1
00:00:00,600 --> 00:00:04,880
Speaker 1: This episode mentioned suicide. Please take care while listening.

2
00:00:05,920 --> 00:00:09,600
Speaker 2: Middletown have their skeleton. I mean they're not with that.

3
00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:13,840
Speaker 1: Greg Thompson is fifty three years old and has lived

4
00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:17,400
Speaker 1: within a forty five minute drive of Wagner, Oklahoma, his

5
00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:18,439
Speaker 1: entire life.

6
00:00:18,760 --> 00:00:22,239
Speaker 2: Wagner is a small town. I don't even remember what

7
00:00:22,360 --> 00:00:25,400
Speaker 2: the population is here rad off In. I want to

8
00:00:25,440 --> 00:00:28,080
Speaker 2: say three to five thousand people or something, but that

9
00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:29,160
Speaker 2: could be totally out.

10
00:00:29,320 --> 00:00:30,040
Speaker 3: I looked it up.

11
00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:34,720
Speaker 1: It's about double that eight thousand. Still small, a place

12
00:00:34,760 --> 00:00:38,239
Speaker 1: where everyone kind of knows everyone and neighbors act neighborly.

13
00:00:39,120 --> 00:00:42,920
Speaker 1: When Greg meets Tealina, she's a recent transplant to the area.

14
00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:49,559
Speaker 2: Outsiders don't normally take interest in what tier. With Tlena

15
00:00:49,680 --> 00:00:53,120
Speaker 2: not being from the area, that made her even more special.

16
00:00:53,159 --> 00:00:57,040
Speaker 1: In my opinion, Greg became friends with Telina because he's

17
00:00:57,080 --> 00:00:59,480
Speaker 1: the guy you call when you've got odd jobs that

18
00:00:59,560 --> 00:01:00,160
Speaker 1: need doing.

19
00:01:00,480 --> 00:01:04,759
Speaker 2: She hired me for like candy man stuff like mowing

20
00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:09,280
Speaker 2: and weed eat and hanging TVs and just all kinds

21
00:01:09,400 --> 00:01:11,240
Speaker 2: there's handyman type stuff.

22
00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:15,759
Speaker 1: In early twenty twenty, before COVID shuts the world down,

23
00:01:16,280 --> 00:01:19,240
Speaker 1: Teleina is on the hunt for the perfect mattress to

24
00:01:19,319 --> 00:01:22,560
Speaker 1: help her troubled sleep. This turns out to be a

25
00:01:22,600 --> 00:01:25,560
Speaker 1: tedious task for the fifty three year old who buys

26
00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:29,880
Speaker 1: and returns multiple mattresses in the process, but luckily she

27
00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:32,240
Speaker 1: has Greg to help her with the heavy lifting.

28
00:01:32,600 --> 00:01:35,600
Speaker 2: Telena wanted to change the mattress out in her bedroom,

29
00:01:36,040 --> 00:01:39,120
Speaker 2: and she got a new mattress and needed somebody to

30
00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:41,480
Speaker 2: unpack it and put it on and then haul the

31
00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:44,399
Speaker 2: old and off. And so I did all that well.

32
00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:47,680
Speaker 2: A couple of weeks later she said that she didn't

33
00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:51,120
Speaker 2: care for the mattress, who wanted it return. She's got

34
00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:52,080
Speaker 2: another one, Kevin.

35
00:01:52,520 --> 00:01:56,440
Speaker 1: Finally, Teleina finds a mattress that checks all the boxes,

36
00:01:57,160 --> 00:01:59,640
Speaker 1: but now she has an extra mattress on her hands.

37
00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:02,600
Speaker 1: Luckily she knows a family in need.

38
00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:06,520
Speaker 4: She was going to guess that bed to us. Our

39
00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:09,000
Speaker 4: son is like six foot one now, so like make

40
00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:10,399
Speaker 4: bed to word that for him.

41
00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:14,919
Speaker 1: This is aris house, another one of Tolena's local friends.

42
00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:19,760
Speaker 1: Aris had just closed on her very first house. Teleina

43
00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:25,000
Speaker 1: had guided her through the process emotionally and sometimes even financially.

44
00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:28,520
Speaker 1: In fact, the bed was just one of many things

45
00:02:28,639 --> 00:02:32,040
Speaker 1: Teleina offered to help make Eris's new house a home.

46
00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:35,320
Speaker 4: She was a part of the reason why we were

47
00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:35,880
Speaker 4: able to.

48
00:02:35,840 --> 00:02:41,919
Speaker 5: Get utilities turned on new law, new light. She had

49
00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:47,000
Speaker 5: been saving up a Nashtag for I've ever since I

50
00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:49,120
Speaker 5: told her that we were starting a profit to buy

51
00:02:49,120 --> 00:02:51,920
Speaker 5: a house. I can't even put a name to all

52
00:02:51,960 --> 00:02:56,680
Speaker 5: the kitchen appliances and trinkets and items that she's put

53
00:02:56,960 --> 00:02:59,800
Speaker 5: in our house and added to our lives.

54
00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:00,480
Speaker 2: The way she did.

55
00:03:01,720 --> 00:03:04,880
Speaker 1: As COVID hits Oklahoma, Aris doesn't get to see her

56
00:03:04,880 --> 00:03:09,560
Speaker 1: friend very often. Tuleina has rheumatoid arthritis and other health

57
00:03:09,639 --> 00:03:12,880
Speaker 1: issues that make contracting the virus a real concern.

58
00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:17,200
Speaker 4: She was a you know, compromised, so she was taking

59
00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:18,359
Speaker 4: it very, very seriously.

60
00:03:18,919 --> 00:03:21,840
Speaker 1: But Tealina still wants to hand off the mattress as

61
00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:26,400
Speaker 1: she promised, and so on Friday, March twenty seventh, Tulina

62
00:03:26,520 --> 00:03:28,480
Speaker 1: texts Eiris to organize a pickup.

63
00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:30,920
Speaker 4: She was checking to see if we were coming to

64
00:03:30,919 --> 00:03:34,520
Speaker 4: get to bed this weekend. That next morning, the twenty eighth,

65
00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:36,680
Speaker 4: I got a message that said.

66
00:03:37,160 --> 00:03:40,520
Speaker 6: A bort mission. I've got a terrible migraine. I've been

67
00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:41,600
Speaker 6: staying in bed today.

68
00:03:42,480 --> 00:03:44,640
Speaker 4: I said, okay out.

69
00:03:45,680 --> 00:03:48,400
Speaker 1: A few days go by, having not heard from. Her

70
00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:50,280
Speaker 1: friend Aris checks in.

71
00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:53,320
Speaker 4: On a third and I said her that I hope

72
00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:55,680
Speaker 4: you're feeling Betters wanting you know, if I get dropped

73
00:03:55,680 --> 00:03:55,920
Speaker 4: by it.

74
00:03:56,040 --> 00:03:59,120
Speaker 7: Yes, I don't.

75
00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:01,480
Speaker 6: Want anybody coming to the porch and making the dogs

76
00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:02,920
Speaker 6: bark because I'm sleeping a lot.

77
00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:05,960
Speaker 4: I said, that's okay, maybe another time.

78
00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:11,200
Speaker 1: This is her last exchange with Telena before she goes

79
00:04:11,280 --> 00:04:17,480
Speaker 1: missing from iHeart Podcasts. I'm Melissa Jelson, and this is

80
00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:19,440
Speaker 1: what happened to Teleina's oar.

81
00:04:43,240 --> 00:04:46,880
Speaker 8: Hey everyone, I'm on day nine of this virus, and

82
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:49,600
Speaker 8: I am pretty sure it has reached my lungs.

