Speaker 1: August twentieth, twenty sixteen, Tara Nule was ambushed by her stepfather,
Speaker 1: John mihann.
Speaker 2: Now you might recognize this.
Speaker 1: Story from the show Dirty John. Tara was in her
Speaker 1: Newport Beach apartment parking lot when she was attacked by
Speaker 1: me Hann. Tara had to save her own life. She
Speaker 1: fatally stabbed me hand in self defense. She's going to
Speaker 1: join us today and tell us her story for the
Speaker 1: last time. She wants to move away from this one event.
Speaker 2: In her life.
Speaker 1: She's got a lot of really important projects.
Speaker 2: This event will always.
Speaker 1: Be part of her life story, but y'all, it is
Speaker 1: far from the whole story. She is a podcaster, she's
Speaker 1: a life coach, she's a victim's advocate. She does so
Speaker 1: many things, and we're gonna let her talk about that too,
Speaker 1: because those things are important. Because Tara survives something that
Speaker 1: most people cannot, and she has chosen to use it
Speaker 1: for good. So y'all please help me welcome Tara nowdle Hey, sugar.
Speaker 3: Hey, thank you so much for having me. Are you kidding?
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to do this with you for a
Speaker 1: long time now, because I think your story is extraordinary
Speaker 1: and the part that continues to impress me, is how
Speaker 1: you have decided that you're going to do good for
Speaker 1: other people and that one event, you know what, it
Speaker 1: could have been.
Speaker 2: Very different for you. The reality is you did.
Speaker 1: What had to be done, and with that trauma that
Speaker 1: you suffered, that you're just determined that you're going to
Speaker 1: help other people with their trauma.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you.
Speaker 4: That has definitely become a mission with mine, especially since
Speaker 4: I was really given such a big platform to share
Speaker 4: race story, but not exactly how I wanted it to
Speaker 4: be shared because the trauma was still fresh, I wasn't
Speaker 4: able to process it fully. And then this podcast came along,
Speaker 4: but that really put my story on blasts and I
Speaker 4: really want to help other survivors gain that momentum with
Speaker 4: their story if they need to spread that awareness.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So talk a little bit about your childhood before
Speaker 1: Mahan got involved with your family.
Speaker 4: I grew up in Orange County, California. A lot of
Speaker 4: people say it's a conservative bubble here compared to other
Speaker 4: parts of California, per se, and so it was really,
Speaker 4: you know, a privileged childhood.
Speaker 3: I grew up with lots of nannies.
Speaker 4: I had everything I could really need and wanted As
Speaker 4: a child, I did a lot of things where we
Speaker 4: would go on vacation all the time. We wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 4: go and travel the country like you see those types
Speaker 4: of families do. But I'm like, oh, that would be
Speaker 4: great to be that type of family because traveling with
Speaker 4: country is fun. It is fun, but really privileged in
Speaker 4: the sense of where we were conservative Americans.
Speaker 3: We went to church every Sunday.
Speaker 4: My mom she did have a lot of men, not
Speaker 4: necessarily like the revolving door in a sense, but she
Speaker 4: was traditional, so she was like she would fall in love,
Speaker 4: get married to these men, and then these men would
Speaker 4: not be who they presented themselves to be necessarily, and
Speaker 4: she just didn't have the best picker, and neither did
Speaker 4: my father. So I definitely had a lot of step
Speaker 4: parents that were in and out, but they weren't you know,
Speaker 4: the revolving like you know how you kind of like
Speaker 4: think like that revolving war, like always in and out.
Speaker 4: Like my mom would like lock them in and marry.
Speaker 2: Them, got you. So they were long term people.
Speaker 4: Yes, but two years, like three or four years, that
Speaker 4: was probably like the smallest time amounts. And then she
Speaker 4: did date other men, but those relationships were like a
Speaker 4: year six months until like she really introduced them to
Speaker 4: her kid.
Speaker 1: Right, So I mean to me, that's not like somebody
Speaker 1: every three to six weeks.
Speaker 2: I mean you're talking about somebody that's in there and
Speaker 2: you know them.
Speaker 1: They get to know, y'all. They're around long enough to
Speaker 1: get mail, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean she did marry my dad six
Speaker 4: months into the relationship, but he he was around for
Speaker 4: thirteen years.
Speaker 2: Right. So your mama when she falls, she falls quick
Speaker 2: and hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah she does.
Speaker 2: Okay, nothing wrong with that, y'all.
Speaker 1: So everything is going great, and you just even with
Speaker 1: several step parents, you're just having a great time. You're
Speaker 1: in now, what high school?
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I'm in high school.
Speaker 4: I kind of well, I graduate high school, I go
Speaker 4: I go to cosmetology school, then I go to dog
Speaker 4: grooming school because I ended up wanting to go to
Speaker 4: Colorado And there was a situation that happened with my
Speaker 4: license where I was going to pick the state board.
