Speaker 1: This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
Speaker 1: medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
Speaker 1: independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
Speaker 1: professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
Speaker 1: or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This
Speaker 1: episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
Speaker 1: This episode also contains a description of a homicide. Listener
Speaker 1: discretion is advised. The views and opinions expressed are solely
Speaker 1: those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
Speaker 1: and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions.
Speaker 1: I heart Media or their employees. And my jobt father
Speaker 1: saying to me, do you see what he's doing here?
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, what is that? And he's like,
Speaker 1: this is called manipulation. He's manipulating you to make you
Speaker 1: feel sorry for him. But he murdered your mother, but
Speaker 1: he's trying to make you feel good. And of course
Speaker 1: it worked because I am an empathetic person and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: my dad, I can't ever have that again, not realizing
Speaker 1: that he made that choice to do all this and
Speaker 1: that's what he wants. Anyways, this is the second of
Speaker 1: a two part episode featuring the stories of Terra Renewell
Speaker 1: and in this episode with Collier Landry. Terra is a
Speaker 1: survivor of watching her mother survive a toxic relationship and
Speaker 1: then Tera having to act in self defense which resulted
Speaker 1: in the death of John Meahan of the Dirty John fame.
Speaker 1: Collier's story is different yet similar. Collier Landry's mother was
Speaker 1: murdered by his father when he was ten years old.
Speaker 1: Collier has shared this story in a documentary entitled Murder
Speaker 1: in Mansfield, and he and Tara have joined forces with
Speaker 1: the new podcast Survivor Squad, where they share the stories
Speaker 1: of the survey ibras of crimes instead of focusing on
Speaker 1: the perpetrators. Collier's mother's murder was not the end of
Speaker 1: his relationship with his father. Instead, it was the beginning
Speaker 1: of a process of discovery that made clear who his
Speaker 1: father was and more importantly, a lifelong journey of healing
Speaker 1: that both Collier and Tera are paying forward. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we will hear Collier's story. We just heard terror story
Speaker 1: in part one of this podcast, and for those of
Speaker 1: you who have not listened and you're picking up here,
Speaker 1: please check out Terror story because it really sets up
Speaker 1: so to the parallel story of terror and call you're
Speaker 1: here now, Callier that we're going to dive into your story, okay,
Speaker 1: which I didn't know as much about. I have been
Speaker 1: much more acquainted with terror story. I have talked with
Speaker 1: her mom before. Her mom has been on this podcast,
Speaker 1: talked with her mom even years ago. Your story was
Speaker 1: very new to me, and so I've spent the last
Speaker 1: a few weeks watch it's your film, Murder in Mansfield.
Speaker 1: People check it out because it's really quite a remarkable
Speaker 1: journey to watch you go through. Callier also has an
Speaker 1: amazing ted talk. So where I would like to begin
Speaker 1: with you, call her is tell us the story of
Speaker 1: what happened between your mother and your father, and just
Speaker 1: lay that entire story out because you are truly the
Speaker 1: brilliant storyteller. I'll start by saying that I grew up
Speaker 1: what I thought was a normal childhood. I had a mom,
Speaker 1: had a dad, and I grew up the first part
Speaker 1: of my life from Virginia outside Naval Base and Dahlgren Virginia,
Speaker 1: and we moved to a small town in Ohio called Mansfield,
Speaker 1: Ohio when I was five years old. My father was
Speaker 1: a doctor. My mother was a stay at home mother,
Speaker 1: but she did his books, and I just kind of
Speaker 1: thought that, yeah, I mean there were issues in the home. Obviously.
Speaker 1: My father had a proclivity towards violence, anger rage. You know,
Speaker 1: he was apoplectic at times, and but that didn't really
Speaker 1: start to set in until we moved to Mansfield. But
Speaker 1: the majority of my time was spent with my mother.
Speaker 1: I was like her little sidekick, and I didn't really
Speaker 1: think that was abnormal, I realized, and looking back at it,
Speaker 1: the temperature in the household started to raise a little
Speaker 1: bit as I was getting older. So my mother had
Speaker 1: filed for divorce. There was a lot of this back
Speaker 1: and forth with my father. Would leave me little notes
Speaker 1: under my pillow, Oh I love you, Oh It'll be okay,
Speaker 1: all these things, and I started to really see how
Speaker 1: bad my father is. I always grew up not liking
Speaker 1: my father in a lot of ways because he was
Speaker 1: violent towards us. His temper, like I said, he was apoplectic.
Speaker 1: I remember one time I dropped an egg on the floor.
Speaker 1: You're making eggs for breakfast on a Saturday morning, and
Speaker 1: the egg dropped on the floor, and he threatened will
Speaker 1: kill me in front of my mother, like just his
Speaker 1: rage was in control. And I grew up with a
Speaker 1: lot of fear and that and that's something that terror
Speaker 1: and I have discussed this growing up, this fire flight
Speaker 1: sort of and how your trauma triggers. She's like, your
Speaker 1: trauma started happening way before your mother was murdered, right,
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh wow, that's like wild right.
Speaker 1: So June nine, we're getting into fall winter and the
Speaker 1: divorce is not going well. It's now getting to the
Speaker 1: point where my father is coming home at times. He's
Speaker 1: not living with us at all, but he comes home
Speaker 1: and we're hiding from him upstairs so we don't have
Speaker 1: to deal with him. Then he leaves and then we
Speaker 1: can go downstairs again. It's very uncomfortable in the house.
Speaker 1: I would spend time with my father occasionally. My father
Speaker 1: was saying, how's that bitch your mother doing? And my
Speaker 1: mother would saying the same thing about my father. This
Speaker 1: is in November of nine nine, and she says to me,
Speaker 1: call you, I would never leave you. You know that, right,
Speaker 1: of course, Bobbly. If anything ever happens to me, I
Speaker 1: want you to know that your father had me killed.
Speaker 1: He has done something to me. So she said that
Speaker 1: to you as many words, and that was November. Correct.
Speaker 1: How did you feel? So you're ten, eleven, eleven years
Speaker 1: old and you're mom says that to you, How did
Speaker 1: you feel? I? I mean, it's that's a terrifying thing
Speaker 1: to hear, and it's a terrifying thing to put on
Speaker 1: an eleven year old child. But obviously this was her
Speaker 1: teeing up something. When I think about what Collier is
Speaker 1: saying here, remember he's a child, but it's like a
Speaker 1: red flag come to life. Many survivors of emotional abuse
Speaker 1: live not only in the rumination of what is happening
Speaker 1: in the relationship, but also of what could go wrong.
Speaker 1: It can feel like this running inner narrative. Her sharing
Speaker 1: that with Collier was a lot to put on a
Speaker 1: relatively young child, But it's a haunting reminder that survivors
Speaker 1: in these relationships, in even these horrifying circumstances, do instinctually
Speaker 1: have a sense of what is happening, but often just
Speaker 1: don't know what to do. I think I even said
Speaker 1: something to her like I would never let it happened
Speaker 1: to you, mommy, and she started talking about like my
Speaker 1: father having mafia connections and things that nature and ways
Speaker 1: to get rid of her, and then we just sort
Speaker 1: of tabled it. But I was very concerned, obviously. And
Speaker 1: then it's Christmas time and my grandmother, my father's mother,
Speaker 1: who was extremely close to my mother. She was all
Speaker 1: that I had left as far as grandparents, and so
Speaker 1: she was most to come for Christmas. She couldn't come
Speaker 1: for Christmas, so on December nine, she arrives the day
Speaker 1: before New Year's Eve with my father. And it is
Speaker 1: ironic because my mother, who I share a very start
Speaker 1: on ex sense of humor with, said to her best
Speaker 1: friend Shelley Bowen at the time, he just came here
Speaker 1: with his mother, so he can't kill me tonight. And obviously,
Speaker 1: as my mother would say, famous last words, so I
Speaker 1: guess my mother good night. On December I woke up
Speaker 1: to what I believe was the sound of a scream,
Speaker 1: and then I heard two loud thuds, and I was terrified.
Speaker 1: And I heard this muttering of a man's voice, which
Speaker 1: I recognized as my father's, and I was laying in
Speaker 1: my bed. I saw the feet land in my doorway
Speaker 1: and stop. And I'm just thinking to myself, whatever you
Speaker 1: do don't look up, because all my answer was like
Speaker 1: to get up and see what's going on. I'm like,
Speaker 1: don't get up, don't look up. The footsteps left. I
Speaker 1: don't know how I found a way to go back
Speaker 1: to sleep. The next morning, when I woke up, I
Speaker 1: ran straight to my mother's bedroom. I started rummaging through
Speaker 1: the sheets and I'm rummaging and I'm looking for blood.