83
00:04:50,200 --> 00:04:52,760
Speaker 9: For her to just leave people with no way of

84
00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:55,040
Speaker 9: contacting her and knowing if she was alive or.

85
00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:56,440
Speaker 4: Dead was strange to me.

86
00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:59,680
Speaker 3: There were a lot of secrets that were very hard

87
00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:03,000
Speaker 3: to find, and no one wanted to talk about anything.

88
00:05:03,240 --> 00:05:05,520
Speaker 10: I'm a really nosy person, so that's how I got

89
00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:06,320
Speaker 10: caught up in all this.

90
00:05:06,720 --> 00:05:09,520
Speaker 4: I was like, this is this is crazy.

91
00:05:11,839 --> 00:05:16,400
Speaker 1: Episode two small town big Secrets.

92
00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:20,480
Speaker 2: She wanted to help anybody and anybody.

93
00:05:20,680 --> 00:05:23,680
Speaker 1: This is Greg, the local handyman in Wagner.

94
00:05:24,680 --> 00:05:30,160
Speaker 2: She helped us volunteer picking up trash a few times.

95
00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:34,360
Speaker 2: I'd heard of her giving food to people that needed

96
00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:37,160
Speaker 2: it or giving them little jobs to do.

97
00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:37,599
Speaker 11: Like me.

98
00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:41,000
Speaker 2: You know, she knew that I needed something to do,

99
00:05:41,080 --> 00:05:43,880
Speaker 2: so she'd give me jobs. And she had other people

100
00:05:43,920 --> 00:05:49,000
Speaker 2: that would you know, do little odd jobs for or

101
00:05:49,120 --> 00:05:52,880
Speaker 2: somebody he moved through the area from bigger towns and

102
00:05:53,480 --> 00:05:56,800
Speaker 2: just take in the interest in what's going on here

103
00:05:56,880 --> 00:05:59,960
Speaker 2: and trying to help people that live here that may

104
00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:01,440
Speaker 2: impression on me.

105
00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:05,720
Speaker 1: When Teleina moved to Wagner, Oklahoma, in late twenty sixteen,

106
00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:09,240
Speaker 1: she did it with her partner Tom. They left their

107
00:06:09,279 --> 00:06:13,560
Speaker 1: longtime home in Indianapolis and purchased a brown ranch house

108
00:06:13,720 --> 00:06:18,520
Speaker 1: in Whitehorn Cove, a lake community near the border of Arkansas.

109
00:06:19,160 --> 00:06:23,760
Speaker 1: From the outside, the home is rustic looking, cozy, private,

110
00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:27,320
Speaker 1: set back from the road and nestled among the tall trees.

111
00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:31,040
Speaker 1: It's not easy to move to a totally new place

112
00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:34,240
Speaker 1: when you're in your fifties and beyond. But the couple

113
00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:38,200
Speaker 1: had their reasons for choosing Wagner, of all places, one

114
00:06:38,279 --> 00:06:40,880
Speaker 1: being they had a group of friends who were already

115
00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:43,919
Speaker 1: established there, Like Aris Howe, she.

116
00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:49,320
Speaker 12: Could be exactly the person that she was here and

117
00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:55,239
Speaker 12: that was a little weird, a lot filly a little

118
00:06:55,320 --> 00:06:59,839
Speaker 12: queer Oklahoma had all the people who brought out the

119
00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:01,320
Speaker 12: those aspects for her.

120
00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:05,679
Speaker 1: The two women were several decades apart, and ers looked

121
00:07:05,760 --> 00:07:07,800
Speaker 1: up to Telena like a big sister.

122
00:07:08,200 --> 00:07:11,320
Speaker 4: She always left you kind of enraptured by what she

123
00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:14,920
Speaker 4: was saying because she had a unique way of telling stories.

124
00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:17,320
Speaker 4: She had a very dry wit, and it.

125
00:07:17,400 --> 00:07:20,320
Speaker 1: Helped that they shared the same offbeat sense of humor.

126
00:07:20,920 --> 00:07:23,760
Speaker 1: Aris told me about one time Telena was giving her

127
00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:26,640
Speaker 1: some spices from her pantry that she no longer needed.

128
00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:30,200
Speaker 12: I grabbed a bottle of dill weed and I said, oh,

129
00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:32,720
Speaker 12: look at the bottom of my husband the dill weed.

130
00:07:33,400 --> 00:07:36,240
Speaker 12: And we laughed really hard about it, and then she

131
00:07:36,360 --> 00:07:38,560
Speaker 12: snatched the bottle away from me and a land of

132
00:07:38,600 --> 00:07:39,239
Speaker 12: the other round.

133
00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:42,560
Speaker 4: She had a label maker. She typed in that labels at.

134
00:07:42,480 --> 00:07:45,480
Speaker 13: The bottle of Jason and clapped it on the bottle

135
00:07:45,520 --> 00:07:48,120
Speaker 13: of dill weed and handed it back the look.

136
00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:52,120
Speaker 4: Of absolute joy and mischief in her faith. When she

137
00:07:52,240 --> 00:07:55,520
Speaker 4: handed me that bottle, it was like sharing the best secret,

138
00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:57,960
Speaker 4: and we both fell apart in laughter.

139
00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:02,280
Speaker 1: To her friends, to Lena was not only kind, generous,

140
00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:07,040
Speaker 1: and hilarious, she was also super smart, here's Greg again.

141
00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:11,880
Speaker 2: She was a self proclaimed computer I called her my

142
00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:12,840
Speaker 2: own little hacker.

143
00:08:13,240 --> 00:08:16,520
Speaker 1: Talina was a techie and a good one. She worked

144
00:08:16,520 --> 00:08:20,280
Speaker 1: on Microsoft products, fixing code errors that no one else

145
00:08:20,320 --> 00:08:20,880
Speaker 1: could solve.

146
00:08:21,280 --> 00:08:23,200
Speaker 2: My wife was going to school at the time for

147
00:08:23,320 --> 00:08:28,480
Speaker 2: her bachelor's and didn't know anything about powerpart presentations and

148
00:08:29,440 --> 00:08:34,760
Speaker 2: Microsoft Office and all these things. In Tolena had worked

149
00:08:34,760 --> 00:08:38,520
Speaker 2: for Microsoft and she dropped some of these program so

150
00:08:38,559 --> 00:08:42,200
Speaker 2: she saw another opportunity to help my wife, and she

151
00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:45,560
Speaker 2: started helping her with these presentations and showed her how

152
00:08:45,640 --> 00:08:50,160
Speaker 2: to do it herself and things like that. She felt

153
00:08:50,200 --> 00:08:52,680
Speaker 2: like she could help you out of the hole you're in.

154
00:08:52,920 --> 00:08:54,760
Speaker 2: She was here, was all in.

155
00:08:55,520 --> 00:08:59,160
Speaker 1: Telena was helpful to her community and also devoted to

156
00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:02,920
Speaker 1: her partner to The two had been together for more

157
00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:03,920
Speaker 1: than a decade.

158
00:09:04,080 --> 00:09:07,360
Speaker 4: They had one of those bonds that you know, everybody

159
00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:08,160
Speaker 4: could aspire to.

160
00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:10,880
Speaker 5: You could see you could just look at him in

161
00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:12,880
Speaker 5: a glance, the way they looked at each other.

162
00:09:13,520 --> 00:09:17,720
Speaker 14: They were young fool anytime they looked at each other.

163
00:09:18,240 --> 00:09:22,360
Speaker 1: But Teleina wasn't a homebody. She travels a lot for work,

164
00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:26,280
Speaker 1: often swinging through Indiana, where she and Tom used to live,

165
00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:32,200
Speaker 1: and some of her extended family remained, and then while

166
00:09:32,240 --> 00:09:36,439
Speaker 1: she was on one of those routine trips, the unthinkable happened.

