Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Melissa Jelson, host of What Happened to Teleinazar.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to share episode one of our new podcast
Speaker 1: with you, but I also wanted to let you know
Speaker 1: that you can listen to episodes completely add free on
Speaker 1: iHeart True Crime Plus, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I'm
Speaker 1: a subscriber and you should be too, so head to
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe.
Speaker 1: Today the early days of the COVID pandemic.
Speaker 2: We're scary, the.
Speaker 1: Mayor today, calling the spread unpredictable and worrisome. This morning
Speaker 1: a grim new prediction. Nearly three hundred thousand deaths in
Speaker 1: the US before the New year.
Speaker 3: People come in, I get in, debated, they die.
Speaker 1: The cycle repeats, but also but at some distance. The
Speaker 1: things we did to cope with our fear were pretty weird.
Speaker 1: Remember disinfecting our groceries, poording toilet paper, burning our mattresses.
Speaker 1: I didn't do that, but I heard about a woman
Speaker 1: who did because she thought it was contaminated with COVID.
Speaker 1: I remember holding my breath when I walked past another
Speaker 1: person on a secluded lake in the middle of winter
Speaker 1: with masks on. I'd left New York for rural Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: with my boyfriend to ride out the worst of COVID.
Speaker 1: We packed for a weekend and stayed for two months.
Speaker 1: I ended up marrying the man to we have a baby. Now,
Speaker 1: looking back, what sticks with me the most about that
Speaker 1: time is that queasy feeling that everyone I encountered, the
Speaker 1: Amazon driver, the checkout lady at the grocery store. It
Speaker 1: was a potential suspect, someone who could unwittingly kill me
Speaker 1: and my family just by breathing. COVID. Isolation severed even
Speaker 1: the strongest connections, made it easy to hide behind a
Speaker 1: mask or behind closed doors, and this changed our collective
Speaker 1: psyche made us do things we probably wouldn't have otherwise,
Speaker 1: things we were forced into, or things would always wanted
Speaker 1: to do and never had the opportunity. It certainly changed
Speaker 1: the trajectory of Jess Travigno's life.
Speaker 4: I was scared, you know, like most of the world.
Speaker 4: I didn't know what was going to happen, or how
Speaker 4: deadly the virus was, or we didn't know very much.
Speaker 1: Right one day in April twenty twenty, Jess is in
Speaker 1: her kitchen, newly unemployed, because you know, COVID and she's
Speaker 1: trying to take her mind off the chaos of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: She's attempting to replicate the latest food trend she sees online,
Speaker 1: a two layered drink called Dalgona coffee.
Speaker 4: I was making that whipped coffee that you had seen
Speaker 4: go viral during COVID. I'm obsessed with coffee. Obsessed. It's
Speaker 4: a terrible obsession. I drink probably two pots a day
Speaker 4: plus espresso.
Speaker 2: It's nuts.
Speaker 4: But I was making this coffee and I'm scrolling on
Speaker 4: Facebook and I see this post, and I was like,
Speaker 4: this sounds insane.
Speaker 1: The post is by a woman in Oklahoma who contracted
Speaker 1: coronavirus and announced she would not be seeking medical care.
Speaker 1: Something about her post stops Jess cold. Here's a recreation
Speaker 1: of parts of the post.
Speaker 5: Hey everyone, I'm on day nine of this virus, and
Speaker 5: I am pretty sure it has reached my lungs. Feeling
Speaker 5: a little raspy and tight. I made the decision at
Speaker 5: the onset that if it got bad enough, I would
Speaker 5: not go to the hospital. Those of you who know
Speaker 5: me well know I have DNR orders in my health
Speaker 5: directive and I'm not gonna let anyone intobate me. So
Speaker 5: I've made arrangements to spend some quality alone time at
Speaker 5: one of my favorite idaways at one of my favorite lakes,
Speaker 5: and I've booked it for the remainder of this week.
Speaker 5: Didn't fill up to driving, so I hired a ride.
Speaker 5: I'm almost there. Please respect my privacy and give me
Speaker 5: my alone time on the lake. I haven't been chatting
Speaker 5: with some of you calling you back. I didn't want
Speaker 5: to be talked out of this plan. After I post this,
Speaker 5: I am turning off my phone for exactly this reason.
