Speaker 1: Hey, it's Stephanie back with another bonus episode and just
Speaker 1: a content disclaimer here, we will be talking about pregnancy loss.
Speaker 1: In episode six, you heard about how content creator Dave
Speaker 1: Neil and journalist Megan Fox discovered a Fiver logo on
Speaker 1: an ultrasound that Laura Owens had given Greg Gillespie. They
Speaker 1: made this discovery while Dave was on a live stream.
Speaker 2: We already knew she had a pension for lying. We
Speaker 2: knew that she was faking and stealing all these ultrasounds.
Speaker 1: The ultrasound that Dave Neil is talking about, the one
Speaker 1: they discovered a Fiver logo on, didn't just appear out
Speaker 1: of thin air. It was taken from somewhere, and Dave
Speaker 1: Neil's community tracked down the real person behind this ultrasound.
Speaker 2: This lady in Texas had written a blog about enduring
Speaker 2: the death of one of her twins. She's a member
Speaker 2: of Men's Mothers and or Neonatal Death. She's an advocate
Speaker 2: for helping women going through such a devastating time.
Speaker 1: The blog was originally written in twenty fourteen by a
Speaker 1: woman named Stormy. We're not going to use her last
Speaker 1: name here for her privacy, but she later gave a
Speaker 1: statement to the Maricopa County Investigators where she said she'd
Speaker 1: started a blog in twenty eleven to help her cope
Speaker 1: with grief after she had a stillbirth. She posted about
Speaker 1: her next two pregnancies on the blog, including a pregnancy
Speaker 1: she had in twenty fourteen. When Stormy went for her
Speaker 1: first ultrasound, she learned she was having twins, but a
Speaker 1: few weeks later, one of the fetuses died and was
Speaker 1: absorbed by the other twin. The blog was about something
Speaker 1: called vanishing twins syndrome, which actually happens in about twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty percent of twin pregnancies. In most cases, the
Speaker 1: other twin will develop normally, which was true in Stormy's case.
Speaker 1: She wrote about it on her blog.
Speaker 2: And now, several years later, her own story is being
Speaker 2: used against her because somebody stole the ultrasound off the Internet.
Speaker 1: Members of Dave's audience ultimately found the source of the
Speaker 1: ultrasound through a reverse image search on Google, and Dave
Speaker 1: got in touch with Stormy.
Speaker 2: We reached out as compassionately as you could because we're
Speaker 2: reopening a wound. We just wanted to help her, and
Speaker 2: we really felt like she should know and maybe find
Speaker 2: out from us rather than from someone else that she
Speaker 2: had this stolen.
Speaker 1: Stormy told Maricopa County investigators that when she saw the
Speaker 1: ultrasound Laura was using, she immediately recognized it as her own.
Speaker 1: She said the image holds special significance to her because
Speaker 1: it's the only physical evidence she has that this second
Speaker 1: baby existed.
Speaker 2: It's important to know that because Laura would later steal
Speaker 2: this lady's story, which I don't need to tell people
Speaker 2: how offensive that is. We all understand this lady's put
Speaker 2: together a mission to help out other mothers because this
Speaker 2: was such a tough time period of her life.
Speaker 1: The blogs since been taken down. Stormy said she didn't
Speaker 1: know anyone outside of her friends and family had been
Speaker 1: looking at it. Something I've learned throughout my research for
Speaker 1: this story is that Dave Neil and his community always
Speaker 1: want to help out.
Speaker 2: I just knew my audience wanted to do something good,
Speaker 2: and a lot of times in cases like this, you
Speaker 2: have to wait for the court to play out and
Speaker 2: you really can't do much. And my audience has been
Speaker 2: known to help fundraise people in the past, and I said,
Speaker 2: let's just put together a fundraiser.
Speaker 1: Dave started a GoFundMe for Stormy.
Speaker 2: We raised a bunch of money and think we raised
Speaker 2: prively six thousand dollars and we just said, go at it,
Speaker 2: have fun.
Speaker 1: Dave's community was hoping they could raise enough money for
Speaker 1: Stormy to throw her son an extra special birthday party
Speaker 1: or take a family vacation.