Speaker 1: I go downstairs and my father had just taken a shower,
Speaker 1: and he's sitting on the couch watching the news, and
Speaker 1: I say to him, where is my mother? He doesn't
Speaker 1: say anything. I said, raised my voice a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I say, where is my mother? Because at this point,
Speaker 1: like I know what's going on, something that happened. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure were that he's done something to her, and
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that he's killed her at this point,
Speaker 1: and my father says to me, well call your Mommy
Speaker 1: took a little vacation. And at that moment, I knew
Speaker 1: that I was starting a race and it was going
Speaker 1: to be him or me. So my father goes into
Speaker 1: this whole thing, and we're not going to call the police.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna call the FBI. And when he said
Speaker 1: we're not gonna call the FBI. I'm thinking to myself,
Speaker 1: you just escalated this. Like we live in Mansfield, Ohio,
Speaker 1: and that was like red flag number one. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I had done is I had, in
Speaker 1: preparation for what my mother told me, I took all
Speaker 1: of her friends phone numbers and I wrote them down
Speaker 1: on a piece of paper and I folded that piece
Speaker 1: of paper up and I put it inside this Santa
Speaker 1: claus Garfield that I had inside the hat. So he said,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna call the police. We're not gonna do this,
Speaker 1: and it's okay. So I'm like, well, I won't call
Speaker 1: the police, but I'll call someone and tell them to
Speaker 1: call all the police. So I call my mother's friends
Speaker 1: and I tell them exactly what happened. I say, my
Speaker 1: dad told me I can't call the police. Police call
Speaker 1: the police. And then I'm waiting and two uniform officers
Speaker 1: show up the house and those officers just do a
Speaker 1: routine check. Now, mind you, my grandmother is very upset
Speaker 1: that the police are. They're yelling at me. Your father
Speaker 1: said in the call piece. I'm like, I didn't call
Speaker 1: the police, Grammy. I don't know why they're here, So
Speaker 1: they do a routine walk through and take them upstairs
Speaker 1: my mother's bedroom. They're like looking around and I pull
Speaker 1: one of the police aside because they're one of them
Speaker 1: talking to my grandmother and I say, I don't trust
Speaker 1: my father as far as I could throw him, because
Speaker 1: that's what my mother always used to say, I don't
Speaker 1: trust your father as far as I could throw him.
Speaker 1: So they leave. I called my mother's friends and I said,
Speaker 1: you know what what's going on? And they're like, we
Speaker 1: file the missing person's report. I'm like, she's not missing,
Speaker 1: because it's like, oh, she just went somewhere. She's dead.
Speaker 1: She is either physically incapacity somewhere or she's dead. Like
Speaker 1: my mom would never leave me, right, So the missing
Speaker 1: person's report caught the eye of detective named Lieutenant David
Speaker 1: Messmore at the Mansfield Police Department. So he arrives at
Speaker 1: the house and my grandmother is like screaming in him,
Speaker 1: yelling at me like not letting him in our My
Speaker 1: son's a doctor. He's gonna get back. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: just let me, you know, let me just talk to
Speaker 1: you for just a little bit. Just want to ask
Speaker 1: a couple of questions about Mrs Boyle when my grandmother
Speaker 1: walked away from me. At that moment, I told the
Speaker 1: Tennam Messmore, I said, my mother is dead. Something has
Speaker 1: happened to my mother. Would never leave me, give me
Speaker 1: your card. My grandmother comes back. She says, my son
Speaker 1: is ordering you to leave or ordering you leave the house.
Speaker 1: He goes, okay, okay, no problem. The next morning, I
Speaker 1: get picked up because I'm starting school again, go into
Speaker 1: the principal's office. I say, I want you to call
Speaker 1: this guy at the Mansfield Police Department and get him here.
Speaker 1: So Dave Messmore comes down, and then I proceed because
Speaker 1: school was my safe place. Right my father is not around,
Speaker 1: not with my grandmother, and I can talk, and I
Speaker 1: lay out everything to Dave Messmore. I just bombard him
Speaker 1: with all of this information where he's just like, what
Speaker 1: the who is this kid? And I tell him, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go home tonight. Well, my grandmother is dealing
Speaker 1: with my sister downstairs. I'm going to run upstairs. I'm
Speaker 1: going to pull the bookshelves out of the wall and
Speaker 1: look in the crawl space for my mother's body, and
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna look for her purse. That would be
Speaker 1: missing because she would only leave with this one specific
Speaker 1: person only I would know that and all the stuff.
Speaker 1: And I think he's just like this kid. And what
Speaker 1: proceeded to happen over the next twenty five days is
Speaker 1: I would come. I would come everyday to school, and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be going to school. I would literally be like,
Speaker 1: get Dave Messert lists call him on the phone, and
Speaker 1: I would be giving him clues. Around January, my father
Speaker 1: says to me, He says, call here, I have a
Speaker 1: medical conference down in Florida. So he goes, I think
Speaker 1: it would be great if we took a father and
Speaker 1: son trip down to Florida. And he starts, you know,
Speaker 1: started selling me on this idea because you know, your
Speaker 1: mother has been gone and I just really want us
Speaker 1: to on and this and that, and I go to school.
Speaker 1: The next day, I was called Dave Messmore. I said, Dave,
Speaker 1: and I've been able to swim since I was four
Speaker 1: years old. I'm going to drown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 1: Not coming back from that trip, and Dave realizing that
Speaker 1: potentially I am the only witness to a murder. The
Speaker 1: soul witness to a murder is like, we need to
Speaker 1: get this kid out of there. Janu Children's Services comes
Speaker 1: knocks on the door. They wake me in my bed.
Speaker 1: They pulled me out. I say, you know, they like,
Speaker 1: pack a bag. You got Twenty minutes as I'm coming downstairs,
Speaker 1: the entire house is flooded with men in white lap coats.
Speaker 1: Cops did the whole thing. They are you got the
Speaker 1: scanners out, these machines, all this stuff. They are full
Speaker 1: on into it. They can't find my father, He's sort
Speaker 1: of on the run. And then they say to me,
Speaker 1: call your lieutenant messmore found your mother. Eternal pause, and
Speaker 1: she was dead. And the first words out of my
Speaker 1: mouth were that bastard. And you talked about relief earlier.
Speaker 1: We were talking about like with Tara and myself, and
Speaker 1: when I had said in the film, there is an
Speaker 1: overwhelming feeling that happens in a scenario just like that.
Speaker 1: And it's such a juxtaposition because on one side, you
Speaker 1: are relieve that, like you're not crazy, that something really happened.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I'm like my entire life as
Speaker 1: I know it is over, and the one person who
Speaker 1: is the most dear to me in that life I
Speaker 1: will never see in this physical plane again, So did
Speaker 1: you have hope in January that it's possible she was
Speaker 1: still alive until they found her body. Nobody had hope
Speaker 1: in that moment because it was lieutenimus were found your mom,
Speaker 1: you know, And just when you hear that, and even
Speaker 1: though I knew what I heard, what happened, the behaviors,
Speaker 1: everything me leading the charge of just you know, this
Speaker 1: is what this is. It's so hard to explain. But
Speaker 1: just like you'd have that just modicum of just hope,
Speaker 1: it just evaporates. And the thing is is that there
Speaker 1: was a trial is about to start happening. You know,
Speaker 1: I testified under all these circumstances. And you talk about
Speaker 1: the loss, right, So you know I lost my mother,
Speaker 1: but I also lost my father, Yes you did. And
Speaker 1: I lost my dog. I lost me. I lost my
Speaker 1: entire way of life. And then I'm in a situation
Speaker 1: which was not great in foster care. Foster care was
Speaker 1: not great for me, but I had to sort of
Speaker 1: find whatever was in me. Two then go, okay, now
Speaker 1: you have to buck up and bootstrap and figure it
Speaker 1: out and go into that courtroom. Because look, the prosecutor
Speaker 1: said to me, you don't need to testify, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's over my dead body. We've come this far. This
Speaker 1: man will not walk free like over my dead body.
Speaker 1: And if it, if it happens, I am going to
Speaker 1: give my absolute all and tell the truth as I
Speaker 1: know it. It's just like what you said about Terra earlier,
Speaker 1: reciting these things that that happened, and people are like, well,
Speaker 1: why did you say that? How did you do this?
Speaker 1: Because it's the truth, and the truth is the easiest
Speaker 1: thing to remember. That's why thirty years later, when I
Speaker 1: look back, I can look myself in the mirror and go,
Speaker 1: I did what was right. And here you are in
Speaker 1: a courtroom and your father is completely negating your literal
Speaker 1: existence and your grief and not even looking at you.
Speaker 1: There's no recognition by this man that that little boy
Speaker 1: just lost his mother, his beloved mother, none whatsoever. It was.