167
00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:42,040
Speaker 4: They both went here and then like not even I

168
00:09:42,040 --> 00:09:44,040
Speaker 4: don't even think it was a year later. Tom had

169
00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:48,240
Speaker 4: a stroke while she was away on work, and when

170
00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:51,480
Speaker 4: she came back from work, you know, they had found

171
00:09:51,480 --> 00:09:53,319
Speaker 4: it on the floor. He was still alive. He had

172
00:09:53,440 --> 00:09:57,360
Speaker 4: hung on long enough for her to say goodbye.

173
00:09:58,160 --> 00:10:02,160
Speaker 1: Tom was only fifty nine. In his obituary, he was

174
00:10:02,200 --> 00:10:05,080
Speaker 1: described as a twenty two year veteran of the army

175
00:10:05,520 --> 00:10:09,400
Speaker 1: and an avid gun enthusiast. The family asked that in

176
00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:13,559
Speaker 1: lieu of flowers, well wishers could donate to his favorite charity,

177
00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:15,640
Speaker 1: for Love of Dogs.

178
00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:19,560
Speaker 4: I remember after Tom and path and we went over

179
00:10:19,800 --> 00:10:23,480
Speaker 4: to her house for the memorial. It was an intimate

180
00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:27,040
Speaker 4: gathering with probably about twenty of us, and we all

181
00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:30,680
Speaker 4: kind of said a word for Tom, and you could

182
00:10:30,760 --> 00:10:34,760
Speaker 4: see around the house where she left ticket that they

183
00:10:34,880 --> 00:10:39,240
Speaker 4: do not move, do not touch. The general assumption was

184
00:10:39,320 --> 00:10:41,800
Speaker 4: so I was was the left eye inst he had

185
00:10:41,880 --> 00:10:44,520
Speaker 4: cut and she wasn't ready for those to.

186
00:10:44,600 --> 00:10:48,119
Speaker 1: Move Toalina was shattered by the loss.

187
00:10:48,520 --> 00:10:55,360
Speaker 14: They were deeply connected and while she was able to

188
00:10:55,480 --> 00:10:59,079
Speaker 14: regate her joy and find life again.

189
00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:02,120
Speaker 4: It wasn't the same as she couldn't share it with him.

190
00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:06,800
Speaker 1: Tom's death on moored Toelena, and for a long while

191
00:11:06,840 --> 00:11:09,600
Speaker 1: afterwards she battled with a stubborn depression.

192
00:11:10,559 --> 00:11:13,840
Speaker 4: And I actually spend a lot of phone calls together afterwards,

193
00:11:14,080 --> 00:11:17,559
Speaker 4: because whenever you spend an amount of your life with

194
00:11:17,760 --> 00:11:22,280
Speaker 4: somebody bouncing decisions off of them, or you know, looking

195
00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:26,000
Speaker 4: for validation for a decision, you get kind of lost.

196
00:11:27,040 --> 00:11:29,079
Speaker 4: And there were a lot of time where she would

197
00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:30,959
Speaker 4: call me and ask me, Hey, what do you think

198
00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:35,280
Speaker 4: about this? That happened a lot more after Tom had passed.

199
00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:39,840
Speaker 13: I had her come afterwards, and I was a little nervous.

200
00:11:40,440 --> 00:11:43,960
Speaker 1: This is Kim, a hairdresser and wagner who cut Telena's hair.

201
00:11:44,679 --> 00:11:48,319
Speaker 1: She remembered Telena's first appointment after Tom passed.

202
00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:51,440
Speaker 13: I had my mom, who is a widow as well,

203
00:11:51,520 --> 00:11:54,080
Speaker 13: come fit and be with us so that i'd have

204
00:11:54,280 --> 00:11:58,920
Speaker 13: like them backup in case it got to too sad.

205
00:11:59,200 --> 00:12:01,320
Speaker 13: I don't like to handle that stuff, and I'm not

206
00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:02,400
Speaker 13: good at saying.

207
00:12:02,120 --> 00:12:02,800
Speaker 7: The right word.

208
00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:04,400
Speaker 2: But we got through it.

209
00:12:04,600 --> 00:12:07,640
Speaker 13: There was just a few, you know, peers that were

210
00:12:07,679 --> 00:12:12,120
Speaker 13: shed Tolena. She had even asked if my mom would

211
00:12:12,200 --> 00:12:14,680
Speaker 13: maybe be her roommate for a while after, you know,

212
00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:17,320
Speaker 13: because my dad had passed and she was living alone too,

213
00:12:17,360 --> 00:12:21,560
Speaker 13: and she had been talking about finding a roommate to

214
00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:23,280
Speaker 13: share in the bills and stuff.

215
00:12:23,800 --> 00:12:26,760
Speaker 1: Telena didn't like living alone in the house she'd shared

216
00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:31,679
Speaker 1: with Tom. Nicole, her friend in Tennessee, remembered how Telena

217
00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:35,360
Speaker 1: navigated her new role as a relatively young widow.

218
00:12:35,840 --> 00:12:40,320
Speaker 9: Of course, she missed him greatly and missed their life together.

219
00:12:40,920 --> 00:12:44,240
Speaker 9: She was dealing with it with grace and moving on

220
00:12:44,640 --> 00:12:48,360
Speaker 9: with her life the best she could. She had told

221
00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:52,120
Speaker 9: me that she had taken in a roommate and that

222
00:12:52,240 --> 00:12:57,280
Speaker 9: was mostly more for having someone around them necessity.

223
00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:02,240
Speaker 1: It was in twenty nineteen that Lena invited Corey Bamiley,

224
00:13:02,720 --> 00:13:05,120
Speaker 1: a fifty eight year old woman she knew through friends,

225
00:13:05,400 --> 00:13:08,440
Speaker 1: to move in with her. Corey was also in a

226
00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:12,760
Speaker 1: transitional period, in the middle of a divorce. I couldn't

227
00:13:12,760 --> 00:13:15,600
Speaker 1: get Corey to speak to me, but from what I've learned,

228
00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:19,040
Speaker 1: the two had a lot in common. They were both

229
00:13:19,080 --> 00:13:23,480
Speaker 1: adjusting to life without a partner. They were both enthusiastic

230
00:13:23,600 --> 00:13:28,920
Speaker 1: pet owners, sharing a singular love for animals, and they

231
00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:33,280
Speaker 1: both dabbled in pagan culture and attended local renaissance fairs

232
00:13:33,400 --> 00:13:33,880
Speaker 1: for fun.

233
00:13:34,720 --> 00:13:37,079
Speaker 13: After they had moved in together, every time I cut

234
00:13:37,160 --> 00:13:39,480
Speaker 13: Tolena's hair, the first thing I would say was, how

235
00:13:39,559 --> 00:13:40,960
Speaker 13: was how's your roommate going?

236
00:13:41,520 --> 00:13:44,760
Speaker 7: And she always answered the best I've ever had.

237
00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:49,000
Speaker 1: It didn't take long for Toleina and Corey's lives to

238
00:13:49,040 --> 00:13:53,600
Speaker 1: become intertwined. Soon enough, Corey was over at Kim's getting

239
00:13:53,679 --> 00:13:57,600
Speaker 1: her own haircut, while Teleina was adventurous with her hair,

240
00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:01,520
Speaker 1: dyeing at different colors and even giving a perm Corey

241
00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:03,960
Speaker 1: preferred a look some might call a mullet.

242
00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:06,840
Speaker 13: We'd go short on the you know, straight across prop

243
00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:08,720
Speaker 13: of the ears, and a little bit longer in the back.