Speaker 4: I passed the Briton but my model at the time
Speaker 4: you needed models, she proviot her ID and so I
Speaker 4: needed to retake it and I kind of just didn't
Speaker 4: ever retake it because I didn't have the money then
Speaker 4: to do that. So I went on to dog grooming
Speaker 4: and then I ended up working in a pet store
Speaker 4: and that's where I met my first boyfriend that I
Speaker 4: really lived with. And he was with me when I
Speaker 4: met John, and my mom was with John.
Speaker 2: Okay, so how old were you.
Speaker 4: I was twenty four years old when I met John.
Speaker 1: So still very young venturing out on your own kind
Speaker 1: of for the first time, but still you're not forty.
Speaker 4: No, And then I was also living in Vegas when
Speaker 4: I was twenty four, and I had a house, like
Speaker 4: a three bedroom calls with three dogs and four cats.
Speaker 1: Your mom marries John, when do you first start to
Speaker 1: kind of notice this guy's not who he says or
Speaker 1: there's just something not right.
Speaker 4: First my sister was calling me. She was telling me,
Speaker 4: I don't like this guy. This guy seeing sketch, he
Speaker 4: seems like he's in this stuff, Tara, And so I
Speaker 4: was already hearing that, And that was around one to
Speaker 4: two months in that relationship. And then I came out
Speaker 4: there from Vegas to help my mom move into the
Speaker 4: Balboa place where she was moving in with him.
Speaker 3: But I didn't know that at.
Speaker 4: The time, and I don't know if she even knew
Speaker 4: that at the time. And so I came out there
Speaker 4: and I met him, and I see him.
Speaker 3: He's alone, My mom.
Speaker 4: Is upstairs coming downstairs, and he's trying to get the
Speaker 4: mattress on top of the car. And how he kind
Speaker 4: of met my boyfriend at the time, like he wasn't
Speaker 4: the nicest he was just like, you know, kind of
Speaker 4: bug off mentality.
Speaker 2: All right, So let me ask you about your sister.
Speaker 2: I have four sisters. One of them Shelley.
Speaker 1: She may just walk up to me and tell me
Speaker 1: about this person, and she will strike up and say,
Speaker 1: we don't like this person, like she'll include me in
Speaker 1: it when I don't know the person. So sometimes maybe
Speaker 1: the person's not that great. Maybe it's just Shelley has
Speaker 1: a beef with them. My sister Shavern, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: if she has closed that door to somebody, you can
Speaker 1: take it to the bank.
Speaker 2: They're no good. So when your sister is telling.
Speaker 1: You, hey, this guy's kind of sketchy, there's something not right.
Speaker 1: Is she one that would throw that flag out there
Speaker 1: or did you take it as gospel when she said it?
Speaker 4: I took it as my sister had a lot of
Speaker 4: issues with my mom's other boyfriends. I think that at times,
Speaker 4: and I don't know if you feel this way, but
Speaker 4: even as a generation, we're even taught to accept certain
Speaker 4: things in certain behaviors where my mom, you know, she
Speaker 4: was used to that and my mom my sister was
Speaker 4: calling it out like, hey, this is something that shouldn't
Speaker 4: be okay, and we're.
Speaker 1: Learning okay, So behaviors of John where your mom was
Speaker 1: just accepting it, and y'all were like, hey, this is
Speaker 1: not okay.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't want this for us in a relationship.
Speaker 4: Yes, and no, in a sense where it was with John,
Speaker 4: my sister saw something in him. But you can't just say, okay,
Speaker 4: what's an ec you know where Now if someone said
Speaker 4: that to me and think, okay, trust your gut, go
Speaker 4: with that. In a society, I thought, and even as
Speaker 4: a whole, and with women too, we're taught to kind
Speaker 4: of brush aside those red flags at times.
Speaker 1: I understand that part. Now, I get what you're saying. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm Southern obviously, and we're y'all be polite, Be polite,
Speaker 1: be polite. And I know, growing up, if I ever
Speaker 1: saw a movie or a show where there was a
Speaker 1: lady from New York, like, you know, like a maud
Speaker 1: or a road of Morgenstern. You know, I thought, man,
Speaker 1: that must be so liberating. You can just basically straighten
Speaker 1: somebody out verbally whenever.
Speaker 2: You feel like it.
Speaker 1: We weren't raised that way, so I get what you're
Speaker 1: saying completely. So let me ask you this once you
Speaker 1: all start to see, Okay, for sure, this guy's a problem.
Speaker 1: What was happening that you did confront your mom about
Speaker 1: or you did kind of highlight for her that this
Speaker 1: is not okay.
