Speaker 1: Hey, a quick heads up.
Speaker 2: Our story today is about online harassment and cyberstalking and
Speaker 2: includes a little bit of strong language. It also briefly
Speaker 2: mentions sexual assault, including that of a minor. But despite
Speaker 2: all of this, it's one epic story involving some incredible
Speaker 2: online saluting.
Speaker 3: I had just woken up, so I was laying in
Speaker 3: bed scrolling my phone.
Speaker 4: Saw I had a message.
Speaker 2: There are moments that divide your life into before and after.
Speaker 2: For Madison, that moment came one morning with an unexpected
Speaker 2: message from someone she knew in college.
Speaker 3: Hey, I don't know if you know that your photos
Speaker 3: are online, but there's some few nude photos of you
Speaker 3: and they're asking for more and they're starting to give
Speaker 3: out your information and asking people to obtain more. Immediately,
Speaker 3: your heart dropped and you're like, what the fuck is
Speaker 3: going on? You know? So I immediately was like, hey,
Speaker 3: can you send me the links to whatever website you
Speaker 3: saw it on?
Speaker 2: And that's when Madison sees it, a nude photo of
Speaker 2: herself from a boudohile shoot, a photo she had never
Speaker 2: expected to see out there on the internet. At first,
Speaker 2: she just ignores it, but that single post quickly spirals
Speaker 2: into something much much darker. It begins seeping into every
Speaker 2: aspect of Madison's life, to.
Speaker 3: The point where, like when you googled my name, it
Speaker 3: was popping up on the first page of Google. What's
Speaker 3: the first thing people do when you meet someone, if
Speaker 3: you start dating someone, if you become friends with someone,
Speaker 3: you go home and google them.
Speaker 2: Right When Madison turns to the police for help, she's dismissed,
Speaker 2: told there's no crime here, and yet the harassment keeps mounting.
Speaker 2: Her photos are reposted in the same thread thousands of times.
Speaker 2: So she turns to the person who's literally always since
Speaker 2: conception been at her side, her twin sister Christine. Together
Speaker 2: they track down Madison's harasser and hold him to account
Speaker 2: and free other women from his digital abuse. To I'm
Speaker 2: Anison Field and from the teams at Novel and iHeart Podcasts,
Speaker 2: this is the Girlfriend's Spotlight, where we tell stories of
Speaker 2: women women today, Madison and Christine become digital detectives. Madison
Speaker 2: and Christine Conradis are identical twins.
Speaker 3: I technically was born first. I wasn't supposed to be first,
Speaker 3: but it's how it ended up shaking out.
Speaker 2: That's Madison speaking, and I'm gonna have to say this
Speaker 2: a lot, because they are identical in voice as much
Speaker 2: as they are in their looks.
Speaker 3: I am technically the older one, but Christine definitely has
Speaker 3: more of like the older sibling qualities. She always like
Speaker 3: kind of protected me as a kid, so she was
Speaker 3: always kind of although we were, you know, one minute apart,
Speaker 3: she was kind of like the more motherly concerned twin.
Speaker 1: Both sisters are blonde and chipper.
Speaker 2: They share the same sense of humor and grew up
Speaker 2: in Florida as you were like kind of getting older.
Speaker 1: Did you guys remain close or were you ever at war?
Speaker 4: Was?
Speaker 3: No, we were pretty close. I mean, like all siblings fight.
Speaker 3: Like I remember us getting into a fight in the
Speaker 3: parking lot.
Speaker 4: Of high school. That's Christine and getting in trouble, but.
Speaker 3: The principal calling our parents and being like, okay, they're sisters,
Speaker 3: but if they weren't, they would probably be suspended. Like
Speaker 3: you can't like hit someone even in the car in.
Speaker 4: Your parking lot, you know.
Speaker 3: So you know, we've had our fights, like every sibling,
Speaker 3: but we've always remained close.
Speaker 2: Christine, naturally, was the first person Madison turned to when
Speaker 2: she found out her nude photos had been posted on
Speaker 2: some dodgy website, and it wasn't just photos, it was
Speaker 2: also her personal details and a call out for other
Speaker 2: people to send more pictures of her.
Speaker 3: It was like four Chan, and there was a few others.
Speaker 3: I think it like motherless Me, so all the typical
Speaker 3: sites that schedule shit happened.
Speaker 2: Four Chan is a website where people can post photos
Speaker 2: completely anonymously, and that means although the site is on
Speaker 2: the open Web, there's some very dark stuff on there,
Speaker 2: discussions of things like rape and murder and sexual images
Speaker 2: of women taken without their consent.
Speaker 3: And they're cataloging them by area code, so like, for example,
Speaker 3: Madison is in let's just make up an area code
Speaker 3: in four two one, right, so it would be like
Speaker 3: fourty one area code in the US, and you would
Speaker 3: go into that sub category and there would be like
Speaker 3: different women posted by different anonymous users with usually their
Speaker 3: first name and maybe last initial and a photos. And
Speaker 3: these people are almost utilizing it like baseball cards or
Speaker 3: Pokemon cards that are like, hey, I have Madison C.
Speaker 3: Anybody got more of her? Or I have Ashley S.
Speaker 3: Does anybody have Christine C?
Speaker 2: Like yeah, like after I mean, it's sunk in really scary.
Speaker 1: You're like, what the fuck do I do? What did
Speaker 1: you do? After you found out about these images?
