Reviewing Laura's Emails

This is an IHART podcast guaranteed human . There was no inside those eyes. They turned black . It scared the hell out of me . Evil wake up. I'm the woman that saw the murder take place by Crema and DePippo. Anthony DePippo showed no signs of remorse, appearing unfazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said I'm not guilty, I'll take it to the grief . Listen to the Devil's Quarre in the Bone Valley Feed on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts . We left you on a cliffhanger at the end of the last episod , a real time development in the story of Laura Owens . Would she take the plea deal? The deadline came and went , and I didn't hear anything . So I called Clayton to see if he had any news . Dah dah dah nothing . We have no idea. We are still waiting for an answer . In a shock to no one, we still don't have an answer . At least not at the time I'm recording this . Laura could be in plea negotiations , or she could be doubling down and refusing to take the plea. I mean, is it anything that we're surprised about? I didn't really expect an answer because Laura's tactics are delayed delay delay , and that's just the way that she operates. It's like, let's drag this out as long as I can. So we have no information , which means like from here, I will wait with everybody else for a docket update. Clayton's seen this pattern so many times, he's exhausted by it. There's thousands of loopholes in the court system. She could do this until her face turns blue. And she will. Laura will just go, oh, loophole, oop, another loophole. Oop, another loop. Okay, that's my fiftieth loophole. Let me slug this monster energy drink and go for my fifty first. And that's what she does . All right, loop one hundred, loop one hundred fifty, loop three hundred . That's where we're at right now. We're on loop three hundred . Just because this plea deal expired, it doesn't mean her window to plead guilty is closed . She can plead up until the day of the verdict . And between now and then , there's an untold amount of loopholes . The plea deal that expired on april thirtieth was the prosecution's first offer, and likely, its most lenient one. If she does not take this, it's only going to get worse for her . But with that being said, the plea comes with the fact that she has to admit wrongdoing, which we know Laura does not like to do. So again , will she take the plea? I mean, this is in her best interest to do so, but I don't know she's capable . The state usually tries to avoid going to trial . It's expensive. Only two percent of cases go to trial in Maricopa County. I asked Clayton what he thinks is going to happen from here. He started with a disclaimer . I don't think I've been right about Laura once . With every single prediction that I make, I'm always wrong. So keep that in mind . If I had a crystal ball and I was to tell you where we go from here . I feel very strongly that she will not take the plea deal and she will go to trial and she will end up with worse charges and she will face prison time. And that would be best case scenario for everybody, including Laura. Like Laura, I know you're gonna listen to this . You are trapped . Wake up This might be the final episode , but I promise we're not just going to leave you hanging. I'm Stephanie Young . This is Love Trapped There's a word we've avoided using throughout this entire podcast. God damn this lady's crazy. It's just some crazy woman. Crazy. Crazy. She's crazy. So crazy. This is the crazy girl you're talking about, right? The crazy woman . The woman who brings false allegations of sexual assault, the woman who fabric ates pregnancies , the woman who spins a victim narrative at every turn , leaving a trail of destruction behind her . She's a kind of folk villain in our society , and what she's done can be weaponized against all women . Apparently, these kinds of stories are pretty popular . They can also be dangerous . As women, a lot of us remember the times we've been called craz . I've been called crazy. You double text , you call too many times . You say I love you too quickly . You want to have conversations about the future . You want to process something that hur t your feelings . You've been gaslit, and you react , or , worst of all , you've been abused and you tell the truth . And then all of a sudden, you've been assigned the label crazy . I've thought about this word a lot . We've all seen it used to discredit women. I was cautious about taking on a story where the antagonist is such a polarizing figure I also didn't expect the facts to speak as loudly as they do. After just a few weeks of reporting , I had a realization similar to what Reality Steve described. I think it was reading the dating contract. That's when I knew we were not dealing with a person that was living in reality . And that was the most shocking thing to me. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Fabricated claims like the kind alleged here are incredibly rare . Since the very start of this production, my team and I have been talking about the larger impacts of sharing this kind of narrative , if just retelling it perpetuates this negative stereotype about women , and how we can minimize that. In the end , this is what I've come to . I've reported on the facts, I've utilized public record s, many of them submitted by Laura Owens herself . I've also relied on multiple accounts of people who experienced this firsthand. I believe their stories deserve to be told . I've heard this described as a cautionary tale . I want to challenge that a bit . I think the cautionary aspect really falls on each of us , how we interpret it and retell it , and why ? It's our responsibility to see it as what it is , one single story . When I first talked to Clayton, I didn't expect him to have thought about these repercussions and nuances , but to my surprise , he had . And he brought it up to me . That's the delicate balance with this whole story, which is why I do appreciate you being a woman and why I do appreciate the vast majority of the supporters of me during this whole fiasco being women because if it was just a movement of men, then it would be seen as misogynistic. Like oh, if you get attached to this story, there's an ickiness to it. It's a men's right activist led movement . It's never been that, never will be. And anyone that says, Well, this is why we shouldn't believe women. I never liked those comments . I never agree with them . That's a dysfunctional mindset . Clayton's never seen this as some broader commentary on women . To him , it's always been about one person , Laura Owens . Laura one woman that has a stain greater than just impacting me and the previous victims , this is going to potentially hurt women from being believed in the future . I don't want to be associated with a movement where we believe women less. I don't want that. What I want is for people to believe victims . And that's it. I wanted to end this series by finally hearing from Laura Owens herself . And believe me, we've been trying . On at least five separate occasions, we've sent her or her attorney a request for an interview, starting as far back as may twenty twenty five , nine months before the podcast came out . I heard from Laura as recently as last week . We'll talk about her emails later in this episode . And even though we've asked , she still hasn't agreed to sit for an interview