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Speaker 1: Family Secrets as a production of I Heart Radio. It

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Speaker 1: was the same year, my eighth grade year, when close

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Speaker 1: curtains became a hard and fast rule in our house.

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Speaker 1: Around that time, I was instructed to never answer the door,

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Speaker 1: even if I knew who it was. After the mail

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Speaker 1: went missing and the phone got shut off. A vulnerability

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Speaker 1: that wasn't there before seemed to permeate our daily lives.

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Speaker 1: Anyone and anything outside those drapes, those limestone walls possessed

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Speaker 1: intentions we can never be sure of. We can only

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Speaker 1: trust one another. My dad becoming increasingly convinced Mom was

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Speaker 1: right that someone was out to get us, and trusting

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Speaker 1: me was keeping the property safe. He started saying things like,

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Speaker 1: if someone crosses the gate, there yours, you have to

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Speaker 1: protect the property. At fourteen, I became hyper vigilant, always

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Speaker 1: on guard. At the end of each day, my neck

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Speaker 1: and shoulders would ache from fatigue from long hours. If

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Speaker 1: keen attentiveness, I heard each passing car search the eyes

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Speaker 1: of every strange and familiar face at the store. That

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Speaker 1: my no nonsense father and brazen spiffire mother had failed

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Speaker 1: to protect us only convinced me that they needed my help.

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Speaker 1: Paranoia became an obligation, a twistic kind of duty to

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Speaker 1: my family. That's Acton Bets Hamilton's reading from her book

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Speaker 1: The Less People Know About Us, a memoir of betrayal,

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Speaker 1: family secrets and stolen identity. Stolen identity. I can't imagine

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Speaker 1: anything more unsettling than having your very sense of selfhood,

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Speaker 1: the thing we all think we can count on stolen.

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Speaker 1: The financial ruin is just the tip of the iceberg.

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Speaker 1: This is primal, terrifying personal stuff. To have your identity

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Speaker 1: stolen is to be handpicked by an invisible, malicious force

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Speaker 1: singled out for ruin. That's what happened to Acton. From

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Speaker 1: the time she was a kid she was told that

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Speaker 1: her parents were being targeted by a mysterious identity thief.

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Speaker 1: Years later, she found out that she had been targeted too,

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Speaker 1: and that the thief was the last person she possibly

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Speaker 1: could have imagined. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets,

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Speaker 1: the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we

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Speaker 1: keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves.

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Speaker 1: How old were they when they had you? Mom was

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Speaker 1: and dad was where I drew up. Didn't my dad

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Speaker 1: would even say that they were considered older parents, you know,

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Speaker 1: by today's standards, I think around thirty ship for having

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Speaker 1: yourverse style was Yeah, back then they were considered over there.

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Speaker 1: Tell me a bit about your dad. What was he

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Speaker 1: like that always took me outside because her mom was

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Speaker 1: always inside. But she she was in the house. She

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Speaker 1: was always watching soap o operas, which was a little

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Speaker 1: kids with the insane. Dad was the one who was outside.

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Speaker 1: He could hear of all the outside stuff and we

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Speaker 1: had it wasn't her property, and well it was really

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Speaker 1: a little Dad wanted to fill trails in the woods,

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Speaker 1: and so we cut trails in the woods and we

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Speaker 1: does a pond in the woods, you know, with the

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Speaker 1: tractive that he thought. And I was always with that

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Speaker 1: baby animals were Dad saying they weren't Moms saying. John

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Speaker 1: was always out in the barn with dad. Mom was

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Speaker 1: never wanted to be allowing the barn and to work.

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Speaker 1: What were the first hints that there was something out

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Speaker 1: of control financially going on? Like, how did that first

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Speaker 1: present itself to you? Parents? Males started bring up missing,

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Speaker 1: and then over time letters from my friends and sin

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Speaker 1: pals were coming up missing. And at some point along

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Speaker 1: the way and the discussions of all this missing mail.