Speaker 3: So I definitely kind of like creeped around the websites
Speaker 3: a little bit, and I think we kind of both
Speaker 3: were like, let's just wait it out, see what happens. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think at first the advice was kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 3: take a beat, let's just ignore it. These type of people,
Speaker 3: the more you give it attention gonna fuel the fire.
Speaker 3: Just ignore it, it'll go away. Not that many people
Speaker 3: on these websites like, it's not a medal, right.
Speaker 2: We hear the term revenge porn a lot in the
Speaker 2: media and pop culture, but the more accurate way to
Speaker 2: describe this kind of thing is non consensual pornography. And
Speaker 2: in the early twenty tens, when Madison found her photos online,
Speaker 2: the amount of this non consensual pornography being published to
Speaker 2: sites like four Chan was really ramping up. In the beginning,
Speaker 2: the sisters thought it might be something that could just
Speaker 2: fizzle out, but it didn't.
Speaker 1: It only got worse.
Speaker 3: In this case, this person was posting several times a day,
Speaker 3: by the end, one hundreds thousands of times a day,
Speaker 3: and so this person was creating a collage, and in
Speaker 3: the collage would be a picture of Madison from her
Speaker 3: linked in profile picture and maybe like a Facebook page,
Speaker 3: and then her nude photos. And then it was telling
Speaker 3: everyone where she worked, what her home address was, what
Speaker 3: her parents it's address was, all the contact information of
Speaker 3: everyone that she knows and loves, and then there was
Speaker 3: usually a call to action of like go harass her,
Speaker 3: go call her work, And that's when it got really bad.
Speaker 3: So I was getting anonymous messages along with our mother, father,
Speaker 3: close friends of her actual nude photos.
Speaker 1: I mean, Madison, you must have been terrified. That's so scary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely terrifying in the sense of I didn't
Speaker 3: know who it was. So I think that's the most
Speaker 3: terrifying aspect of it, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Is that it could be anyone.
Speaker 3: It could be a family member, it could be a friend,
Speaker 3: It could be the person walking behind you, It could
Speaker 3: be a receptionist at your dentist office. Like you have
Speaker 3: no idea who it is. I would have a reoccurring
Speaker 3: nightmare and a masked person with a hood in all black,
Speaker 3: couldn't see the person's face, just like hovering over me,
Speaker 3: and it was so realistic that there were many times
Speaker 3: where I woke up like jumped up, screamed, slammed the door.
Speaker 3: And it obviously that stemmed directly from my issues that
Speaker 3: I was having dealing with this person harassing and stalking me,
Speaker 3: not know who it was.
Speaker 2: The first thing Madison tried to do was figure out
Speaker 2: who was behind this, but the photos themselves didn't offer
Speaker 2: any clues about who posted them. She'd never shared them
Speaker 2: with anyone. She had a signed contract with the photographer
Speaker 2: that explicitly said pictures were not to be posted online
Speaker 2: without prior consent, so either the photographer had given them
Speaker 2: to this harasser, which seemed unlikely because that would be
Speaker 2: a breach of the contract, or someone stole them from
Speaker 2: the photographer's password protected online folder. Madison was inundated with
Speaker 2: phone calls, tech messages, emails, Instagram dms, Facebook dms commenting
Speaker 2: on the photos and demanding more of them. She changed
Speaker 2: her phone number and email address, and deleted many of
Speaker 2: her social media accounts to try and make the torments stop,
Speaker 2: until eventually Madison decided to take this to the police.
Speaker 3: The first time I went into the Melbourne Police Department,
Speaker 3: I was alone, so I walk in and I said, Hey,
Speaker 3: I'm being harassed stopped. Is there's something you can do
Speaker 3: to help me?
Speaker 4: I need?
Speaker 3: I would like to fill out a police report and possibly,
Speaker 3: you know, try to find the person that's doing this.
Speaker 3: I brought a few screenshots printed out on paper, and
Speaker 3: he kind of just flipped through it and was like,
Speaker 3: where did he get the photos or where did they
Speaker 3: get the photos? I don't think this is a crime.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to give you a police report to
Speaker 3: fill out. Any sort of victim chreaming you can think of.
Speaker 3: Was said, well, you shouldn't have take in those pictures,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. So I kind of tail between
Speaker 3: my legs walked out of the police office that day
Speaker 3: and felt very defeated. Called Christine. That's when Christine was like, ah,
Speaker 3: that's bullshit.
Speaker 2: Oh and did I mention Christine's in law school and
Speaker 2: she's got some new knowledge to flex.
Speaker 3: I kind of emailed them and just ripped them a
Speaker 3: new one of like, Hey, if you need resources or training,
Speaker 3: I'm sure I can find someone for you. I would
Speaker 3: be happy to educate your police officers.
Speaker 2: Christine had done some digging and found the Florida Statute
Speaker 2: which specifically says that this is a crime.
Speaker 3: And this was a really new law at the time,
Speaker 3: so I cited the law and was like, read it.
Speaker 3: They didn't really take too kindly to that, but I
Speaker 3: knew that would piss them off, and it did.
Speaker 4: But ultimately she did get a police report filed.
Speaker 3: Nothing was done, but at least, you know, she was
Speaker 3: given the privilege to fill that form out.
Speaker 2: And then nothing happened. But things seemed to die down.