on the record. I've been asked why we're not hearing more from Laura's side, and it's this simple. No one's been willing to talk. For a long time , the closest thing we had was this one website, justiceforlura. com On the homepage, there's a photo of Laura smiling. We've had a voice actor read from the About section . Justice for Laura exists because of a prosecution that simply does not resemble anything we normally see in American courts . A large coordinated faction of Clayton's fans, which came to call itself justice for Clayton J,F , had seized on the story and fixated on a single claim that Laura had faked the pregnancy and fabricated everything around it . Actually , on june tenth, twenty twenty four , a judge ruled that Laura was never pregnant with Clayton's twins. We don't know who owns this website , but I have a few guesses. I asked Reality Steve, who's been covering this for almost three years, if he's ever talked with a friend of Laura's. He said no, neither him nor Dave Neil have. For two people like Dave and myself who were coming at her hard as we were to never get one thing sent to us . Even if someone said, I don't want to reveal my identity , but just know, I went to sixth grade with Laura. She was a great girl. I went to high school with Laura. I was a high school boyfriend of Laura's. I knew Laura two years ago . Somebody you would think would come to Dave and I at some point and say something . And I never got one email In episode two, I said the same thing . No one who knew Laura would go on the record for an interview, but that changed this week . One of Laura's childhood friends reached out to our show. She had something to say . She would only speak to us if we kept her anonymous and disguised her voice . We asked for verification of her friendship with Laura, and she sent receipts . We didn't know what to expect , if she would defend Laura or not , but we agreed to the interview . We're going to call her Emily , which isn't her real name. What you're going to hear is a voice actor replicating Emily's tape word for word. We wanted to preserve her intention and emotionality . We started by asking her why she reached out to us . It just felt like some background was probably needed . There's just no context to her any more. She's just this rich horse girl and she puts on this big I'd say almost a facade that's just not who she was, at least when she was a child into early adulthood We asked Emily to describe what Laura was like back then . Going back into like high school, middle school, Laura wanted to be famous. Laura's parents were famous. She always wanted to be in the limelight . She was a country singer at one point in time trying to get famous . Laura, I would say is best described as a keyboard cowboy . She was very popular behind a screen, but in person not that popular . And just boy crazy . We wanted to know if she'd ever met Laura's mom, Jan . She had . She and her mom were besties. Jan would drive her around every day. Laura didn't get her driver's license until she was like eighteen . She and her mom just spent all day every day together and had this very strange relationship. Laura could do no wrong. Laura did what she wanted with full unbridled support of her parents. You want a new horse, you get it. You want a new saddle, you get it. You want this, just order it. I don't think she learned how to be rejected. I don't know if she ever really learned how to be told no . Before Laura was publicly identified, Emily saw the headline about a former bachelor being in a paternity dispute with an anonymous woman . And I was like, What a dick? Like how rude of this guy to knock up some chick and then deny paternity and all this ? Not that long later, I saw Laura post some article on Facebook and I was like, holy shit, I read about this. Immediately, Emily reached out to her childhood friend to check on her. I DM's her to be like, Laura, what the heck, girlfriend? Like, this is insane. Are you okay? Like I don't know, thinking that she would be like, yeah, this is nuts, I'm pregnant, this is hard . And she left me on red . That's when the puzzle pieces started coming together for Emily . Once the initial shock wore off of like, holy crap, I know that person. I spent the night at their home. I spent years with this person . It didn't surprise me . Like, she so desperately wanted to be famous . So as soon as I started following the story and saw that it wasn't just some random person, but Clayton had been on the Bachelor and that he was famous per se, I was like, of course she did that . Like she wanted to be the Bachelor's girlfriend. She wanted that storyline and she took it too far , like wildly too far . But it didn't shock me at all . Like she wanted that . And I think she's always wanted that . When I started reporting almost a year ago, one of my first steps was to visit Clayton Eckard in person . We sat down at his house in Arizona and talked for a long time . He told me the whole story and gave me the LO file . Back then , I had no idea what I was in for. Now that I've become fully immersed and so have all of you , I returned for another conversation with Clayton . I want to revisit the pivotal moments in his story and ask some outstanding questions of my own . So Clayton, you and I have talked a lot over the last year. We've done hours of interviews , and a lot of new information has come out since we first started this process , new indictments , a lot of new information along the way with the investigation report. So I kind of want to go back to the very beginning of this story. When Laura first reached out to you , knowing what we know now, what do you see differently? I cannot stress enough to you that Laura was one of the most normal girls that I've ever met and been and interacted with up until snapped and the darkness washed over her . It did seem pretty normal until it wasn't, until you rejected her. Yes, exactly. But until that point , there was nothing . She was intelligent. She was talking about homes, and she was excited about buying some properties. I had no idea what I was getting into because she was so good at hiding it. Did Laura change your approach to dating and how you're looking for a relationship in the future? Yes, and I realized that I was allowing people into my circle that should never have access to my energy. We saw that photo that Laura got me on and everyone's like, that's all it took. Clayton's talking about the photo Laura sent him early on, the one where she's wearing writing leggings, with her back turned to the camera . After she sent that, Clayton invited her over. I kind of reflected that I was like, Clayton, that's all it took. I really had a serious convers ation with myself and I'm like, That's all that it takes for a woman to get access to. So with that, I still want to date. I still want to settle down. I want to have a family. Like I want to have a partner that I can grow with and take on the world with, but it's like , hey , I'm holding myself to a higher standard, therefore, I'm also holding the people that I interact with to a higher standard. That's what's changed. One of the things that I keep thinking about with this case and your brother Nate actually brought it up to me is how different this story might have been if you and Laura actually had sex that night of may twentieth, twenty twenty three? Do you think we'd be where we are today if you