Speaker 4: So the second time that I came out to California
Speaker 4: to come visit her, I ended up having a disagreement
Speaker 4: with my mom and John where I ended up leaving
Speaker 4: the house and didn't stay there. And the next day
Speaker 4: was Thanksgiving, So I had some concerns about him using
Speaker 4: her car all the time, especially if claimed to be
Speaker 4: a nana cusialgist.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, where's his stuff? Mom?
Speaker 4: And then she came up with this big, elaborate story
Speaker 4: that he told her that all his stuff got stolen.
Speaker 4: He had like a couple of cars, motorcycle, and a
Speaker 4: lot of other stuff that got stolen in the desert.
Speaker 4: So I'm thinking, hmmm, that's weird. My insurance when stuff
Speaker 4: happened with my car, I got on them and they
Speaker 4: took care of things right away.
Speaker 3: Help him. He doesn't have a car.
Speaker 2: M that's valid. Yep.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it wasn't adding up. I asked the hairdresser,
Speaker 4: who is our hairdresser, our friend. She did all of
Speaker 4: our hair, and she also did John's hair one time,
Speaker 4: and she was talking about how she didn't like him,
Speaker 4: how there was just something up with him, basically like
Speaker 4: Major Slee's bag vibes.
Speaker 3: So I kind of was saying.
Speaker 4: I was in the doorway saying that to my mom,
Speaker 4: and then he came up behind my mom. He started
Speaker 4: screaming at me. I told him to go at himself
Speaker 4: a full form. He set it back to me full form.
Speaker 4: He told me that I only wanted my mom for
Speaker 4: her money and that I didn't want a relationship with her.
Speaker 4: I told him, no, that that's what you want, John,
Speaker 4: And then I was packing up my stuck. No one
Speaker 4: was telling me to stop packing up a stuck. My
Speaker 4: boyfriend at the time was there with me, and my
Speaker 4: mom asked him, do you feel that way too? Jimmy
Speaker 4: and he said, well, you know, this isn't right. There's
Speaker 4: something not right here, this is wrong, and something along
Speaker 4: those lines, not those words perbade them, you know.
Speaker 3: But we ended up.
Speaker 4: Leaving and I didn't talk to my mom after thought
Speaker 4: for a while. I didn't go to Thanksgiving. I wasn't
Speaker 4: invited I Thanksgiving. He was invited to Thanksgiving, and me
Speaker 4: only be my mom for a little under too much.
Speaker 1: There's one aspect of this that's pretty powerful for me.
Speaker 1: Men can generally size up another man pretty quick. So
Speaker 1: if you have a dad or an uncle, or a
Speaker 1: brother or male cousin that tells you a man is
Speaker 1: no good, they know it. They just do, and they
Speaker 1: know it so fast. We may not can see it
Speaker 1: because you know, he's got a nice smile and we're
Speaker 1: in love with him. But man can tell you he's
Speaker 1: a con artist, he's not in this for the right reason.
Speaker 1: So I think that's really a powerful moment when Jimmy
Speaker 1: told her there's something not right here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And Jimmy was so great, he was so easy,
Speaker 4: He bought along with everyone, you know, So for him
Speaker 4: to even be like something was not right here, it
Speaker 4: was valid because he like he could be like a
Speaker 4: little bit of a pushover in a sense, and like
Speaker 4: soone could totally walk over him and just be like
Speaker 4: I'm here, and he'd be like, okay.
Speaker 2: He sounds great. All right.
Speaker 1: So things move on and what starts to happen. Do
Speaker 1: you notice any violence? Do you notice any attitude that
Speaker 1: gives you calls to say, look, I think mom's in
Speaker 1: some danger. Did that ever happen for you?
Speaker 4: That was really the last time I had any interaction
Speaker 4: with him other than Christmas. We had to have a
Speaker 4: mediator with my mom and I to kind of mediate
Speaker 4: how Christmas was gonna be. We had the whole Christmas
Speaker 4: thing and John King, and he didn't do anything that
Speaker 4: the f therapists said are recommended. So I got emotional,
Speaker 4: and it was kind of turned around on to me
Speaker 4: that I was the you know, crazy emotional one.
Speaker 3: I was having the problem.
Speaker 1: Yes, of course, this is the Christmas right after the
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving you weren't invited to So this is going south quick, yes.
Speaker 4: And then after that, like I think like a month
Speaker 4: or two after that, my brother in law, my sister Jacqueline,
Speaker 4: and my other sister they hire a private investigator to
Speaker 4: look into all of this and look into John.
Speaker 1: So you do have some support, You've got some family going, Yes,
Speaker 1: she ain't the crazy one.
Speaker 3: Yes, but not at first.
Speaker 4: At first they were like, oh, Terry is just overreacting,
Speaker 4: Terry's just being emotional, Terra' is a cancer.
