up, and she's like, I just can't I'm too
Speaker 7: stressed out.
Speaker 2: Eventually Sarah started to realize what was going on. She
Speaker 2: started asking questions about all the things that didn't add
Speaker 2: up with Leslie.
Speaker 7: So I became public enemy number one in the restaurant.
Speaker 7: I was feeling the rest of the staff treating me differently,
Speaker 7: and that's basically because she was just trashing me, that
Speaker 7: mouth me because I wasn't her little number one worker
Speaker 7: by anymore.
Speaker 2: Sarah says that Leslie tried to make her escapegoat for
Speaker 2: some of the chaos at Phenomenal.
Speaker 5: It was hearpe breaking.
Speaker 7: It was quite frankly heartbreaking and absolutely confidence scheeking because
Speaker 7: I had always prayed myself as being someone a good friend,
Speaker 7: a loyal friend, and really damn good at my job.
Speaker 2: The whole experience left Sarah feeling like she needed to
Speaker 2: get away. She quit, But after Leslie was kicked out
Speaker 2: of Cameron's house and Phenomenal, Leslie didn't move country or
Speaker 2: even state. She moved to the same town as Sarah,
Speaker 2: and being a pretty small town, they eventually ran into
Speaker 2: each other about a year ago. This might be the
Speaker 2: final lead I need to find Leslie. It turns out
Speaker 2: that after running at least four different bars and restaurants
Speaker 2: around the world, Leslie was working in a supermarket. Sarah
Speaker 2: heard her laugh from another aisle.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I heard the laugh, and I was like, surely
Speaker 7: not absolutely not.
Speaker 2: No way.
Speaker 7: And then I got to the end of the aisle
Speaker 7: and I froze and she was like restocking something, and
Speaker 7: she looked over and just says hello, Sarah, and like
Speaker 7: half an aisle away, like she knew it was me.
Speaker 7: She saw it was me, and I was just like,
Speaker 7: oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Hi. They chatted for a bit. Lasley even acknowledged she
Speaker 2: couldn't get away with much in a small town.
Speaker 7: Well, it was like calling out the elephant in the room.
Speaker 7: We couldn't not talk about what had happened. But then
Speaker 7: it's like she checked herself and realized, oh, this person
Speaker 7: knows some of the things I've tried to get away
Speaker 7: with in a small town.
Speaker 2: Despite everything that happened between them, Leasley almost talked it away.
Speaker 7: I think this is just like a testament to her
Speaker 7: in her charm. When I ran into her at the
Speaker 7: grocery store and listening to her just like spin and
Speaker 7: spin and spin and spin, I felt empathy for her,
Speaker 7: and I really had a hard time stopping myself from
Speaker 7: inviting her over to that gathering I was having at
Speaker 7: my house that night, even though like it was the
Speaker 7: wildest thing, and I'm very grateful that I did not
Speaker 7: open that Pandora's box.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 2: Well that's exactly what I'm going to try and do.
Speaker 2: I'm here to open Pandora's box. The supermarket Sarah is
Speaker 2: talking about is just around the corner. If Leslie still
Speaker 2: works there, I'll be able to find her. How do
Speaker 2: you think she would react when we turn up? Well,
Speaker 2: it'll be just me. Really. Simon's a bit intimidating to
Speaker 2: roll up with as well. I keep saying that, But
Speaker 2: I just find you intimidating.
Speaker 1: Mate, Yeah, because you used to get bitten up when
Speaker 1: you're little.
Speaker 2: What do you think she would say to all of
Speaker 2: this stuff that's happened now.
Speaker 7: I don't think she'll talk to you. I really don't
Speaker 7: think she'll talk to you. I think she'll see you
Speaker 7: and she'll run out the back door.
Speaker 2: She might front Shiel.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 2: So this might be it. We might have found Leslie.
Speaker 2: Simon and I figure we'll scope out the supermarket later.
Speaker 2: What we need to do now is call Mum, Dad
Speaker 2: and Greg back home. They're hanging for updates, so we
Speaker 2: find a place to stay and call a family skype meeting.
Speaker 2: It starts the way they always do.
Speaker 14: Good, Hey, your dad, have we got out with your.
Speaker 15: Just look like we have?
Speaker 2: Once the tech stuff is sorted. It's down to business.