Speaker 2: The photos weren't being posted as regularly, and Madison tried
Speaker 2: to move on, tried to put it behind her. Around
Speaker 2: this time, she also started dating a guy. It was
Speaker 2: a long distance relationship and for a little while at
Speaker 2: least life almost felt like normal again.
Speaker 3: We had fun, we went out, went to sporting events,
Speaker 3: hockey games, basketball games, football games, just you know, a
Speaker 3: typical fun twenties relationship. He was my best friend at
Speaker 3: that time, besides Christine.
Speaker 2: Obviously, not long after they got together, her new boyfriend
Speaker 2: brought it up. He had seen those nude photos of
Speaker 2: Madison and asked her about them, and so she told
Speaker 2: him about the years of harassment that she had endured,
Speaker 2: and he was the perfect boyfriend about it. Angry on
Speaker 2: her behalf outraged that this had happened. He told her
Speaker 2: that he wanted to help, he wanted to protect her.
Speaker 2: But you know the unsettling calm after a storm. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the trick, because the storm is far from over,
Speaker 2: not even close. One day, seven years after the harassment started,
Speaker 2: Madison saw new photos being posted on those sites again.
Speaker 2: This time these photos were recent ones, and there's only
Speaker 2: one person who could be behind it.
Speaker 3: There was no doubt in my mind it was him,
Speaker 3: like he was the only one that had those photographs
Speaker 3: and videos.
Speaker 2: It looks like her best friend, her boyfriend of more
Speaker 2: than three years, has betrayed her in the most brutal
Speaker 2: way imaginable. After the break, Madison confronts her boyfriend.
Speaker 5: Glad you have got you, gat you, I've got you.
Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, Madison's worst nightmare came true. The anonymous
Speaker 2: online harasser had obtained new, more intimate photos of her.
Speaker 2: These were images she had only ever shared with her boyfriend.
Speaker 2: Their relationship was up and down, on and off by
Speaker 2: this point, but when she found these photos online, she
Speaker 2: broke up with him immediately.
Speaker 3: I definitely knew one hundred percent that he had sent
Speaker 3: photos to this person. I kind of just called him
Speaker 3: up and I was like, what the fuck are you thinking?
Speaker 3: Like why?
Speaker 4: How?
Speaker 3: Who?
Speaker 4: He again was justifying like, oh, I'm trying to help.
Speaker 3: I was just like, no, I don't think that, Like
Speaker 3: this is like a stereotypical look up the dictionary revenge porn.
Speaker 3: You're man that I'm moving on and you knew this
Speaker 3: could hurt me.
Speaker 2: Madison's ex boy friend admitted in letters and texts that
Speaker 2: he had sent these private photos to the anonymous harasser.
Speaker 2: He said he was trying to help her to find
Speaker 2: out who it was, But this is when things take
Speaker 2: an even darker turn.
Speaker 3: Up.
Speaker 2: Until this point, the online harasser had been posting about Madison,
Speaker 2: just Madison, but also every now and then asking for
Speaker 2: nude pictures of Christine, her twin. Along with these requests,
Speaker 2: they posted regular photos taken from Christine's Facebook, just her
Speaker 2: normal holiday snaps and pictures with friends. And while it
Speaker 2: was annoying to see Christine targeted, the sisters were reassured
Speaker 2: that the harasser didn't seem to have anything on her,
Speaker 2: and then nude photos of Christine got posted.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know these existed, and I'm seeing them
Speaker 3: on four Chan, and I was very involved in my
Speaker 3: sister's experience, and obviously I'm very empathetic towards my sister.
Speaker 3: And so that was, you know, shocking, sad, all the feelings.
Speaker 3: But nothing prepares you for when you see your own
Speaker 3: nude body on the internet, right, And so, like Madison described,
Speaker 3: your kind of stomach just drops.
Speaker 2: There were now two photographs circulating of Christine that she
Speaker 2: didn't even know existed. These were from the same boudoir
Speaker 2: photo shoot back in college, the one that Madison did.
Speaker 3: The photographer is taking a ton of photos at a
Speaker 3: time to think of like a photogo and click click,
Speaker 3: clack click, it's going that fast, and that's just to
Speaker 3: get like natural movements or whatever. And in that there
Speaker 3: were thousands of photos and two were of my breast
Speaker 3: and my nipple.
Speaker 2: Did it change things when it was suddenly targeting the
Speaker 2: two of you as twins, you know, like you're both
Speaker 2: up there that that feels like that would change something?
Speaker 3: So for me, I had an insane amount of guilt, right,
Speaker 3: like I brought her into this, she you know, had
Speaker 3: bullets being at her now all because.
Speaker 4: Of helping me.
Speaker 3: Essentially, in my mind, I just felt so guilty, Like,
Speaker 3: I obviously love my sister. She's one of my favorite
Speaker 3: people in the entire world, and something that I did
Speaker 3: was helping.
Speaker 1: To hurt her.
Speaker 4: That is true.
Speaker 3: Like I kind of always thought like, wow, man, I'm
Speaker 3: just getting punished for helping, but like that's the point
Speaker 3: of what they They're attacking me. So you don't have resources,
Speaker 3: you don't have someone to help, and let's be honest,
Speaker 3: like I was very motivated to help you, but it's
Speaker 3: nothing's more motivating than your own boobs being on the internet.
Speaker 1: I bet. I bet.