Speaker 1: Isn't that fabulous? And you're sitting there going, I must
Speaker 1: be insane because this is I see it so differently
Speaker 1: than everybody around me, and that's a horrible position to
Speaker 1: be in.
Speaker 2: I'm just so sorry for all of it. And I
Speaker 2: tell you, you know, you sit there and you think, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 1: My mom, and you know she should be taking my
Speaker 1: side no matter what, even if I'm wrong kind of
Speaker 1: I mean, this guy is a stranger, and you know
Speaker 1: he's sitting there telling me I don't even want to
Speaker 1: say it.
Speaker 2: You said it's so cute when you said he said
Speaker 2: it in full form, But you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: As a mom, I mean, you would just instinctively almost
Speaker 1: lose your mind if somebody cussed at your child like that.
Speaker 1: I know there's all this dynamic going on and you're
Speaker 1: trying to figure it all out. So now after Christmas,
Speaker 1: what is happening?
Speaker 4: After Christmas? My family hires the private investigator. But it's
Speaker 4: a few months, you know, it takes a minute for
Speaker 4: them to get their bearings and be like, okay, something
Speaker 4: it's not right here, and they find out all this
Speaker 4: information that he has these different social Security card numbers,
Speaker 4: he has different restraining orders for him. He has a
Speaker 4: storage in Cathedral City, and the storage is a refrigerator
Speaker 4: with a child's back back in it, and then in
Speaker 4: the back back it has a child's book. It has
Speaker 4: zip ties, and I believe it had stuff we also
Speaker 4: like duct tape, and then like color form kind of
Speaker 4: stuff in it, but not like chloroform full form, just
Speaker 4: kind of some of the ingredients to make it. And
Speaker 4: that scared me. That really shook me. And then my
Speaker 4: mom left John. She had to kind of plan her
Speaker 4: leave too, so she found someone to rent the Balbo
Speaker 4: place from her subleisit and then she had to get
Speaker 4: out of there. She moved in with my sister in
Speaker 4: Ladera Branch. She just like kind of escaped there, and
Speaker 4: then John weaseled his way back in because he was
Speaker 4: able to bring my mom to different lawyers, and all
Speaker 4: these lawyers told her that what we found was different.
Speaker 3: John Woolman, Oh, but.
Speaker 4: It's funny because I'm doing your research. Now, there is
Speaker 4: one hundred other John Yehans out there.
Speaker 3: There are even doctors.
Speaker 1: Oh there's no question there might be another one. I laughed,
Speaker 1: because it is just so asinine right that now he's
Speaker 1: going to be able to come to her and go, hey,
Speaker 1: you know that's another doctor John me hand.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. I want to go back at
Speaker 2: the storage room a second.
Speaker 1: Honey, did you get the same feeling when you heard
Speaker 1: about the items in the stoge room that I just got,
Speaker 1: which was sickening, like a punch in the gud.
Speaker 2: Because here's what I'm thinking. He takes the.
Speaker 1: Chloral form, puts it on the stuffed animal, takes it
Speaker 1: in the backpack with the duct tape and the other items,
Speaker 1: Kidnap somebody knocks them out, kidnaps them, ties them up,
Speaker 1: kills them, takes it into the storage room and puts
Speaker 1: them in the refrigerator, and then has the refrigerator haul
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, honestly, Okay, So I can't tell you all
Speaker 4: this stuff that I'm figuring now, well, I can just
Speaker 4: tell you that there's a lot war to this, and
Speaker 4: this guy was so evil and I don't know why
Speaker 4: I'm seeing it, like, I'm so excited, But I'm seeing
Speaker 4: it because I'm excited because I'm uncovering who this guy was,
Speaker 4: who I had to take down.
Speaker 1: That makes perfect sense, of course, unbelievable. Okay, so now
Speaker 1: y'all are finding all that out. He gets her back,
Speaker 1: and what happens.
Speaker 4: It was weird because I had the feelings she would
Speaker 4: go back no matter what, because that's what is common.
Speaker 4: That's what your brain's telling me to do.
Speaker 3: In back.
Speaker 4: Your brain's telling you, hey, you need this person. You're
Speaker 4: craving them. Your body's actually telling me that you need
Speaker 4: this person in order to reproduce, even if you're at
Speaker 4: a certain age. But you don't need them to reproduce
Speaker 4: it anymore, especially not him. And so she gets back
Speaker 4: together with him. They get a dog together, they get
Speaker 4: a place in the urbane spectrum, and then they also
Speaker 4: get a house in Vegas.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now they're even closer to you all the time.