Speaker 1: How are you guys?
Speaker 15: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Good?
Speaker 15: Hey, tell us what have you done today?
Speaker 5: For goodness sake?
Speaker 2: I tell them everything you've heard. Just Mum wants more
Speaker 2: detail about what we've been eating and if we're looking
Speaker 2: after ourselves. After hearing Cameron's story and how similar it
Speaker 2: was to ours, Mum has some thoughts. I have no.
Speaker 16: Hatred for here. I don't really have any anger for here.
Speaker 16: She just leaves me. God's mate. It's beyond reason, isn't
Speaker 16: it that she could do these things tonight? We've learned
Speaker 16: from you that it's a pattern, so she knows very
Speaker 16: well what she's doing and what works.
Speaker 2: Then I tell them about where Leslie's been working.
Speaker 5: Works on a supermarket.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, what do you make of that?
Speaker 14: She'll be planning her way to climb out of it
Speaker 14: by burning someone else. She'll she'll have more mass goar
Speaker 14: on now than ever before, trying to trap someone else.
Speaker 2: And what do you think of everything we've told you
Speaker 2: so far?
Speaker 12: Man?
Speaker 14: Just ticking like lots of bells are going in my head,
Speaker 14: and I just think she needs to be stopped more
Speaker 14: than ever before.
Speaker 2: What we're going to do is stake out the place
Speaker 2: tomorrow and try and figure out what time she's working
Speaker 2: and be there for either the start or end of
Speaker 2: her shift. It's very important that we don't intimidate her physically,
Speaker 2: you know, threaten or getting any sort of altercation. I'm
Speaker 2: really going in palms open, trying to be friendly, Greg.
Speaker 2: What do you think she's gonna say?
Speaker 14: Firstly, I wouldn't probably expect too much. She's she'll the
Speaker 14: mechanics in her head will work pretty fast and she'll
Speaker 14: be this is not good for Leslie. Minuchians. What's an
Speaker 14: escape route?
Speaker 2: So what will I do if I've got this one shot,
Speaker 2: one opportunity to talk to Leslie? I want to know
Speaker 2: what everyone would want me to say, So we go
Speaker 2: round the room.
Speaker 15: Just to basically turn a life around. That would be
Speaker 15: my thought for her.
Speaker 12: I would say, she needs to know what a hell
Speaker 12: of a lot of life she's missed out on, that
Speaker 12: she could have had a really nice life here in
Speaker 12: New Zealand.
Speaker 15: My desire for her would be that she understands the
Speaker 15: issues that she's dealt out to a lot of people
Speaker 15: around the world, that she genuinely seeks to rehabilitate herself
Speaker 15: into some sort of normality. I don't know how that
Speaker 15: could be. Maybe doctor Phil could help her.
Speaker 2: At long last, there it is again, Dad getting a
Speaker 2: plugin for doctor Phil. Simon and I are laughing so
Speaker 2: hard we have to turn our mic off. Greg has
Speaker 2: been really courageous letting me tell this story. I've been
Speaker 2: hoping that this whole thing will bring him some sort
Speaker 2: of closure. So I asked him what he would say
Speaker 2: to Leslie.
Speaker 14: That's a tough, tough question, but it would be along
Speaker 14: the lines that her behavior has to come to an end,
Speaker 14: and chaps from New Zealand are going to help bring
Speaker 14: that end of behavior about Sorry, well sorry? What what
Speaker 14: I want you to say to her?
Speaker 5: Right now?
Speaker 14: I'll just say it's it's over, because we're gonna make
Speaker 14: it that way.
Speaker 2: You have been real brave through all this, man. We
Speaker 2: as we wrap up sharing some love, there's another message
Speaker 2: that gets repeated.
Speaker 15: Be safe, Be safe.
Speaker 14: Love you guys, man, Love you, guys.
Speaker 1: Love you.
Speaker 2: After our family meeting, I lie awake in the cheap
Speaker 2: motel bed, rehearsing what I'm going to say. I've been
Speaker 2: working on this thing for months, but my family has
Speaker 2: been dealing with the fallout for years. And all this
Speaker 2: time later it could all come to some sort of culmination.
Speaker 2: I have no idea what I'm in for where. Okay,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I see you, I see you. That's next
Speaker 2: time on Snowball.
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