had had sex ? Oh my gosh. Wow, that's a hard question, Stephanie. Like my mind's racing because I think she could have convinced me . Like it's almost like could things be different? Yes, but ultimately I'll tell you this much . Laura will always find a way . So no matter the circumstan ces, no matter how they played out , Laura still would have found a way to get right here where she is today . According to Clayton, they only had oral sex . Even still , he belie ved there was a small chance she could have impregnated herself in the bathroom. So believe that she was potentially pregnant until I found out about Greg . I believe that she successfully performed that sp it maneuver. That's interesting because now you don't believe she was pregnant ever. No, I know that she wasn't pregnant now because again, if she ever was, she would have utilized that. Like she would have then went and got an ultrasound because you could have gotten an ultrasound and proven you were pregnant and then just avoided the paternity test so that you didn't have to prove it was mine. She could have gotten pregnant by somebody else , right? And then claim which was a possibility Which was a possibility and was something that I was concerned about . There is this big bombshell in the investigation report, which is that she slept with another man two weeks before she hooked up with you and then one week after , but she told you that she hadn't hooked up with anyone else in a year . And over a year . How does that make you feel? To see that in the investigative report , it to me was a bit it's like scary in a way because you realize or you start to draw conclusions or make assumptions. You say she slept with a guy before and after she accused me of impregnating her . So like, what was her MO there? And again, my brain leads to she was trying to get pregnant by him so that she could then carry out this tactic of being pregnant by the bachelor and she could have made it fart When I first met with Clayton, he described what he'd been through as attempted trapping . It's another one of those tropes in society . Basically a woman trying to get pregnant for money, fame, or even just for a relationship , all while the man she's having sex with is unaware of her goal to get pregnant. Clayton told me that during his time as a pro athlete and in the world of reality TV , this is a real phenomenon men are wary of . I knew what he was talking about because I'd worked in professional sports and saw it firsthand . It's rare, but sometimes it actually happens. Do you still believe in trapping or do you consider what Laura did to you something else? Yeah, that's what she was looking to carry out and she failed, but she did try to pull me into a relationship that I did not want to be in. And that is the definition of trapping at least in my eyes. Now that we have the full picture and we know what the state alleges and what we read in the investigation report , they said, I'm going to read it to you. Laura Owens, an adult female podcast host, created a scheme to elevate her notoriety and increase her commercial value by attempting to blackmail Clayton Eckard, a television celebrity into a romantic relationship. So basically the state believes that she targeted you. The investigation report doesn't go into the details of why they came to such a strong conclusion, but we can imagine that the investigators have her search history, her text messages , any other details that they probably haven't released yet . Why do you think the state believes that? They're right. They've uncovered her motives because they have access to more than I've ever even seen. They have not just my exchanges with her over text and email . They have . Her text messages probably to her mom . They have access to all that. They confiscated all of that information. So I would be led to believe that they're pretty spot on with being able to uncover her motives. I think absolutely she was looking to leverage this . You were kind of struggling with your mental health because you'd just come off this horrible season of the Bachelor, you'd been dragged through the mud on the internet, you broke up with Susie, you moved to Arizona, you were trying to start fresh . So if she did target you , she did pick you specifically at a low point. Have you ever thought about it that way? And like, why do you think she did that? Why do I think she came after me in a low point? Yeah , because that was going to be her easiest prey . She saw me as somebody that was a wounded celebrity , somebody that was a weak celebrity , right? Somebody that was vulnerable , somebody that was polarizing, and somebody that had a chink in their armor that she could manipulate and she could attack and win. When Laura posted the I am the anonymous woman thread on Reddit, Clayton watched in horror as so many people immediately took Laura's side . For those that didn't believe and were ready to pick up their pitchforks and go after me because there were plenty. There were plenty. There's a lot of revisionist history out there people saying, well, we believed Clayton from the beginning. No, you no didn't. No, you didn't. We can go back to those early Reddit posts. You definitely did not. So let's call it for what it is . You kind of want me to be the villain and why is that ? In your situation with Laura, there's a lot of people who think that, oh, this would never happen to me. I know better. Clayton is naive. Clayton should have known that she was making all of this up. He should have just stopped responding to her messages and her text messages. He should have gone to the police on day one , all of these things . What do you think about that kind of response? I've seen the comments, like, well, if I was Sam, I would have just ignored her. And I'm like, that is such an ignorant comment because I tried , did you not hear me talk about thirteen phone numbers? Did you not hear me talk about blocking the email? Did you not hear me talk about the restraining orders? Like did you not hear any of this? All you're hearing is just like , well, I would have done it better . It's triggering because I didn't. When I look at the story as a whole , I see two big mistakes Laura made . The first was taking the story public . That's how Clayton found out about Greg Gillespie and Laura's pattern of behavior. Without Laura sending the story to the tabloids , the internet might have never found it. When Clayton first saw the headline in the Sun, he couldn't have known where we'd end up today . I asked him to revisit that moment when the news broke. Ah , man, I remember because I was sitting in a locker room at a pickleball venue by myself and I'm staring at the screen . My vision got blurry . I just remember like disassociating in that moment and thinking like, I don't I just don't even feel like what I'm experiencing is real . It just feels like there's a script running or a movie playing and I'm in the Truman show and I'm being watched for everyone's entertainment . This is past the point of me making decisions and living a normal life. Like I feel that I am meant to be this dramatic character in this movie that I didn't sign up for, but somehow became the lead role in. The second mistake I think Laura made was choosing Clayton . She underestimated him. I mean, look at the outcome . I am seeing Laura facing fourteen felony charges and everybody knows about her previous