Speaker 4: I'm now moved out of Vegas because me and my
Speaker 4: boyfriend broke up, and I'm in Newport Beach, California. She's
Speaker 4: going back and work between California and at this point
Speaker 4: she's starting to figure out more and more John what
Speaker 4: or who he is as a person, well, who's not
Speaker 4: alive anywhere, so always was. And then she's finding out that,
Speaker 4: you know, he was in jail, that this is true.
Speaker 4: She hires a private investigator herself, and then she comes
Speaker 4: back with paperwork, and in this paper work there is
Speaker 4: a picture of him where he cut open his stomach
Speaker 4: in jail and be stuck pieces in his stomach.
Speaker 2: What in the world is that about.
Speaker 4: Well, it's because he's an addict and he needed his
Speaker 4: drug fix. He needed to get you know, that fixed
Speaker 4: in order to like live and to survive in his mind.
Speaker 4: And so he literally can hurt himself, can do that
Speaker 4: to himself. And they also falled that a suicide attempt.
Speaker 4: But John knows medical like he knows the body, knows
Speaker 4: where to cut, he knows where to be safe.
Speaker 1: So he self harms so that he can get pain
Speaker 1: medication and.
Speaker 4: So he could go to the hospital, gets stitched up
Speaker 4: and then he has to be on medication for that.
Speaker 4: And so when my mom saw that, when we saw that,
Speaker 4: I knew that if he could do that to himself,
Speaker 4: he could harm a person. No problem. At this point
Speaker 4: my sister and I are telling my mom like, you know,
Speaker 4: we support you, and leaving like we could take care
Speaker 4: of ourselves, like if he comes after us, we'll be fine,
Speaker 4: we'll be safe. And one day my mom ends up
Speaker 4: leaving him. She just grabs a shoe and she just leaves,
Speaker 4: and she has like one shoe and a bunch of
Speaker 4: random things. She gets a hold of my sister, Jacqueline,
Speaker 4: and they drive out to Vegas. They unpack everything with
Speaker 4: my mom and everything of my mom's in the house,
Speaker 4: and my sister is filming it this whole time, just
Speaker 4: so that my sister has documentation of my mom not
Speaker 4: taking anything of his. And in Irvine, California, he called
Speaker 4: the cops on my mom and said that my mom
Speaker 4: hit him.
Speaker 2: That's straight out of the playbook.
Speaker 4: So they actually dismissed that because my mom gives them
Speaker 4: proof that she's in Vegas and has been since the
Speaker 4: time we said.
Speaker 3: He was hits.
Speaker 4: So they are just like, okay, they pushed that to
Speaker 4: the side. But then now my mom's trying to get
Speaker 4: restraining orders. My mom's trying to get a lawyer. John
Speaker 4: sending threatening messages to her. He's at one minute like
Speaker 4: trying to convince her to get back together with him,
Speaker 4: and then another minute telling her how unattractive she is,
Speaker 4: how fat she is, how this and that, and just.
Speaker 1: Yep, he definitely definitely has the playbook. So again he's
Speaker 1: he's trying to use what he can to demean her
Speaker 1: so that she feels unworthy for anybody else so that
Speaker 1: she'll go back to it.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and he's also just trying to make her
Speaker 4: feel terror in every way. He just wants her to
Speaker 4: like feel guilty she just like and then he's also
Speaker 4: threatening her at the same time. She ends up living
Speaker 4: with my other sister, Jacqueline. He drove out to Vegas
Speaker 4: with her and then he during this time he starts
Speaker 4: stalking me, my sister, and my mom. He starts to
Speaker 4: look up all our information, our facebooks, if we have
Speaker 4: a Facebook. My other sister didn't have a Facebook. He
Speaker 4: looked up my work hours, everything on me. He even
Speaker 4: came out to California and he would follow me. I
Speaker 4: always would turn around like someone was there, but then
Speaker 4: I wasn't able to like find them. But then I
Speaker 4: had proof that he did stop me when I was
Speaker 4: hiking one day because he called my work on August nineteenth,
Speaker 4: and he made an appointment for two Rhodesian rich backs
Speaker 4: to get groomed. And those were dogs that I've seen
Speaker 4: on the trail the day or to prior, and so
Speaker 4: he like I had that that he was stalking me
Speaker 4: and he was watching me because of those dogs.
Speaker 1: Okay, So in some way, was he blaming you and
Speaker 1: your sisters for your mom leaving him? Did he see
Speaker 1: y'all as like they're supporting her leaving me, They're telling
Speaker 1: her how to get restrained and orders any of that.
Speaker 2: Kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Maybe for my sister one hundred percent, But to my
Speaker 4: mom and to him. After I had the altercation with him,
Speaker 4: I told my mom, I said, I would be willing
Speaker 4: to talk to John. I'll be willing to work it
Speaker 4: out with him. And that's what I kind of kept
Speaker 4: doing all along, was telling her I'm willing to work
Speaker 4: it out with him, so that she could see that
Speaker 4: he was the difficult one and he was the one
Speaker 4: not willing to work it out with me.