Speaker 2: Madison and Christine believed that the only way these new
Speaker 2: photos of Christine could have ended up with the harasser
Speaker 2: was through Madison's ex. During that original photo shoot, both
Speaker 2: Madison and Christine had chosen their photos, and the photographer
Speaker 2: gave them all the raw footage on a CD. Years later,
Speaker 2: Madison backed it up in a secure drop box folder.
Speaker 2: Madison claims that her ex had access to those files,
Speaker 2: and she believes he went through hundreds of proofs and
Speaker 2: found the two nude photos of Christine. By now, the
Speaker 2: sisters had graduated, Madison was working in marketing and Christine
Speaker 2: was a young lawyer, and yet the harassment continued. An
Speaker 2: anonymous profile would share Madison's nude photos on her professional
Speaker 2: Facebook business page, and her workplace would get these panicked
Speaker 2: phone calls telling them about the photos.
Speaker 1: It was relentless.
Speaker 3: We started looking into the sites, and we were keeping
Speaker 3: track a bit more because they were increasing, right, and
Speaker 3: so we were just constantly monitoring these pages and getting
Speaker 3: things taken down.
Speaker 2: The sisters filed a police report against the ex boyfriend,
Speaker 2: but the local police department decided not to bring charges.
Speaker 2: They said there wasn't enough evidence to prove that he
Speaker 2: intended to harm them. Madison's ex boyfriend has never been
Speaker 2: charged with any crimes relating to Madison or Christine. Feeling frustrated,
Speaker 2: they decided to turn their attention back to the harasser
Speaker 2: himself and take a different route, filing a civil lawsuit
Speaker 2: to try and de anonymize him. The case was filed
Speaker 2: as Christine Comradis and Madison Conradis versus John Doe. This
Speaker 2: would then give them subpoena powers, which would allow them
Speaker 2: to track down the harass's IP address and hopefully figure
Speaker 2: out where they were hiding.
Speaker 3: We were applying subpoenas to Facebook, Google, Snapchat, where the
Speaker 3: first round of subpoenas you get a location of where
Speaker 3: the person could be sending these messages from. Yeah, you're
Speaker 3: plugging it into an IP surgery, typically getting just like
Speaker 3: a general area. But once you get that ipaddress, in
Speaker 3: order to get the identifying information, you then have to
Speaker 3: subpoena the Internet service provider, which is not quite as easy,
Speaker 3: and so that took a lot of time.
Speaker 2: From the start, Christine and Madison were meticulous, determined, and smart.
Speaker 2: They kept detailed records of everything that happened.
Speaker 3: Even from the very beginning, my very first few harassing
Speaker 3: messages and whatnot, I was taking screenshots and copies of
Speaker 3: everything and foldering it in a folder on my computer.
Speaker 3: Four Chan disappears after a while, like forty eight hours
Speaker 3: or something, but there are websites that archive this, and
Speaker 3: so by this time we're catching it live on four
Speaker 3: Chan and getting it taken down immediately and screenshotting. But
Speaker 3: we can go back through years and years and years
Speaker 3: of these archive websites, which is good and bad because
Speaker 3: we're now having to hit multiple websites, including Google Images
Speaker 3: and all these archive websites to get these photos taken down.
Speaker 2: Madison and Christine had to move fast. As soon as
Speaker 2: they spotted a post, they'd take a screenshot, file it
Speaker 2: and try and get a subpoena to trace the IP address.
Speaker 2: Then they would file to take down the photo using
Speaker 2: copyright legislation because the fact is the law didn't want
Speaker 2: to recognize this as a crime of harassment, but would
Speaker 2: address the breach of the photographer's copyright and you work
Speaker 2: with what you've got. This was turning into a full
Speaker 2: on homegrown investigation.
Speaker 3: We caught him our bread cramp map and we had
Speaker 3: you look at like Law and Order, one of those
Speaker 3: crime shows, and you have the murdered board the murder boarder.
Speaker 3: We had you know, like strings and this and that
Speaker 3: basically that but in a digital form.
Speaker 4: Has millennials I would love to see.
Speaker 3: So there was just so many like small clues that
Speaker 3: we started piecing together.
Speaker 2: And the anonymous harasser when these photos were posted, obviously
Speaker 2: it's anonymous, but did he have a user name?
Speaker 3: So again fourteen is anonymous. You do not need to
Speaker 3: have a username or anything for that. But as he's
Speaker 3: posting these photos of both Madison and I, he's saying
Speaker 3: kick me at an insert usernames.
Speaker 2: Kick Messenger, or just kick is an instant messaging app
Speaker 2: with a focus on user anonymity. It lets people sign
Speaker 2: up without needing a phone number or a valid email address.
Speaker 3: We can track this person because he's dumb enough to
Speaker 3: leave kicknames as clues essentially, and then he also had
Speaker 3: this like very strange way of typing where he would
Speaker 3: do this thing where it would be like dot space,
Speaker 3: dot space, dot space, and just had a very weird
Speaker 3: tone about his writing. People don't do dot space, dart space,
Speaker 3: dot space. They do dot dot dot if they're gonna.
Speaker 2: Do that, right, Madison and Christine were piecing together everything
Speaker 2: like a digital puzzle. They were collecting clues connecting the
Speaker 2: dots space dots. There was the recurring Kick username and
Speaker 2: the distinct writing style. But then they noticed something far
Speaker 2: more sinister.
Speaker 3: Another picture of a completely different girl. Oh yeah, so
Speaker 3: we're seeing him post other girls, and we're like, okay,
Speaker 3: who are these girls?