Speaker 5: I'll catch up with everyone on the other side.
Speaker 1: Jess reads closer. The woman's name is Teleina Tzar. She
Speaker 1: is fifty three years old. It seems that no one
Speaker 1: has heard from Telena since her post a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Jess squints at Telena's profile picture, a smiling selfie taken
Speaker 1: in the car, her blue green eyes twinkling, and tries
Speaker 1: to understand why a person would make such a decision.
Speaker 1: Why would someone with COVID leave their friends and family
Speaker 1: and go off alone instead of seeking help? And where
Speaker 1: did she go? Jess, We'll spend the next four years
Speaker 1: searching for the answer.
Speaker 4: Sometimes when I tell this story, they're like you're making
Speaker 4: this up, but nobody has an imagination like this. You
Speaker 4: couldn't make this story up. There's one hundred little twists
Speaker 4: and turns that every time you go down a different road,
Speaker 4: it's another what the fuck is this? Why is this happening?
Speaker 4: I mean, initially, when I told you, did you believe me?
Speaker 1: From iHeart Podcasts, I'm Melissa Jelson and this is what
Speaker 1: happened to Telena's OAR episode one Alone Time.
Speaker 4: My name is Jess Travino. I'm a really nosy person,
Speaker 4: so that's how I got caught up in all this.
Speaker 4: My mom said, I've always been knowsy my whole life.
Speaker 4: She said, You've always just wanted to know everything about everything.
Speaker 4: So if I didn't know something, I'd be poking around
Speaker 4: trying to figure it out. It's not a very endearing
Speaker 4: thing about me, but it is who I am. It
Speaker 4: took me like forty years to like me, so I'm
Speaker 4: just gonna embrace it.
Speaker 1: Jess's life can be divided into two parts, before she
Speaker 1: read Telena's Facebook post and after.
Speaker 4: My whole life has been consumed by this. Since twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: I've spent four years of my life on her.
Speaker 1: Jess emailed me in twenty twenty three asking me to
Speaker 1: look into the disappearance of her friend Talna'zar. She'd come
Speaker 1: across the earlier seasons of this podcast, What Happened to
Speaker 1: Sandy Beal, What Happened to Libby Caswell.
Speaker 4: I remember that I couldn't stop listening. I'd listened to
Speaker 4: it when I was going to buy it, and then
Speaker 4: when I got out in the morning, and I'd listened
Speaker 4: to it throughout the day, and you were so honest
Speaker 4: about everything in it, like you've seen both sides, right.
Speaker 4: So I was like, I'm going to reach out to her,
Speaker 4: like maybe she'll tell a story and she can get
Speaker 4: both sides, you know.
Speaker 1: Jess and I emailed back and forth a little bit
Speaker 1: and had a few phone calls. I learned she was
Speaker 1: using a loose definition of the word friend when she
Speaker 1: first reached out to me. She hadn't met Telena, But
Speaker 1: from what I was able to understand about Telena and
Speaker 1: Jess's multi year investigation into her life, I was convinced
Speaker 1: I needed to learn more, and so I flew to
Speaker 1: Minnesota to meet with Jess in person. Jess lives in
Speaker 1: an old farmhouse surrounded by cornfields, about a fifty minute
Speaker 1: drive from Minneapolis. Hey, we are just about three minutes away,
Speaker 1: passing some more cornfields. No grocery store, no gas stations,
Speaker 1: nothing absolue.
Speaker 2: I think it's maybe this house.
Speaker 4: We were a greening party. Yes, I wanted to be
Speaker 4: out here when you guys can't make because this is
Speaker 4: kind of like Okay, I'm.
Speaker 2: Going to the right place. That was perfect time.
Speaker 1: Melissa's nice to meet you.
Speaker 4: So okay, heads up, the two dogs are out are
Speaker 4: going to bark at you.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: He just doesn't grow vegetables or raise farm animals, but
Speaker 1: her walls are dotted with signs like farm, sweet Farm
Speaker 1: and farmhouse Ish. Jess does have a lot of pets,
Speaker 1: three dogs, two cats, and a lot of kids and
Speaker 1: about a dozen wall clocks that chime at different times
Speaker 1: of the day. And well, there's a lot going on.