Speaker 1: And that's after the confrontation at Thanksgiving and then what
Speaker 1: he did at Christmas. So you're saying, hey, I will
Speaker 1: sit down with him today so that she can clearly
Speaker 1: see he's the one that won't come to the table.
Speaker 3: That was smart, thank you, and that never happened.
Speaker 2: I'm sure and tell the day.
Speaker 4: That he came and attacked me. But I don't think
Speaker 4: she was really there for a conversation. Why I know
Speaker 4: he wasn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, honey, I'm pretty sure he was not there for
Speaker 2: a conversation too. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, he had like eleven knives in his chalunky and.
Speaker 1: I'm like what, And didn't he have the knife hidden
Speaker 1: in a Dorito's bag or something del taco bag.
Speaker 3: And adell tacabou?
Speaker 2: I guess, okay, so tell us what happened. You're in
Speaker 2: your parking lot at your apartment.
Speaker 4: Yes, So I actually get home a little bit early
Speaker 4: because I'm trying to go to the Jason Alten concert
Speaker 4: that night. I get off work early and I'm driving back.
Speaker 4: And because he also was a no show for that
Speaker 4: appointment for the two Robesian ridgebacks, That's why I was
Speaker 4: actually able to get off work early. So he messed
Speaker 4: up my schedule about that wasn't his plan.
Speaker 3: But I was going home. I pull into the gate.
Speaker 3: The gate is broken.
Speaker 4: I noticed that my dog is barking and he's barking
Speaker 4: at this person that I thought was an unhoused person,
Speaker 4: and I tell I tell Cash to knock it off,
Speaker 4: and then Cash just knocks it off. I get out
Speaker 4: of my car, I grabbed Cash, and then I walk
Speaker 4: around by my license plate and then that's when John
Speaker 4: grabbed me by the waist, looks me in the eyes
Speaker 4: and says, do you remember me. I immediately tried to run away.
Speaker 4: I was unable to disconnect from him. That's when he
Speaker 4: started punching me what I thought was punching me. Well,
Speaker 4: actually he first tried to cover my mouth because I
Speaker 4: was screaming to try to gain attention and yell for help.
Speaker 4: And then I bit him as hard as I could,
Speaker 4: and that's when I think he got mad, and that's
Speaker 4: when he started what I thought was punching me in
Speaker 4: the chest, but he was really stabbing me. And the
Speaker 4: knife is an adult taco bag, so I could just
Speaker 4: feel like pressure and then looking back, I did feel
Speaker 4: little bit of a sting in the chest. And then
Speaker 4: he also gets me in my forearm because I put
Speaker 4: up my purse to try to protect most of my chest,
Speaker 4: and that's when he got me directly in the forearm
Speaker 4: and that one was like an inch deep and an
Speaker 4: inch wide. My dog is biting his ankles. I end
Speaker 4: up falling on my back. I scraped my shoulder pretty badly.
Speaker 4: And then I'm just on like my back and my
Speaker 4: legs are kind of up in the air like I'm
Speaker 4: bicycle kicking him, and his forearm is coming down. And
Speaker 4: at this point I do see the knife. The knife
Speaker 4: is a parent and I'm just trying to kick his
Speaker 4: form so that it.
Speaker 3: Doesn't come down on me.
Speaker 4: I'm able to kick his forearm at one moment with
Speaker 4: my boots. I was wearing boots from working at the
Speaker 4: kennel that day of like rain boots, so that did
Speaker 4: have a benefit to my attack as well. And my
Speaker 4: dog's attacking his ankle still in back of him, And
Speaker 4: when I make that one kick, it makes the knife
Speaker 4: land exactly to my right hand side in the ice
Speaker 4: picked position. I pick it up and I just start
Speaker 4: willing on him, and I still to this day like
Speaker 4: I have to dig deep and dive. But I felt
Speaker 4: like I was stabbing him in the forefront of his chest,
Speaker 4: but I was actually overthrowing it into his back shoulders
Speaker 4: in a sense, and that's where he had eleven stablings
Speaker 4: from me, and he gasped and he started to fall
Speaker 4: on top of me, so I held his head. I
Speaker 4: also watched a lot of Walking Dead, so I amend it.
Speaker 4: I kind of mimicked it like a zombie kill. And
Speaker 4: so I'm folding his head. I give the second to
Speaker 4: the last one like right above in his forehead, so
Speaker 4: that I'm going for his brain. And then the last
Speaker 4: one is to the eye, which is the softest point
Speaker 4: of entry to the brain. And then that's the one
Speaker 4: that made him brain dead, where he couldn't get up
Speaker 4: get me. And then I push him off of me,
Speaker 4: and I just take the knife. I tossed it away
Speaker 4: from the body so that he couldn't get up Freddy
Speaker 4: cougar mean. And then I start to assess the situation.