244
00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:12,120
Speaker 13: It wasn't anything that I wanted to do to her,

245
00:14:12,240 --> 00:14:13,720
Speaker 13: but that's what she wanted.

246
00:14:14,559 --> 00:14:18,520
Speaker 1: Corey quickly fell in with Teleina's social circle too. Here's

247
00:14:18,600 --> 00:14:19,200
Speaker 1: Greg again.

248
00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:23,160
Speaker 2: We'd had Telena and Corey over for dinner, and a

249
00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:25,760
Speaker 2: couple of times went out with him. You would have

250
00:14:25,800 --> 00:14:28,840
Speaker 2: thought they were best friends. Had had noting Cheddar for

251
00:14:28,880 --> 00:14:29,520
Speaker 2: a long time.

252
00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:34,200
Speaker 1: Greg found a kindred spirit in Corey. She too was

253
00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:37,920
Speaker 1: a handyman of sorts, strong, industrious.

254
00:14:38,280 --> 00:14:42,880
Speaker 2: From the term that I met Corey Bromley, she was

255
00:14:42,960 --> 00:14:46,840
Speaker 2: somebody that you know, I could relate to, and you know,

256
00:14:46,920 --> 00:14:50,000
Speaker 2: at the time I was going to things that you know,

257
00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:51,760
Speaker 2: I could talk to her about.

258
00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:56,320
Speaker 1: Corey also found unique ways to make money, like buying

259
00:14:56,360 --> 00:14:59,920
Speaker 1: people's old stuff and selling it on eBay and Greg's

260
00:15:00,640 --> 00:15:02,080
Speaker 1: maybe he could do that too.

261
00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:06,080
Speaker 2: I like, you know, pilfer and through stuff. I had

262
00:15:06,200 --> 00:15:10,240
Speaker 2: done some other work elsewhere and accumulated a bunch of things,

263
00:15:10,240 --> 00:15:13,040
Speaker 2: and she was helping me, you know, kind of take

264
00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:16,880
Speaker 2: inventory and possibly help meself some of it.

265
00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:20,680
Speaker 1: Telena seemed to really enjoy having a friend around too.

266
00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:26,200
Speaker 1: It lifted her spirits. Here's ris again. Having Corey air

267
00:15:26,360 --> 00:15:27,960
Speaker 1: improved their quality of life.

268
00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:31,160
Speaker 4: He would go out in the yard and you know,

269
00:15:31,280 --> 00:15:34,240
Speaker 4: play with the dog. They would go on car ride

270
00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:36,720
Speaker 4: together and just take the bogs out of the lake.

271
00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:41,360
Speaker 1: While Corey's presence was a comfort, there were clues that

272
00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:45,440
Speaker 1: Teleina was still struggling with Tom's loss. In November of

273
00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:49,520
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, a few months before COVID hit, Tlena wrote

274
00:15:49,560 --> 00:15:53,960
Speaker 1: a note to her friends on Facebook entitled Grief Etiquette.

275
00:15:54,720 --> 00:15:57,040
Speaker 1: Here's a reenactment of some of that post.

276
00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:01,600
Speaker 6: Over the last two years, many people have said they

277
00:16:01,640 --> 00:16:04,840
Speaker 6: don't know how to interact with me ari Tom's death.

278
00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:10,320
Speaker 6: The anniversary of Tom's death is approaching. I'm already struggling

279
00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:14,160
Speaker 6: with that, combined with lonely holidays. What I do not

280
00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:19,120
Speaker 6: need right now are unsolicited videos and picks of Tom.

281
00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:23,200
Speaker 6: At this point, it's difficult for me to concentrate on

282
00:16:23,320 --> 00:16:26,680
Speaker 6: work or have pockets of happiness if I see an

283
00:16:26,760 --> 00:16:28,360
Speaker 6: unsolicited pick or video.

284
00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:31,640
Speaker 7: During those times, I feel like I ran flat out

285
00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:34,160
Speaker 7: into a wall. It's painful.

286
00:16:35,040 --> 00:16:38,520
Speaker 6: If you ask first, I can respond when I'm emotionally

287
00:16:38,520 --> 00:16:40,320
Speaker 6: and physically available to reminisce.

288
00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:43,640
Speaker 7: If you post on your own feed, I can choose

289
00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:45,560
Speaker 7: whether or not to serve that content.

290
00:16:46,640 --> 00:16:51,760
Speaker 6: If you send me or tag me in unsolicited reminiscence,

291
00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:54,880
Speaker 6: I will block you to save my sanity.

292
00:16:55,560 --> 00:16:58,600
Speaker 7: Please don't slap me in the face with my grief.

293
00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:00,880
Speaker 7: Thanks for hearing me.

294
00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:08,360
Speaker 4: Heelena was never one to let anything do. She would

295
00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:12,560
Speaker 4: say that head on and a threat it because you know,

296
00:17:12,640 --> 00:17:15,880
Speaker 4: sitting in silence is uncomfortable. Let figure out what went

297
00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:18,080
Speaker 4: wrong and how we can avoid it in the future.

298
00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:23,399
Speaker 1: Aris described to Lena as assertive and good at setting boundaries,

299
00:17:24,160 --> 00:17:29,440
Speaker 1: and so in April twenty twenty, when Telena posts on Facebook.

300
00:17:29,240 --> 00:17:32,159
Speaker 8: I made the decision at the ownset that if it

301
00:17:32,240 --> 00:17:35,560
Speaker 8: got bad enough, I would not go to the hospital.

302
00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:41,320
Speaker 8: Please respect my privacy and give me my alone time,

303
00:17:42,119 --> 00:17:42,960
Speaker 8: Aris does.

304
00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:45,480
Speaker 4: There were a lot of parts of her life that

305
00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:49,360
Speaker 4: she kept private, and we respected that, like we love

306
00:17:49,480 --> 00:17:54,560
Speaker 4: the person that she gave us every time we got

307
00:17:54,560 --> 00:17:59,040
Speaker 4: to see her. It did seem out of character, but

308
00:17:59,280 --> 00:18:03,040
Speaker 4: considering the fact that she had lost her husband not

309
00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:07,280
Speaker 4: so long ago. People can be consumed with Greece at

310
00:18:07,280 --> 00:18:10,320
Speaker 4: different times, it would make sense to me.

311
00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:16,520
Speaker 1: Quick note, you've heard most of Telena's cryptic Facebook post already,

312
00:18:17,080 --> 00:18:20,360
Speaker 1: but there's a few lines I withheld that mentioned Tom.

313
00:18:20,840 --> 00:18:22,760
Speaker 1: Now that you know who he is, this will make

314
00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:23,320
Speaker 1: more sense.

315
00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:28,719
Speaker 6: In and out of fever and chills with Tom just

316
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:33,920
Speaker 6: out of reach, I'm going to either beat this virus

317
00:18:35,080 --> 00:18:36,920
Speaker 6: or be with Tom.

318
00:18:37,160 --> 00:18:39,080
Speaker 7: I see it as a win win situation.

319
00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:45,000
Speaker 6: Please respect my privacy and give me my alone time

320
00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:47,760
Speaker 6: on the lake with Tom.

321
00:18:49,119 --> 00:18:52,160
Speaker 1: In this part of the post, it resonates with those

322
00:18:52,200 --> 00:18:55,320
Speaker 1: who knew Telena in real life, who had witnessed her

323
00:18:55,320 --> 00:19:00,720
Speaker 1: debilitating depression after Tom's death. Here again is Nicole, who

324
00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:03,480
Speaker 1: saw Telena just a few weeks before she went missing.