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Speaker 1: Mom said that that's what people do when they still

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Speaker 1: your identity, and he said that her identity and identity

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Speaker 1: of One of the things that's striking to me is

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Speaker 1: that identity theft, which is something that there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of media focus on now and there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: awareness of that. Back then, there might not have been

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Speaker 1: nearly that kind of awareness. Right, Oh, there was a

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Speaker 1: zero where you know, at a public level on identity,

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Speaker 1: nobody knew about it. Fact then um in fact, consumers

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Speaker 1: were not considered victims of identity theft until with the

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Speaker 1: passage of the identity theft and assumptions that aren't act

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Speaker 1: and visit started in nineteen. So the you know, the mail,

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Speaker 1: I think, probably started going missing at some point in

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Speaker 1: nine and then the words identity dusk became more and

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Speaker 1: more common in our house in nineteen. I'm sure nobody

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Speaker 1: else is talking about back then, you know that, you

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Speaker 1: know the way that we were, The creeping paranoia builds

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Speaker 1: and bills until no one can be trusted, the family

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Speaker 1: grows more isolated. They buy an early cellular phone. This

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Speaker 1: was back in the days when cell phones were gigantic

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Speaker 1: and expensive. The phone so big it had its own

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Speaker 1: special stool in their kitchen is only to be used

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Speaker 1: for emergencies. Acton's mom says that the person responsible for

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Speaker 1: all this must be someone intimate with them, someone who

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Speaker 1: knows them very well, a close end, or a family member,

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Speaker 1: so better not to speak with anyone at all. We

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Speaker 1: didn't tell people why we weren't communicating with them anymore.

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Speaker 1: We just withdrew from them and didn't encourage any contact.

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Speaker 1: Of course, you don't have a landline trunk back in

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Speaker 1: the mid nineties, how can get hold of someone, So

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Speaker 1: it was easy for those relationships to fade away. And

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Speaker 1: during that time, one of the things that my parents

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Speaker 1: said was, Okay, this is someone who's really close to us,

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Speaker 1: so when you're home alone, don't answer the door, even

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Speaker 1: if you know who it is, or if someone goes

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Speaker 1: through the gate. So we had a gate separating our

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Speaker 1: front yards from a back there and that was a

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Speaker 1: rule as well, that is some of us to the gate.

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Speaker 1: You have to sit care of it because there's no

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Speaker 1: one to call. You know, it's up to you to

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Speaker 1: defend the property, you knowing you to defend yourself from

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Speaker 1: any intruder. And it got to the point where I

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Speaker 1: was maybe sixteen and seventeen, we're mom did want me

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Speaker 1: going back into the woods by myself. That wasn't allowed

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Speaker 1: in the front yard because she said that people drove

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Speaker 1: up and down the highway in front of our house

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Speaker 1: looking to snatch babies, including teenagers. So apparently though they're

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Speaker 1: always baby snatchers who were just lurking waiting to snatch me.

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Speaker 1: How did this affect you during those years? I mean,

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Speaker 1: that is such an incredibly isolating way to be, you know,

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Speaker 1: a middle schooler and then a teenager. Well, I thought

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Speaker 1: I was doing the right thing by not answering the door,

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Speaker 1: by not developing friendships, by just willing to be rest

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Speaker 1: along with I thought I was helping defend our families

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Speaker 1: from the identity space. So I had, you know, like

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Speaker 1: a warped perceptions of what I was doing. I was angry.

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Speaker 1: I didn't understand why someone was doing this to us,

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to know why, what made us good service?