Speaker 1: It literally was like watching this man eradicate the very
Speaker 1: existence is the psychic existence of his son right in
Speaker 1: front of him. Yeah, it's just it's just terror story
Speaker 1: with John locking her in the car, like you don't
Speaker 1: you don't exist to me, don't exist because your testimony
Speaker 1: is powerful. However, at the end of the day, a
Speaker 1: jury is still going to need evidence, and why did
Speaker 1: they get it in a home in erie that belonged
Speaker 1: to him, with her encased in concrete under his house,
Speaker 1: with the shelving unit in the carpeting and all that
Speaker 1: stuff like that's beyond the smoking gun. I mean, ultimately,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day was my testimony and
Speaker 1: then my father's testimony, because again we're talking about navigating narcissism,
Speaker 1: which I think that I've discovered that my father is
Speaker 1: beyond that. But my father will lament to me the
Speaker 1: letters that he sent me from prison, because I have
Speaker 1: like fotters over the past like thirty years about how
Speaker 1: he realized when he got to prison all every but
Speaker 1: he's like, no, you shouldn't have testified, and you should
Speaker 1: have testified when my father, you know, testified. But here's
Speaker 1: what it is. It's when we think of grandiosity. We
Speaker 1: think of the person who's walking around saying, look how
Speaker 1: fancy my car is, Look how great I am are,
Speaker 1: and I wonderful. This is what grandiosity. Also is that
Speaker 1: I'm so smart, I am so clever. You put me
Speaker 1: up on that stand. I can convince anyone it's grandiosity.
Speaker 1: And I think again, we don't realize the many faces
Speaker 1: of grandiosity. But this idea that I'm the smartest person
Speaker 1: in the room put me up on that stand, and
Speaker 1: that he believes his own hype. It really is on
Speaker 1: almost a delusional level. Terra. As you're sitting here and
Speaker 1: you hear Call your Storage, I know you've heard before,
Speaker 1: but you know, for the listeners of this podcast to hear,
Speaker 1: what parts of Call your Story do you relate to? Well,
Speaker 1: I relate to his mom to be honest, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been through these types of relationship. Maybe not with
Speaker 1: a psychopath, but I've definitely been with like a sociopathy.
Speaker 1: For his my mom, I feel are very different where
Speaker 1: I believe that like his mom was in it and
Speaker 1: she wanted this life, and my mom did too. She
Speaker 1: wanted this great life and everything, but there's certain things
Speaker 1: that like my mom had many guys in her life,
Speaker 1: She's had many marriages where his mom was trying to
Speaker 1: make this one marriage work. And I have so many
Speaker 1: friends where their husband's cheat and their husbands lived this lifestyle,
Speaker 1: but they won't to stay in it because they feel
Speaker 1: that it's going to be the best security for the kid.
Speaker 1: And so I relate to that with it. I don't
Speaker 1: have any kids or anything, but I I could have
Speaker 1: been his mom. I hear that. I hear that, and
Speaker 1: I think what to me also strucks me again about
Speaker 1: Call Your Stories is the era it was, you know,
Speaker 1: in the nineties certainly, and prior to that was how
Speaker 1: disempowered your mother was. And I often think of your mom.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've used very protective in
Speaker 1: her case was how robust her career was. For such
Speaker 1: such a long time. Your mother retained even though controlling
Speaker 1: men try to control her money, she still had some
Speaker 1: level of financial autonomy because she had that career. And
Speaker 1: whereas call your your mom got into that really risky
Speaker 1: position where the wife is working for the husband, and
Speaker 1: not only that, there's a full financial interdependence of him
Speaker 1: being the full breadwinner. And nobody taking these things seriously
Speaker 1: because it still sounds like the vast majority of the
Speaker 1: abuse your mother endured was psychological and in two we
Speaker 1: still have no way of addressing that. And we've got,
Speaker 1: you say, late eighties. What's changed, not much, not when
Speaker 1: it comes to this, there's a real authority. There's no
Speaker 1: authority to call, there's no you call if you call
Speaker 1: law enforcement saying I'm being so psychologically abused. No matter
Speaker 1: how well intentioned they are, they don't have anything they
Speaker 1: can do. They're gonna say, call me, call me when
Speaker 1: he beats you and does something violent, calm when he
Speaker 1: breaks the law. That's the problem. Emotional abuse is not
Speaker 1: against the law, and only now in California September. I
Speaker 1: believe it was twenty that the coercive control laws came
Speaker 1: into place, and September right, and that was only in
Speaker 1: family law. It only applies there, so it can't be
Speaker 1: like example, I can't be back in in the workplace
Speaker 1: or in a in a non marital, non custodial, shared
Speaker 1: children custodial relationship, So the range of applicability is pretty mild.
Speaker 1: But even then law enforcement can't prosecute that as a crime.
Speaker 1: It's a part of that family law statute that can
Speaker 1: be extended to decisions around custody, so it's a bit
Speaker 1: more subtle. So there's still nowhere for someone like your
Speaker 1: mom to go. The only difference is things around community
Speaker 1: property and things like that may have put her in
Speaker 1: a better stead financially, but even still he wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: let her go, so I don't care for your mom's
Speaker 1: story took place in or two twenty two with your
Speaker 1: father's personality being what your father's personality was, that was
Speaker 1: the end to this story. The time in history. I
Speaker 1: just only think is that she would have fewer options.
Speaker 1: Would if there was no internet, there was no place
Speaker 1: to go and listen to a podcast or a video
Speaker 1: of like, oh I'm not alone in this, Maybe there's
Speaker 1: things I could do. But to your point, tera that
Speaker 1: your mom also believed in something else. She may have
Speaker 1: believed in family. So there's a lot going on. And
Speaker 1: I feel like his mom also kind of had the
Speaker 1: secure attachment in a sense where to call her yeah,
Speaker 1: because I feel that she was like, Okay, how do
Speaker 1: I manage this relationship? What do I do best for
Speaker 1: my child in the situation? And it was always about
Speaker 1: call You're always about, you know, building that relationship that
Speaker 1: bond with him. And I feel like that's also why
Speaker 1: he has more of a secure attachment and like his
Speaker 1: relationships and everything, because he's a able to have that
Speaker 1: nurture from his mom. But again, when my father violated,
Speaker 1: when he crossed the line of the sand, that was
Speaker 1: when she's like, you've crossed the rubicon, like that's that's it,
Speaker 1: there's no turning back. So she did take that stand
Speaker 1: because a lot of people will say, well, your mom,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll get hey, Oh, your mom was just
Speaker 1: stucking into it because he was a rich doctor, and
Speaker 1: that's why she was taking around for the money. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: she was sticking around for that. But when he finally
Speaker 1: crossed what she said, that's when she said enough, I
Speaker 1: don't care what the outcome is. I'm not gonna subject
Speaker 1: my son, my now daughter, my family to this anymore
Speaker 1: because now you're worthless to me in a way, because
Speaker 1: you've shown that you have no parameters and no respect
Speaker 1: for our relationship, and now you have no respect for
Speaker 1: your child. And in every toxic relationship, people have said
Speaker 1: to me, there is a line, and that line is
Speaker 1: different for everyone. Right, For some people's physical violence, For
Speaker 1: some people it's infidelity. For some people it is in
Speaker 1: your mom's case, it was involving children. When that line
Speaker 1: gets crossed, now they're going to take on a toxic
Speaker 1: person and it rarely ends well. My session with Terra
Speaker 1: and Collier will continue after this break. So now the
Speaker 1: jury has entered a verdict and they find your father
Speaker 1: gets life in prison. I stay in the foster care system,
Speaker 1: and then you know, no family is really there obviously,
Speaker 1: but I did develop a relationship with the police officer
Speaker 1: and his family. David mess Morning became very close from them,
Speaker 1: and I asked him if they would consider adopting me,
Speaker 1: and they said absolutely, And so I thought there was
Speaker 1: gonna be a silver lining to all of this because
Speaker 1: after the trial I was able to spend time with them,
Speaker 1: and there was a summer and ride bikes and just
Speaker 1: have some sense of normalcy after all of this just insanity.
Speaker 1: And what happened is the who was in charge of
Speaker 1: awarding custody to whoever was going to take me, David
Speaker 1: Massmore had investigated him a few years earlier for corruption,
Speaker 1: and he said, there's no way you actually you don't
Speaker 1: believe that I'm going to send you the guy that
Speaker 1: rested your dad, right, And I got very upset in
Speaker 1: the courtroom and stormed out and was very angry and
Speaker 1: just and I was awarded. Now, look, I mean, there
Speaker 1: is a silver lining to this. I went with a
Speaker 1: wonderful family Zigglers, But in that moment, it felt like
Speaker 1: just yet another blow and another trauma. So I guess
Speaker 1: my next question is, so, now you've been after a
Speaker 1: sort of circuitous process, you do end up with the
Speaker 1: Ziggler family and it was a safe, stable space. So
Speaker 1: after that period of time, so now you're into adolescence
Speaker 1: high school. Were you asked to visit your father? Was
Speaker 1: there any was there any request to do that or
Speaker 1: was that I was on you? And were you given
Speaker 1: the option to say no? I was both of those things.