Speaker 2: I'm forty one.
Speaker 4: I am an events planner hospitality director for Minnesota Horse
Speaker 4: and Hunt.
Speaker 1: Jess was born and raised in Minnesota and has spent
Speaker 1: most of her life working in bars and restaurants. She
Speaker 1: had her first child when she was seventeen.
Speaker 4: I was a dumb teenager. I did a lot of
Speaker 4: stuff that I mean, nothing criminal, but just stupid. The
Speaker 4: minute I found out I was pregnant, I decided I
Speaker 4: cannot screw this up.
Speaker 1: And went on to have three more.
Speaker 2: Over here, we've got some family photos.
Speaker 4: We do so the tall one, this is Riley. He's
Speaker 4: my Sunnay's twenty three, says Ty. He's twenty one, Maddie seventeen,
Speaker 4: in Jocelyn fourteen. That's my husband and myself.
Speaker 1: Jess had wanted to be a writer, she told me,
Speaker 1: but becoming a young mom meant she wasn't able to
Speaker 1: finish high school. Eventually, she got her ged and took
Speaker 1: some college level writing classes before ultimately getting a more
Speaker 1: practical degree in business. Since then, Jess has worked in
Speaker 1: various capacities in the hospitality industry, from bartending to large
Speaker 1: event planning. She likes the work, but it's not her calling.
Speaker 4: I feel like the only thing I've ever done that's
Speaker 4: been really, really good is raise my kids.
Speaker 1: While she's giving me a tour of her home, I
Speaker 1: notice her bookshelf is cramped with true crime stories, old
Speaker 1: and new.
Speaker 4: My husband makes fun of me. I am and it
Speaker 4: sounds really bad, but let me explain. I'm obsessed with
Speaker 4: serial killers, and I mean obsessed. I don't know what
Speaker 4: my problem is. It all comes from wanting to know
Speaker 4: how their brain works, not like obsessed with Oh I
Speaker 4: love murder, but I love trying to figure out why
Speaker 4: and who and what was going through their brain? What
Speaker 4: makes you want to kill somebody?
Speaker 1: Jess tells me her fascination with crime star when she
Speaker 1: was still a kid. She remembers following the Menendaz Brother's
Speaker 1: case on TV and watching oj Simpson's Bronco racing down
Speaker 1: the Expressway in real time. But the first true crime
Speaker 1: story that completely enthralled her was that of Eileen Warnos,
Speaker 1: who killed at least seven men between nineteen eighty nine
Speaker 1: and nineteen ninety and has been dubbed America's first female
Speaker 1: serial killer.
Speaker 4: Eileen Mornos was a huge one for me. I thought
Speaker 4: she was fascinating. I felt like she was very much
Speaker 4: a victim and tried to understand where she was coming from.
Speaker 4: You know, she was a prostitute and she had a
Speaker 4: really hard life growing up, really hard life. She was
Speaker 4: molested and raped, you know, from the time she was
Speaker 4: a child. So that I got super interested, and then
Speaker 4: I started looking at the Green River Killer and a
Speaker 4: Zodiac Killer, and just deep dived into all the serial killers.
Speaker 4: I find them fascinating.
Speaker 1: Jess became an avid reader of crime novels. She devoured
Speaker 1: In Cold Blood by Truman Capoti, To Kill a Mockingbird
Speaker 1: by Harperley, worked her way through the back catalog of
Speaker 1: true crime Icon and Rule. The stories she liked the
Speaker 1: best dealt with big, complicated questions of justice, punishment and fairness,
Speaker 1: what's right and what's wrong? And where those lines become blurry.
Speaker 1: As a reporter who's dedicated my life to these topics,
Speaker 1: I can relate. Later, around twenty seventeen, after crime podcasts
Speaker 1: exploded onto the scene, Jess got into those too.
Speaker 4: I listened to a ton of podcasts. I started with
Speaker 4: Crime Junkies and then I went to Morbid. I'd listened
Speaker 4: to Dateline if I'd missed an episode on TV, I
Speaker 4: found you recently.