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Speaker 1: Why did we have to live this way? And nobody

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Speaker 1: could be answered that, And that is what frustrated me

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Speaker 1: for years. And then during this period of time, like

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Speaker 1: as a sort of backdrop to what's happening in the

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Speaker 1: identity theft department. Your mother is also obsessively shopping for

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Speaker 1: inexpensive jewelry, right, because so that started right after my

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Speaker 1: grandpa died, so will be her father. And I would

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Speaker 1: come home from school and I get off the bus

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Speaker 1: coming the house and she would be laying on the

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Speaker 1: couch with the Home Shopping Network or QVC on, and

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Speaker 1: she would I what she called cheap, chunky jewelry, but

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Speaker 1: it was costume jewelry and she was ordering it from

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Speaker 1: these two networks. And to hide the packages from Dad,

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Speaker 1: she would make me go across the highway set the

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Speaker 1: mail the family's mailboxes on the opposite side of the

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Speaker 1: road from the house. This is a busy two lane

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Speaker 1: highway where the speed limit is fifty A steady whoosh

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Speaker 1: of cars and trucks. Exton's eleven years old and her

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Speaker 1: mother makes her across the highway to get the deliveries

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Speaker 1: of costume jewelry from the mailbox. Yeah. Cats, And I

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Speaker 1: am a little cat geek, and I don't love my cats.

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Speaker 1: You know, having childood friends, I had cats as friends

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Speaker 1: and they would follow me everywhere. So the you know,

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Speaker 1: there were cats that would try and follow me across

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Speaker 1: the road, and I was afraid they were going to

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Speaker 1: get hit. And she was asking you to collude with her,

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Speaker 1: to be her partner in this obsessive shopping and hiding

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Speaker 1: it from your dad, right and at a time, even

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Speaker 1: though even years old, thought was a grief thing, hoping

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Speaker 1: with the fact that Grandpa died and at some point

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Speaker 1: it will stop. It didn't stop, no, if it didn't

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Speaker 1: for months, And I finally got to the point where

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Speaker 1: I knew that it was going off for too long,

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Speaker 1: and I knew that it was wrong. And I went

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Speaker 1: out in the barn one night and go dead what

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Speaker 1: mom was doing. And I don't know what was said,

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Speaker 1: but the flow of packages of junky jewelry stop. By

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Speaker 1: the time she graduates from high school Accident is desperate

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Speaker 1: to get away from the speltifying atmosphere of her parents home.

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Speaker 1: She goes off to Purdue University, which, though still in

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Speaker 1: her home state, feels like a completely different universe full

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Speaker 1: of new and exciting possibilities. But during the first semester

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Speaker 1: of her freshman year, she receives a notice from the

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Speaker 1: bursar's office her tuition check has bounced. She is so

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Speaker 1: certain that there must be some kind of mistake that

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Speaker 1: she walks over to the bursar's office to get it

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Speaker 1: straightened out. And that's the point in the conversations with

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Speaker 1: the customer service representative that I was faced chase with

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Speaker 1: and they were behind bars. I said, just show me

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Speaker 1: if happy to check. This isn't right. My mom wouldn't

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Speaker 1: do this, and I said, I no, my mom paid

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Speaker 1: that bill. So let me come around in this full

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Speaker 1: of side room. And they brought out a copy of

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Speaker 1: the check and it was my mom's check, you know,

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Speaker 1: same design, same bank, same context, information at the cop

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Speaker 1: and the check was made out to Purdue for my

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Speaker 1: person amount. But the handwriting had been changed, but not

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Speaker 1: mom's handwriting, very smooth, small handwriting, and my mom's handwriting

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Speaker 1: was big and really like lupy. And it looked like

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Speaker 1: someone had gotten a hold of my mom's checkbook and

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Speaker 1: got in a hold of my tuition bill, which again,

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Speaker 1: you know, bill, you're still being stolen out of my

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Speaker 1: parents mail, and had written a bad check to Perdu.