Speaker 2: There's so much collateral damage from this story. There's so
Speaker 2: many victims, and you watch a story like this and
Speaker 2: it feels senseless, It feels like you can't do anything.
Speaker 2: And it was just another instance where the audience almost
Speaker 2: proves Laura wrong. Like she decided to live in this
Speaker 2: hostile world. My audience didn't. My audience is in a
Speaker 2: world of justice, compassion, and we have to just constantly
Speaker 2: remind each other that even though it's such a tough
Speaker 2: subject to cover, we can focus on the survivors. We
Speaker 2: can focus on the victims and not on what might
Speaker 2: happen to Laura throughout this Whatever happens to her is
Speaker 2: a consequence of the truth coming out.
Speaker 1: Dave and his community have played a huge role in
Speaker 1: this story, not only in covering it, but also in
Speaker 1: supporting those who never wanted to be caught up in it.
Speaker 1: So with six episodes out, I called Dave to talk
Speaker 1: about the release of the show. We've spoken so much
Speaker 1: over the past nine months as I've been reporting on
Speaker 1: this story, but Dave Neil has been covering it since
Speaker 1: the news broke about Clayton eckered. In twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: I chatted with Dave to talk about the case. We've
Speaker 1: both been consumed by. So what has it been like
Speaker 1: for you now that six episodes of Life Love Trapped
Speaker 1: are out and you've listened to them and you're kind
Speaker 1: of reliving this as it played out.
Speaker 2: It's so trippy and surreal, and I'm like, on one end,
Speaker 2: like you know, like a typical I don't know, YouTuber
Speaker 2: or comedian, I'm like judging what I'm saying, Like did
Speaker 2: I get that? Did I get that note? Right? Do
Speaker 2: I sound unhinged? I'm just trying to communicate my emotions,
Speaker 2: and those emotions for this case went from frustration to relief,
Speaker 2: to vindication to feeling very defensive of the community. It's
Speaker 2: definitely surreal. I covered this on like sort of a
Speaker 2: PhD level where we got so deep into it and
Speaker 2: you're covering it telling the story three dimensionally, not just
Speaker 2: through my own noggin. And I think that's really really
Speaker 2: great to hear all of the different stories of Wood,
Speaker 2: Nick the lawyer, and Clayton and all of the people
Speaker 2: that are involved, because yeah, everyone's got everyone's got like
Speaker 2: a similar through line, but we've all been affected differently.
Speaker 1: So in episode five, you have a line in that
Speaker 1: episode and you I will make as many videos as
Speaker 1: it takes to get this thing right. My question for
Speaker 1: you is how many videos do you think that is
Speaker 1: at this point?
Speaker 2: Oh man, I'd have to guess over two hundred and fifty.
Speaker 2: I don't know how did you count? That's a lot.
Speaker 1: I haven't had time to count.
Speaker 2: I can totally see how people don't like YouTubers. They
Speaker 2: get a bad rap. So it was easy for her
Speaker 2: and her attorney to paint this picture like I'm just
Speaker 2: some douchebag. But it's not my first rodeo. I've dealt
Speaker 2: with this for so long. Like I know, I knew
Speaker 2: covering it to just try to clean my hands and
Speaker 2: be as like immaculate as possible. And the one thing
Speaker 2: that I've learned is just like follow what's interesting to
Speaker 2: me and my intuition on this one was that it
Speaker 2: was going to be probably the biggest story I ever covered.
Speaker 2: It's been quite an investment of my time, but I
Speaker 2: don't regret it. You know. I made some good friends
Speaker 2: out of it. And again, the story's not over, and
Speaker 2: who knows. My fingers are still crossed that one day
Speaker 2: she'll want to tell me the true story.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. If you want to
Speaker 1: go down the rabbit hole with Dave Neil, you can
Speaker 1: find him on YouTube or check out his twice daily podcast,
Speaker 1: The Rush Hour, and stay tuned for new episodes of
Speaker 1: Love Trapped and more bonus content on the feed