Speaker 1: Obviously, for Jess, part of the thrill of all this
Speaker 1: was discussing the cases with others on social media.
Speaker 4: I just would join the pages after I'd listened to
Speaker 4: a podcast, wanting to know, like let's discuss this, and like, hey, what'.
Speaker 2: Do you think of this?
Speaker 4: What do you think of that?
Speaker 1: So you were an active participant, not just a lurker.
Speaker 4: You'll notice that about me. I don't lurk. I'm out there.
Speaker 4: I'm an action kind of girl.
Speaker 1: All those hours reading about true crime, listening to true crime,
Speaker 1: discussing true crime provided Jess with a masterclass on how
Speaker 1: not to get murdered. She knows, never go to a
Speaker 1: second location, Always trust your instincts. You're much more likely
Speaker 1: to be killed by someone you know than a stranger.
Speaker 1: If you can run, run. It also taught her some
Speaker 1: real world skills on how to investigate cases, the same
Speaker 1: type of skills I use in my reporting in between
Speaker 1: bartending shifts and putting the kids to bed. Just learned
Speaker 1: how to do a background check, how to trace people's
Speaker 1: Internet footprints, how to track down old criminal records, and
Speaker 1: dig up archival news coverage.
Speaker 4: I just love to know how point A got to
Speaker 4: point F, trying to follow all the dots in between another.
Speaker 4: People get a lot of shit online about being you know,
Speaker 4: Internet tough guys and Internet armchair detectives. But we're in
Speaker 4: a digital age. Maybe thirty years ago you needed the
Speaker 4: boots on the ground and be there. But this is
Speaker 4: the way that it's happening now. I feel like a
Speaker 4: lot of stuff is solved literally on the Internet.
Speaker 1: It's on the internet on a Facebook fan page for
Speaker 1: crime Junkies, where Jess first sees Telenazar's post about having
Speaker 1: COVID and choosing to go off into the wilderness alone
Speaker 1: rather than go to the hospital.
Speaker 5: Please respect my privacy and give me my alone time
Speaker 5: on the lake.
Speaker 1: A friend of Telena's named Nicole had uploaded screenshots of
Speaker 1: Telena's post to the group in an attempt to solicit help.
Speaker 1: I asked Jess to read some of Nichole's plea.
Speaker 4: Hi Junkies. Since April seventh, my dear friend has been missing.
Speaker 4: She left this post and we haven't heard from her.
Speaker 4: Since the information we have doesn't make sense. I've spent
Speaker 4: every day and night going over them. Out of desperation,
Speaker 4: I thought I would post here and see what you
Speaker 4: all think. My friend lives in a very small town
Speaker 4: near Tulsa, Oklahoma. The police would not investigate this because
Speaker 4: of the post. She would not make people worry for
Speaker 4: this long. She just wouldn't. And if she died from
Speaker 4: this virus, where is her body? Am I being paranoid?
Speaker 4: What can I do to locate her. I can't sleep,
Speaker 4: but I can't really grieve or have any hope after
Speaker 4: this time. Anyone, anyone have any ideas on what to do?
Speaker 4: Thanks in advance.
Speaker 3: I just didn't feel like she would leave that many
Speaker 3: people worried about her.
Speaker 1: This is Nicole Carr. She's the author of the post
Speaker 1: asking for help finding to Lena.
Speaker 3: It wouldn't be a strange for her to go off,
Speaker 3: because if she was sick, she wouldn't have wanted to
Speaker 3: make anyone else sick. But for her to just leave
Speaker 3: people with no way of contacting her and knowing if
Speaker 3: she was alive or dead was strange to me.
Speaker 1: Nicole knew Telena's habits because she was one of her
Speaker 1: best friends that had been close since they met in
Speaker 1: twenty ten.
Speaker 2: It was love at first to get together.
Speaker 3: She was the kind of friend that you could call
Speaker 3: at three am, knowing that she would answer with equal
Speaker 3: part concern and humor to.
Speaker 2: Cheer you up.
Speaker 3: Her kitchen was her happy place, and she always had
Speaker 3: the aroma of something simmering or cooking or frying, and
Speaker 3: if not, she was planning something to.