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Speaker 1: What that point he got personal for me, because this

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Speaker 1: identity fief is now messing with my ability to go

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Speaker 1: to college, and Mom and Dad came over to visit

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Speaker 1: me a few days later, and I took the copy

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Speaker 1: the check and I shoved it under the mom's nose

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Speaker 1: nice as you can act exist, I think, I said,

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Speaker 1: why would someone get ahold of your checks and take

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Speaker 1: my tuition bill out of our mail and write a

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Speaker 1: bad check to to do? What's the point in that

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Speaker 1: other than to just measure with me? The more explanation

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Speaker 1: was someone who had neared her checking account for the

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Speaker 1: purposes of money wanker. So you become an academic, you

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Speaker 1: finished per due, you go to graduate school, and you

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Speaker 1: become a researcher in identity theft. That's your field. Did

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Speaker 1: that feel like a choice or a necessity? Or was

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Speaker 1: it that it permeated everything around you while you were

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Speaker 1: growing up? Or was it your way of thinking, if

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Speaker 1: I learn enough about this, and if I've become expert enough,

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Speaker 1: I will be able to solve this question. Oh, it

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Speaker 1: was absolutely. I wanted to learn as much as I

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Speaker 1: could to hopefully solve our case and help people as well,

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Speaker 1: help other victims, because I was frustrated with a lack

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Speaker 1: of response from creditors and the credit reporting agency and

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Speaker 1: the police regarding my case. Yeah, I want to be

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Speaker 1: Indian estate beliefs. Once I found out I was a

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Speaker 1: victim and thought, well, you know there's a right an

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Speaker 1: you go too, because they have jurisdiction over the whole state. Yea,

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Speaker 1: they can look at my parents case, they can look

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Speaker 1: at my case because that you were obviously related, and

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Speaker 1: somebody will be after handing you. We're gonna have justice.

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Speaker 1: That didn't happen. I took a police report, gaming a

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Speaker 1: copy of it and said I don't need to show

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Speaker 1: this to creditors and good luck. At nineteen, I wanted,

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Speaker 1: like sirens and as necessaryat hailed from fire that this

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Speaker 1: is kind of a kind of response I'm looking for,

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Speaker 1: and it's it just didn't happen. So out of frustration

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Speaker 1: with that and other interactions I had in trying to

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Speaker 1: clear my identity, I thought, well, I had a part

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Speaker 1: of the solution, and the way to be part of

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Speaker 1: the solution is setting and that's what I did, and I,

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Speaker 1: you know, along in the way, I hope to sell

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Speaker 1: nine case. And even after starting my first accident of position,

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Speaker 1: which would have been in eleven, because that's to myself,

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Speaker 1: you know, find thirteen is the year that will mark

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Speaker 1: twenty years because probably wouldn't it be great to solve

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Speaker 1: the case In the twentie of year and in twenties thirteen,

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Speaker 1: I was invited to speak at a national conference on identity,

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Speaker 1: theft out and Washington Defeat and there were representatives there

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Speaker 1: from the Department of Justice and the FBI, you know,

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Speaker 1: befro feral agencies. After my presentation, I went up and

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Speaker 1: talk to them and said, would you have any interest

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Speaker 1: in solving my case? He said, all your case is

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Speaker 1: too old, the original documents have long been destroyed by

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Speaker 1: banks and creditors. Your case will never be solved. That

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Speaker 1: was on February fourth of I solved the fey. How

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Speaker 1: did it feel on that day to be told oh,

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Speaker 1: you're never going to solve this by people who were

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Speaker 1: you know, national and international experts. It didn't the term

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Speaker 1: there was a problem you never name. I hope that

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Speaker 1: you know I was going to solve it in your

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Speaker 1: experience and in your research, you know, going to the

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Speaker 1: authorities and trying to get them to do something and

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Speaker 1: basically being told, well, you know, we don't have that

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Speaker 1: much interest in this. Really good luck? Was that part

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Speaker 1: of the course for people then? And is it still

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Speaker 1: part of the course for people now, yes and yes.