Speaker 1: I did actually visit my father when he was in
Speaker 1: more in correctional institution. My father would write me letters,
Speaker 1: and I can remember when those letters would come to
Speaker 1: my adoptive family and the Siglers, and they decided to
Speaker 1: open them to read them first, you know, to sort
Speaker 1: of screen them. And I think that's fair. I send
Speaker 1: him letters. They're getting screened by some prison guard because
Speaker 1: they wanted to be protective of me because I stayed
Speaker 1: in the same town where all this happened. And then
Speaker 1: I remember my adopted father sitting down with me and
Speaker 1: I read the letter. But I was sitting at the
Speaker 1: kitchen table with my parents. There was this thing that
Speaker 1: my father was writing about, really craving a filet of
Speaker 1: fish from McDonald's and how he would give anything to
Speaker 1: be able to have a filet of fish, and how
Speaker 1: lucky I am to be able to have a filet
Speaker 1: of fish, you know, and my adoptive father saying to me,
Speaker 1: do you see what he's doing here? And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: what is that? And he's like, this is called manipulation.
Speaker 1: He's manipulating you to make you feel sorry for him.
Speaker 1: But he murdered your mother, but he's trying to make
Speaker 1: you feel good. And of course it worked because I
Speaker 1: am an empathetic person and I'm like, oh, my dad,
Speaker 1: I can't ever have that again, not realizing that he
Speaker 1: made that choice to do all this and that's what
Speaker 1: he wants. Anyways. So over the years my relationship developed.
Speaker 1: Once I turned eighteen, I went and visited him, and
Speaker 1: I decided at a very early age that I was
Speaker 1: going to forgive him, not forget, but forgive him. The
Speaker 1: example that Collier gives here of his father grieving over
Speaker 1: not ever getting to have a filet of fish sandwich again,
Speaker 1: and how it played on Collier's empathy saying, Oh, how
Speaker 1: sad my dad can't have that kind of sandwich again.
Speaker 1: That's an example of manipulation and the trauma bond. That
Speaker 1: is a classical example of these toxic relationships. What was
Speaker 1: interesting was that Collier's adoptive family pointed this pattern out
Speaker 1: to him clearly when they read the letter. Most survivors
Speaker 1: don't have people in their midst helping them decode messages
Speaker 1: and make sense of the confusion and guilt that empathy
Speaker 1: and the trauma bond can cause in these relationships. So
Speaker 1: I was determined to not let this take me down.
Speaker 1: So on those terms I had a relationship with him,
Speaker 1: and the relationship was very surface. I would go and
Speaker 1: see and we talked about like basketball, sports, girls, college,
Speaker 1: like what. It was very surface, the weather, politics, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. There was no like feeling getting into oh
Speaker 1: why did you? Never asked him why. I just decided
Speaker 1: that I was going to table those questions for later
Speaker 1: on in my life. For whether that was good or bad,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it was a good thing,
Speaker 1: but it enabled me to cultivate a relationship with him
Speaker 1: on terms that I understood. However, I always was driven
Speaker 1: by the fact that I wanted to know why he
Speaker 1: did this, because there was it made no sense to me,
Speaker 1: And that is ultimately what drove me to get out
Speaker 1: of a small town Ohio. And I wanted to do
Speaker 1: something with this creatively, to share my mother's story, to
Speaker 1: share my story so it wouldn't be in vain, so
Speaker 1: it would be told and other people could learn from
Speaker 1: this experience, because why go through all of this if
Speaker 1: you can't share it so others can learn. It's stunning
Speaker 1: to me that you did maintain a relationship with him,
Speaker 1: that you would go to prison, that you would visit him.
Speaker 1: Do you feel though this that a major driver for
Speaker 1: that was I need to find out this Why that
Speaker 1: was your motivator one hundred. I just didn't know how
Speaker 1: it was going to unfold. But I also knew that
Speaker 1: I would need my father's cooperation if I ever wanted
Speaker 1: to do anything with my story, if I ever wanted
Speaker 1: to do and because I was like, I want that
Speaker 1: from him. Let's face it, that's a really hard thing
Speaker 1: to unload on someone terekn relate. I mean, being what
Speaker 1: she what she's gone through doing load in another relationship.
Speaker 1: It is Hey, by the way, I'm a really good person,
Speaker 1: but this happened, and this is you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: People look at you sideways like you know, and I
Speaker 1: always faced a lot of skepticism, was like, well, the
Speaker 1: parents of the girl I was anywhere, Like, what's to
Speaker 1: say he doesn't do it to you? I always had
Speaker 1: to give down that stigma, right, And that stigma is
Speaker 1: it's such a powerful and painful part of survivorship because
Speaker 1: the survivors carry shame and they did no wrong. So
Speaker 1: it's where people say, I feel shame for the family
Speaker 1: I come from. I feel shame for my parents behavior.
Speaker 1: And it may not even be an articulation of shame,
Speaker 1: but it may even be that the world regards a
Speaker 1: person who brings these experiences with shame. And I think
Speaker 1: that that has been since time immemorial. There are many
Speaker 1: cultures and religions that would actually literally would put into
Speaker 1: the fringes families where there were histories of, for example,
Speaker 1: a person ending their own life for something like that.
Speaker 1: As you said, I'm saying, so those biases, those stigmas
Speaker 1: have been there since forever, and I still think that
Speaker 1: they're very very present, no matter how much openness people
Speaker 1: claim to have. Now. I want to go to these
Speaker 1: letters though, because you say hundreds of them have come
Speaker 1: over the years, especially in the early letters call your
Speaker 1: I am curious about how how much or how often
Speaker 1: the letters we're focused on checking in on how you
Speaker 1: were doing. Okay, I'm taking that isn't ever again, Folks,
Speaker 1: you got to watch a murder in Mansfield Beak for
Speaker 1: no other reason that some of the more some of
Speaker 1: those letters I paused. I had to pause. They were
Speaker 1: so vile, Callio. The things he was saying to you
Speaker 1: were so horrific after all that had happened to you.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, like I need to take
Speaker 1: a walk, I need you to do something else. And
Speaker 1: I would pause because it would so painful to think
Speaker 1: that from prison, that he would put these things on
Speaker 1: paper and send them to you. And and again. Particularly
Speaker 1: another profound scene in the film was he was rejecting
Speaker 1: your letters. You sent him a letter and it came
Speaker 1: back to you with a note rejected on the envelope.
Speaker 1: You were his his only contact now to the outside world,
Speaker 1: and he was rejecting you. How long did your visits continue,
Speaker 1: so I understand the letters kept coming. You went to
Speaker 1: the prison to make the film. Was there ever a
Speaker 1: break or did you continue to regularly go to the
Speaker 1: prison in Ohio and see him? So in the scene
Speaker 1: in the film when he walks up and leaves the room,
Speaker 1: that's the last time I've seen And that was how
Speaker 1: long ago? That was six years ago, So six years
Speaker 1: ago was the last time you saw him up to
Speaker 1: that point six years ago where you would see him.
Speaker 1: I would see him whenever I go home to Ohio.
Speaker 1: I would see him every time. As I got so
Speaker 1: if I had, you know, even when I was in college,
Speaker 1: like I could see him twice a month, So I'll
Speaker 1: go twice a month. Because I was just trying to
Speaker 1: feel out like how I was going to do this
Speaker 1: and how this was going to play out in my life.
Speaker 1: And also like I am a son who is trying
Speaker 1: to grasp at some sort of whether I'm grasping at
Speaker 1: straws or not, it's some sense of decorum of normalcy
Speaker 1: he did. What does that look like? Right? And just
Speaker 1: trying to even you know, be even introspective to myself,
Speaker 1: like am I crazy for feeling this way? Because of
Speaker 1: course when you grow up being gaslighted and manipulated, you
Speaker 1: feel guilty because you know, so I had to go
Speaker 1: through all of those range and promotions, which it's very
Speaker 1: easy to say, well, I'm gonna be indignant about this,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to be I'm going to stand firm
Speaker 1: going around. But also it's not human to think that,
Speaker 1: you know, a psychopath or soteopath could do that, but
Speaker 1: not a normal person that has empathy and understanding and compassion.
Speaker 1: So you normally reflected back on you. I think I
Speaker 1: feel like you reflected that back on yourself and go,
Speaker 1: am I doing? Did I do the right thing? So
Speaker 1: that was part of this journey and getting to know him.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest fears that people who have toxic
Speaker 1: parents have is I'm afraid I'm going to end up
Speaker 1: being like them. Maybe there is the belief that this
Speaker 1: is genetic or falls back onto the adage that the
Speaker 1: apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It's interesting because
Speaker 1: the people who recognize the harms of their own parents
Speaker 1: behavior and who commit to not being like that aren't
Speaker 1: the ones who really need to worry, because there's an
Speaker 1: awareness that their parents behavior was problematic. But this fear
Speaker 1: that this legacy of emotional abuse is ultimately their inevitable
Speaker 1: destiny is a fear that often plagues survivors of these situations.
Speaker 1: So did you feel like you got to know him?