Speaker 2: Simmeror cooker, cook her fry.
Speaker 3: Sharing a meal with her was really like being wrapped
Speaker 3: up in love. She lived with her heart wide open,
Speaker 3: and you couldn't help but just feel lucky that she
Speaker 3: was in your life. Nicole and Tealina's friendship had always
Speaker 3: it has been long distance that had never lived in
Speaker 3: the same state at the same time, but they found
Speaker 3: ways to connect both online and in person.
Speaker 2: We did text a.
Speaker 3: Lot and talked on the phone, and then also through
Speaker 3: Facebook a lot, sharing memes, trying to.
Speaker 2: Make each other laugh.
Speaker 1: In February twenty twenty, Talina went to Tennessee to visit
Speaker 1: Nicole at her home.
Speaker 2: She came and spent three days with me.
Speaker 3: We of course cooked and played video games and watched
Speaker 3: TV and talked and cried and laughed, and we really
Speaker 3: had a great visit. And it was right before they
Speaker 3: asked everybody you know to go home and stay.
Speaker 1: Telena left and immediately the friends started planning their next visit.
Speaker 1: This time Talina would host Nicole at her house in Wagner, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: but COVID got too big too quickly.
Speaker 3: She wanted me to come visit her, and I really
Speaker 3: wasn't comfortable in traveling at that point.
Speaker 2: All in my family we have stuff wrong with us.
Speaker 3: You know they were really concerned about people like us
Speaker 3: having COVID, So I declined the offer, And you know, I'll.
Speaker 2: Never know what would have happened if I had gone.
Speaker 1: As the COVID pandemic took over everybody's lives, the friends
Speaker 1: continued to communicate as they normally did, texting, keeping up
Speaker 1: with each other's social media, and it was on Facebook
Speaker 1: where Nicole saw that her friend wasn't feeling well. First
Speaker 1: it was a post on Sunday, March twenty ninth about
Speaker 1: a migraine, Day two of.
Speaker 7: A bad migraine, taking more meds and turning down my
Speaker 7: phone volume so I can sleep.
Speaker 5: I'll catch up with everyone later.
Speaker 1: Migraines were a fairly regular occurrence for Teleina, so Nicole
Speaker 1: didn't think much of it, But a day later, on Monday,
Speaker 1: March thirtieth, she saw a post about Teleina's headache worsening
Speaker 1: my weekend.
Speaker 7: Migrain developed into a fever last night and it is
Speaker 7: currently hovering around one hundred point five. I'm surfacing long
Speaker 7: enough to go to the bathroom and get a drink.
Speaker 5: Then it is back to sleep. All I want to
Speaker 5: do is sleep.
Speaker 7: Send your well wishes an energy, but please don't.
Speaker 5: Expect a response.
Speaker 7: I called my doctor and was told to stay in
Speaker 7: bed and stay hydrated and self medicate and call back
Speaker 7: or go to the er. If my tempreach is one
Speaker 7: oh two. I think Oklahoma's medical system is stretched thin
Speaker 7: right now. Everyone stay safe, healthy, and please practice social distancing.
Speaker 7: If you don't live with someone, don't visit them.
Speaker 1: Nicole texted Tolena a few times checking up on her,
Speaker 1: but didn't hear back. A week went by, and then
Speaker 1: on April seventh, came to Lena's cryptic post.
Speaker 5: Hey everyone, I'm on day nine of this virus. I've
Speaker 5: made arrangements to spend some quality alone time. After I
Speaker 5: post this, I am turning off my phone.
Speaker 3: Tolena would occasionally that once a year go on a
Speaker 3: sbatical where she didn't talk to anybody, and she's pretty
Speaker 3: strict about it. She would let everybody know, if I
Speaker 3: don't answer my phone, this is why, and I'm just
Speaker 3: going to go off somewhere for a couple of days
Speaker 3: and be with myself. It was just a spiritual time
Speaker 3: for her to get herself together and kind of reconnect
Speaker 3: with herself. She's a big giving person, so I think
Speaker 3: people that give to a lot of people need that
Speaker 3: little bit of downtown.