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Speaker 1: Unfortunately oftentimes victims don't. It's the health and support that

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Speaker 1: they need from government agencies like the police, or if

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Speaker 1: there's tax fraud involved, um, they don't get the support

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Speaker 1: if they need from the I R S and predators

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Speaker 1: and credit reporting agencies often don't the level of support

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Speaker 1: that victims need to deserve. We'll be back in a

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Speaker 1: moment with more family secrets. By now early February, Acton's

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Speaker 1: mother is very sick. She's been diagnosed with something called

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Speaker 1: Brickett's limphoplastic leukemia, which wasn't caught until she was in

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Speaker 1: stage four. So she's undergoing radiation. But there isn't much

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Speaker 1: reason for optimism. Your break comes very shortly after your

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00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:31,520
Speaker 1: mother passes away. Thirteen days after she passes away, your

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Speaker 1: dad calls you and what happens again, called me to

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Speaker 1: yell at me for except card statement has found in

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Speaker 1: a file walks of my mother's that was from two

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Speaker 1: thousand one and those for a credit cartets and run

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Speaker 1: over limits. I said, yeah, I didn't want a credit

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Speaker 1: card of the limit. What are you talking about? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she did. I have a credit card statement right here

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Speaker 1: in my head and I said, well, what credit card

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Speaker 1: is it? And he said, well, first to A said,

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Speaker 1: I said that the first two I said. It was

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Speaker 1: one of the credit cards that was taken out in

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Speaker 1: my name, was part of the identity theft. What's mom

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Speaker 1: doing was that? He said, I don't know, but it's

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Speaker 1: sitting here in the file with your birth certificate. I

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Speaker 1: knew right then. I knew right then because number one,

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Speaker 1: I had my birth certificate, and number two, there's no

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Speaker 1: reason for my birth certificate and the credit card statement

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Speaker 1: that was taken up as part of the identity to

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Speaker 1: be in a file folder of moms unless she was

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Speaker 1: a perpetrat. Accon first came on my radar when she

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Speaker 1: sent me an early copy of her book with a

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00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:52,640
Speaker 1: personal note and the note she writes, so many people

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Speaker 1: hear my story and asked me how could she have

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Speaker 1: done that? Or how could you not have known? But

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00:18:57,480 --> 00:19:02,120
Speaker 1: the truth is that family members, his children, parents, siblings

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00:19:02,560 --> 00:19:05,840
Speaker 1: almost never know each other completely. In my family, there

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00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:09,520
Speaker 1: were just more secrets than usual to cover up. Well.

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00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:11,199
Speaker 1: I think it's true that we can never know each

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Speaker 1: other completely. I also think that there are thoughts we

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00:19:14,800 --> 00:19:18,080
Speaker 1: don't entertain, places we just don't touch when it comes

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Speaker 1: to those closest to us. That's what family secrets is

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Speaker 1: all about. What was that moment like for you? So

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Speaker 1: it was two opposite emotions pulling on me at the

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00:19:32,359 --> 00:19:34,840
Speaker 1: same time that I think canceled each other out into

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00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:37,680
Speaker 1: some weird state of a membos. So there's you know,

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00:19:37,760 --> 00:19:40,920
Speaker 1: the one extream emotion was triumph, thinking of those folks

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Speaker 1: that I've met two weeks earlier and at the Conference

299
00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:46,120
Speaker 1: of Washington be used as the games will never resolved.

300
00:19:46,880 --> 00:19:51,119
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I accomplished the impossible. And then the

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00:19:51,200 --> 00:19:54,680
Speaker 1: other stream of emotion was, oh my god, it's Mom.

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00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:59,080
Speaker 1: It's Mom. She's responsible for how we've lived for last

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00:19:59,119 --> 00:20:05,760
Speaker 1: twenty years and she's dead, right, so I can older accountable. Well,

304
00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:08,920
Speaker 1: I told him that what I thought it was, you

305
00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:13,119
Speaker 1: know that Mom was the idea he all along. He said, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: does that be some of her explanations for this and

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00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:19,440
Speaker 1: what she was going through this outbuilding on our property

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00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:23,359
Speaker 1: where Mom kept a lot of things. And I told that,

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00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:28,280
Speaker 1: I said, anything that you find that's financial that doesn't

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Speaker 1: make sense, set it aside and I'll look at it

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00:20:30,760 --> 00:20:32,800
Speaker 1: when I come back over spring break. But should have

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00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:37,960
Speaker 1: been in two weeks, and by the time spring break