Speaker 4: What do we all have in common? It's clearly the
Speaker 4: same person that's posting all of these.
Speaker 3: We had already had all this different evidence, so we
Speaker 3: just started adding new folders of this victim, this victim,
Speaker 3: this victim. We went back through all these archive websites
Speaker 3: and four chan Live to see who he was posting,
Speaker 3: and kind of figured out there was what five really
Speaker 3: six I guess different girls and women that he was.
Speaker 1: Targeting six victims.
Speaker 2: Madison and Christine added these women to the growing digital
Speaker 2: board of clues, and then another big clue.
Speaker 1: Here's Madison.
Speaker 3: I had gone to Key West, and in key West
Speaker 3: they celebrate the sunset every day. They have street performers
Speaker 3: and street art. So I snapped a photograph of just
Speaker 3: the sunset, not a picture of me, and I posted
Speaker 3: it on my Snapchat. Almost immediately, I look down and
Speaker 3: I have a text message and it was, oh, that's
Speaker 3: a beautiful sunset that you just saw, And I was
Speaker 3: immediately was like, okay. The only place I'd posted on
Speaker 3: it is Snapchat. Snapchat has a log of who've seen
Speaker 3: your stuff, so I nearly went and screenshot it. It
Speaker 3: was so new that I think only thirty nine people
Speaker 3: had seen it.
Speaker 2: It was a text message from an unknown number, so
Speaker 2: it must be either the harasser themselves or someone from
Speaker 2: four chan who had been encouraged by the harasser. But
Speaker 2: Madison's social media pages were all completely private. Only people
Speaker 2: she knew in real life could actually follow her. One
Speaker 2: of these thirty nine people who had viewed her snapchat post.
Speaker 2: One of these thirty nine people who Madison knows must
Speaker 2: be linked to the harasser, connecting the dots like pins
Speaker 2: on a court board. They needed a way to narrow
Speaker 2: down these thirty nine suspects, so they decided to have
Speaker 2: another look at the other victims. If there was something
Speaker 2: someone connecting these six women, that would be their suspect.
Speaker 2: And well, one of the six victims was shockingly young,
Speaker 2: and while in her photo she was always fully clothed,
Speaker 2: there was another clue.
Speaker 1: Here's Madison again.
Speaker 3: Well, the underage girl ended up having a Catholic school
Speaker 3: uniform on it was a photograph of her fully clothed
Speaker 3: in her Catholic uniform and just like post of like
Speaker 3: soliciting someoneuder raper he wants to watch someone rape her
Speaker 3: this and that just really bad. Perse And again she
Speaker 3: was underage, So we zoomed in on the photograph.
Speaker 2: Christine's husband, Dana, a auto shop wiz, helped them shop
Speaker 2: in the photo.
Speaker 3: So he zoomed in, did his little magic, and he
Speaker 3: ended up being able to reap the school location, which
Speaker 3: is terrifying. If we can figure out where this young
Speaker 3: girl is going to school and find her, like any
Speaker 3: creep on the internet could, right, because he's posting again
Speaker 3: a photo of her in her school uniform with calls
Speaker 3: of action to rape and harm her. So that was
Speaker 3: kind of the second clue, breadcrumb clue that we had.
Speaker 3: And so we're trying to at the time piece together
Speaker 3: who all these people are. And then Dana went on
Speaker 3: Facebook and like cross reference like mutual friend, bam, mutual friend,
Speaker 3: mutual and so he was like, holy shit, it is him.
Speaker 2: Dana discovers he has a Facebook friend in common with
Speaker 2: all of these women, a man called Chris.
Speaker 3: We figured out one's an ex girlfriend, one's a family member,
Speaker 3: and ones a family friend when there were lots of
Speaker 3: other like little like Madison said, breadcrumbs.
Speaker 2: There was also that strange way of typing the dot
Speaker 2: space dot space method. They cross referenced it with Chris's
Speaker 2: posts on Facebook. It's how he wrote too. It had
Speaker 2: to be him. Chris had mutual friends with all six
Speaker 2: women and family in the same city where the schoolgirl lived.
Speaker 2: And one final check.
Speaker 3: So that snapchat story ended up being one of our
Speaker 3: bread crumb clues that we pieced together, and he was
Speaker 3: the last person that had viewed the story.
Speaker 2: Madison and Christine finally found the culprit behind the years
Speaker 2: of harassment, the years of paranoia and fear and stress
Speaker 2: and extortion, Someone both of them knew, but neither of
Speaker 2: them had thought about in years, Someone who had even
Speaker 2: been a guest at Christine and Dana's wedding, Christopher Juanacorps.
Speaker 3: We both went to college with him. He was I
Speaker 3: would say, a friend of my husband's by the end.
Speaker 3: They were probably I would say friends in college, acquaintances
Speaker 3: later on in life, but still invited to our wedding.
Speaker 2: It sounds like the other women and this girl that
Speaker 2: he harassed were much kind of closer to him, Like
Speaker 2: why would he pick you guys?
Speaker 4: Like the only thing I can think of is maybe
Speaker 4: he like had a crush on Madison.