Speaker 1: You do and what did you learn. Well after he
Speaker 1: left the room that day, I realized at that moment
Speaker 1: that I will, I am not, and I never will
Speaker 1: be my father. There was a massive sense of relief
Speaker 1: because you grow up again stigmas, and you grow up
Speaker 1: being sort of attached again to this outcome of understanding
Speaker 1: why this has happened. And I talked with the therapist
Speaker 1: offline from the film. He said to me, he said,
Speaker 1: I think if he had admitted and said, hey, this
Speaker 1: is why I did this, and it was this big moment,
Speaker 1: you would probably have more questions. But because of this,
Speaker 1: you can see the person he is or isn't resent
Speaker 1: or yes. So when you say, like you said, please
Speaker 1: say after the last contact you have him six years ago,
Speaker 1: he leaves the room, please say I'm not him. I
Speaker 1: understand that part of it. But you said, I did
Speaker 1: learn who he is. Who is he? He's a sad
Speaker 1: shadow of a of a human being. He's vapid. There's
Speaker 1: nothing there like it was. It was like talking to
Speaker 1: a wall, like an inanimate object, like it's a shell
Speaker 1: of a person. It's like his eyes were black. You're
Speaker 1: not talking to someone. You're talking to was vapor very
Speaker 1: much so and also hollow hollow, But again that's it.
Speaker 1: That's the shape shifting of these kinds of antagonistic personalities
Speaker 1: like psychopathy and narcissism. There their shape shifters. They are
Speaker 1: constantly figuring out like how they can sort of sneak
Speaker 1: through the lock and get what they need from any
Speaker 1: human being. Yes, and the thing that you asked earlier
Speaker 1: was in these letters, as you say, like how are you?
Speaker 1: How is this something that was that we were talking
Speaker 1: about with seeing my father in prison, how this whole
Speaker 1: scene was going to play out? As you had mentioned
Speaker 1: the letter that I read to him, which is the
Speaker 1: letter that he sent back to me, which was when
Speaker 1: I wrote him when I was thirteen years old and said,
Speaker 1: please come clean for notledge yourself, but for me everybody,
Speaker 1: so the whole family can move on and we can
Speaker 1: all begin to heal from this. I think it's very
Speaker 1: big of me. But we were discussing the scene like
Speaker 1: how is going to play out? And I thought of
Speaker 1: that two days before we actually went to Ohio the
Speaker 1: film and I said, look, as I said, I have
Speaker 1: this letter, I want you to read it. I haven't
Speaker 1: read it. I only knew about it because a friend
Speaker 1: of mine that I was working with another project had
Speaker 1: read it and reminded me of the story. So I
Speaker 1: don't want to read it because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: taint it and read it since I was thirteen years
Speaker 1: old or when I sent it, So said Barbara, John,
Speaker 1: you guys, read this, and then you tell me what
Speaker 1: you think. Should I come in there and should I
Speaker 1: be Should I softball this or should I come in there?
Speaker 1: And should I come out both barrels and just say
Speaker 1: read the letter and just go right for the jugular
Speaker 1: and be like, now, I need you to tell me
Speaker 1: why you sent this back to me. And John said
Speaker 1: to me, this is literally right before my father comes
Speaker 1: in the room. I said, so, guys, what do you
Speaker 1: want me to do? What do you think I should do?
Speaker 1: And John says to me, he says, he knows that
Speaker 1: you and I are been friends for almost a decade.
Speaker 1: I just spent you know, the last three hours with
Speaker 1: this man. I spent forty five minutes with him alone.
Speaker 1: He never, I think he asked maybe one thing about you.
Speaker 1: The rest was all what he's doing this. He had
Speaker 1: all these awards that he was showing me about all
Speaker 1: this stuff he's done in prison and all these merits
Speaker 1: that he's achieved and all these things. That's all it
Speaker 1: was about. It was never like he was really tell
Speaker 1: me how my son is doing. How is he doing?
Speaker 1: Is he is he a good kid? Is he is
Speaker 1: he doing well? Does he? Is he telling me the
Speaker 1: truth about stuff like how is his love life? How
Speaker 1: is he connect like all these things that you would
Speaker 1: want to know if you're a father that doesn't get
Speaker 1: to interact with your kid. He didn't ask, and they said,
Speaker 1: stick it to him. This man doesn't care about you. Again,
Speaker 1: in the film, you see the kind of certain chronology
Speaker 1: through the letters. One thing that was stunning to me
Speaker 1: is not only how cruel they were, but when the
Speaker 1: tenor and the energy and the letters started to shift
Speaker 1: when he needed something from you, which was for you
Speaker 1: to write those letters to the parole board. I was
Speaker 1: thinking everything this man does is a calculation and a manipulation.
Speaker 1: The complete lack of interest, and even how he would
Speaker 1: start trying to pump you up, son, I'm so proud
Speaker 1: of you, and all the positivity nonsense and right there again,
Speaker 1: your story is far more cruel and violent than mostly here,
Speaker 1: but it is no different than almost any one story
Speaker 1: with this kind of parent, which is there is no
Speaker 1: genuine interest and what the is about whether they were
Speaker 1: a child or whether they're an adult child or an adolescent,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, no genuine interest, but you want to
Speaker 1: hear about me. However, when they need something, they have
Speaker 1: no problem fluffing up their own child. Oh, I'm so
Speaker 1: proud you. I'm so proud. Hey, gonna borrow some money.
Speaker 1: It's that and so yours. Seeing it played through those
Speaker 1: letters was what was so profound. And we have one
Speaker 1: of these letters. This is to me if you might
Speaker 1: be willing to maybe read part of this letter and
Speaker 1: maybe we could even do some sort of breaking it
Speaker 1: down with regard to where we see the psychopathic narcissistic
Speaker 1: stuff in how this letter is approach is a very
Speaker 1: long letter, so we'll only read a part of it.
Speaker 1: There's something in his approach that is so it's so clinical,
Speaker 1: it's so procedural, it is self serving, it is disengaged
Speaker 1: from you. It's almost like if you took all three
Speaker 1: letters and put them together, you would have a masterclass
Speaker 1: on psychopaths. I'm gonna go ahead and have you read this.
Speaker 1: I want people to hear what one of the letters
Speaker 1: is like again. This is a letter, one of the
Speaker 1: many letters that Collier received from his father, who is
Speaker 1: in prison. I'm just gonna read the very intro here,
Speaker 1: but it starts off dear son Collier. Well, as anticipated,
Speaker 1: I received your last letter last night. It was very
Speaker 1: thrilled to hear from you and to receive your photos.
Speaker 1: You are a very handsome young man and photograph very well.
Speaker 1: I am proud of your composure. Your mother would be
Speaker 1: very proud of you. I agree on Mommy's friends. They
Speaker 1: were never friends from the get go. It seems to
Speaker 1: me that all they did was take and use your
Speaker 1: mother for their own purposes. It also seems that Mommy,
Speaker 1: unfortunately was duped by them. I am not at all
Speaker 1: surprised that the rest of Mommy's acquaintances have vanished fair
Speaker 1: weather friends. All on my questions about the case, I
Speaker 1: understand your desire to quote forget things as they are painful,
Speaker 1: but I can assure you that they are just as painful,
Speaker 1: if not more, to me personally. They are questions that
Speaker 1: must be asked and answered. I know the answers to
Speaker 1: some of them, as the investigation has turned up many
Speaker 1: interesting things. I just need to know if you are
Speaker 1: aware of them. This is the logic that I am
Speaker 1: utilizing with you. On the other hand, I am glad
Speaker 1: that you have happy memories. At least I was not
Speaker 1: that bad of a father to you, eh. I know
Speaker 1: I was not a bad father, So do not worry
Speaker 1: about that. I did the right thing for you and
Speaker 1: Mommy all the time, and everyone knows it all too well. Yes,
Speaker 1: I am in prison. I am not in prison for
Speaker 1: a crime I committed or had anything to do with.
Speaker 1: I am here because I allowed my attorneys to conduct
Speaker 1: a trial in the manner they did. I did not
Speaker 1: know about the law. It was a great big act
Speaker 1: for Mayor and Whitney and Henson. So Mayor would be
Speaker 1: the prosecutor, Whitney was his was his defense attorney, and
Speaker 1: James Henson was the judge. You must recall there is
Speaker 1: no evidence against me, As tom Adgate tells me, the
Speaker 1: quote playing field was not level for my trial. All
Speaker 1: had their own individual motives for riding my back to
Speaker 1: a victory, and it all seems to have centered on
Speaker 1: political advancement and money. I am innocent of the crimes
Speaker 1: for which I am convicted. I killed no one. I
Speaker 1: planned nothing to cause either the disappearance or death of Mommy.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if it is Mommy. Doesn't it
Speaker 1: seem peculiar to you that I was never and had
Speaker 1: my medical experts, were ever able to examine the evidence
Speaker 1: against me the body? Does it seem peculiar to you
Speaker 1: that our system of government and the laws that the
Speaker 1: defendant was not able to confront the evidence against him.