Speaker 1: Knew that her friend prized her solitude, but after a
Speaker 1: few days without hearing from Telena, she had a feeling
Speaker 1: that something wasn't right.
Speaker 3: At the time, I was laid off from work, so
Speaker 3: I didn't have that much to preoccupy myself with.
Speaker 2: I wasn't leaving the house because of COVID.
Speaker 3: Every morning I would wake up and check Facebook and
Speaker 3: check the phone and text her and call her, and
Speaker 3: I didn't hear anything.
Speaker 1: Nicole was in lockdown in Tennessee, hundreds of miles away
Speaker 1: from Tellina's home in Wagner, Oklahoma. Feeling antsy, Nicole started
Speaker 1: reaching out to Tellina's friends, some of them also in
Speaker 1: far flung states, others in the same town as Telena.
Speaker 3: I kept just kind of asking everybody anyone else thinks
Speaker 3: this is strange?
Speaker 2: And everybody's like, no, no, this is you know, this
Speaker 2: is Toulna. This is how she acts.
Speaker 3: You know that experiment where they show people that are
Speaker 3: in a room and there's smoke coming out of the grate.
Speaker 3: Nobody does anything because they're all kind of looking around
Speaker 3: to see if someone else is going to do something
Speaker 3: that was.
Speaker 2: Where we were.
Speaker 3: People were just worrying in their own space. We're all
Speaker 3: just waiting for someone else to do something, or for
Speaker 3: a word from you know, Telena. But the more time
Speaker 3: that went on, it just didn't Her story didn't make sense.
Speaker 1: Nicole wasn't sure what to do, but she felt compelled
Speaker 1: to at least do something, and so one night, out
Speaker 1: of desperation, I just, you know, I listened to this
Speaker 1: little podcast.
Speaker 2: I had no idea how popular it was.
Speaker 3: I just knew that I liked listening to it, and
Speaker 3: so I thought I would go on there and see
Speaker 3: if anybody else thought it was strange. So I typed
Speaker 3: out a little message and posted it, went to sleep,
Speaker 3: and I woke up two thousands of replies. Some of
Speaker 3: them were from my friends, people actually knew that I
Speaker 3: didn't know also listened to this podcast. And then some
Speaker 3: of them were from strangers, and none of them were
Speaker 3: more strange than Yes.
Speaker 4: It sounded fishy. You've read the post right, It sounded
Speaker 4: really weird.
Speaker 1: Making her whipped coffee in Minnesota just sees Nichole's plea
Speaker 1: for help and her immediate response is bullshit.
Speaker 4: The way Nicole explained in the post was very weird.
Speaker 4: And then obviously I'm bored. It's COVID and I can't
Speaker 4: go anywhere or do anything. So I creep on Nichole's
Speaker 4: Facebook and see that she has another friend who's missing
Speaker 4: as well, and I was like, there's no way you
Speaker 4: know two people who just up and disappeared. So I
Speaker 4: called her out on it. I called her a liar.
Speaker 1: Nicole had turned to the Internet for help looking for
Speaker 1: her missing friend, and now she was being accused of
Speaker 1: lying or worse, being involved in Telena's disappearance herself.
Speaker 3: I had a friend that her niece had also shown
Speaker 3: up missing in Georgia, and I didn't really know the niece,
Speaker 3: but if someone you know is missing someone they love,
Speaker 3: you share it. So I had shared that, and I
Speaker 3: guess Jess had gone back and looked at my history
Speaker 3: and she kind of thought that maybe I was the
Speaker 3: one responsible and had no qualm in telling me. So
Speaker 3: she said that she was going to be my worst nightmare.
Speaker 4: I messaged Nicole on Facebook and I said, hey, you
Speaker 4: sound like you're lying, Like how many missing people can
Speaker 4: you know?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: Nicole is taken aback by Jess's aggressive messages, but instead
Speaker 1: of just ignoring this internet stranger she engages. She offers
Speaker 1: to connect Jess on a call with some of Talina's
Speaker 1: friends in Oklahoma who can verify nicole story, and Jess
Speaker 1: she backs down pretty quick.
Speaker 2: She called me back and she said I wanted to apologize.