victims. Everybody knows about her past. She believed that there was a version of me that existed that she was wrong about . She thought that knowing the version of Clayton that I believe exists , this will crush him . And what she perceived me as was completely off , and she found out the hard way . In the moment, it felt like it was going on forever. I didn't think I was gonna live I was terrified . There was no anything inside those eyes. They turned black . It scared the hell out of me. That was your first murder case. Yes, sir. It's fair to say this was the biggest case of your career? Yes, sir. Rape and murder chung is probably a challenge. Bad he gets. I would think so People wake up. I'm the one that saw the murder take place by Creed and DePippo. Anthony DePippo showed no signs of remorse , appearing unfazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said I'm not guilty, I'll take it to the grieve. Listen to the Devil's Quarry on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast s, or wherever you get your podcasts . And to hear the Devil's Quarry ad free with exclusive content , subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts If you're seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about in the news , bodybag s is where you need to turn. There's no fluff . We do a deep dive into the forensics. Listen to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's number one podcast network, iHart , open your free iHart app and search body bags with Joseph Scott Morgan and start listening . June is Black Music Month and on the Drink Champs podcast we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture like Suay Lee. Do you realize how legendary you are? I appreciate that. I'd be seeing it, but I'm like, Master got like so much more to do. Like Prince, he dropped like thirty albums. We dropped like five right now '.s That the rate we gotta be going. Yep, that's a good attitude. You also hear stories from industry legends and hip hop pioneers like Fab five Freddy. I directed one of the Nazi's early videos. Which one? One love Yeah. I literally filmed in his apartment in Queensbridge. His moms were still up in that apartment. Nose was just beginning to take off. His pops used to live near me in Harlem. His dad introduced him to a whole lot of, you know, conscious stuff and he made a young prodigy. No matter the era, Drink Champs brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations. Listen to Drink Champs from the Black Effect podcast network on theH iheart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast . Keith Giomanco seemed like a mild mannered suburban dad, but secretly, he became someone else, a master of disguise who went on a crime spree . At the time did it seem like a crazy idea ? It seemed very crazy , but I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out. Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong and what that might look like? No, I didn't want to manifest that. I want to I was trying to manifest success Every family has its secrets . But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. This is ch goingange to my life and my family dynamic forever because that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue. Listen to Deepcover The Family Man, I'm the IHR radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This story has a way of pulling people in . It happened to me , and I'm far from the only one . In fact, I was late to the crowd . Dave Neil has been following it since the day the Sun Article came out . The first time that I knew like how big this story was, I had a show in Huntington Beach , and everyone afterwards wanted to come and talk about the case. People just they bond over it in a weird way. It started with Bachelor Nation fans. That's how Dave and Reality Steve found Clayton's story to begin with. But quickly, they realized this was something much larger . Here's reality Steve. I was like, I think this is the biggest story that your nation has ever had. There was just something about it. And this is before we knew anything. Before we knew about Greg Gillespie or Mike Marachini, and before we knew about Laura's past , I was like, this is the biggest thing ever. I just couldn't think of anything else that's ever happened to a contestant outside of this show , that was more quote unquote, scandalous . As the story grew, it became kind of a viral sensation . Dozens more content creators started commenting on it. Thousands of arm chair detectives loggeded onto Rdit and YouTube . Even before the criminal charges or the investigation report, the online community put critical pieces of the puzzle together . Looking back on all of their connections and disco veries , I genuinely don't know if we'd be here today without them. She had a video she sent us of her father in the hospital rubbing her pregnant belly. You can clearly see this isn't Laura Owens, the audience, they're doing mold checks, they're matching fingernail follicles. It wasn't Laura. She's stealing from other people and claiming as her own. Dave and I said to each other, there is zero chance that she is producing two babies. We guarantee she's gonna say I had a miscarriage. Oh my god, we have a smoking HCG injection here that we've always thought happened. She could have done a million different things to get that HCG. And it wasn't until they actually investigated her that they realized maybe she bought it and shot it herself. It's well documented that she uses Reddit and she had a Reddit account through a reverse Google search , people were able to locate this ultrasound photo as the one that Laura had stolen. She had ways to do things differently, and she chose not to . And now you fuck around, you find out , and that's what it's come down to with Laura . For two years , there's been someone behind the scenes , quietly collecting information, cataloging it, making timelines, and tracking down legal documents . You've heard about her. And a few months ago , Clayton finally met her in person I am sitting here with the infamous Schnitzel Ninja . Schnitzel Ninja's been doing all this work anonymously, out of an abundance of caution , and she hasn't profited from it. When Clayton met her, he was almost star struck . I just have to say when you came up to me today it was like, the big superman reveal . I would love to have that passion that Schnitzel Ninja has where she's just pouring into this and not receiving a dime. You know, I was like, I can't honestly can't understand it. It's people like you that have this genuine fascination and continue to find new things and keep people interested that like has now brought life and has kept it going until this point . So my question to you is where is this interest coming from and why do you continue to be such a passionate advocate? Which by the way I'm very, grateful for . I'll say that when I first got involved , I never planned on streaming or revealing my voice or anything about me . And I don't know that if I was told back then this is what it would be, that I would even believe it or necessarily be on board because it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot of time, it's a lot of dedication. I am just blown away by what you've done and I just want you to understand it has not gone unnoticed and I can't thank you all enough . He's talking about not only Schnitzel Ninja, but the whole community who organized online