Speaker 1: This is the type of justice fostered in the small
Speaker 1: minds of Mansfield. What you must do is prepare yourself
Speaker 1: for those who see you as a target. You will
Speaker 1: have an inheritance. There will also be those who are
Speaker 1: waiting for you to get money, so they will try
Speaker 1: to get it from you. I personally would have liked
Speaker 1: you to have been raised under Uncle Charlie's roof, but
Speaker 1: that is the past. Now. Some of the anxieties you
Speaker 1: were experiencing might have been avoided or more easily answered.
Speaker 1: But the Zigglers are good people, and I have no
Speaker 1: compunctions about their care or love of you. I am
Speaker 1: thankful they have been so generous to you. Alright, so
Speaker 1: let's just star breaking, because damn, So let's just give
Speaker 1: people context. You're sixteen years old, So you're an adolescent,
Speaker 1: which to me is still a kid. Okay, you are not.
Speaker 1: That would have been horrible for a full on adult
Speaker 1: to here, But you are an adolescent, an adolescent who
Speaker 1: would actually just been through trauma the likes of which
Speaker 1: most people could not comprehend. Okay. So he gets into
Speaker 1: it with its Sun Collier okay, which is already a
Speaker 1: strange way to you know, like it's like though you're
Speaker 1: playing a role al right, not dear Collier, and never
Speaker 1: in any of the parts you showed me, and even
Speaker 1: what I look it over, there's ever how are you
Speaker 1: are you? Okay? Is everything okay? I am worried about you.
Speaker 1: There's no shred of empathy, no shred of concern, none
Speaker 1: of that is there. Then he goes into criticizing your
Speaker 1: mother's friends. Okay. So that theme, that criticizing your mother's friends,
Speaker 1: it comes up later again with another thing he does
Speaker 1: is a really example of triangulation. It's almost an extension
Speaker 1: of what we were talking about in terror story of
Speaker 1: the sense of isolation. It's as though he's still trying
Speaker 1: to isolate your dead mother from her friends after all
Speaker 1: these years. The mother's friends were still the enemy. So
Speaker 1: he's criticizing them. It's then that all of this is
Speaker 1: more painful to me personally. Oh really, child loses mother
Speaker 1: because father murdered her, or I'm inconvenience by being in prison.
Speaker 1: So that idea, that pain competition, that idea of pain
Speaker 1: competition shou which is actually, in somebody's a form of
Speaker 1: gas lighting. It just shows the absolute absence of any
Speaker 1: kind of not only empathy, but the absolute egocentricity. It's
Speaker 1: my pain. Yeah, sure you might be going through something too,
Speaker 1: but oh my gosh, my pain is worse. And then
Speaker 1: he talks about the logic I am utilizing with you.
Speaker 1: That almost robotic, unemotional, that approach is something that's more
Speaker 1: consistent with something we'd see in sort of a psychopathic presentation.
Speaker 1: Then he says, I know I was not a bad father.
Speaker 1: I did right by you. That speaks to that delusional grandiosity,
Speaker 1: like whatever the opposite of the good father is. This
Speaker 1: is the polar flip to that you know that the
Speaker 1: fact that he just paid the mortgage and kept the
Speaker 1: heat on does not a good father qualify, but that
Speaker 1: this is sort of the delusional narrative that he maintains
Speaker 1: for himself. He actually was a good father. The denial
Speaker 1: a crime. I didn't commit to the blame shifting. My
Speaker 1: lawyers didn't mount up a defense, no mention of the
Speaker 1: fact that this woman was that your mother, that his
Speaker 1: wife was encased in concrete under his house. No, No,
Speaker 1: this was all his lawyers mishandled the justice that self victimization.
Speaker 1: There was no evidence against me, which is again just
Speaker 1: absolutely almost bordering on delusional talking about political advancement and money.
Speaker 1: So that sense of there's something almost conspiratorial that you'll
Speaker 1: sometimes see in that sort of delusional grandiosity you see,
Speaker 1: it's also that's a new sort of it's this sort
Speaker 1: of low grade paranoia we see in this kind of personality.
Speaker 1: Then it's even this sort of again more of this delusional,
Speaker 1: almost conspiratorial stuff we don't even know it's mommy. This
Speaker 1: idea that no, I think that they pretty well established
Speaker 1: that on multiple fronts. Talks about system of government, and
Speaker 1: then he goes on to talk about the small minds
Speaker 1: of Mansfield. That idea of contempt is a major theme, like, oh,
Speaker 1: these small town fools or these people don't know better.
Speaker 1: That contempt, it's a way of maintaining the dominance that's
Speaker 1: very much that that narcissistic, psychopathic quality. I found the
Speaker 1: part that when he brought it to money, bringing it
Speaker 1: to money, you're going to get an inheritance. People are
Speaker 1: going to know that. What that spoke to me more
Speaker 1: of was not him trying to take care of you.
Speaker 1: It spoke to me of the salience characteristic of money.
Speaker 1: And what do I mean by that is I actually
Speaker 1: think that for him money was a real measure of
Speaker 1: a human being, to him, having it the power it
Speaker 1: would accord him by the new house, and he was
Speaker 1: critical if your mother is spending, oh she shops, and
Speaker 1: this and that, the throwing of the assumed throwing of
Speaker 1: the credit cards, bringing the money in like that. It
Speaker 1: shows to me how top of mind it is. Because
Speaker 1: when you see people with these personality styles when they're
Speaker 1: going into divorces, the idea of just cutting the check
Speaker 1: of what is rightfully that other persons is unbearable to them.
Speaker 1: And so this is where we'll see that escalation to
Speaker 1: violence and even murder. We hear about these cases every day.
Speaker 1: And then the way he puts the situation. I wanted
Speaker 1: you with your uncle, Charlie, but I have no compunctions
Speaker 1: about the zigglers, these are the people who have adopted
Speaker 1: your son. The clinical detach, distanced language, and all of
Speaker 1: this in this meandering polemic with absolutely no focus on
Speaker 1: how are you doing? Are you okay? That it means
Speaker 1: it's like a psychopath's manifesto, and you've got four hundred
Speaker 1: of these and it's interesting. So what was happening at
Speaker 1: this time is that he was seeking an appeal based
Speaker 1: upon the fact that there was new evidence and that
Speaker 1: my mother. He was trying to get my mother's body exhumed,
Speaker 1: and there was all this. There was an investigative journalism
Speaker 1: article that was out in the acron Beacon Journal, which
Speaker 1: is a very good investigative journalistic publication, least back in
Speaker 1: that time it was, and this writer had discovered some things.
Speaker 1: There were discrepancies in the autopsy, my mother's eyes being
Speaker 1: brown she had blue eyes just like mine. Her weight
Speaker 1: was off, her height was off, there were different things
Speaker 1: that were left. So I actually and this also put
Speaker 1: me at odds with my mother's family, but like it
Speaker 1: didn't really matter at that point, but because all these
Speaker 1: things were brought up by other people, I agreed the
Speaker 1: exhumation of my mother's body and give a d n
Speaker 1: A test because it was also even brought up and
Speaker 1: skeptical people were skeptical of the fact that my mother
Speaker 1: was even my mother in the first place. There was
Speaker 1: all these other things that were undertone and my father
Speaker 1: at this time. And I actually got a copy of
Speaker 1: this from a relative of mine recently. My father was
Speaker 1: sending these newsletters out to prominent people in the Mansfield
Speaker 1: area called the Doctor John F. Boyle Newsletter. I literally
Speaker 1: got it last and bringing up all these questions about
Speaker 1: the police, the judge, all these other modes, basically gasolighting
Speaker 1: the hell out of an entire population and putting his
Speaker 1: edge pation on there and all. I mean, it's insane.
Speaker 1: So I agreed to have the body exhumed. It was exhumed,
Speaker 1: they took the DNA from my mother's sister. She also
Speaker 1: gave d n A and it was of course my mother.
Speaker 1: But at the time, and one of the things is
Speaker 1: my father had done a series of radio show interviews
Speaker 1: from prison and on this very very right wing religious
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory radio show. So I played that tape before
Speaker 1: in one of my episodes of my father just it's
Speaker 1: it's it is staggering because it's on because it's because
Speaker 1: he's talking to people that are enabling him. Right, So
Speaker 1: there he's no holds barred. The psychopathy is on full display,
Speaker 1: even more so than in the film. I mean by
Speaker 1: far and away, and that was the environment, the climate
Speaker 1: of what was happening at this particular moment in time.