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Speaker 1: came and I went back in Vienna, there's a work

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00:20:40,800 --> 00:20:43,560
Speaker 1: bench in the south wellding and he had a mountain

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Speaker 1: of papers on this workbench, of financial documents that were

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Speaker 1: in my mother's posession that he just couldn't quite make

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00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:56,200
Speaker 1: sense of. This mountain of paper included letters from banks

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00:20:56,520 --> 00:20:59,359
Speaker 1: where Axton's mom had tried to establish checking accounts in

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00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:03,480
Speaker 1: both her name men Acidon's dad in Wisconsin. There was

320
00:21:03,560 --> 00:21:06,520
Speaker 1: a purchase agreement for a house in Delaware County, Indiana,

321
00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:10,000
Speaker 1: not too far from where they lived, signed by everyone

322
00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:13,720
Speaker 1: but her. There were paced dubs in her maiden name,

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00:21:14,640 --> 00:21:16,760
Speaker 1: documents related to a four oh one K that she

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00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:21,800
Speaker 1: cashed out. She had grown sloppy. Accidon's mom. Instead of

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00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:25,920
Speaker 1: destroying the paper trail, she hid documents in random places,

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00:21:26,520 --> 00:21:30,000
Speaker 1: between the pages of books, in the bottom of old purses,

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00:21:30,680 --> 00:21:34,239
Speaker 1: in between dresser drawers. So Accident and her dad now

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00:21:34,359 --> 00:21:37,879
Speaker 1: go through the house like c s I technicians. They

329
00:21:37,960 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 1: find credit card statements, collection agency statements in her grandfather's name.

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00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:47,399
Speaker 1: Acidon's mom had stolen his identity as well. It's so

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Speaker 1: interesting your mom knew that she was very ill and

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00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:57,040
Speaker 1: probably terminal. And you know, it's not like she died

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Speaker 1: in an accident or of a heart attack and had

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00:21:59,119 --> 00:22:02,640
Speaker 1: no warning. So I wonder what went through her mind,

335
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:05,120
Speaker 1: because she could have cleaned all that up, I suppose,

336
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:10,080
Speaker 1: but she didn't. I think on some levels, she believed

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00:22:10,119 --> 00:22:13,280
Speaker 1: she was going to get better, because her doctors said

338
00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:16,880
Speaker 1: that the six months of treatment would be very difficult,

339
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:21,760
Speaker 1: particularly near the end, which Mom was diagnosed in August,

340
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:25,280
Speaker 1: and by this point it was February. But we're getting

341
00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:29,120
Speaker 1: into the really worst part. I think because Mom thought

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00:22:29,240 --> 00:22:31,639
Speaker 1: that once she got through Mark she would turn the corner.

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00:22:32,640 --> 00:22:35,600
Speaker 1: I think she thought this was going to continue and

344
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:37,920
Speaker 1: that she wouldn't get caught. And then when she was

345
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:41,680
Speaker 1: put on hospice care, and you know, that would have

346
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:45,080
Speaker 1: been an appropriate time to tell me and or Dad

347
00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:48,320
Speaker 1: at least something to the effect of you're going to

348
00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:51,040
Speaker 1: find out bad things about me, or you know, I'm

349
00:22:51,080 --> 00:22:52,840
Speaker 1: in trouble with the I R S. Because that was

350
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:55,200
Speaker 1: another thing that Mom did. She didn't pay the taxes

351
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,520
Speaker 1: for the majority of thirteen years. The I R S

352
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:01,359
Speaker 1: is on the Burgency being the house when we didn't

353
00:23:01,359 --> 00:23:04,640
Speaker 1: know about until her Mom died, when was the point

354
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 1: that your dad accepted that this really was the case,

355
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 1: that this really had been your mom all along, Was

356
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:12,359
Speaker 1: it when you came back from spring break and you

357
00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:17,480
Speaker 1: went through all those papers together. Yes, And how would

358
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 1: you characterize his his response to that realization? To see

359
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 1: this one of the situations you know, you really, really

360
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 1: really want something to either be true or not be true,

361
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:33,160
Speaker 1: and then you find out the opposite of what you want,

362
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:38,360
Speaker 1: and then it takes the wind out of your sails. Accident.