support for Clayton, Greg, and Mike . One of the day one supporters was Dave Neil. You've heard from him throughout this series. He told me covering this case has been one of the wildest rid es of his career . Every day was a new twist and that's why it's so hard to explain this story to people. When people ask me about the story, I always say, How much time do you have? I will give you a ten hour version that's just as interesting as the thirty minute version because so much has happened. And if there's anything anybody can take away from this, it is, if you're ever dealing with private threats, if you're ever dealing with private bullies or even a husband or anybody that's in the dark treating you a certain way, air that shit out and the communities will rally around you. I've said it all along. Sunlight's the greatest disinfectant and it's led us to the truth. I'm glad that we were able to have these conversations in a place where we did everything we could. We got it to the finish line and it's kind of out of our hands. It's one thing to report on a story . It's another thing to experience it . This past year, I got to follow Mike M aracini's journey in real time . When I started reporting, Laura was already charged with seven felonies No one expected she would file to renew the restraining order against Mike again , but as we all know , she did . Witnessing the emotions in San Francisco gave me a visceral understanding of how Laura's actions affect other people. When Laura didn't show the first time and the judge issued a continuance , Mike and Danielle were devastated . The night it happened , I sat down with Schnitzel Ninja because she was in town too. I think one of the hardest things to hear Danielle say was, I just want to get home to my kids. I'm not a mom, but as a mom, like, how does that make you feel? I didn't know she said that . That makes me sad. None of them deserve any of this . Elora fully intended on not coming at all today or yesterday , and she knew they would have to leave their kids with somebody. The night of the DVRO renewal hearing, Mike and Danielle's daughter noticed her parents' anxiety . She's only a toddler. Danielle remembers that evening vividly. My daughter's very empathic and she picks up on a lot and she knew that something was wrong. And she would be like, Are you okay daddy? Are you okay ? And we actually ended up explaining it to her because we do best and worst part of our day every day at dinner . So I said, you know, worst part of my day was this woman is really mean to Daddy. And she goes , Who ? What's her name? Tell me her name . And I go her name's Laura and she's been very mean to Daddy . And she looks at Mike and she goes, Daddy, are you okay? Did she yell at you ? And then before he could answer, she goes , Well, if she ever tries to get me and yell at me, you're gonna say something, right? And I go, Oh, don't you worry ? If that ever happened, yes, there would be convers ations . They had to tell their daughter about bad people in the world. Here's Mike . She's like the most friendly little four year old . She opens the door for everybody, UPS man, Amazon person included , Oysters waves and says, Thank you . And so I told her, I was like, You cannot answer the door . That you can't just trust everybody . Like this person could be a bad guy, is what I have to tell her . There's one part of Mike's story we haven't talked about yet . While he was dating Laura , Mike's own mother believed her and empathized with her. My mom always has a really soft spot in her heart for people that are struggling , especially mentally . And she thought Laura was just going through a lot. She replayed it to me years later and she's like, I thought this person was going through multiple abortions , thought this person was going through cancer . I thought this person was losing their father. I thought this person was struggling with their mental health of wanting to commit suicide. And so I just thought it would be a really low move for you to leave somebody during that time . I was getting pressure from not just her family, but from my family as well to stay in a relationship with Laura . It was really painful actually . I remember just my mom was so angry with me because she believed Laura over me and Laura knew she could utilize my mom against me. At the time I'm recording this, Laura's Tedx talk about Mike is still up . Maybe it's because that particular chapter was run by high school students , but the online community has been fighting to get it taken down . Here's Mike . I wish they would take it down . I don't know why it hasn't been taken down . I've reached out to have them take it down . I know other individuals have reached out to have them taken down. I know more powerful people with a bigger influence have reached out to have it taken down and nothing has worked. Before we close the chapter on Mike , there's one more update I wish I didn't have to share . At the end of the last episode, we heard about how the domestic violence restraining order against him was dis missed . I just feel really, really I feel really, really good because this has been such a long time coming. I've been fighting for almost ten years and I've had the support of everybody. That's the only reason why I've been able to get through this . But there's been an update. Laura didn't let it go. She filed to appeal the dismissal. I talked to Mike's attorney Rachel Jorez about the news . After the dismissal of the DVRO by the trial court, Laura filed a notice of appeal . The purpose of a notice of appeal is simply to indicate to the court , I will be appealing. A notice of appeal does not by design disclose the grounds for appeal . Subsequent to that, there were some filings in the trial court that gave an indication what her grounds for appeal might be. Laura's appellate brief was due on april twenty eighth, twenty twenty six . But a few days before , Laura filed an extension with the San Francisco Superior Court. She asked for an additional sixty days, and it was granted. It's now due at the end of june twenty twenty six . I've had a voice actor read from her filing. Petitioner hereby advises this court and places resp ondent on formal notice that independent of the outcome of this application, she intends to seek a new domestic violence protective order arising from the respondent's recent and ongoing conduct. Here's Rachel again . I can't imagine for the life of me what that conduct would be. It doesn't surprise me that she has made that statement . It's also very consistent the sort of putting people on notice with a threat of litigation that hasn't come yet. This is one of her MOs . She constantly tells people, I will be sending you a cease and desist letter. I will be suing you. I will be charging you with something . The conduct Laura's referencing is that Mike has been participating in public media appearances . Laura doesn't specify which appearances in her filing , but Mike has appeared on Insight Edition, on interviews with YouTube content creators , and on this podcast . Laura claims those appearances contain material falsehoods . Mike says he's just telling the truth . I don't believe there are any grounds here to find that Mike sharing his story as part of this broader narrative that's coming out would be considered domestic violence ? It means that it's still not quite over , and it likely won't be for a long