WEBVTT - ‘I’m Also on the Website’ 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:04.320 A quick note, this is episode two of a six 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:08.119 part series. If you haven't heard the prior episodes, we 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:12.280 recommend going back and starting there. It should also be 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:18.520 noted that this series explores sexualized imagery involving miners and violence. 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:20.799 Please take care when listening. 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:32.000 I got a call when I was working up my 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:36.519 old job at a clothing store, and I see one 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:40.160 of the classmates popped up on my phone. She goes, 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:44.720 I saw you on the website. I just want to 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:47.680 let you know I'm also on this website. 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:51.520 It was New Year's Eve twenty twenty, nearly a year 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:55.120 after Kayla's father had knocked on her bedroom door to 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.280 show her the images he had found of her online. 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.240 And I remember just like walking away from the register 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.240 and I was just like, okay, Like, how many other 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:06.200 people are on there? 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.200 Kayla wasn't the only one whose phone was lighting up. 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.920 I got a text. I was parked in the mall 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:20.440 parking lot outside of the entrance to the movie theater 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:25.240 with my boyfriend at the time, who was about to 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.320 start his evening night shift. 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:33.320 Cecilia was tucked in the driver's seat while rain pelted 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:37.240 the windshield. She'd planned to drop her boyfriend off at 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.240 his job at the mall near Leavitt Town, the New 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.840 York suburb where they lived. Before heading home, she. 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.240 Said, Hey, can I talk to you for a second 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.840 And I said, yeah, my boyfriend's going into work in 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.920 fifteen minutes. You could call me then, and she texted back, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:56.920 he's going to want to hear this. 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.560 The text was from a former last night, someone she 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.919 hadn't talked to in months. When the phone rang, Cecilia 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:06.920 put it on speaker. 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:13.519 She said that her friend came across this website called 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:22.680 come on Printed Picks, in which someone was posting photos 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.760 of many of the girls that we had gone to 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:32.040 school with, and she said that there are pictures of 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:36.480 you on there, and I just wanted you to know, 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.920 And she also sent me the link to the website. 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:49.680 I opened the link immediately, with my boyfriend over my 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.280 shoulder looking at it with me. The first things I 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.160 saw when I opened that link, I remember, were photos 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:00.960 of girls that I graduated with. A lot of them 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:05.320 were just pictures from their instagrams. A lot of them 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:13.240 had lengthy captions saying their name and their age and 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:26.680 describing them in gross ways. I remember coming across mine. 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:28.440 The photo was a selfie. Cecilia had taken it in 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.640 the changing room of a clothing store a few months earlier. 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:36.400 It was exactly the same photo she'd posted to social media, 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:42.920 except in this one she was completely naked. 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:48.600 He described me as a ripe latina plaything. 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.600 And there were others, including one of Cecilia when she 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:55.200 was a lot younger. 0:03:56.280 --> 0:04:01.720 I remember seeing a photo of myself as a child. 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.720 I was in elementary school. I had to be five 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:06.520 or sex. 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:11.120 In the photo, she has chubby cheeks and ringlets that 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:12.440 she's since grown out of. 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:14.760 Next to that. 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:26.080 Innocent image was an erect penis just resting there like. 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:27.200 Like it wasn't and she's away from a digital image 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:28.279 of a child's face. 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:34.520 She started crying, describing it as that kind of cry 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.520 where you sound like you're dying. 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:42.279 It was such a terrible feeling, and I remember looking 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:48.520 over at my boyfriend at the time, and he looked 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:55.200 back at me, and we didn't share any words, but 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.760 his the look his eyes. 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.760 Several young women shared a similar experience. 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.960 I felt gross. I felt like I needed to take 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:12.479 a shower. I felt like I wanted to cry. I 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:14.839 wanted to throw up, I wanted to scream. 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.520 I didn't really want to look, but I had to look. 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:19.200 It was the most horrifying thing. 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:21.520 But you just can't look away, Like a car accident, 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:26.360 but I'm the car accident. I was just like paralyzed 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:30.440 on my couch for hours because it felt so surreal. 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:33.320 And then that's when I went to my mom and 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.720 I was like, there's like a whole thing going on. 