Speaker 3: And you know, I appreciate that so much about her
Speaker 3: that she was just so ready to apologize.
Speaker 1: Nicole accepts her apology, and almost immediately their hostile encounter
Speaker 1: transforms into the start of a real friendship.
Speaker 4: Nicole will post on my Facebook, so happy you became
Speaker 4: my beautiful nightmare.
Speaker 2: I love you.
Speaker 1: Nicole sees a tenacity in Jess that could be helpful
Speaker 1: in finding to Lena, and the two of them start
Speaker 1: working together that day.
Speaker 3: I have to say, Jess is a force being reckoned with.
Speaker 3: She's a woman of unwavering determination, and that insensity can
Speaker 3: catch you off guard. She was unwilling to let anyone
Speaker 3: or anything get in her way. It made us a
Speaker 3: very good pair because she could be very direct and
Speaker 3: very not cold, but just determined, and I have a
Speaker 3: more gentle kind approach to people.
Speaker 4: She made me feel like I could help and we
Speaker 4: could figure it out, and we could solve what happened.
Speaker 4: You know, we can maybe or at least catch the
Speaker 4: person today.
Speaker 1: Jess is not the only Internet stranger activated by Nicole's
Speaker 1: post about her missing friend. It gets hundreds of comments
Speaker 1: from people all over the US. Most of them are
Speaker 1: just there to stir the pot, instigate fights, entertain themselves,
Speaker 1: but some of them seem to actually want to find
Speaker 1: out the truth. Jess Corral's a select few into a
Speaker 1: private group. There's Rosie, who, like Jess, is also a
Speaker 1: mom in her mid thirties. She and her husband own
Speaker 1: a welding business in Ohio.
Speaker 8: I commented on the post, this doesn't sound good. You
Speaker 8: know you need to contact the police. I had a
Speaker 8: woman reach out to me named Jess via Facebook Messenger
Speaker 8: and in the nutshell she was basically like, Hey, this.
Speaker 2: Sounds really weird to me.
Speaker 8: You and I kind of sound like we have the
Speaker 8: same vibe about her needing to contact the police.
Speaker 2: Do you want to talk about this?
Speaker 8: I don't know what it was that made me say yes,
Speaker 8: other than I was intrigued and I thought, well, what
Speaker 8: could the harm be? I was bored because of COVID
Speaker 8: and I was like sure, And then born girls kind
Speaker 8: of joined the group. And we just sort of started
Speaker 8: armchair detectiving this situation, and I was like, this is crazy.
Speaker 1: This is Brittany younger than the others. She's in her
Speaker 1: early twenties and works at a bank in Arkansas. Brittany's
Speaker 1: eager to jump in and help because she too feels
Speaker 1: drawn to Teleina's story.
Speaker 6: It seemed like she was like a really sweet person
Speaker 6: and she was really easy to like. It didn't seem
Speaker 6: like anyone had any hatred towards her. She seemed like
Speaker 6: a nice person that everyone loved. When there's mysteries to stuff,
Speaker 6: there's some people that just have to know why and how.
Speaker 6: And I'm definitely one of those people. I have all
Speaker 6: the questions all the time.
Speaker 1: And so organically, cosmically, this group of online sleuths comes
Speaker 1: together and forms a new Facebook page called find Telenazar
Speaker 1: Nicole and Tennessee, Jess in Minnesota, Rosie and Ohio, Brittany
Speaker 1: in Arkansas, and more joining by the hour. These women
Speaker 1: are strangers thrust together by their desire to solve the
Speaker 1: mystery of what happened to Telena. Here's Jess, the ringleader.
Speaker 4: We ended up staying up until like four o'clock in
Speaker 4: the morning that first night, talking to each other via
Speaker 4: Facebook Messenger and then starting little side messages all this
Speaker 4: person's this or It was almost high school asque to
Speaker 4: be honest with you, just kind of like being a
Speaker 4: little bit bitchy about who who was saying and what
Speaker 4: we believe.
Speaker 1: The online sleuths, even from that first night, are exhilarated.
Speaker 1: They're energized for the first time since the pandemic slowed
Speaker 1: the world down and made their lives very small. Suddenly
Speaker 1: they have a distraction and a purpose.