325
00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:07,960
Speaker 9: I didn't take it as her being suicidal. I just

326
00:19:07,960 --> 00:19:11,800
Speaker 9: took it to mean that if she passed away from COVID,

327
00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:13,800
Speaker 9: she was at peace with it because she would be

328
00:19:13,840 --> 00:19:17,679
Speaker 9: with Tom, not that she was actively licking doorknobs and

329
00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:19,800
Speaker 9: trying to get COVID so that she could pass away.

330
00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:23,359
Speaker 4: I took it that she was.

331
00:19:23,359 --> 00:19:26,119
Speaker 9: Good either way, and I feel like I feel like

332
00:19:26,200 --> 00:19:30,840
Speaker 9: that was true. Telena fashioned you know, well, if I die,

333
00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:31,320
Speaker 9: I die.

334
00:19:32,080 --> 00:19:34,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, There's not much I can do about it.

335
00:19:34,600 --> 00:19:38,080
Speaker 9: And if I live, I'll hug you again.

336
00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:47,280
Speaker 1: A week before Telena disappeared, she posted about her illness

337
00:19:47,520 --> 00:19:48,360
Speaker 1: on Facebook.

338
00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:52,119
Speaker 6: I called my doctor and was told to stay in

339
00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:55,200
Speaker 6: bed and stay hydrated and self medicate and call back

340
00:19:55,359 --> 00:19:57,680
Speaker 6: or go to the er. If my tempreach is one

341
00:19:57,680 --> 00:20:01,200
Speaker 6: O two. I think Oklahoma's medicals system is stretched thin

342
00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:04,680
Speaker 6: right now. I am thankful and grateful that I do

343
00:20:04,760 --> 00:20:07,360
Speaker 6: have someone watching out for me and running the household.

344
00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:11,200
Speaker 7: Back to bed. I'm exhausted. I love you all.

345
00:20:12,119 --> 00:20:16,240
Speaker 1: Telena is talking about Corey, her roommate, running the household

346
00:20:16,440 --> 00:20:19,720
Speaker 1: and watching out for her. Corey had been the last

347
00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:23,760
Speaker 1: person to see Telena before she disappeared. On the day

348
00:20:23,800 --> 00:20:27,640
Speaker 1: Telena posted her mysterious message, Corey said she'd been out

349
00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:32,040
Speaker 1: running errands and came home to an empty house. The

350
00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:36,160
Speaker 1: next day, Corey posted to her own Facebook page, alerting

351
00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:40,280
Speaker 1: everyone to her missing roommate and asking for help. Here's

352
00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:42,440
Speaker 1: a recreation of parts of the post.

353
00:20:43,040 --> 00:20:45,760
Speaker 15: I called every taxi service I could think of last Eve,

354
00:20:46,119 --> 00:20:50,040
Speaker 15: and drivers don't keep records. I also called our phone

355
00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:54,119
Speaker 15: carrier to try and trace or track Telena's phone and

356
00:20:54,240 --> 00:20:56,440
Speaker 15: was told of an app that could do this if

357
00:20:56,480 --> 00:21:00,800
Speaker 15: the phone was turned on with location services activated. As

358
00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:04,480
Speaker 15: of this morning, she hasn't called home and her phone

359
00:21:04,560 --> 00:21:08,360
Speaker 15: still appears to be turned off. Anyone else hears from her,

360
00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:10,040
Speaker 15: please update me.

361
00:21:11,040 --> 00:21:15,440
Speaker 1: A day later, core posts again, this time sharing insight

362
00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:18,639
Speaker 1: into what Telena's experience with COVID had been like.

363
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:21,960
Speaker 15: So this is my COVID nineteen rant and the state

364
00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:24,440
Speaker 15: of affairs here in rural Oklahoma.

365
00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:26,760
Speaker 7: Feel free to bypass this post.

366
00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:31,679
Speaker 15: I just need to rant or I will scream.

367
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:33,840
Speaker 7: Maybe I need to do that. Anyway.

368
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:38,520
Speaker 15: When Telena first got a fever of one hundred point five,

369
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:42,480
Speaker 15: We packed up and went to the er. We expected

370
00:21:42,520 --> 00:21:44,880
Speaker 15: to be able to get her a test. A tech

371
00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:49,320
Speaker 15: met us outside, questioned all of her symptoms and sent

372
00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:55,160
Speaker 15: us home without even allowing us to check in. We

373
00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:59,400
Speaker 15: determined that the healthcare system, at least here in Oklahoma

374
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:03,080
Speaker 15: was not equipped to take care of everyone with viral

375
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:06,800
Speaker 15: symptoms and would only do so if you got bad

376
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:12,359
Speaker 15: enough to probably be admitted in Looking back, I think

377
00:22:12,440 --> 00:22:16,960
Speaker 15: her attitude changed on that car ride home from the er.

378
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:24,439
Speaker 1: A few days go by. Talina's friends hear nothing and

379
00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:28,359
Speaker 1: start to worry she's died of COVID alone in a

380
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:34,560
Speaker 1: remote cabin. But they also start imagining other worst case scenarios,

381
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:39,159
Speaker 1: like Greg who speculates that maybe Tolena was abducted.

382
00:22:39,119 --> 00:22:42,959
Speaker 2: When she came up Methan and put this big Facebook

383
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 2: post on there say I'm going to the wood to die.

384
00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 2: It didn't sound like her. We didn't, I mean me

385
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 2: and my wife and talked about it. We live on

386
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:57,640
Speaker 2: the Highway sixty nine and Highways sixty nine goes from

387
00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:02,920
Speaker 2: the heart attackes all the way into Tangas. At the time,

388
00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:07,000
Speaker 2: you know, there was a lot of abductions and stuff

389
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:11,359
Speaker 2: from even walmarts. You know, over here in our area

390
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 2: there was ladies picked up from Walmart for suspected sex

391
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 2: trade type things. Me and my wife watch a lot

392
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:23,920
Speaker 2: of crime shows. We're armchair investigators over here. I mean,

393
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:27,640
Speaker 2: we get a little lead and we follow it and

394
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:30,880
Speaker 2: it you know, we're not trained investigators, That's what I'm

395
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:34,480
Speaker 2: saying it. So we just didn't know something like that

396
00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:36,120
Speaker 2: could have happened to Colena.

397
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:41,920
Speaker 1: Her friends think hope, maybe Toleina will emerge over the weekend,

398
00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:46,080
Speaker 1: But as Saturday and Sunday come and go, they're polite.

399
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:51,639
Speaker 1: Respect for her privacy kurdles into concern and dread, and

400
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: there's consensus that the police now need to be involved.

401
00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:00,880
Speaker 1: On Monday, April thirteenth, Corey goes to the shriff's department,

402
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 1: but she's told that an adult woman leaving on her

403
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:08,320
Speaker 1: own is not considered a missing person, at least not yet.

404
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:15,640
Speaker 1: Four more days pass by Friday, Telena has still not returned,

405
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:19,720
Speaker 1: so Corey tries again. This time she's able to file

406
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 1: a missing person's report. That same day, two deputies drive

407
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:29,680
Speaker 1: out to Teleina and Corey's house. Because of COVID, they

408
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: play it safe and don't go inside. Instead, they talk

409
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 1: to Corey in the driveway. They get the basic facts,

410
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,440
Speaker 1: like what Telena looks like and Telena's cell phone number,

411
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 1: which they immediately try to locate. Surveying the property. The

412
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 1: deputy's note a gray shed in front of the house

413
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 1: and several vehicles parked in the driveway, two cars and

414
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 1: a red truck with a trailer attached, and then they

415
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:02,120
Speaker 1: turn the case over the detective Joel Weber, who will

416
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:05,919
Speaker 1: lead the search. A few days later, he asks Corey

417
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:08,880
Speaker 1: to come back to the station to provide more detail.

418
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 11: All Right, I just got cold in here.