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.520 The news came while they were working a shift at 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.920 their retail job or sitting at home watching New Year's 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:50.000 Eve celebrations. Others were away at college parties and ran 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:55.200 home in tears. In all, more than forty young women 0:05:55.360 --> 0:06:00.320 found themselves living some version of the story. And they 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.600 weren't strangers. Most knew each other from MacArthur High School, 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.200 they were on the same cheerleading squad, or they lived 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.880 to feudors down from one another. So what are the 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.600 chances that they were all targets of someone? They didn't 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:24.560 know that this was all just a weird coincidence. Absolutely zero. 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:33.560 I'm Olivia Carvill and I'm Margie Murphy from iHeart Podcasts, 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:47.000 Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. This is Levertown. That night, Cecilia drove 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.640 back to her boyfriend's house and called the cops. An 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:54.880 hour later, detectives from the Nassau County Police Department were 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.120 knocking at the door. She hadn't been the first to 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:03.680 call them interviewed her alone, a painful process that left 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:04.279 her wrung out. 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:07.960 After the meaning that I had had that night with 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:12.320 the detectives, it became a little bit too much to 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:17.560 bear again. That was the first night of knowing, and 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:23.880 with that came a shark in betrayal and a lot 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:24.880 of heavy emotions. 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.040 At least four of the young women and their parents 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.200 called the police that New Year's Eve. They were told 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.080 pretty much the same thing Kayla had heard all those 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:38.600 months before. The poster was anonymous, the photos were fake 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.360 according to the law at the time, there was no 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:47.280 real crime, but pretty soon messages were flying between the 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:47.760 young women. 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:52.800 I reached out to a bunch of people and let 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:53.160 them know. 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:56.560 Leah, who was a sophomore in college at the time, 0:07:57.280 --> 0:07:59.800 remembers two things hit her as she scrolled through the 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:03.360 sod like one the shock of seeing her face tacked 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.760 onto a naked body that was not hers, and two, 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.680 the realization of just how widespread this was. She spent 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:16.360 hours scrolling as she saw one classmate after another defiled 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:17.240 in the same way. 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:21.480 It was just a whole chain reaction of girls in 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:25.200 our community that were involved in this. 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:29.400 Unfortunately, by New Year's Day, they weren't just offering each 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.840 other support, they were determined to figure out who was 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:37.000 behind this. As they texted back and forth, the women 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.760 throughout names of potential suspects. One thought it was a 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.960 guy from school who'd been stalking her for months, but 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.319 there was another name that kept coming up. It was 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.400 a guy most of them barely knew, but Cecilia did. 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:55.720 I first met him when I was a freshman in 0:08:55.760 --> 0:09:01.920 high school. I remember he was very talkative, you know, 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:02.840 easy to talk to. 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:05.600 She described the group she used to hang out with. 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.559 I hate to say it, but they were the Stoners. 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.240 That's who I was with. We would hang out, they 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:18.000 would have these great philosophical talks about whatever it was, 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.760 the state of the world, you know, and I felt 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:25.600 I felt so worthy, being deemed like valuable enough to 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.240 kind of hang out with them and spend time with 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:31.040 them while they were doing this. I'm just the girl 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:34.400 that they, you know, let hang around. Honestly, it was 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:36.480 probably just because I was pretty. They just let me 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:37.920 hang out because I was a pretty girl and they 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:43.839 could invite me over it. It was validating and reassuring 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:48.360 to have a kind of association that I was a 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:50.679 part of, like a little group that I was a 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.360 part of that was mine. You know. They were all really. 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:57.560 Really nice, except for this one guy. 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:02.800 He was really sarcastic and condescending, but it was part 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:06.480 of his charm. You know, he's just an asshole. We've 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.960 all met this guy usually in high school. He's small 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.240 and quick with a comeback. Nagging is basically how he 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:17.520 talks to girls. When I was a sophomore, I had 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.920 a lot of classes with him. I had almost all 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.880 of my day with him, and we were friends, so 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.480 we would talk until a month or two into the 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:34.640 school year he blocked me on every social media that 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.280 we had together and stopped talking to me in class. 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.520 And he reached out to me and said, I don't 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.000 hate you. By the way, he said, I would sooner 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:49.240 restrict you from all formats of contacting me. I'm extremely 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.680 attracted to you, so before that becomes an inevitable problem 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:54.959 or upset for me, I might as well stop myself 0:10:54.960 --> 0:11:02.080 from even trying. Does that explanation suffice for you, and 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:06.120 I said, I guess it does. And that was that. 