time. Mike is currently looking for appellate counsel . Appeals are a very different animal than trial court proceedings , even if somebody brings a claim against you that doesn't prevail in the trial court . When they appeal the dismissal , you have to find a new attorney, an appellate attorney because most trial attorneys are not also appellate attorneys . So it really underscores that even defending against a claim that ultimately ends up to be unsuccessful can involve hundreds of thousands of dollars multip,le attorneys , multiple different courts . So I think it's important that simply because this appeal may not be successful, it is still another tremendous use of resources and a significant burden on Mike just to fight an appeal of a dismissal . And then there's always the possibility that Laura files for an entirely new domestic violence restraining order against Mike. Yes, that will always be on the table the possibility of another DVRO . Mike and Danielle have come to accept that fact. Here's Danielle . This is never going away . She is never going to let this go. Danielle told me that she and Mike will get through this and that she's already overcome a lot in her life . The amount of that I have had to do on my self and the demons that I have had to face are not for the faint of heart. And I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, but Laura Owens never be close to me . I asked Danielle what she would say to Laura if she had the opportunity . I would want her to know how much she's hurt me but she did not break me , that ultimately the life that she missed out on is tragic. And I do feel bad for her . To never experience the love that I have with my husband , the love that I have with my children , the friendships that I have worked to keep for as long as I have, like that is a shame . That's a real shame . And ultimately get help . All of the men that had been involved at one point or another had said like if you just like take accountability and say you're guilty and like get help, like we would accept that. I know Clayton has said that. I know Mike has said that these men were willing walk away from her with just an apology and her taking accountability . And she'll just have to pay the price now . We've heard from a lot of strong women in this series , and without my prompting , so many of them brought up one specific concern about Laura's actions Ultimately the mockery that she has made of all of these systems that serve real victims is what gets me really fired up . She just lacks empathy . It's incomprehensible the amount that she has wasted . Even Clayton's ex girlfriend, Susie Evans, who he met on the Bachelor , told me that of all the things Laura's done, this is what offends her most . When the story first came out, Clayton told Suzy what was going on , and she believed him. But then the news broke online. Here's Suzy . I saw so many comments saying, believe women, believe women, believe women. And as someone that also feels that way, I'm like, if we just believe women, so many things would be resolved and people would be more inclined to come forward . I've been in a position where I was afraid to speak out about something that happened to me on a college campus, I reported an incident that happened and it was not taken seriously and because there's no evidence, like nothing can be done . And to see somebody put themselves out there and fabricate a lie and basically I don't want to say sad as bad because I don't want to believe that, but like that's what it kind of is . It feels like a total slap in the face to women, a waste of resources, a waste of energy and time . Mike's attorney, Rachel Worres said something similar . She used very scarce victim s advocate resources, attorneys that represent victims of domestic violence who are excellent at what they do , and it is so wonderful that they exist , but they can't help everybody . And she took the place of somebody who probably really needed their help . There are so many scarce resources that are being used . And there are resources people aren't even thinking of that she's using and in a resource strapped environment , it's really horrible . It's not just about judicial resources , although that's an important part. One of Clayton's attorneys, Deandra Arena, brought up an even larger concern . I think that when people come forward with false or illegitimate claims, it detracts from all of the real victims in those cases. So I certainly don't appreciate that as a woman It absolutely affects the others who have legitimate stories and have been perpetrated again st . This story clearly strikes a nerve . Since the show began airing , dozens of listeners have reached out to express their outrage. I think it's because so many people have their own traumatic personal experiences with the things Laura's claimed , like pregnancy loss , sexual assault or domestic violence . A few weeks ago, I got an email in the love trapped inbox from a woman named Nicole Schmidt . You might not recognize that name , but you'll probably recognize her daughter's, Gabby Patit . Five years ago , Gabby was murdered by her fiance . She was only twenty two. The case became nationwide news I followed it every day . Nicole used the platform to start the Gabby Petito Foundation . According to the website, they help free others from the dangers of intimate partner violence. Gabby Petito's mom has been listening to this podcast . I asked her if I could share part of her email . Here's what she wrote . So many real victims have to fight to be heard and belie , and situations like this only make it harder for others to come forward out of fear they will not be believed . But it also leaves me asking , how do we begin to undo the damage that has been done by this one horrible person ? Because every false story does not just mislead people . It silences the real ones who are still trying to find the courage to speak. In the moment, it felt like it was going on forever. I didn't think I was going to live . I was terrified There was no inside those eyes. They turned black . It scared the hell out of me. That was your first murder case. Yes, Sir. It's fair to say this was the biggest case of your career? Yes, sir. Rape the murder of Chung's twelve year old child. Bows he gets. I would think so . People wake up. I'm the one that saw the murder take place by C remet and DePippo . Anthony de Pippo showed no signs of remorse , appearing unfazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said I'm not guilty, I'll take it to the grave. Listen to the Devil's Quarry on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts . And to hear the Devil's Quarry ad free with exclusive content , subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts If you're seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about in the news , body bags is where you need to turn . There's no fluff . We do a deep dive the forensics. Listen to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's number one podcast network, iHart . Open your free iHart app and search body bags with Joseph Scott Morgan , and start listening . Keith Giomanco seemed like a mild mannered suburban dad, but secretly, he became someone else, a master of disguise who went on a crime spree . At the time did it seem like a crazy idea ? It seemed very crazy , but I felt so desperate I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out. Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong and what that might look like ? No. I didn't want to manifest that. I want I was trying to manifest success . Every family has its secrets . But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue. Listen to Deepcover The Family Man on the IHERT radio app , Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. June is Black Music Month, and on the Drink Champs podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the cult ure like Sui Lee. Do you realize how legendary you are? I appreciate that. I'd be seeing it, but I'm like, Master got like so much more to do. Like Prince, he dropped like thirty albums. We dropped like five right now. Like that's the rate we got to be re going . Yep. That's a good attitude. You also hear stories from industry legends and hip hop pioneers like Fab five Freddy. I directed one of Nazi's early videos. Which one? One love Yes. I literally filmed in his apartment in Queensbridge. His moms were still up in that apartment. Naz was just beginning to take off. His pops used to live near me in Harlem. His dad introduced him to a whole lot of conscious stuff and he made a young prodigy. No matter the era, Drink Chance brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations. Listen to Drink Chance from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHart radio app , Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts . There's one big question I know everyone wants the answer to What's wrong with Laura Owens I am not a psychologist, and I am not her psychologist . I've seen a lot of comments speculating about diagnoses Laura might have. But we can only report on what she's self identified with , and Laura's got quite the running list . In her own court filings, she's claimed to have epilepsy, post traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, anorexia nervosa , and autism spectrum disorder. She really wants the public to know about her alleged autism diagnosis because in december twenty twenty four , right as the criminal investigation began closing in , Laura published this medium blog. We've had some segments read by a voice actor . Over the years, I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, ADHD , and PTSD . Each one explained a piece of the puzzle, but never the whole picture . Then, after my life fell apart in ways I could never have imagined , I found out the truth . I have high functioning autism . The blog is titled I was just diagnosed with Autism and it explains everything . The vast majority of the blog isn't about autism at all . Instead, Laura tells the story of how she's been unfairly treated by Clayton, by the courts , and by the quote unquote, JFC Colt . I'm not here to ask for your approval and I, don't need your sympathy. But if there's one thing I hope you take away from this, it's that you never knew me. My reactions , freezing, withdrawing, hesitating , weren't signs of deception or manipulation . They were shaped by a developmental disorder . I didn't even know I had . The online community had a lot of feelings about this blog post. Here's a few of the Reddit and YouTube comments read by Voice Actors . I have a thirty four year old autistic son . I resent the hell out of her using autism to excuse her actions. As a board certified psychiatrist, no . As a special education teacher who works with many kids on the autism spectrum , this is insulting . If she has autism, it explains none of her behavior. I have twelve year old autistic twins. One thing about them is they don't like to lie or break rules . She literally can't stop herself from offending every group of people possible . Cancer, miscarriage, domestic violence, sexual assault, racism, cyber bullying, etc . Now autism. What will she pick next? My husband got diagnosed a few months ago and my five year old son got diagnosed last year. Neither of them would pull the diabolical crap that she did. This is utterly offensive. Like we said at the start of this episode , we wanted to end this season by hearing from Laura directly. I would like to ask her more about how her alleged autism diagnosis explains everything . But Laura, much like her story , seems to be a moving target. When Laura's been questioned in the past , she turns to a familiar tactic , the angry email . Most people you've heard from in this story have received one , usually , more than one , and they all describe the same feeling , a suffocating, all consuming anxiety , every time they saw one in the inbox. It's hard to explain to somebody how the hairs on your neck immediately go up when you see you get an email from Laura Owens. She always tagged her emails with read receipts. Laura had a propensity to use email tracking and she would comment about how many times we opened her emails. When I tell you five hundred emails, it was just every freaking day. You have to understand, every email you'd get from Laura would mess up your day. It was a threat, it was like at some point you just don't want to open these emails . Laura's emails are so notorious that her usual sign off, all the best , has become an inside joke in the online community. There's even a website dedicated to exposing Laura's alleged crimes . It's called All the Best Research . The content creators told me about how personal and vitriolic her emails can be. I sympathized , but I didn't fully understand it . That was until Laura started emailing me . When our production company first began developing this series , we actually had a meeting with Laura . Our CEO Nancy Glass and Executive Producer Ben Fetterman talked to her forty three minutes on a zoom call. They discussed her participation in a potential podcast and documentary . That was nine months before the first episode of this podcast came out. In an email ahead of that meeting, Laura provided a timeline of her version of events for background. All the emails you're about to hear are being read by a voice actor. Let me pull out some of the most illuminating points from Laura's initial timeline. I was intimate with Eckard . I didn't want to have sex with him, but he admits in his deposition on february second, twenty twenty four that he did. I alleged non consensual sex immediately afterwards to my family and friends and in an email to content creators Dave Neil and Steve Carbone who were harassing me on october twenty third, twenty twenty three . I also accused him of it in my deposition on march first , twenty twenty four. My claim has been ignored by MCAO . MCAO stands for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. They're the ones who brought the criminal charges . I strongly believe that if Eckhard were a janitor and I were a maid, this case would have ended quietly the moment I filed to dismiss it. The only reason it didn't is because he's quote famous and his fans demanded a spectacle. In her initial email , Laura told our production company that the investigation into her is a horrible use of taxpayer dollars. On april eighth, twenty twenty five, my sister, Sarah Owens Navarro, who lives in New York, received a call from her doorman who said that four MCIO detectives were at the front desk and needed to speak with her. She was in Mexic o at the time and spoke on the phone to a detective named . It seems like a horrible use of taxpayer dollars for MCAO to send this many detectives across the country to talk to my sister when they didn't