Speaker 1: Hey, it's Stephanie back with a bonus episode. We talked
Speaker 1: in episode five about the personas Laura allegedly used online.
Speaker 1: There was one more alleged persona that we didn't have
Speaker 1: time to get into, So in this bonus episode, we
Speaker 1: want to bring you a scene that was cut for time.
Speaker 1: During my research, I talked to many of the online
Speaker 1: content creators covering this case, and there's a few you
Speaker 1: haven't met yet, like Megan Fox. And no, not the
Speaker 1: actress Megan Fox. This Megan is a journalist and a
Speaker 1: podcaster on YouTube. You'll hear more from her in upcoming episodes.
Speaker 1: When I talked to Megan, I asked her if Laura
Speaker 1: ever contacted her directly.
Speaker 2: No, not once. Well, okay, let me take that back.
Speaker 2: That's not true. She may have, because I did get
Speaker 2: several emails from Tag.
Speaker 1: A man named Tag started emailing content creators claiming to
Speaker 1: be Laura's ex boyfriend.
Speaker 2: Megan, my friends call me Tag. And over the past
Speaker 2: few months, I have been following this situation regarding Laura Owens,
Speaker 2: a woman I dated and was involved with intimately from
Speaker 2: mid late twenty fifteen to twenty sixteen. I am not
Speaker 2: fully ready to come forward publicly with my story, but
Speaker 2: I am willing to support you and the other victims,
Speaker 2: specifically with what I feel could be valuable background information
Speaker 2: and help fill in some critical information holes.
Speaker 1: Tag said that he just wanted the truth about Laura
Speaker 1: Owens to come out. He admits to feeling a lot
Speaker 1: of guilt over their alleged relationship, noting that he didn't
Speaker 1: truly understand the situation while he was in it. Tag
Speaker 1: then turns his attention to Dave Neil. Here's Megan reading
Speaker 1: that part of Tag's email.
Speaker 2: He and I have zero connection or personal history. Yet
Speaker 2: I was immediately revulsed by literally almost all of his
Speaker 2: content from day one. Frankly, he's an unfunny vulgarian, and
Speaker 2: I take serious issue with him calling himself a journalist.
Speaker 1: For Megan, this was immediately suspicious. Most people love Dave Neil.
Speaker 2: You can't hate Dave. Dave's great Dave is very difficult
Speaker 2: to hate. I mean, nobody hates Dave like this except Laura.
Speaker 1: Meghan decided not to report on the email from Tag
Speaker 1: to her, the language sounded suspiciously similar to the kind
Speaker 1: of thing Laura Owens often says. But Tag's emails kept coming.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that did throw me off.
Speaker 2: In the second email that Tag sent, Tag gave up
Speaker 2: some information about Chase J. Jones.
Speaker 1: Remember, Chase J. Jones was the Howard University student trying
Speaker 1: to cancel Clayton, a character that allegedly led straight back
Speaker 1: to Laura's phone number. For Megan, the fact that Tag
Speaker 1: knew Chase J. Jones was too convenient.
Speaker 2: It's got to be Laura.
Speaker 1: Meghan decided to try and verify to see if Tag
Speaker 1: was who he said he was.
Speaker 2: I tried to get this person on the phone, and
Speaker 2: this person said they would be available, and then nothing.
Speaker 2: And every time I would say let's get on the phone,
Speaker 2: there'd be some excuse. Oh, I'm traveling through Vienna. That
Speaker 2: was my favorite. I'm on a train in Vienna. If
Speaker 2: someone won't actually get on the phone with you, it's
Speaker 2: a very good sign that they're not who they say
Speaker 2: they are.
Speaker 1: Even still, Megan kept her suspicions to herself.
Speaker 2: I never mentioned it to anyone publicly until Tag started
Speaker 2: contacting Lauren.