363
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 1: Finished college in three years. Partly this was to save money,

364
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:46,119
Speaker 1: but also because of the feeling that something was looming

365
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 1: chasing her. She needed to keep moving to stay ahead

366
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:52,919
Speaker 1: of it. Now it's almost a decade later, she's an

367
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 1: academic studying identity theft has become her professional life, and

368
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 1: she's confronting the very thing that she didn't even know

369
00:24:01,400 --> 00:24:04,880
Speaker 1: she was running from. Her mother has left a huge mess.

370
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 1: Her mother had been, in the deepest sense, unknowable. Now

371
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:14,240
Speaker 1: it's Acton's job to sift through their shared history and

372
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:17,159
Speaker 1: understand as much as possible about who her mother had

373
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:22,679
Speaker 1: really been. So Acton goes where so many of us

374
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 1: go when trying to figure somebody out Facebook. She starts

375
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:31,440
Speaker 1: contacting people. Her mother had been facebooking. She had over

376
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: four thousand private messages that were very detailed and entirely

377
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: fictitious about various businesses and properties she owned. Acton goes

378
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: to her mother's fortie high school class reunion in Ohio.

379
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:48,360
Speaker 1: She's looking for information about her mom, but the more

380
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: she digs, the more elusive her mom becomes. He portrayed

381
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: herself as a very different person to different groups of people.

382
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 1: She had her versions of herself, and some versions she

383
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,959
Speaker 1: was married and had a child, and other versions of herself.

384
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:09,159
Speaker 1: She was divorced and my dad had been beating her,

385
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 1: and she had no kids, And she was by different names.

386
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 1: Sometimes she went by her married name, sometimes she went

387
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 1: by her maiden name. With her high school classmates, she

388
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:21,400
Speaker 1: went by her maiden name because you know, she was divorced,

389
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 1: because my dad is beating her, and you know, so

390
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:29,359
Speaker 1: I went her forty years alumni banquet. I had the

391
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 1: practice on the way they're introducing myself as Pam Elliott's daughter,

392
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 1: because that's how these people knew hers, Pam Elliott. And

393
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 1: nowhere's paying that like diving. Had the first under the

394
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:45,399
Speaker 1: deep end of the pool. I was felt sleazy, you know,

395
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 1: introducing myself as Pam Elliott's daughter, because against who's that

396
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know pant Elliott. Um, I

397
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 1: know the Pam Elliott that we're all kinds of risque

398
00:25:55,119 --> 00:26:00,240
Speaker 1: Facebook messages. But understand your mom was. I had to

399
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 1: dive into each of these worlds at first, and you

400
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 1: do a lot of listening and ask a lot of questions,

401
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: and ultimately through all of this, I do think my

402
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 1: mom had a personality disorder. You know, I talked about

403
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 1: psychopathy in the book and in the Dawn Size. Psychopathy

404
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: is not a clinical diagnosis that Rather, psychopathy is put

405
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:32,360
Speaker 1: under this larger umbrella of antisocial personality disorder, and lack

406
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: of built as a core feature. Being motivated by power

407
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:43,400
Speaker 1: is another core feature of antisocial personality disorder, as well

408
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: as pathological lying. Those are all things that marked it.

409
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 1: It's interesting that when I asked you why, you thought

410
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 1: perhaps that she didn't confess or try to destroy all

411
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 1: that evidence when it would have here to have been

412
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: better for her to do. So that fits in with

413
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 1: that as well, because if if she wasn't capable of

414
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 1: feeling guilt, then she wouldn't have actually felt that she

415
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: had done anything wrong right and you know, those are

416
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:19,760
Speaker 1: the antisocial personality disorder. Based on my arms, her psychologist

417
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: understanding is that they know the difference between right and wrong,

418
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:28,440
Speaker 1: so they're not stupid, you know, by any specify imagination.