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.439 The rest of high school was awkward between them. Some 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.240 weeks they were friends, he wanted to partner up in 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:16.880 class and asked her for a ride home from school. 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:22.560 Cecilia remembers looking up to him thinking he was really smart. 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:25.679 Then it was like a switch would flip and he 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:30.280 would start icing her out again. She hated it, but 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:34.120 no matter what, he'd always pop up in Cecilia's socials 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.880 to troll or debate her, like after she posted about 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.959 the importance of mental health in the LGBTQ community. 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.320 I remember he said, I know you see a lot 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.560 of your ideals as common sense, but you need to 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:53.760 know you're basically a fascist, and I'm just trying to 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:55.920 advance you past the next five to ten years of 0:11:55.920 --> 0:12:00.400 irrational thinking, Like he's doing me some grand favor by 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:06.160 coming into my social media and debating my ear off 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:11.720 about whether this sentence is grammatically correct or not. You know. 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.440 So on New Year's Eve, when Cecilia was staring at 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.000 those doctored photos of herself and hearing from her former 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:27.120 classmates that they suspected this old friend of hers, it 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:28.360 was extra personal. 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:34.920 It's hard to describe the kind of sinking feeling that 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:39.160 I felt in my stomach. There are things you don't 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.040 want to believe about your friends or people that you 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:42.920 know are close to you. 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:49.440 Some of the young women remembered getting notifications that he 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:53.760 had taken screenshots of their pictures on Snapchat, like ones 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:57.040 of them in bikinis. Then they'd see the same pictures 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.360 on the website, now altered to make them appein it. 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.360 Some recognized his handwriting on images where words like haw 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:10.000 and slat were scrawled across their faces. For Cecilia, the 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:14.359 tell was the long, detailed fantasies posted on the tributing website. 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:16.840 She recognized the writing style. 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:23.959 I know how he types, and reading his paragraph long 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:31.520 dedications to these girls that he finds disgusting, I read 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.600 them in his voice, so it was enough to make 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:42.760 me not a question that it was him. 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.120 One after another, the young woman showed up to the 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:49.920 police station, and when asked who they thought was behind 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:54.560 the posts, many of them had the same answer. They 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:57.960 figured the police would take it from there, but the 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:02.319 police told them that these suspicion weren't enough. They would 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.079 need hard evidence, the kind that could help them prove 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:10.520 in court who had written the posts and as far 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.760 as the women and their families knew, that's where the 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:18.440 police were leaving it. They didn't hear much, if anything, 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:22.520 from the detectives after giving their statements. But as the 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:27.160 new year turned into spring and then summer, the anonymous 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:33.280 poster got bolder, uploading hundreds of new photos. These young 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:37.280 women watched in horror as a barrage of deep faked 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:42.320 nude images, pictures of them as young as thirteen flooded 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:44.480 the tributing website. 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.160 Seeing these horrible things and people commenting on what we 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:52.320 look like and you know, putting our faces on screenshots 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:53.720 of foreign videos. 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:59.080 New accounts with names like tween Hunter were posting and 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:05.520 reposting increasingly graphic fakes. Some of the threads reached thirty 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:11.960 thousand views. Full names, addresses, phone numbers, and actual social 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:16.480 media handles went up next to the images. The poster 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.400 was encouraging others to reach out to the women, to 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.960 send them voice notes threatening to rape them to death. 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.240 By the spring of twenty twenty one, some of the 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:37.320 Levittown women were getting direct messages to their Facebook, Instagram, 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:43.400 and Snapchat accounts their photos beside male genitalia or covered 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:48.240 in semen. Others got late night calls from foreign numbers. 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:53.600 When they picked up, they only heard heavy breathing and moaning. 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.360 Kayla told me that she didn't want to live in fear, 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:02.160 but she did. She lived in fear of going outside, 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:07.680 in fear of men, and fear of being herself. She 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.000 had nightmares of me and hunting her. 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:13.720 But I could hear them like trying to find me, 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:15.760 and they would like say my name, and like they 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.440 would say the things from the website, like the milk 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.920 me and pea on her, like they were saying those 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:22.320 things while trying to find me. 