Speaker 1: So there's a series of letters and I had accidentally
Speaker 1: opened one of these were not accidentally, I was opening
Speaker 1: it because I was reading it live and then I
Speaker 1: found the tape and he tease it up slowly. He'll
Speaker 1: drop these subtle hints of like, you know, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be things that come out about mommy that you might
Speaker 1: not know. I just want you to be prepared for
Speaker 1: those things, like that's in another letter. Right, He's planning
Speaker 1: these seeds of manipulation and disinformation and it's so calculated,
Speaker 1: but it's staggering because when I read these are just like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is just it's he's playing chess
Speaker 1: well again. Like I said, even get away from terms
Speaker 1: like psychopathy, narcissism, sociopathy. We can even use more of
Speaker 1: a theoretical look at it. Something we've talked about in
Speaker 1: this podcast before called the Dark tet Traad, and the
Speaker 1: dark tet Traad is an extension of the dark Triad
Speaker 1: which takes in psychopathy, machiavellianism, narcissism, and sadism, and those
Speaker 1: things hang together. Okay, I would actually ran the world.
Speaker 1: I would call it the Dark Quintad, or it's five
Speaker 1: sides Pentagon, the Dark Pentagon, and I would add paranoia
Speaker 1: to them, because there's this always, this constant sense of threat,
Speaker 1: and there's this this hyper reactivity to any perceived sense
Speaker 1: of threats, shutting it down, defaming at all of that.
Speaker 1: So both of what you experienced Tera, you and John,
Speaker 1: and you and your father are very much dark tet
Speaker 1: triad presentations. And I like it better theoretically because it
Speaker 1: gets away from that those as a psychopath to a
Speaker 1: much more elegant formulation of how all these things like psychopathy, narcissism,
Speaker 1: machiavellianism or the willingness to exploit other people and sadism
Speaker 1: or the actual kind of the kind of higher person
Speaker 1: gets off on from menacing or harming another person. That's
Speaker 1: what this is. And there is no one word. So
Speaker 1: the theorists of Tryad became tetrad. Like I said, we'll
Speaker 1: turn it into the Pentagon today. My session with Tera
Speaker 1: and Collier will continue after this break. Something that you
Speaker 1: got into in your Ted talk that was very big
Speaker 1: theme in your film, and then something that also came
Speaker 1: up and what we've been talking about here in terms
Speaker 1: of the ongoing contact with your father in the prison visits,
Speaker 1: is the wanting an answer. He's been convicted of a crime, right,
Speaker 1: so this is no longer the sense of he's dropping
Speaker 1: a dime on himself. He has been convicted, he is
Speaker 1: in prison. This is not the time to be coy.
Speaker 1: He wanted an opportunity to tell his story. But as
Speaker 1: we see, well he does tell the story. He just
Speaker 1: because what you have been wanting, what you've been wanting
Speaker 1: is what every survivor wants, which is the why. A
Speaker 1: jury of your peers and investigation, all of it has
Speaker 1: shown you killed her and you simply want to know why.
Speaker 1: And it will not bring her back. It will not
Speaker 1: address your grief, but there's a decent shot it could
Speaker 1: help you feel a little bit more whole, to have
Speaker 1: a little bit of the fabric of the universe make
Speaker 1: a little bit more sense. That is a small ask
Speaker 1: for a child to make to their parents. You've been
Speaker 1: making this ask for thirty years. You still didn't get
Speaker 1: your answer, and Collier, I feel pretty confident you never will. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I did get my answer. And as I said
Speaker 1: in the end when I said to him, when I said,
Speaker 1: I believe that, you believe that, and that is my
Speaker 1: answer because that is the moment that I realized that
Speaker 1: this is a like the person that is sitting in there,
Speaker 1: there's a human being. There's a body, it's breathing, it's
Speaker 1: it has life, it talks, it drinks water, it does
Speaker 1: these things, but it's not It doesn't have the qualities
Speaker 1: of a human being. It has the physical aspects of it,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have the qualities of a real human being.
Speaker 1: That's what terrified me is that I literally just you're
Speaker 1: looking at someone that is a shell of a human being.
Speaker 1: And it's hard to explain unless you've been there and
Speaker 1: you've seen that. But you're looking at what I would
Speaker 1: pretty much say is the purest form of evil, because
Speaker 1: you're looking at something that has no soul. And if
Speaker 1: you have no soul, what allows you to function on
Speaker 1: a human level of existence? Well, even like something that
Speaker 1: you said earlier about how when you looked at his eyes,
Speaker 1: there was like darkness and I was like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: that's how I felt when I looked at John, like
Speaker 1: there was so much darkness and there wasn't a human image.
Speaker 1: They're like the shark's eye or dolls eyes. They end
Speaker 1: with the plastic ends kind of thing, or just you
Speaker 1: can't look deep into them. I hear completely what you're
Speaker 1: saying is that there's an utter darkness. But ultimately, then
Speaker 1: your why it was never too It was never the
Speaker 1: why did you do this thing, but it was the
Speaker 1: it was almost a what. That's what God answered is
Speaker 1: this is something that operate, that exists in a way
Speaker 1: that is not my conception of a human being. That
Speaker 1: was what the closure looked like. And I think that
Speaker 1: that's what's important for people to recognize, is that it's
Speaker 1: not always that you get the why. Instead, maybe you
Speaker 1: understand more of a what, and that's an audible click
Speaker 1: when you finally do get it, and it may not
Speaker 1: be as at the level is I'm in the presence
Speaker 1: of evil. And one thing I always bring people back
Speaker 1: to is that the most difficult thing about again, these
Speaker 1: dark tetrad kinds of relationships when you're dealing with people
Speaker 1: like this is you're almost never going to get a why.
Speaker 1: You could get a forensic psychologist in there to opine
Speaker 1: on what the why it could be, but people with
Speaker 1: these personality styles are completely cut off from their why,
Speaker 1: from why they do what they do, or it would
Speaker 1: require a connection to those deeper parts of themselves that
Speaker 1: they're absolutely not there, because if they could connect to that,
Speaker 1: then you might see things like empathy and compassion, which
Speaker 1: you don't see. But then it's more of a is
Speaker 1: anyone really going answer the question of I'm a pathetic
Speaker 1: little human being that wanted life to turn out the
Speaker 1: way exactly the way he needed to, and something got
Speaker 1: in the way, And how dare somebody tell me no?
Speaker 1: And nobody tells me no? Because I had a plan,
Speaker 1: and f you for getting in the way of my plan,
Speaker 1: and f you to all of you for holding me
Speaker 1: accountable because really, if I was to speculate, that's his why,
Speaker 1: and he was never going to come to that. And
Speaker 1: here's what's fascinating is, here's this incredibly grandiose man, and
Speaker 1: you gave him this platform. Here's your moment. You can
Speaker 1: actually deliver your testimony right here in a film, have
Speaker 1: your moment look all that might even help you with parole,
Speaker 1: But he had gotten so embedded in this delusionally grandiose
Speaker 1: narrative couldn't be budget out of it. And in a way,
Speaker 1: your story could free a lot of survivors. When people say,
Speaker 1: how do they not get it? And I'm like, because
Speaker 1: they don't get it and they never will. And if
Speaker 1: somebody couldn't get it when the stakes were this high,
Speaker 1: they ain't gonna get that. I was like that, how
Speaker 1: do you? I mean, for both of you, And this
Speaker 1: is to both of you because as you said, this
Speaker 1: is not a finished line, This is not a destination,
Speaker 1: this is an eternal journey and process. How do you
Speaker 1: continue your healing journey? What propels you, what has propelled you?
Speaker 1: And for both of you, there's been quite a moment.
Speaker 1: For you. It was the fighting for your own survival
Speaker 1: and coming out of that trauma on the top of
Speaker 1: other traumas you would live Terra in your case, Collier,
Speaker 1: it was finally bringing this story to light on your terms,
Speaker 1: telling your story on your terms. But that was no
Speaker 1: finish line for either of you. You've been working on
Speaker 1: your healing ever since. What's that process? Been like for you. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to say that it's forever ongoing. I don't
Speaker 1: think that there will be a day where I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: nothing triggers me, you know. I think that it's a
Speaker 1: forever step. Like yesterday, I was triggered because this guy
Speaker 1: literally bumped into me with his body at Whole Foods,
Speaker 1: didn't see me. It happened on the side where John
Speaker 1: grabbed me. And I think that before in the past,
Speaker 1: if that would have happened, I would have probably went
Speaker 1: and suck that guy in the face, where now I
Speaker 1: didn't mdr and done so much Chile. But it took
Speaker 1: me a minute for me to process what just happened,
Speaker 1: realized I'm actually safe even though that just happened, and
Speaker 1: I don't have to react to that right now. So
Speaker 1: taking happiness in those little moments, like I reversed back
Speaker 1: to homeostasis by a couple hours later and so thank you,
Speaker 1: And it like took self care, but it took time
Speaker 1: for me to stay in that space and then reverse it.
Speaker 1: And then now today I could talk about my trauma.