Speaker 3: Like Madison and him never had a romantic relationship, never
Speaker 3: went on a date, never did anything physical. Yeah, nothing,
Speaker 3: Like I don't even think I ever like hugged him
Speaker 3: in like a social setting, Like I don't. Again, it's like,
Speaker 3: was I two night? You know, like you always like
Speaker 3: as a victim xpessily in the society, you're always questioning like, well,
Speaker 3: what did I do. And it's like, at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, you as a victim to d Doude nothing.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter what you're wearing, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 3: you look like, it doesn't matter anything. It's the person
Speaker 3: doing it to you. That's whose fault it is.
Speaker 2: And the moment when you realized that it was him,
Speaker 2: can you just kind of describe that feeling.
Speaker 3: It was the biggest relief in my opinion, like weight
Speaker 3: off of my shoulder. I can, you know, start trying
Speaker 3: to trust people around my life a little bit more
Speaker 3: since I know that they're not trying to hurt me.
Speaker 3: And then it was also like excited a little bit again.
Speaker 3: Weird emotion, but we had worked so hard, spent countless hours,
Speaker 3: countless sleepless nights working till three, four or five am
Speaker 3: on this stuff. But it was it was nice to
Speaker 3: see some of the hard work paying off.
Speaker 1: So they found that guy, but now they needed justice.
Speaker 2: The sisters faced another daunting challenge, turning their digital detective
Speaker 2: work into a case that law enforcement couldn't ignore. After
Speaker 2: the break, Madison and Christine go off to Discovering Christopher
Speaker 2: Bonacorp's identity was a major win for Madison and Christine,
Speaker 2: but knowing who he was didn't make him any less dangerous.
Speaker 2: To stop his harassment, they would need an air type
Speaker 2: case that even the most dismissive police officers wouldn't turn away.
Speaker 2: And they had a responsibility to the other six victims.
Speaker 3: And so we contacted them all individually and then ultimately
Speaker 3: got like a group chat going, and every single one
Speaker 3: of them was very receptive and helpful. Right.
Speaker 2: One of the women was Chris's ex girlfriend.
Speaker 3: And some of the photographs that were being posted of her,
Speaker 3: she didn't even know were being taken of her. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it's so creepy, like truly voyeurism where she was getting
Speaker 3: changed and he would like post photos of her and
Speaker 3: things like that.
Speaker 4: And then there was an ex girlfriend who he attacked
Speaker 4: a lot.
Speaker 2: As they talked to the victims, they learned that two
Speaker 2: of the other women had already confronted Chris directly about
Speaker 2: his harassment. To one, he apologized and promised to stop,
Speaker 2: but with the other his response was much more callous.
Speaker 3: I think he said, good luck, called the cops. They're
Speaker 3: not going to do anything. And it was a complete
Speaker 3: asshole to her about it. And so she had filed
Speaker 3: a police report in Orlando, Florida area years prior and
Speaker 3: had just set idle for years and years and years.
Speaker 2: These girls, with nothing in common except the man who
Speaker 2: had violated their privacy, united against Chris. They started sharing
Speaker 2: their stories and pooling their resources.
Speaker 1: The pack was forming and it was a to hunt.
Speaker 3: There is a strength in numbers when you're reporting crimes.
Speaker 3: They can ignore one person, they might be able to
Speaker 3: ignore two people, but once you start getting more and
Speaker 3: more people involved, I think it helps elevate the seriousness
Speaker 3: of the crime. Yeah, so we're joining forces with all
Speaker 3: of the girls and we're like, Okay, there's so many
Speaker 3: of us, Like, they cannot ignore us.
Speaker 4: This is a bigger issue.
Speaker 3: This is a societal issue, not like a one person
Speaker 3: fighting with one person issue. We were scattered all over
Speaker 3: the country too, but kind of in a stance of unity,
Speaker 3: we decided like, on this day, we are all going
Speaker 3: to the police department and we're going to get a
Speaker 3: police report.
Speaker 2: This is when Christine, the lawyer of the group, really
Speaker 2: comes into her own.
Speaker 3: I had compiled a print out of all of our
Speaker 3: circumstantial evidence, a breadcrumb map. I emailed this to all
Speaker 3: the girls all over the country. I had listed out
Speaker 3: any law of this might be breaking if you were
Speaker 3: in New York. I looked up your New York laws
Speaker 3: and your local laws, and I added all the federal
Speaker 3: statutes like cybersocking that I thought it might fall into.
Speaker 3: If you were in Florida, I included the non consensual
Speaker 3: pornography law. Like I included everything that I think that
Speaker 3: I could point to with a straight face and be like, listen,
Speaker 3: this is illegal. I had some screenshots of all the
Speaker 3: different types of harassing messages, including some of the more
Speaker 3: egregious ones, like the call to action to harm. Specifically
Speaker 3: Madison and the other age women.
Speaker 2: Christine essentially created a fifty nine page legal roadmap that
Speaker 2: the victims could take to their local police departments.
Speaker 3: I definitely did a lot of like the piecing together
Speaker 3: like visually, yeah, I think it was kind of like
Speaker 3: the dream team, between Dana being like our in house
Speaker 3: tech guru, me being in house counsel, and then Madison
Speaker 3: kind of piecing together everything like parelel work like she's doing.
Speaker 3: I was kind of learning from the best aka Christine.
Speaker 2: The girlfriend's planned a coordinated appro all of them would
Speaker 2: go into their respective police departments. On the same day
Speaker 2: and asked a file of police report against Christopher Buanacorp.
Speaker 2: But despite having these huge files of evidence, most of
Speaker 2: them were turned away. Only Madison and the mother of
Speaker 2: the underage girl actually managed to put in the reports.