419
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: These are highly intelligent people cognitively know the difference between

420
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 1: right and wrong, but emotionally they don't care. So what's

421
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:42,920
Speaker 1: it like to come to the awareness? You know, you're

422
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: well into your adult life, you have a successful career,

423
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 1: you're married to your husband, rob, you have stability in

424
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: your life. What is it like to make the discovery

425
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 1: that a parent was so incredibly unstable? I mean, it's

426
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 1: one thing to grow up and know that you have

427
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 1: an unstable or a mentally ill parent, but you found

428
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:15,919
Speaker 1: that out and makes pas make a lot more sense. Um.

429
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:21,199
Speaker 1: For example, when I was in junior high, in high school,

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00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 1: kids bullying me, and I felt, you know, people treated

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00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 1: me like craps. I thought it was because of me.

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00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:29,719
Speaker 1: I don't think it was all because of me. Now

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00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it And yes, is the

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00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 1: way the small town's work. People judge you in part

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00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 1: by who your parents are. I think there were people

436
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: don't give like moms. And they probably said that to

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00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:51,479
Speaker 1: you know, their kids, and so therefore people in schools

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00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: didn't like me. You talk a little bit towards the

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00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: end of your book about feeling empowered. A word that

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00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 1: I use often is liberated, because when something finally makes sense,

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00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: even if it's a really painful realization, I mean, no

442
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: fun to make that diagnosis of you know your own mom,

443
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 1: and yet it makes everything makes sense sorright. This is

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00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: something that comes up so often when a big family

445
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: secret comes to light, So many people use these exact words.

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00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: It makes everything makes sense. And while the truth may

447
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: be hard and painful and complicated, knowing it is liberating.

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00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 1: Why Because it's the truth, Because it's our truth, and

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00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: who among us doesn't ultimately want to make sense of

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00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 1: our lives. In her book, Acton uses a beautiful metaphor

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00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 1: to describe the aftermath of trauma involving a litter of

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00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 1: kittens born on their farm. When the kittens were born,

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00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: we could talk by their faces. They were going to

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00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: be dark, and we can tell we had a black

455
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: one and then two tigers, but the rest of their

456
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: fur was silver. And when a mama cat is stressed

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00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 1: or they have an illness. Kittens can be born with

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00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: what they call a fever coat, and so it's it's

459
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, the pigment doesn't get applied to the

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00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 1: kittens fur in utero, and they get this silver fur instead,

461
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 1: and that silver fur eventually falls out and then the

462
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 1: real fur grows in. So you know, these kittens eventually

463
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: had one head and black hair and the other two

464
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: were brown tigers, and so they look like perfectly normal,

465
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: healthy kittens. It's like, I've gotten rid of that fever coat.

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00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 1: You know, that stress that mom flet on me was

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00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: kind of the fever coat, That paranoia, that acque vigilance.

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00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: That was a fever coat that she is forced me

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00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: to have. And now that you've gone, and now that

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00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: I disavered what I have about her, I've sard that

471
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: sheep because many thanks to Acton Bets Hamilton's Acton is

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00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: the author of The Less People Know About Us, a

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00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: mystery of betrayal, family secrets and Stolen Identity. You can

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00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 1: find her on Twitter at Axton seven. Family Secrets is

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00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: an I Heeart media production. Dylan Fagan is the supervising

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00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 1: producer and Julie Douglas and bess Anne Macaluso are the

477
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 1: executive producers. If you have a family secret you'd like

478
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: to share, you can get in touch with us at

479
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 1: listener mail at Family Secrets podcast dot com. You can

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00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 1: also find us on Instagram at Danny Ryder, Facebook at

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00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 1: Family see Frits Pod, and Twitter at fam Secrets Pod.

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00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 1: For more about my book Inheritance, visit Danny Shapiro dot com.

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00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: For more podcasts. For my heart radio, visit the I

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00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to

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00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: your favorite shows