Speaker 6: It kind of felt like I was living out one
Speaker 6: of my fantasy dreams of being a detective. It kind
Speaker 6: of gave me something to do and something else to
Speaker 6: think about rather than what's going to happen to the world.
Speaker 8: We just wanted to help this person, help Telena and
Speaker 8: find her, like where was she?
Speaker 1: In those early hours. As this new group of friends
Speaker 1: start to gell, the online sleuths returned to Tolena's post.
Speaker 5: I made the decision at the onset that if it
Speaker 5: got bad enough I would not go to the hospital.
Speaker 2: So it just felt a little off. It felt weird.
Speaker 1: The post itself is odd.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to be talked out of this plan.
Speaker 1: But the comments left by Tolina's friends it.
Speaker 2: Was just really strange.
Speaker 8: And her friend's reactions to it also felt like they
Speaker 8: were concerned, but people were afraid to kind of pull
Speaker 8: the trigger and you know, get something going about trying
Speaker 8: to find out where their friend was.
Speaker 1: Jess is judging these people. To her, they are at
Speaker 1: best bad friends, at worst potential suspects.
Speaker 4: Like friends of hers all kind of saying well, we
Speaker 4: wish you well and we love you and we respect
Speaker 4: your privacy. And I'm like, what in the hell, what
Speaker 4: do you mean. This woman's basically saying she's going to
Speaker 4: go kill herself in the woods, and you guys are like, okay,
Speaker 4: see you later, have fun. If that was my friend,
Speaker 4: I would be flipping over rocks trying to find her.
Speaker 4: I'd call the National Guard.
Speaker 2: I would be out there.
Speaker 4: I would not be sitting there wishing her well on
Speaker 4: her journey.
Speaker 1: And so Jess, Rosie, Brittany, and Nicole they get busy
Speaker 1: from Afar.
Speaker 8: There were a lot of secrets that were very hard
Speaker 8: to find, and no one wanted to talk about anything.
Speaker 1: Day and night. They research online and talk to anyone
Speaker 1: who will pick up the phone.
Speaker 4: I probably spent twelve fourteen hours on my phone or
Speaker 4: computer a day talking to people, cold calling strangers.
Speaker 1: They trust no one.
Speaker 2: They're not telling us the truth, like there's they're lying.
Speaker 2: There's no truth to what these people are saying. Don't
Speaker 2: believe them.
Speaker 1: And what they uncover shocks them to their core.
Speaker 3: Rarely do people just drop off the face of the
Speaker 3: earth and disappear.
Speaker 1: This season on What Happened to Tealinazar?
Speaker 6: How in the world can somebody even contemplate doing something?
Speaker 8: How evil one person really be?
Speaker 3: She's always willing to help somebody, and that was her
Speaker 3: downfall as well as one of her greatest straints.
Speaker 5: When I read the details I collapse.
Speaker 6: I would agree that I have never had a case
Speaker 6: involving these kinds of details.
Speaker 4: And I was like, well, literally not very polite of me.
Speaker 4: What the how are you people into? What is going
Speaker 4: on here?
Speaker 3: This little group of women that came together to look
Speaker 3: for Telena will always have my heart.
Speaker 2: I just had to know how did this happen?
Speaker 1: What Happened to Teleinazar is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: It's written, reported, and hosted by me Melissa Jelson, with
Speaker 1: writing and story editing by Lauren Hansen. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Ryan Murdoch. For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Jason
Speaker 1: English and Carl Catel. Fact checking by Savannah Hugley. Zoe
Speaker 1: Denkla is ourssociate producer. Jeremy Thal is our editor. Original
Speaker 1: music by Aaron Kaufman with additional music by Jeremy Thal.
Speaker 1: Episodes are mixed and mastered by Carl Katle. Voice acting
Speaker 1: by Lizzie Gore, Chris Ferry, Stephanie Frame, Pete Monica, and
Speaker 1: Molly Maslin. Our logo is designed by Edo Moore. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening, Ready to hear more, Remember you
Speaker 1: can get access to one hundred percent ad free episodes
Speaker 1: with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. So open your Apple Podcasts app search for
Speaker 1: iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today