419
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:16,159
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm glad I wore a sweatshirt.

420
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:17,439
Speaker 11: I'm going to turn this up.

421
00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:22,639
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, two weeks after Telena's Facebook post, Corey arrives

422
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:26,679
Speaker 1: at the station wearing a COVID mask and gloves. We

423
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 1: don't have a recording of the conversation, but we do

424
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: have a transcript, parts of which we've recreated.

425
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:37,920
Speaker 16: Let me just get some background information from you, sure,

426
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 16: and then we'll kind of go from there. And I

427
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 16: don't want you to think that you're in any trouble

428
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 16: because you're here, Okay, yeah, yeah, And that's pretty standard.

429
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 17: It's just normally I would have come to the house,

430
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 17: but give them the situation and all that.

431
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 1: Detective Weber asks Corey how they met and came to

432
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:56,160
Speaker 1: live together.

433
00:25:56,560 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 15: I've known Telena about fifteen years, but we've really just

434
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 15: become close in the last couple of years since her

435
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:06,399
Speaker 15: husband died.

436
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 11: How did you originally meet up with her?

437
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 15: There was a festival here in Wagner, Oklahoma that we

438
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:17,159
Speaker 15: both attended fifteen years ago, and my husband and I

439
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:21,120
Speaker 15: went and met her and her husband. Then she had

440
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 15: just gotten together with him, and it was actually a

441
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 15: big weekend party. So that's how we all got to

442
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:29,919
Speaker 15: know each other first.

443
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 11: Okay, that's interesting.

444
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,160
Speaker 1: Corey explains that she moved in less than a year ago,

445
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:38,120
Speaker 1: in May twenty nineteen, and the two of.

446
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 11: You get together.

447
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 17: Is it because of her husband dying that you rekindle

448
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 17: or become closer?

449
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think so.

450
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 15: I was starting to have problems with my husband and

451
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 15: initiated a divorce, and she had lost her husband and

452
00:26:56,200 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 15: really lost an interest in living, and then we were

453
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,359
Speaker 15: getting to know each other better and better, and it

454
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,479
Speaker 15: just got to the point where she asked me if

455
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:09,879
Speaker 15: I would stay with her because she couldn't be alone.

456
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 7: Sure, and then she was having I don't think she's

457
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:15,480
Speaker 7: ever been diagnosed as.

458
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 15: Bipolar, but she had really up periods and really down periods,

459
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:26,440
Speaker 15: and she didn't want to be alone during the very

460
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:30,360
Speaker 15: down periods, Okay, so she needed a roommate.

461
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 1: Corey tells the detective that when she moved in, she

462
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 1: took on a lot of responsibilities for Telena, who had

463
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: been struggling with her health. Corey ran errands for her,

464
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: handled the household duties. They got close fast. They considered

465
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:51,120
Speaker 1: each other their emergency contacts. Telena even listed Corey as

466
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: the executor of her estate in her will, and so

467
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 1: when Telena got COVID, Corey went into full caregiver mode.

468
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:03,719
Speaker 15: The first thing that happened she gets bad migraines, okay,

469
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,480
Speaker 15: and she finished work on a Friday, went to bed early,

470
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:11,399
Speaker 15: woke up Saturday morning with a really bad migraine that

471
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:15,439
Speaker 15: ended up lasting two days. She pretty much stayed in

472
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 15: bed for two days with migraine. Okay, Monday, she's due

473
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:22,679
Speaker 15: back at work. And Monday morning she asked me to

474
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 15: come in and take her temperature, which I did, and

475
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 15: she was running a one hundred point five, And so

476
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 15: she stayed in bed with her temperature. I can't remember

477
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:37,399
Speaker 15: if we went that day or the next day, but

478
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 15: she pretty much kept her temperature at one hundred one

479
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 15: hundred point five. So we said we better go down

480
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 15: to the hospital. We didn't know what this is, and

481
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 15: so we went to the er at Wagner here and

482
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 15: a tech came out and asked, you know what symptoms

483
00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 15: she was having and we told her that she had

484
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 15: to migraine all weekend and now she was spiking the temperature. Sure,

485
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 15: and they said go home and self medicate and look

486
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 15: for these signs. And he said, if your temperature goes

487
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 15: about one oh one or you start developing other problems,

488
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 15: to call back.

489
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 7: In or come back in.

490
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 15: So we went home, and she was kind of at

491
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 15: that point disheartened or kind of disgusted with things that

492
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,280
Speaker 15: she couldn't get any help or diagnosis or couldn't even

493
00:29:31,320 --> 00:29:31,720
Speaker 15: check in.

494
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 1: By this point, there are over two point six million

495
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 1: confirmed cases of COVID globally. The US leads the world.

496
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 1: In New York is the epicenter with over two hundred

497
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand cases, thousands of deaths, and hospitals beyond capacity.

498
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: Oklahoma was preparing for the worst, predicting a surge in

499
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: COVID cases any day now.

500
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 15: She developed a really barking cough and sometimes she'd start

501
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 15: coughing and couldn't stop coughing.

502
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 7: She was starting to wheeze a little.

503
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 15: Bit, and I said, you know, we do not want

504
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 15: you catching pneumonia. So I asked her the night before,

505
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 15: I said, let's take you back to the emergency room.

506
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 15: I think you're bad enough now that they will admit you, right,

507
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,160
Speaker 15: And she said no, she just wanted to spend the

508
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 15: night in her bed with one of the pops.

509
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: On the morning of April seventh, Corey says, she asks

510
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 1: again if she can take to Lena to the hospital

511
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: and toe Lena again says no.

512
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 15: She asked me to go out and do a few

513
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 15: things and give her some more time to snuggle with.

514
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 7: She's got a little yorky that she likes to stay.

515
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 15: In bed with, and she just wanted to I don't

516
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 15: know what she just wanted to do.

517
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 11: Did she ask you to do something specific or just

518
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 11: leave for a while.

519
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 15: Yeah, she just wanted me to leave her alone for

520
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 15: a while. I wish I had never gone and run

521
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 15: errands that day.

522
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 1: When Corey gets home sometime in the afternoon, she goes

523
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: into Toelina's room to check on her, and Toelena's gone.

524
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: Corey can't tell if Teleina has taken clothes or an

525
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 1: overnight bag, but her phone is missing, along with some

526
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: medication and Toleina's guns.

527
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 15: She always kept a forty five magnetized to the bottom

528
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 15: of her bed.

529
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 7: Okay, that was gone.

530
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 15: And she always kept a nine millimeter in the car, okay,

531
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 15: and it was gone. She really she gets into these

532
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 15: places where she just she just wants to expire, and

533
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 15: so she doesn't really care.

534
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:53,840
Speaker 7: She always says, you know, I've got my DNA orders.

535
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 7: I'm not going to let anybody you know, into vate

536
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 7: me or whatever.

537
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 15: Right, And she said, she said, it's a win win,

538
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 15: I get to see Tom sooner. And she talked like

539
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:13,479
Speaker 15: that a lot. She'd have good days where she'd be

540
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 15: really excited about her job and we'd be planning a

541
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 15: trip and I think this is great, she's got a

542
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 15: reason to live.

543
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 7: It's all good.

544
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 15: And then she'd say, yeah, and the first chance I get,

545
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 15: I'm gonna check out. So she'd go really high on

546
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 15: her job or a trip, and then she'd get really

547
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 15: down and depressed and just not want to be around.

548
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 11: Has she ever attempted suicide that you know of?

549
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 7: She has not. She has not ever attempted it with me,

550
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 7: and I would know.

551
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 15: Has she talked about how she would do it if

552
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 15: she did constantly?

553
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 11: Well, what is the what's her general conversation.