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.680 She also dreamed that the images on the website had 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:32.440 come true, that she had the words rape me tattooed 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:36.080 on her forehead, just as she'd seen on the website. 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:40.480 I mean, I live every single day scared of man. 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:45.840 I mean not all men, but strangers, yes, all the time. 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:50.280 Because God forbid, it's someone that was on that website 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.440 that has just passed me on the street. You don't 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:55.240 know that, and that's scary. 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:02.280 Suddenly I'm not post seeing my face on my Instagram 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:06.639 because I don't know who's gonna find it, you know? 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:16.160 And I directed so much guilt and uh so much 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:18.960 of his hate towards myself. 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.600 Most of the Levettown women turned their social media accounts 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:28.200 to private, but many deleted them all together. One dropped 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.800 out of college, another told me she lost twenty pounds 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:36.240 from the stress. Two confided that they had started carrying 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.880 knives everywhere they went. These are the stories we heard 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.879 from the women who agreed to talk to us. We 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.399 reached out to many others who either didn't respond or 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:48.800 didn't want to talk about it. 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:55.520 I felt horrible for the main victims. I mean, we 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:57.520 are all victims, but there were some people who had 0:17:57.560 --> 0:17:58.760 it much worse. 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:03.240 Leah not have been the main target. Others found dozens 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:07.359 and dozens of posts with their image and likeness, but 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:11.879 still whoever was doing this posted Li's full name and 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.520 phone number on the site. She worried what would happen 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:21.080 if someone, anyone really an employer, a romantic partner, ever 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:21.800 googled her. 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.080 I was really worried about my future because I wanted to, 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.040 you know, like go to medical school, and I was 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.719 worried about the safety of all of my friends, and 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:31.480 what if these pictures, you know, get lead to like 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:35.119 their family members, and they can ruin relationships. Because some 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:40.439 of them were so realistic. This could ruin many people's lives. 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.919 As the months went by, the women reported that the 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:51.000 harassment was escalating. Their parents were terrified, not only because 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.800 of what their children were going through, but because the 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.640 police didn't seem to be doing much. Cyber harassment cases 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:02.040 are notoriously hard to prove. Gathering digital evidence can be 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:07.120 time consuming and hard to capture, and most perpetrators cover 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:11.080 their tracks. Many of the parents created their own group 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:14.639 chats to brainstorm what to do. They were outraged that 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:18.160 their daughters were still being targeted, while the person they 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:22.159 believed was responsible for all this was right there among 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:26.840 them in Levettown. If law enforcement couldn't do anything about it, 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:29.960 they were going to have to do something themselves. 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:43.600 That summer twenty twenty one, one of the Leavettown women 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:48.400 saw an image that almost broke her. We recorded an 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:52.000 interview with her, but she wasn't comfortable using her actual voice, 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:54.840 so the things she said in that interview will be 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:56.560 voiced here by someone else. 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:01.040 I've learned not to trust anybody very private with things 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:03.760 now I don't really talk to anybody that I don't 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:09.360 trust and obvious naive because that was my problem. I'm 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:11.000 too nice. 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.239 The photo that almost broke her was a photo of 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:20.440 herself smiling, wearing jeans and a white tank top. Beside 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:24.280 that appeared to be a deep fake of a woman 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:29.280 in the exact same outfit, her hands tied behind her back, 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.600 covered in blood, with a plastic bag over her head. 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:39.000 The caption said her body had been found near an 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:44.679 abandoned construction site, that she had been raped. We're calling 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.640 her Cat because she asked not to be identified by 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:53.520 her real name, but the post she found listed her 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:57.560 real name and claimed a snuff video of her murder 0:20:58.160 --> 0:20:59.760 was circulating on the dark. 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:02.200 I'd had enough. 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:03.320 It had to stop. 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:06.720 I was like, Okay, this is like more serious, and 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:09.600 I need to know. I just need to know who 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:09.919 it is. 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:10.439 You know. 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:14.320 She was aware that others thought they knew who was 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:18.040 behind all this, but the suspect was a guy she'd 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.960 known since she was five. They grew up three blocks 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:23.000 away from each other. 