Speaker 4: I noticed that I'm bleeding out of my forearm, so
Speaker 4: I immediately start to apply pressure to slow down the
Speaker 4: bleeding to the forearm.
Speaker 3: And then I.
Speaker 4: Don't notice like bleeding anywhere else, but I was actually
Speaker 4: I did have a stab one in my chest. I
Speaker 4: just didn't notice it, and it was only like a
Speaker 4: couple of centimeters. And then I had a superficial slice
Speaker 4: to the face where literally graced me like a paper cut.
Speaker 4: So I was extremely lucky with that one. That one
Speaker 4: actually cleared up within a couple of days. At this time,
Speaker 4: my dog was eating the Del Taco. Then soone comes up,
Speaker 4: she has her dog, and she asked me what can
Speaker 4: I do? I asked her just to grab my dog
Speaker 4: because I'm afraid that maybe the Del Taco has some
Speaker 4: poison in it because I'm always with my dog, so
Speaker 4: that would have been something to kind of sedate my
Speaker 4: dog in a way. That's when other people started coming up.
Speaker 4: This guy on a bicycle with dreads, he came up.
Speaker 4: He gave me his sweater. Then Skyler, the fourteen year
Speaker 4: old lifeguard, she came up. She told me, Hi, I'm Skyler.
Speaker 4: I'm trained to handle this type of situation. What's her
Speaker 4: Vain started asking me questions. We had the same birthday.
Speaker 4: And then that's when the guy went over to resuscitate
Speaker 4: John and I started freaking out. So I tried to
Speaker 4: get away from him, go down the hill because there
Speaker 4: was a ramp. I went down the ramp and at
Speaker 4: that time, there is some footage out there where you
Speaker 4: see me just like folding my stab wound, and she's
Speaker 4: walking me down the ramp. Then she goes and she
Speaker 4: gets my phone, and then I start making calls. I
Speaker 4: call my mom, I tell her I'm so sorry. I
Speaker 4: think I killed your husband. I knew that she would
Speaker 4: do this. And then I also called my Eggs and
Speaker 4: I told him that he walked and stuff, which he didn't.
Speaker 4: He was just in a bad cell reception area because
Speaker 4: he was filming bar rescue. And then I tried to
Speaker 4: call my friend that I was going to a concert with,
Speaker 4: but that's when he stopped me and there, like Newmark,
Speaker 4: phone falls.
Speaker 1: Bless your heart, Tara, this is quite a testimony, Honey,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you. I know you said you were
Speaker 1: gonna come and tell it and you were gonna be
Speaker 1: just wide open with it. But Honey, I am so
Speaker 1: sorry all of this had to happen. It's an unbelievable
Speaker 1: situation that you were put in by a straight up
Speaker 1: wanna be killer. Would have been a killer had not
Speaker 1: been for the actions of you. I gotta tell you now,
Speaker 1: Cash Cash is kind of gangster though. Now Cash is
Speaker 1: gonna attack that man and then eat his food.
Speaker 2: I love me some Cash.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: I think it was a nervous system response where he
Speaker 4: just finally thought with this is town.
Speaker 2: Of course, then now.
Speaker 4: His body's thinking, oh, why might need a gear up
Speaker 4: for the next time, and what kind of dog he
Speaker 4: was a mini Australian shepherd.
Speaker 1: Shout out to that breed. So let's talk about happier times.
Speaker 1: Tell us whatever you want us to know right now
Speaker 1: about your projects and what you're doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I had a really great project with Call Your
Speaker 4: Landry called the Survivor Squad podcast that was for survivor stories.
Speaker 4: That's no longer happening. However, it has really inspired me
Speaker 4: to do other projects with other survivors. I have a
Speaker 4: podcasting course where I honestly I kind of teach other
Speaker 4: podcasters and other survivors how to create their own story
Speaker 4: if they want to create their story into.
Speaker 3: A podcast, or if they have a podcast.
Speaker 4: That's in the truth by niche to make it more
Speaker 4: at the full and victim centric in a sense. So
Speaker 4: I have that going on and very passionate about that.
Speaker 4: And also one of my survivors, my clients, my friends,
Speaker 4: she is coming out with a podcast and I'm she
Speaker 4: changed the name of it. It was from Dreamgirl to
Speaker 4: From Hell to I have to get the name of
Speaker 4: it for her, but she is amazing. Her name is Alan,
Speaker 4: but I'm really excited for her because she has literally
Speaker 4: transformed her story into something that is just amazing. Oh okay,
Speaker 4: So the podcast is called When Heaven Meets Hell, and
Speaker 4: so I'm excited for one of my survivors, clients and
Speaker 4: friends to get her story out there. And then I'm
Speaker 4: also working on my own project right now to put
Speaker 4: the story to rest in my own words, and then
Speaker 4: that might be like a documentary and hopefully a movie
Speaker 4: or a scripted series again, and then a book and
Speaker 4: then a podcast and just be done, all done with
Speaker 4: it so that I can really move on with my
Speaker 4: life and not have that lingering and making me triggered.