Speaker 2: Even legal expert Christine was dismissed, which again was.
Speaker 3: Just absolutely mind boggling to me because of all the
Speaker 3: work that we had put into to give them like
Speaker 3: this perfect little with a bow wrapped on top evidence
Speaker 3: in a summary for them. And personally, I went into
Speaker 3: my police department and I can't even fill out a
Speaker 3: police report. It blew my mind, Like how they treated me.
Speaker 3: I mean, he asked all the questions right, like how
Speaker 3: do they get the photos? This isn't a crime, If anything,
Speaker 3: it's a misdemeanor. Do you really want to go through
Speaker 3: all this? A jury is never going to understand this.
Speaker 3: Those are some of the things that actual quotes of
Speaker 3: this man.
Speaker 4: Said to me.
Speaker 3: And so finally I demanded to fill out a police
Speaker 3: report and said, listen, Bud, like you're behind a desk,
Speaker 3: like why don't you let the actual detective decide if
Speaker 3: this is a crime. Just give me the form and
Speaker 3: pass it on. If the detective wants to rip it up.
Speaker 3: That's on him.
Speaker 2: Eventually the police officer gave in and handed Christine the
Speaker 2: report to fill out.
Speaker 3: It did get to the detective. The detective determined okay,
Speaker 3: this is bad, and then was like, okay, we also
Speaker 3: don't have the resources to do anything about this.
Speaker 4: I'm going to afford this on to the FBI.
Speaker 2: Finally, someone in law enforcement saw this situation for what
Speaker 2: it was. As for the police departments that had dismissed
Speaker 2: the other women, well, Christine wasn't letting that slide. She
Speaker 2: made calls, pushed back, found the right people to talk to.
Speaker 2: All that paid off an additional two of the victims
Speaker 2: walked back into their local police departments and filed reports.
Speaker 3: At that point, we know who it is, but in
Speaker 3: the eyes of the law, it's circumstantial evidence, right, and
Speaker 3: so we knew that we needed to get solid proof,
Speaker 3: which means IP addresses connecting.
Speaker 4: To a person.
Speaker 2: Through the civil lawsuit they had filed, they were now
Speaker 2: getting information about IP addresses the harassmer was using.
Speaker 3: But some of them were coming back to like the
Speaker 3: New York area, the Greater New York area, and so
Speaker 3: we're like, ok, hey, this is good.
Speaker 4: This is good, This is good.
Speaker 1: Guess who lived in New York.
Speaker 3: Chris Buanacorps sort of saving all these IP addresses and everything.
Speaker 3: But when you go to subpoena the Internet service providers,
Speaker 3: that actually alerts the user and gives them the opportunity
Speaker 3: to fight it.
Speaker 2: And Madison and Christine were firing off subpoenas every few
Speaker 2: hours every day, new post online subpoena, another picture subpoena,
Speaker 2: and on and on.
Speaker 3: During this time. Obviously, the ISP was alerting him and
Speaker 3: he was like, oh shit, who whatever. But it's funny
Speaker 3: seeing in the background, like the FBI was doing their thing,
Speaker 3: and he still had no idea that the FBI was
Speaker 3: cracking down on him.
Speaker 2: The FBI and the sisters were closing in on Chris
Speaker 2: from all sides, until finally, after a decade of piecing
Speaker 2: together breadcrumbs, they had enough to take him to court
Speaker 2: and press charges. In March of twenty twenty, the civil
Speaker 2: lawsuit Christine Conradis and Madison Conradis versus John Doe was
Speaker 2: officially amended to name Christopher Buanacorps. In a separate criminal case,
Speaker 2: he was charged with six counts of cyberstalking to avoid
Speaker 2: trial and get a lighter sentence, he pleaded guilty.
Speaker 3: We encourage as many of the women to go as
Speaker 3: possible because I think it's great for the judge to
Speaker 3: see that this affects real life people. And so we
Speaker 3: were there from eight until after five because of their
Speaker 3: were so many victims that wanted to tell him and
Speaker 3: the judge how we felt. We get to the next
Speaker 3: morning and they're reading this sentence out and ultimately the
Speaker 3: judge agreed with us that this was abhorrent behavior and
Speaker 3: not suitable for society and sentenced him to fifteen years
Speaker 3: in federal prison.
Speaker 1: Wow, how did that feel?
Speaker 3: I personally felt very emotional. Just getting up and having
Speaker 3: to speak and talk about the impact of his actions
Speaker 3: was scary enough.
Speaker 4: And to think about.
Speaker 3: Having one judge decide the fate of what you've worked
Speaker 3: so hard to try and do, which was put him
Speaker 3: in prison, It was so scary because like how many
Speaker 3: men told me throughout this whole process that like, it
Speaker 3: wasn't a crime, or you're not gonna get anything out
Speaker 3: of it. So when the time came and they read
Speaker 3: out the sentence, it was like, there's no explanation. It
Speaker 3: was just like emotional and.
Speaker 4: Relieving. Yeah, i'd say, like validating.
Speaker 3: Right, You're told in the beginning, this isn't a crime,
Speaker 3: a jury will never believe this. This is a misdemeanor
Speaker 3: of that, and then you're sitting there years later realizing
Speaker 3: that this person just got fifteen years in federal prison
Speaker 3: and just feels good. Fun fact too is we thought
Speaker 3: it was very like poetic that the FBI agents, all
Speaker 3: the victims, the prosecutor, it was a team of all women.