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.119 In my head, I was almost defending him. I was like, 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:29.520 I don't think it's him, There's no way it's him. 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:33.400 In high school that had a lot of classes together, 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:39.879 including a photoshop class, and while they didn't hang out, 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:43.320 they were still sort of friends, like they would snapchat 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:45.240 occasionally outside school. 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.439 In high school, he got a little bit more like 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:52.159 I don't really give a shit vibe about anything. He 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.840 was smart, so like he knew what he was talking about, 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.439 you know, but anybody who said anything to him is 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:03.480 just like, Okay, I don't care. I'm smarter than anybody. 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.560 Kat talks about him in the same way Cecilia does. 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.840 He would troll her at times, but was also smart 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:14.520 and could be fun. He knew how to push her buttons, 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:18.480 calling her naive. He'd tell her the world was full 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:22.399 of shitty people and sure, you want everything to be okay, 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:28.760 but it's not. She knew all this, but she didn't think, 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:33.760 or maybe didn't want to think it was him. She thought, 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.399 perhaps that she would be able to both clear his 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:40.159 name and figure out who was doing this once and 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:41.640 for all. 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:44.840 Then that's when I went on the website. I sat 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:47.240 there for like, I had to look at things I 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:48.360 did not want to look at. 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:53.439 From her bedroom at night, she carefully examined every post. 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:56.800 The suspected harassment made I spent. 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:59.600 Like hours going through it, and then I went to 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:02.719 video of his own page where he would post himself. 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:05.760 Cat found that the person posting deep fakes of her 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:09.840 and her classmates was also posting explicit pictures of himself 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:11.160 on the website. 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:15.000 He would post things of himself, pictures of himself, not 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.320 his face, like his body and his parts. 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:23.399 She found one picture where he appeared to be wearing 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:27.080 girls underwear while standing in a little girl's bedroom. 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:30.639 Let me look in the background, Let me see if 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:34.360 I could see anything in the background. So I saw 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:39.520 stuffed animals and I was like, all right, let me see. 0:23:39.600 --> 0:23:42.399 She saw a white dresser with brown trim and a 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:46.440 stuffed toy sloth on the bed. Kat knew the guy 0:23:46.480 --> 0:23:49.720 everyone suspected had younger twin sisters. 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:52.679 So I went on his TikTok and I looked up 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:56.040 his sister and then I had the same exact stuffed 0:23:56.080 --> 0:24:00.640 animals in the same background, and I was like, okay. 0:24:02.040 --> 0:24:06.000 His sister was posting dance videos to TikTok and they 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:08.680 were filmed in the same bedroom with a white dresser 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:13.040 and brown trim. Even that stuffed toy was in the 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:14.280 same spot on the bed. 0:24:15.000 --> 0:24:20.480 Oh my god, this is crazy. It really is him. 0:24:21.040 --> 0:24:26.119 His name was Patrick Carey. He definitely wasn't a stranger. 0:24:26.840 --> 0:24:30.000 He was nineteen years old and he had also gone 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:35.240 to MacArthur High. His dad, like Kayla's, was a cop. 0:24:36.280 --> 0:24:39.560 He lived three blocks away from cat just over the 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:48.320 back fence from their old elementary school in Levettown. She 0:24:48.440 --> 0:24:49.680 went back to the police. 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:53.879 They came to me with a photo of Patrick Carrey 0:24:54.480 --> 0:24:55.240 in the bedroom. 0:24:55.880 --> 0:24:59.520 In August, Kat and her mum printed out the screenshots 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:03.400 the images on TikTok and on the website, and they 0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:07.720 brought them to the lead detective on the case, Timothy Ingram. 0:25:07.840 --> 0:25:11.160 These girls they did their own investigating and they did 0:25:11.200 --> 0:25:13.520 excellent work. They would make great detectives. 0:25:13.520 --> 0:25:17.439 But when I recently sat down with Detective Tim Ingram, 0:25:17.720 --> 0:25:19.720 he told me that from the first day the woman 0:25:19.800 --> 0:25:22.240 came in, the police were proactive. 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:25.199 A lot of my coworkers hadn't really seen anything like this, 0:25:25.440 --> 0:25:31.480 where it was to this level of you know, him 0:25:31.480 --> 0:25:34.240 posting everywhere for so long, with so many. 0:25:34.119 --> 0:25:40.439 Victims, He said. They immediately filed subpoenas for information connected 0:25:40.600 --> 0:25:44.399 to users of the website, but getting an answer takes 0:25:44.440 --> 0:25:47.760 time and Ingram said he didn't want to talk to 0:25:47.840 --> 0:25:52.840 Patrick until he had enough evidence to arrest him. The 0:25:52.880 --> 0:25:56.600 police did eventually find out that one of the users 0:25:56.600 --> 0:26:00.320 on the website was posting from an ip address that 0:26:00.520 --> 0:26:06.119 traced back to Patrick's family home, but even that wasn't 0:26:06.280 --> 0:26:10.879 enough to arrest Patrick, and the police still had to 0:26:10.920 --> 0:26:16.359 figure out what exactly to charge him with, because while 0:26:16.480 --> 0:26:20.040 New York State had laws on the books for revenge 0:26:20.080 --> 0:26:24.879 porn and child sexual abuse material, the images had to 0:26:24.920 --> 0:26:28.520 be real, and in this case, they were fake. 0:26:29.640 --> 0:26:33.879 Being that it was a very new type of crime 0:26:33.960 --> 0:26:37.200 where we it was a gray area per se, where 0:26:37.240 --> 0:26:39.879 we weren't even sure if this met the criteria it's 0:26:39.920 --> 0:26:42.359 filipenal law charge. 0:26:42.440 --> 0:26:45.480 We attempted to speak to Patrick Carrey for the story 0:26:46.040 --> 0:26:50.560 and he declined. But while the police may have been 0:26:50.680 --> 0:26:55.119 closer to making an arrest for the young woman of Leavittown, 0:26:55.560 --> 0:26:59.800 the fear didn't just go away. Kat was glad that 0:26:59.840 --> 0:27:03.960