Speaker 4: Like today, I'm probably well, I'm going to go to
Speaker 4: yoga after this. I'm going to depressed. But it really
Speaker 4: takes me a while to decompressed after I talk about
Speaker 4: the attack. And if I want to have kids, I
Speaker 4: don't want my kids to be affected.
Speaker 2: By understood yep. And you know that's something that is
Speaker 2: so good. And I'll go back to my sister Shelley.
Speaker 1: She talks about self care all the time, and that
Speaker 1: was not a term that I was ever familiar with.
Speaker 1: But she does a lot with first responders and nurses
Speaker 1: and doctors where you know, sometimes you may not even
Speaker 1: realize that you have taken on some trauma because.
Speaker 2: Of what you dealing with in your job.
Speaker 1: For you, your trauma is part of your life. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing that I think is important. Again, you
Speaker 1: are using it for good. It is not like you
Speaker 1: wake up every day and you're like, Okay, well I'm
Speaker 1: a victim of a stab and you've got projects to
Speaker 1: work on. You've got a lot of things that you
Speaker 1: are helping people with. You are training people, and you're
Speaker 1: making the world better. And I think anything we can
Speaker 1: do to support you, all you need to do is
Speaker 1: say the word honey, and we will promote and support
Speaker 1: and assist in any way we can anything that you
Speaker 1: want to say. If there's a last thing, if there's
Speaker 1: a wrap up, if there's something you want to promote,
Speaker 1: you just tell me what that is right now and
Speaker 1: we'll go down that road as a wrap up.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: So I'm really excited to help survivors in every way
Speaker 4: possible and also other creators more ethical. But I also
Speaker 4: take three fifteen minute calls if anyone who just means advice,
Speaker 4: wants resources and they don't have the financial means. Because
Speaker 4: I believe that healing should be available to everyone. I
Speaker 4: also do one on one client calls, but we also
Speaker 4: have to be a great fit for each other because
Speaker 4: I want to make sure that I'm going to help
Speaker 4: you heal and that is going to be a thing
Speaker 4: instead of just kind of like taking.
Speaker 3: Your money and being like, yeah, I want another client.
Speaker 3: I want to make sure that.
Speaker 4: I'm going to actually be beneficial to you other than
Speaker 4: trigger you in any ways. Because I have had clients
Speaker 4: where say, their daughter has come to me and I
Speaker 4: can't take on that client because of their feelings towards
Speaker 4: their mother, and then it goes towards me. So I
Speaker 4: had to tell clients, you know, I don't think that
Speaker 4: we're necessarily the best fit, that here are other people.
Speaker 4: Just check out words, you have other resources available to you.
Speaker 4: I always make sure that there's a.
Speaker 1: Plan remarkable, and you know, it is so important to
Speaker 1: have folks like you out there that are ethical and
Speaker 1: that can help train the rest of us. Because I
Speaker 1: know Carrie Rawson has before had to message me and go, hey, Mac,
Speaker 1: you went a little hard on the suspect you didn't
Speaker 1: say allegedly.
Speaker 2: Or anything.
Speaker 1: So it's nice to sometimes have somebody check you to say, hey,
Speaker 1: he may have done it, but you know, approach it
Speaker 1: this way, or don't forget about the victim when you're
Speaker 1: saying you know this or that about a case. So
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, Tara, all of it, for what you
Speaker 1: do for all of us in this business, for both
Speaker 1: of my jobs, because again I cannot be reminded enough
Speaker 1: to be victim centered in everything I do, so I
Speaker 1: appreciate you for that.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you.
Speaker 4: I just I think that what you do is amazing
Speaker 4: to with helping missing people and their cases, that is
Speaker 4: so great.
Speaker 3: And then I just got to say every year, well.
Speaker 4: If I go back to crying fund, I don't know
Speaker 4: if I'll go back, But that's another story for another time.
Speaker 4: But you are always the hallwreck rereader and it's just
Speaker 4: great to meet and really connect.
Speaker 3: With your energy.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that, y'all.
Speaker 1: I am gonna end Zone seven the way that I
Speaker 1: always do with a quote. The principle of self defense,
Speaker 1: even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even
Speaker 1: by Gandhi Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. I'm Cheryl McCollum
Speaker 1: and this is Zone seven.
Speaker 4: Can wrote at