554
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 7: On that general conversation with me?

555
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 15: That I would know when she had done it, that

556
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,719
Speaker 15: she had a favorite little spot that she was going

557
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 15: to go to, and I think she was going to

558
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 15: use a gun.

559
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: Corey explains that Telena was very matter of fact about death.

560
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 1: Telena had already organized her own funeral and made plans

561
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 1: for her estate.

562
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 15: Telena has always had an end of life game plan

563
00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 15: ever since Tom died. She prepaid her funeral, she planned

564
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 15: her own music and the order of songs.

565
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 7: She was going to do. She told not just me,

566
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 7: but I think.

567
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 15: All of her friends that you would talk to that

568
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 15: sooner or later she was going to go join Tom

569
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 15: on her own time.

570
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: Still, Corey says she's holding out hope that Telena is

571
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: alive and offer to help Detective Weber in any way

572
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: she can. He asked her to watch the mail for

573
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 1: credit card statements and phone bills that may offer clues

574
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:09,800
Speaker 1: to her whereabouts.

575
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:12,719
Speaker 17: What's tough about the situation that we're in is that

576
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 17: we don't no. There's no clear evidence that a crime

577
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:23,240
Speaker 17: was committed, so because she everything points to her intentionally leaving.

578
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 17: In other words, people are free to leave on their

579
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 17: own accord anytime they want, and just because they're missing

580
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 17: doesn't mean anything was nefarious.

581
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 7: There's still part of.

582
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 15: Me thinking that maybe someone will just call and say

583
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:43,919
Speaker 15: she's sick somewhere. Most of me is saying that when

584
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 15: I get that phone call, it's gonna be because someone

585
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 15: found her.

586
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 7: I'm supposed to identify her.

587
00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:59,760
Speaker 1: While the cops are talking to Corey, the online sleuth

588
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:02,399
Speaker 1: have their own sprawling investigation.

589
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,840
Speaker 10: It was super intense. I mean we'd stay up for

590
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 10: hours late at night. During the day, I was always

591
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:13,360
Speaker 10: on my phone. We were always googling something, looking up

592
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 10: people online, reaching out to people.

593
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 1: Everybody had their roles. Brittany, as an Arkansas native, was

594
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 1: trying to piece together Telena's movements and timing. Jess was

595
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,440
Speaker 1: the instigator reaching out to new contacts.

596
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 10: I probably spent twelve fourteen hours on my phone or

597
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 10: computer talking to people a day, cold calling strangers, We

598
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 10: tried several times to break into her email. We asked

599
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 10: her friend, Jim, who works night with Telena, if he

600
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 10: knew her passwords, and he sent him to us passwords

601
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:45,359
Speaker 10: that he knew that didn't end up working. We talked

602
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 10: to the neighbors. The guy across the street. I called

603
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 10: him because he had a ring camera and we thought

604
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 10: maybe like he's seen Telena leave. He said it was

605
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 10: facing the wrong direction. He didn't see anything.

606
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 3: Jess and some of the other girls felt more comfortable

607
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 3: calling and talked to people than I did. I was

608
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 3: not the person that called. I was sort of the

609
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 3: fact checker.

610
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 1: This is Rosie the small business owner in Ohio.

611
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 3: So if people were telling me things, I would, you know,

612
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,839
Speaker 3: look things up and figure things out and try to

613
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 3: see if these stories made sense. It got really fast,

614
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:23,760
Speaker 3: really intensely fast.

615
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:28,240
Speaker 1: Telena's real life friend Nicole starts taking advice from Jess

616
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: and the sleuths.

617
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 4: They were like, well, why isn't there a missing poster?

618
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 9: And I thought, well, why isn't there and so we

619
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 9: put together a missing poster immediately, you know, after that,

620
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 9: in a post that we could share.

621
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 4: Being in marketing, I kicked it up.

622
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:42,200
Speaker 2: You know.

623
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:44,799
Speaker 9: I contacted a friend who has a friend that's a

624
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:48,839
Speaker 9: producer of Dateline. We started a missing videos. We put

625
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 9: together all kinds of things. We put together a team

626
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:55,879
Speaker 9: in Wagner to do a vigil. We never let them

627
00:36:56,200 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 9: forget the name of Telena.

628
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:03,919
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, membership of the Fine Telena is our Facebook group

629
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:08,239
Speaker 1: grows rapidly to almost four hundred participants, and with the

630
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: growth some growing pains.

631
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:13,280
Speaker 9: There were some people like good intentions and some people

632
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:16,319
Speaker 9: who I questioned their intentions.

633
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 10: There was a lot of trolls. Somebody had posted that

634
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 10: they saw Telen at a truck stop in Wyoming, just

635
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 10: out of nowhere. Oh, we she's working at a truck

636
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:26,359
Speaker 10: stop in Wyoming at this diner. And so I think

637
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 10: probably forty people reached out to this woman and she's like, hey,

638
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 10: I'm joking. It was that's what I would do if

639
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 10: I was going to disappear, And it was like, why

640
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:35,160
Speaker 10: would you post something like that.

641
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 1: The group starts off public, but obviously that's a mistake,

642
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:42,319
Speaker 1: so they change it to private. Jess In some of

643
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 1: the other original members do admin duty, vetting new requests,

644
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:48,800
Speaker 1: approving comments, keeping things civil.

645
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 10: Some of these people are jerks, tempers were high. I

646
00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:53,799
Speaker 10: think a lot of that came with being stuck inside too.

647
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: Jess is a true believer in the power of the

648
00:37:57,080 --> 00:37:57,840
Speaker 1: crowd source.

649
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:01,439
Speaker 10: I watched Don't Fuck with Cats on Netflix, and those

650
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:06,280
Speaker 10: people literally stopped a serial killer. They did. The internet

651
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:08,439
Speaker 10: came together and was like, look at this room, let's

652
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:09,480
Speaker 10: draw a map.

653
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: And the investigation into Telena's disappearance was, she admits, kind

654
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: of fun.

655
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 10: I really enjoy the picking apart why, and the gathering information,

656
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,240
Speaker 10: and the talking to people and sometimes being the person

657
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 10: that knows more than the other.

658
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:29,000
Speaker 1: Guy, scheming with a bunch of strangers, laughing, brainstorming together.

659
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:31,759
Speaker 1: It also makes Jess feel connected.

660
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 10: I think the whole world did that, didn't they. I mean,

661
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 10: I think everybody reached out to anybody they could because

662
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 10: we all felt so isolated. Any kind of connection you

663
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:40,919
Speaker 10: could make with somebody, you kind of held on tight

664
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:42,760
Speaker 10: to it because you couldn't see most of the people

665
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 10: in your life unless they lived with you.

666
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 1: It's a new community, united by a common goal find

667
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 1: to Lena's are, but it's hard to know just how

668
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: trustworthy everyone is. And there's a name that keeps popping

669
00:38:56,040 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 1: up in Jess's conversations. Has she talked to Toelena's close

670
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,760
Speaker 1: friend Marty just gets a hold of his number.

671
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:07,120
Speaker 10: I was sitting on the side porch I smoked at

672
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:09,320
Speaker 10: the time. I smoked cigarette, so I didn't smoke in

673
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 10: my house. I have children, so I stepped outside of

674
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 10: smoke and I just called him.

675
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: Did you feel nervous about doing that? No, So I

676
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 1: think most people would not cold call someone random whose

677
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:21,840
Speaker 1: friend dis disappeared.

678
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:25,840
Speaker 10: I'm very I hate to say impulsive, because it's not

679
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,879
Speaker 10: necessarily my entire personality, but a lot of stuff. If

680
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:31,920
Speaker 10: I want to do it, I just do it.

681
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:32,880
Speaker 7: I don't know.