Speaker 3: So we thought it was kind of cool and poetic.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, And did you talk to any of the
Speaker 2: other victims after that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, we still I've talked to them sometimes. That's
Speaker 3: what was so strange about this whole situation and who
Speaker 3: he chose as victims, Like, none of us besides Christine
Speaker 3: and I obviously have much in common from location to
Speaker 3: interest to where we're at in life like ages, like
Speaker 3: literally nothing besides that were females and happened to somehow
Speaker 3: run into Christopher at some point in our lives.
Speaker 2: This nightmare stretched for almost ten years, from that first
Speaker 2: post on four Chan in twenty eleven to finally naming
Speaker 2: Chris Bonicor in the Civil lawsuit.
Speaker 1: And then getting him a conviction.
Speaker 2: Ten years of looking over your shoulder, of feeling exposed,
Speaker 2: hunted and dismissed. But it was also ten years of
Speaker 2: grit and determination. It took a decade to say this
Speaker 2: is finally over. Well, I hope you guys feel a
Speaker 2: sense of I don't know ease.
Speaker 4: Yeah I do.
Speaker 3: And I really think that we really liked that we
Speaker 3: could help other people around this too. And that was
Speaker 3: my last sentence of my victim impact statement was the
Speaker 3: lone Wolf dies, but the Pack survives. And it hits
Speaker 3: me every time because I couldn't have done this without
Speaker 3: every single one of those girls, and they couldn't have
Speaker 3: done it without us. We survived because we stayed within
Speaker 3: a pack. The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.
Speaker 2: Thanks to Christine and Madison for joining our girlfriend's pack
Speaker 2: here too. Hope you know that you've got a big
Speaker 2: group of us rallying, howling around you.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: God, if you've enjoyed this conversation and you can find
Speaker 2: loads more incredible women on our feed, do check them out,
Speaker 2: and please do spread the word and tell your friends
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Speaker 2: be part of the girlfriend's gang. Next time on the
Speaker 2: girlfriend's spotlight at least runs the ball barn.
Speaker 4: He WILLO got a question for you. How hard are
Speaker 4: orchae actomies. The orchaectomies are removal of the testicles. Have
Speaker 4: you ever done what?
Speaker 3: No? Would you like to?
Speaker 2: Hey, it's Anna. You've reached the girlfriend's hotline. Leave your
Speaker 2: story after the tone, Okay, gotta go.
Speaker 1: Love you.
Speaker 5: So a few years ago, my nanny passed away, my
Speaker 5: mom's moms, my grandma. We were very close, but also
Speaker 5: my mom and my nanny were very close, and I'm
Speaker 5: very close with my mom. So there was a lot
Speaker 5: tangled up grief and secondary grief and seeing my mom
Speaker 5: souff for and not being able to be there. I
Speaker 5: couldn't travel back in time for the funeral. It was
Speaker 5: near the end of COVID. I think in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 5: It's making me feel better. My friends all came over
Speaker 5: and let me perform blind a karaoke for them, and
Speaker 5: they would sing to me, and one friend in particular
Speaker 5: brought out her piano from her room, which is very heavy,
Speaker 5: and played every song that I love.
Speaker 4: And let me sing along. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I really can't sing, so you know they loved me
Speaker 5: with them tolerating sixty minutes of me just like how
Speaker 5: like Adele.
Speaker 2: If you have your own story like the one you
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Speaker 2: Please don't include your name, We're keeping things a little anon.
Speaker 2: We want stories like say that one time you faked
Speaker 2: an emergency on an awful date and your bestie bailed
Speaker 2: you out with a phone call we love her. Or
Speaker 2: that time when all of your girls showed up on
Speaker 2: your doorstep with five pizzas, two tups of ice cream,
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Speaker 2: of your dreams just dumped you. I want stories that
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Speaker 2: I'm desperate to hear them, so send them over. This season,
Speaker 2: The Girlfriend's Spotlight is supporting the charity Womankind Worldwide. They
Speaker 2: do amazing work to help women's rights organizations and movements
Speaker 2: to strengthen and grow. If you'd like to find out
Speaker 2: more or donate, to help them secure equal rights for
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Speaker 2: womankind dot org dot UK. The Girlfriend's Spotlight is produced
Speaker 2: by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit
Speaker 2: novel dot audio. The show is hosted by me Anna Sinfield.
Speaker 2: This episode was written and produced by al Shay Barney.
Speaker 2: Our assistant producer is Lucy Carr. Our researcher is Seyana Yusuf.
Speaker 2: The editor is Hannah Marshall. Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan
Speaker 2: are executive producers.
Speaker 1: Production management from.
Speaker 2: Joe Savage, Sharie Houston and Charlotte Wolfe.
Speaker 1: Sound design, mixing.
Speaker 2: And scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision
Speaker 2: by Jako Taievich, Nicholas Alexander and Annasinfield. Original music composed
Speaker 2: by Louisa Gerstein and Jemma Freeman. The series artwork was
Speaker 2: de signed by Christina Lemcol. Willard Foxton is creative director
Speaker 2: of Development. Special thanks to Katrina Norvel, Carrie Lieberman and
Speaker 2: Will Pearson at iHeart Podcasts, as well as Carl Frankel
Speaker 2: and the whole team at WM