Speaker 1: Lauren Nighty is another YouTuber who began covering the case
Speaker 1: after seeing Laura's Reddit posts. Lauren had been following Dave
Speaker 1: Neil's content.
Speaker 3: I saw that people were kind of going in on
Speaker 3: Dave and he was giving a lot of backlash for
Speaker 3: going after someone who people thought was either the victim
Speaker 3: or she was mentally ill.
Speaker 1: At the time, Lauren worked as a psychic value later
Speaker 1: at a hospital. She felt like she had professional insight
Speaker 1: into this kind of behavior.
Speaker 3: I myself had been working in the hospital for a
Speaker 3: long time as a psych evaluator who works with patients
Speaker 3: who come into the hospital the ere who need help,
Speaker 3: and I have to determine whether or not they're actually
Speaker 3: a danger to themselves or if there's somebody who maybe
Speaker 3: needs help but can deal with this on an outpatient basis.
Speaker 3: And I had to determine what's the basis for the
Speaker 3: things that you're saying, and what's the motivation behind these things.
Speaker 3: A lot of times people would say, well, I did
Speaker 3: this to get XYZ reaction from somebody, or there was
Speaker 3: a means to an end, and that's what I was
Speaker 3: seeing in Laura. I was seeing a lot of these
Speaker 3: threats being made for a means to an end, and
Speaker 3: people were going after Dave in a way that I
Speaker 3: was like, really uncomfortable with. I was like, you guys
Speaker 3: don't understand the things that go into these evaluations and
Speaker 3: what people say and why, and that there's more to
Speaker 3: the story than just somebody made a threat. Now we
Speaker 3: all have to stop talking about it. We have to
Speaker 3: give them what they want or else. And so I
Speaker 3: kind of came to Dave's defense a little bit, and
Speaker 3: that's how I got involved.
Speaker 1: Lauren started making her own YouTube videos discussing the case.
Speaker 1: Then in spring of twenty twenty four, I.
Speaker 3: Get an email from somebody claiming to be Laura's ex
Speaker 3: boyfriend named Tag, which, if you know the Chase J.
Speaker 3: Jones story, you know is kind of ridiculous because it's
Speaker 3: Tag and Chase. But he tried to convince me, basically
Speaker 3: that Laura really was like sick and he really was
Speaker 3: worried that she was going to do something to hurt herself.
Speaker 1: Lauren took it seriously. She didn't report on it, but
Speaker 1: she responded to Tag.
Speaker 3: I was very empathetic and responded in a way that
Speaker 3: I would respond to anybody who was dealing with a
Speaker 3: person of that kind of illness, where she was struggling
Speaker 3: with suicidal thoughts. And they didn't respond, and I tried
Speaker 3: again to say like, will you please talk to me
Speaker 3: and verify your identity as you offered to do, and
Speaker 3: it's like I never heard back again after that.
Speaker 1: Content like Lauren and Megan Fox regularly talked offline about
Speaker 1: the case, and one day Lauren mentioned the Tag email
Speaker 1: to Megan, who.
Speaker 3: Then let me know that she had also received an
Speaker 3: email from Tag and we compared our emails and they
Speaker 3: were very different in tone. Both of them have in
Speaker 3: common that he tried to basically gass us up to
Speaker 3: make us feel good about ourselves while putting down other
Speaker 3: people like Dave.
Speaker 1: They were never able to prove if Tag was a
Speaker 1: real person.
Speaker 3: I think that the idea of Tag was to report
Speaker 3: on this and be like, hey, someone from Laura's past
Speaker 3: came out and said like, this is actually true to
Speaker 3: get people talking online about how her story was not
Speaker 3: made up basically, and it didn't work.
Speaker 1: If it was Laura behind these emails from Tag, she
Speaker 1: might have done it to try to get sympathy from
Speaker 1: people online, but it seems to have backfired. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening and stay tuned for episodes in
Speaker 1: bonus content on the Love Trapped feed.
Speaker 3: H