682
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:37,720
Speaker 10: I'm very direct. It doesn't help me make friends. Nicole

683
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 10: had told him that I was going to call, and

684
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 10: so when I called, he said, oh, hey, Darlin, how

685
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:45,799
Speaker 10: are you. He had a very grandfatherly Southern drawl, just

686
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 10: very approachable, and I was like, oh, this guy's not scary.

687
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 10: He sounds like anybody's grandpa. And I just said, tell

688
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 10: me what's going on, and that's he just started talking.

689
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 1: Connecting with Marty is like hitting gold for Jess and

690
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:04,800
Speaker 1: the online sleuths because he's on the ground in Wagner

691
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: looking for Teleina too. And he's also been talking to

692
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's department. For whatever reason, he's willing to share

693
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 1: everything he has with them. He's not skeptical of a

694
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: bunch of strangers doing their own investigation into Teleina's disappearance.

695
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: In fact, he welcomes it. The first big clue Marty

696
00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 1: gives them has to do with Telena's cell phone. The

697
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: detectives tell him that her phone was last used on

698
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:36,840
Speaker 1: April seventh, the same day as the Facebook post.

699
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:39,440
Speaker 10: He had told us that the phone pinged in Arkansas

700
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:41,840
Speaker 10: by Lake Mamel and it could have pinged within a

701
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 10: thirty mile radius.

702
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:48,880
Speaker 8: Please respect my privacy and give me my alone time

703
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 8: on the lake.

704
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:52,600
Speaker 1: Lake Mamel is a three and a half hour drive

705
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:56,840
Speaker 1: from Wagner. Brittany, who happens to be in Arkansas, starts

706
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:58,280
Speaker 1: putting together a map.

707
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 18: We looked at up the phone towers and stuff, and

708
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:07,240
Speaker 18: I went and like screenshoted the map of the lake

709
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 18: and then put a radius over it.

710
00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:12,879
Speaker 10: So we started like going on maps and finding out

711
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 10: what could be within a thirty mile radius of where

712
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:18,719
Speaker 10: her phone pained, and just trying to figure out where

713
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 10: she could be. What cabins or for rents where she

714
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 10: could stay. What lake is over there, what tiny lake

715
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:26,439
Speaker 10: even if it's not the big lake mouth or something else,

716
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 10: a pond or whatever.

717
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 8: At one of my favorite idaways at one of my

718
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 8: favorite lakes, and I've booked it for the remainder of

719
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 8: this week.

720
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 18: We had come to the conclusion that there might not

721
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:43,720
Speaker 18: have been very many airbnbs available at the time because

722
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 18: of COVID, because of the time of the year, and

723
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:52,279
Speaker 18: because that area that her phone had pained in is

724
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 18: not really like an area that people go to for vacation,

725
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 18: like ma Mill is just like a business town, like

726
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:01,800
Speaker 18: that's where work and go to school and stuff.

727
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 7: It's not like a vacation town. Didn't feel up to driving,

728
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 7: so I hired a ride.

729
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 10: We called all the uber and lyft hubs that we

730
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 10: could to see if their drivers kept track of who

731
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:13,480
Speaker 10: they would pick up. Because she said she hired a ride.

732
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:18,879
Speaker 1: Pretty quickly, Marty becomes their main source, a person who

733
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: seems to know a lot, who's just as committed as

734
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 1: they are to finding to Lena. He goes around town

735
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: passing out the missing poster, helps organize the vigil, even

736
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: talks to the local press.

737
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 13: I saw her my birthday on which is March twenty six,

738
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 13: and then I spoke to her on the phone on

739
00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:40,840
Speaker 13: the twenty seventh.

740
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: During this time, Marty and Jess are in constant communication way.

741
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 10: My text message is to twenty seven pm, three fifteen pm,

742
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 10: same day as just bam bam, bam, bam, bam, throwing

743
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 10: ideas at each other. It was obsessive.

744
00:42:56,400 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 1: It's a mutually beneficial relationship. Marty likes to talk, Jess

745
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:02,320
Speaker 1: likes to listen.

746
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 10: He would talk and talk and talk, so he'd give

747
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 10: us information. He'd give us names, he would give us

748
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:08,800
Speaker 10: phone numbers.

749
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: In the beginning, Jess doesn't know if she should trust Marty,

750
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:18,319
Speaker 1: and that's just her baseline. She doesn't trust anyone before

751
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 1: they prove themselves to her. So she's kind of pretending

752
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,279
Speaker 1: with Marty to get him to open up to her.

753
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: She'll say whatever to make him comfortable to get the

754
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:29,360
Speaker 1: information she wants.

755
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:33,440
Speaker 10: So all of us wear masks. Right at first, it

756
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 10: was almost like copying the way he'd talk to me.

757
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 10: I'd talk back to him that way to try to

758
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:41,839
Speaker 10: make it so it's easier for us to communicate. And

759
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:43,920
Speaker 10: then we go off on little talks.

760
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:47,319
Speaker 1: Even though she's acting friendly on the phone. Jess is

761
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 1: double checking everything Marty says on Facebook. She can see

762
00:43:51,719 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 1: that Teleina and Marty seem to be good friends. Like

763
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:57,439
Speaker 1: he said. They're tagged in each other's posts a lot,

764
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 1: including in a phone koo taken at the Oklahoma Renaissance

765
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: Fair in April twenty eighteen. It's Teleina, Marty and his

766
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:11,280
Speaker 1: wife Lorianne. It's a warm day. They're dressed in shorts

767
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:14,960
Speaker 1: and t shirts, all smiling widely. But in the caption,

768
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 1: Marty refers to both women as his quote wives, which

769
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 1: is confusing, and so is Telena's name or more accurately names.

770
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,400
Speaker 1: When Jess runs a basic background check, the kind you

771
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: can pay for online, nothing comes up for Telenazar. Turns

772
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:39,240
Speaker 1: out her legal name is actually Teuleina Galloway, but even

773
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:43,400
Speaker 1: that name hadn't been her name for very long. Before

774
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: Telena Galloway, she was Jena Lovic and before that Jenna Dillman.

775
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: Ess doesn't know what to make of all this. With

776
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 1: additional researches, learns that Telenazar is more of her online nickname.

777
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:01,440
Speaker 10: I'd done some Internet digging, you know, basic Google stuff,

778
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 10: and I googled Telenazar, and then that popped up with

779
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:09,880
Speaker 10: the John Norman Gorrian novels, and I was like, literally

780
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 10: not very polite of me, What the how are you

781
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 10: people into? What is going on here?

782
00:45:15,239 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 11: Gore was a world of slaves and beautiful women of

783
00:45:18,480 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 11: human domination by the alien secret priest Kings. And it

784
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:26,720
Speaker 11: was also the world of Telena.

785
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 8: Lena to Lena.

786
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:30,360
Speaker 7: Lawrence.

787
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 1: That's next week on What Happened to Telenazar. What Happened

788
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: to Telenazar is a production of iHeart Podcasts. It's written, reported,

789
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Melissa Jelson, with writing and story

790
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:50,840
Speaker 1: editing by Lauren Hansen. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch.

791
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:56,680
Speaker 1: For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Carl Catel.

792
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:01,800
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Savannah Hugley. Zoey is our associate producer.

793
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: Jeremy Thal is our editor. Original music by Aaron Kaufman

794
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:10,840
Speaker 1: with additional music by Jeremy Thal. Episodes are mixed and

795
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: mastered by Carl Katle. Voice acting by Lizzie Gore, Chris Ferry,

796
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 1: Stephanie Frame, Pete Monica, and Molly Maslin. Our logo is

797
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 1: designed by Edo Moore. Thanks so much, for listening,