even have a subpoena to speak with her. They didn't even leave business cards with a doorman. Detectives have since tried to call her four times, but she has not responded . Near the end of the email , after she talks about being indicted on seven felonies, she writes , I am absolutely terrified of the potential jail time I could receive , even though I have never been charged with anything in my life. The next day, Laura met on Zoom with our production company, Glass Podcasts . Apparently, it was a positive interaction. After that, the ball was in Laura's court, but she stopped responding about her participation. About a month later, we asked to talk with her mother, Jan Black. We got a reply back , stating that because Jan was listed as a witness in the criminal proceedings , she couldn't speak either. A few months later, I emailed Laura's then criminal attorney, Joshua Colesrud, requesting a statement from him or Laura. This was his reply. Dear Miss Young, thank you for reaching out . As much as we appreciate your fair and balanced approach , our professional rules require that we decline your interview request. Lawyers are forbidden for making extra judicial statements about an ongoing case in the requested format. Ms. Owens will also not be making any statements at this time Best regards, Joshua Callsbrude. We reached out to Laura again before the first episode aired. This is what I sent her on february eleventh, twenty twenty six. Hi Laura. I'm reaching out to follow up on the podcast project we are producing in collaboration with Iheart, which you previously discussed with Nancy Glass and Ben Fetterman back in may twenty twenty five . At the time, your former attorney, Josh Colesrud, indicated that you wouldn't be making a comment ? Given the change in your legal representation, I wanted to personally extend the invitation again to see if your stance has changed and if you'd be interested in sharing your perspective with us. We'd like to ask you a few questions and give you the opportunity to speak on your own behalf. If you would like to participate, we need a decision by Friday, february thirteenth at five PM Eastern Time. If you're interested, we could schedule an interview with a signed release on any of the following days, Monday, february sixteenth, Tuesday, february seventeenth, or Wednesday, february eighteenth . We completely understand if ongoing litigation prevents you from speaking at this time. While we haven't reached out to your parents or sister out of respect for their roles as witnesses in the upcoming trial, we would welcome the opportunity to speak with them if they are willing. Please feel free to share my contact information with them or any, friends , colleagues, or representatives who might be open to an interview. We want to ensure that we include as many relevant voices as possible. Please let me know how you'd like to proceed. Thank you . This was Laura's reply to me. Hi Stephanie . I hope this email finds you well . It is very upsetting to receive a forty eight hour deadline to respond to an interview request for a project that has been in development for months , particularly when I appear to be the central figure . You have known since December that I am no longer represented by Josh , yet only now, in February, are you reaching out directly and requesting my participation on such short notice ? That does not constitute a meaningful or equitable opportunity to contribute . That timing further reinforces the appearance that one perspective has already been developed over an extended period , while the other is being compressed into a last minute window in an apparent attempt to check the box that I was contacted , cover your back legally, and push forward with a narrative that is completely out of contact with the facts. As a reminder, Laura met with our production company about nine months prior to discuss her potential participation in this series . Her email went on to allege her mother reached out to me, but that I had not replied I have no record of communication from her mother and my company or personal inbox . She also said that a dear friend of hers replied to my request for comment twice , but I have no record of that either . Laura ended her email by letting us know there would soon be new information . I'm still waiting on that. There is substantial information that will soon become public, which will materially affect how the situation is understood . Other documentary and podcast producers have put their projects on hold while the story plays out. If you choose to go forward with yours, please be advised that I will aggressively pursue appropriate legal remedies with respect to any portrayal that is inaccurate or unfair . Warmest regards Laura Owens . After this email , we expected to start seeing one every week , but it was few and far between. That was until episode seven, when we played this teaser at the very end . My name is Mike Maracini. I dated Laura march twenty sixteen through summer of twenty seventeen . This is when we found out Laura herself was tuning in , because after that episode , Laura sent an email subject line, formal notice regarding love trapped content scheduled to air four nine twenty six . Hello , I am writing to raise concerns about the accuracy and fairness of the narrative being presented in Love Trapped, including prior episodes , recent promotional materials, and information I have obtained regarding upcoming segments involving Michael Maracini . It seems like Laura heard Mike's voice in the teaser, and she was upset about it. This email is about five pages long . According to her , Mike Maracini is misrepresenting himself as a victim . Laura says he's lying . At the time she sent this email , Mike's episode hadn't aired yet. All she heard was the teaser. And she signs off by saying , You are now on notice of the nature of these statements . Any decision to include or rely on them as factual within your production carries corresponding legal risk . I trust this information will be taken into account before any further content is aired. We received another email the following week to whom it may concern I am writing to place you on formal notice that episode eight of Love Trapped contains numerous false , defamatory and materially misleading statements about me , Lara Owens , as well as my parents, Ron Owens and Jan Black. This email included five PDF attachments, with a total of twenty one pages. They were broken down into categories Iceland, Dubai , family relationships, post relationship conduct, and my favorite category, other notes . Let me summarize these attachments. Iceland Laura said it was a personal trip, not a work trip . According to her, she and Mike stayed in the same room . That seemed particularly important to her. She again referenced napkin L accadyount's of the events on the flight , calling it sworn third party evidence. Dubai. I'll read this quote directly . The Dubai segment of the show constructs a narrative in which Mr. Maracini is portray ed as a reluctant participant, pressured into international travel . That framing is not supported by the contemporaneous record. Family relationships She contradicts Mike's account that her parents pressured him into staying in the relationship . She claims the portrayal of her parents involvement is false and unsubstantiated . Post relationship conduct . Laura claims after their relationship end