Speaker 1: I am not going to be so triggered by the
Speaker 1: end of the US. And also it helps talking about
Speaker 1: what I did to heal where we do coaching now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then it's important for me to do this podcast too,
Speaker 1: because how we talked about how these people, these certain
Speaker 1: types of people, they thrive off of that attention and
Speaker 1: the grandiosity, and how it's so important not to give
Speaker 1: them stories or platform or anything, and how it's so
Speaker 1: important to have other survivors on our podcast where they're
Speaker 1: able to talk about their experiences rather than listening to
Speaker 1: so and that's going to get high off of that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're absolutely right, and I think most of
Speaker 1: our platforms do focus on totally spending all our time
Speaker 1: on deconstructing the mind of the perpetrator, and all of
Speaker 1: that was far less attention to the survivor. What about
Speaker 1: for you, Callier, what has propelled you as you continue
Speaker 1: your journey of healing, not just since you were eleven
Speaker 1: years old, but since you were a child, and certainly
Speaker 1: though since making this film and seeing your father six
Speaker 1: years ago. I set out to heal myself impact that
Speaker 1: one kid's life that was in my position, and most importantly,
Speaker 1: honor my mother and her story and put some finality
Speaker 1: to that. What I did not expect is the amount
Speaker 1: of people who I have been able to reach, not
Speaker 1: only initially from the film, but then with the podcast
Speaker 1: and now with our Survivor Squad podcast which is coming
Speaker 1: out soon. Is the amount of people to gravitate towards
Speaker 1: my story, terror story, but me particularly how much hope
Speaker 1: and how much strength they garner from hearing my story
Speaker 1: and how it impacts them. And and these recrease, whether
Speaker 1: it's your dramatization, whether it's you know, shows even like
Speaker 1: Dirty John was turned into a television series, other you know,
Speaker 1: other sorts of big crimes. And this has been happening
Speaker 1: for a long time, but it's really gotten concentrated lately.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a sociological comment about society as a
Speaker 1: whole as to why we are drawn to true crime.
Speaker 1: I have a few thoughts about it. I do say.
Speaker 1: I do think that sometimes when we watch a true
Speaker 1: crime story that ends up in a just place, and
Speaker 1: by that I mean the perpetrator is found guilty, a
Speaker 1: person like John, who was violent and dangerous is actually
Speaker 1: put down. I remember so well I can be in
Speaker 1: that moment when I read the story in the l
Speaker 1: A Times, and I was literally I was reading it.
Speaker 1: I was clenching the device because I'm thinking, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this guy's gonna kill someone, and when in the story
Speaker 1: he dies, I literally felt a palpable physical sense of relief. Right,
Speaker 1: And I think that when these true crime stories end
Speaker 1: up where people want them to, there is that sense
Speaker 1: of justice where so many people don't have that in
Speaker 1: their lives, least of all in their narcissistic relationships. So
Speaker 1: for a minute, the world feels right. The problem is
Speaker 1: is that you said it very well. There is a
Speaker 1: blast zone around these stories. This isn't just the son
Speaker 1: of the mother who died. These are the friends, the community.
Speaker 1: The fabric of safety around these stories is punctured and
Speaker 1: in a way that people never feel safe again. So
Speaker 1: talk to me, now, how about how you're going to
Speaker 1: approach this idea of ethical true crime because this is
Speaker 1: a real dicey area, and so I would be really
Speaker 1: curious as you as survivors, what you your thoughts about
Speaker 1: that and how you're going to approach that. Well, I think,
Speaker 1: first of all, as someone who made a film not
Speaker 1: in the true crime genres, you know, it's just a
Speaker 1: film about humanity, right for humanity, Like when I became
Speaker 1: aware of terror story and I saw how these true
Speaker 1: crime shows, whether it be a podcast, whether it be
Speaker 1: a you know, a new show, whether it be a
Speaker 1: syndicated series like Dirty John, how that much of the
Speaker 1: profit off of this and how exploitative it ends up being.
Speaker 1: You know, that was where it really heightened my awareness.
Speaker 1: But what we became both really impassioned was is allowing
Speaker 1: the space where the survivor's story is the story, not
Speaker 1: the what happened the perpetrators stuff. It's they want to
Speaker 1: know the story, but then the important thing to keep
Speaker 1: in mind and what the real story is. It's not
Speaker 1: about what happened at the crime, is how the people
Speaker 1: live through and move on with their lives. And also
Speaker 1: allow a space where people can share those stories on
Speaker 1: their own terms. And if they don't want to, that's fine,
Speaker 1: but we're not there to share for you. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I just want to say for everyone, I feel that
Speaker 1: ethical true crime is a little different, and it's asking
Speaker 1: that one person that we're having on for that episode,
Speaker 1: what does that mean for them? How can we tell
Speaker 1: your story in a better light? What are the words
Speaker 1: that you want us to use to talk about your trauma?
Speaker 1: Because certain words trigger certain people, and so for me,
Speaker 1: it's asking that person, how can we meet your story
Speaker 1: be told in the best light possible. Totally makes sense. Again,
Speaker 1: the two of you are through a journey of tremendous pain,
Speaker 1: are in a position to actually really an act and
Speaker 1: real change. It's things like meaning, purpose and love, which
Speaker 1: when we can derive those from our experiences in our
Speaker 1: life and find that way to pay it forward to others,
Speaker 1: that that is the humanity in the struggle. So again
Speaker 1: I am privileged, humbled, beyond belief to have spent this
Speaker 1: time with both of you, to have heard your stories
Speaker 1: and again that they will inspire our survivors to know
Speaker 1: that you know, the sun will rise again, and in fact,
Speaker 1: you might be in a better position to actually notice
Speaker 1: it in a very different way. Nobody ever wants pain
Speaker 1: to descend into their lives, but once it happens, we
Speaker 1: have in us this incredibly human capacity to grow past
Speaker 1: it in spite of it and even more because of it.
Speaker 1: So thank you, Thank you again, thank you, thank you Spirit.
Speaker 1: Yes it, thank you, Yeah, that's it. Thank you. These
Speaker 1: are my takeaways from my conversation with Collier. One of
Speaker 1: the most profound elements of collier story was his search
Speaker 1: for a why as a child, then as an adolescent
Speaker 1: and an adult. Like everyone who has been in one
Speaker 1: of these toxic relationships, Collier wanted to hear from his
Speaker 1: father the why. This may be one of the most
Speaker 1: frustrating aspects of the journey of healing from toxic, narcissistic,
Speaker 1: and antagonistic relationships. Collier found his version of a why
Speaker 1: by finally having to accept who his father is, but
Speaker 1: from many survivors, this is a real stumbling block to healing.
Speaker 1: Radical acceptance means that sometimes we don't get a why
Speaker 1: because people with these kinds of personalities are simply too
Speaker 1: detached from their own motive agents. They do what works
Speaker 1: for them in the moment, with little regard for how
Speaker 1: it affects others. Grieving without a why can be difficult,
Speaker 1: but it is a major part of the healing process.
Speaker 1: In my next takeaway, for many, maybe not all, but
Speaker 1: many people who have survived stories of trauma and abuse
Speaker 1: and emotionally, psychologically and toxically abusive relationships. After they address
Speaker 1: their initial healing and processing of what happened to them,
Speaker 1: paying it forward in some way is often part of
Speaker 1: their process, whether that is becoming trained as a therapist,
Speaker 1: doing coaching, volunteering with survivors, creating content books, anything to
Speaker 1: put their story out there. The more stories that come
Speaker 1: into the light, the more it may lift shame for
Speaker 1: survivors who believe that they are alone in these stories. However,
Speaker 1: a piece of caution here ensure that you do the
Speaker 1: work you need to do first, whether that's trauma therapy,
Speaker 1: therapy focused on legacy issues, developing and shoring up your
Speaker 1: own coping and resilience. It can be tempting to want
Speaker 1: to jump right in and help others with your story,
Speaker 1: but first you need to take care of you. This
Speaker 1: often makes more sense if we think of it as
Speaker 1: a physical illness or injury that you would need to
Speaker 1: heal from a broken bone or finish a course of
Speaker 1: treatment for an illness before you volunteer with others, and
Speaker 1: it's exactly the same with the unseen bruises and injuries
Speaker 1: of trauma and emotional abuse. You need to heal first.
Speaker 1: Terra and Collier found each other both having lived through
Speaker 1: unique and very public stories, and the nature of their
Speaker 1: stories could have left them feeling quite isolated, feeling that
Speaker 1: new people they meet would not understand what they had experienced. Isolation,
Speaker 1: feeling like people won't understand you, and even shame can
Speaker 1: impact many survivors of severe toxic situations, even if they
Speaker 1: are not public. They found each other and have benefited.
Speaker 1: And while you may not meet someone who went through
Speaker 1: exactly what you did, exploring options such as support groups
Speaker 1: or group therapy can be quite useful. Being in a
Speaker 1: room with someone who has walked a similar journey to
Speaker 1: yours can be extraordinarily healing. A big thank you to
Speaker 1: our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen Jethro, Ellen Rakaton,
Speaker 1: and Dr Romeney de Vassila. And thank you to our
Speaker 1: producer Matthew Jones, associate producer Mara Dela Rosa, and consultant
Speaker 1: Kelly Ebling. And finally, thank you to our editors and
Speaker 1: sound engineers Devin Donnahy and Calvin Bailiff h