S26 Ep9: Moment of Truth

If you love something was wrong and you'd like to help support the show, become a community contributor on Apple podcasts, or purchase a sticker from our shop at BrokenCycleMedia.com. Thank you so much. Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences and includes topics that can be upsetting, so please listen with care. All names in this chapter have been changed for anonymity purposes. Opinions expressed by the guests of the show are their own and don't necessarily represent the views of BrokenCycleMedia. Sources and resources can be found in the episode notes. This podcast and any linked materials or opinion should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. If you're a survivor looking for resources, please visit somethingwaswrong.com/resources. Thank you so much. Previously on something was wrong. I met Allison before summer did. She was definitely the Christian conservative girls how she presented herself to the world. She would confide in me a lot. On June 2nd, she sent me the flyer for the gender reveal party. The invitation, it says, "Allison and Jake kindly request your presence to celebrate this moment with the people they love. Will the baby be Rowan Flynn or Waverley Aspin?" She explained to me that she was a victim of rape. Her boyfriend, Jake, was not in the picture because he had sexually assaulted her. She was also telling me that same day that she was going to court against him. I started to think that this might be a lie because she already had a miscarriage the previous year. The first week of school. I ran into her and talked in person and she didn't really have the bump and then when I saw her again at class, she had the super big bump. It just seemed sort of unnatural with how fast her belly grew. It seemed like she skipped about four months of pregnancy and she just had a nine-month full-term baby belly ready to go. All the timelines didn't match up. I think that's where me and Summer started to talk about it. It just seemed like, wow, where did this belly come from? That semester all three of us were in a group together. We had a lot of presentations that semester. She would not show up at all that day and be like, "Hey, I'm feeling sick this morning. Can't come the day of the presentation and put us in an uncomfortable situation where we have to present her slides that we don't know much about." We had a presentation where we had to dissect the ins and outs of a large company. We chose Canva because that's what we made our presentations on. She had told me that she contacted the CEO or the CFO of the company for a meeting and she said the next day, "Hey, I just wanted to let y'all know that I had the opportunity to do a phone interview with the CFO of Canva. Although I will not be there tomorrow, I'm still putting the information into the slides. You don't have to use it, but it is there for you to use. I've emailed everything to Professor Nob and asked her not to penalize you for me not being there. But I'll still put the info in the slides if you think it will be helpful." At this point, I was already thinking she was lying, so I texted her what time did you conduct this interview. She said 10, 30 a.m. yesterday. I said, "How did you get a call with him?" "I looked him up and he lives in Australia, so did you call him 12, 30 a.m. his time?" She said, "I emailed him the first day. We started the project and I told him more in a communications class in that we're doing a project on Canva about their onboarding and training within their company." He emailed me a week ago and told me that he'd be able to do a 15-minute interview while he's on his business trip. Then she said, "He's currently in New York City for the Canva 2022 Corporate Conference event." She said, "I was shocked that he emailed me back, but he was super helpful and seems like a great guy." I said, "Is this the first year they're doing this conference? I can't find any for 2021, 2020, 2019, etc." I also looked on the Canva event calendar and it's not on the website on there either. She said they didn't do it the past two years because of COVID and all of that. I told her, "I can't find any pre-COVID either and I kept arguing her points because there was a gap in what she was saying." She said, "Oh, I can send you the link, let me grab my laptop and I'll forward it to you. Give me 10 minutes. I'll send it right to you." Then 10 minutes later, on the dot, I said, "No worries. Did you find it?" She said, "Yes, I sent it to you." She hadn't sent it to me. She goes, "Isn't your email?" Then she said my email, but she left out my middle initial and to me, I'm like, "We've been partners for several months and semesters. We email each other all the time." Then I'd say two hours later, she sent me an email where it was an obviously overly photoshopped screenshot of an email from this CFO. This was just another white lie that kind of solidified. She's lying about anything and everything. Maybe she's lying about her pregnancy. At this point, I didn't want her to know that I was suspecting that she was lying about this, so I said, "It's okay. Don't worry." She texted me, telling a pregnant girl not to worry is like a sin. I made a joke at this point. I said, "Use you being pregnant as a reason to why you're late LOL." She texted back, "Oh, don't worry. I'm using it to every advantage that I can." That sort of was another confirmation too. She's telling me straight to my face that she's using it as an advantage. It's like basically you are trying to hide something so you bring it to the surface so nobody questions it. At that point, I was thinking there's a truth in every joke that you make. I don't think it was necessarily big lies. I think it was more like death by a thousand cuts because she kept using a lot of excuses saying, "I have pregnancy hormones. I have morning sickness or I'm sick from my medication. I have a doctor's appointment and I can't meet tonight for our project at like 6 p.m. I'm like, "Who has a doctor's appointment that late?" She'd just be saying like, "I have contractions all the time." It was just a small things that stacked up over time that I kind of made a mental note about all these things. September 8th, 2022. A few weeks before she had her baby. Allison texted me, "Dude." I said, "What's up?" She sent me a screenshot of what appears to be from another girl which says, "Hey, um, is this Allison?" Allison said, "Yes, who is this?" And she said, "My name's Bridgett and I think we might have something in common with each other and I wanted to talk to you about it if that's okay." So she sent me that screenshot and she replied to me, so I got this text when I was leaving campus earlier. It's one of the girls that pressed charges on Jake. I verified it with my lawyer. The screenshot says, "From Allison, who is it?" Bridgett said, Jake Ryder. I'm his ex-girlfriend as of recently. I'm only 17 years old and he told me he was too when we met. And Allison said, "Yeah, I know him. I'm assuming you know that he isn't 17, though." So what was that? What you wanted to tell me? Bridgettt said, "He got me pregnant and I'm supposed to have his baby in October. It's a baby boy. I think you're also pregnant by him." And I replied, "What? Oh my goodness." Allison said, "She's pregnant. She's due in 26 days. Her son and my daughter are going to be brother and sister. I'm literally in shock. I don't know what to say." So I replied, "I don't know what to tell you either." Allison said, "I am going to meet her at Panera at 7. My lawyer knows she is going to meet with me." I replied, "That's insane. Please keep me updated and please be safe." Allison said, "I will. My lawyer is going with me." I saw this as a lie because she repeatedly said, "I don't have any support from anybody, but she just has a lawyer in her back pocket that's meeting her at Panera with this random girl. I definitely do not like to be lied to. There were things that were stacking on top of each other." So at this point, some were and I were texting each other every little detail. We didn't want to falsely accuse her of faking this. In our minds, that's something that was completely out of the realm of possibility because we had never met somebody that would do something like this. We typed it out on either a Google Doc or a shared apple note, basically with everything that was inconsistent with what Allison was saying. Once you stacked it all up together, it was a long plethora of things. Had you ever experienced someone lying about something like that previously? No, I've never experienced a lie to this caliber. I think that's why it's easy for me to sniff out when someone's lying to me because it doesn't happen frequently, so when what you're saying doesn't add up, I'm the person to make mental notes about things, not that I'm holding things against people, but I think I'm a good judge of character and I like to know who I'm surrounding myself by. In my head, I'm like, "Okay, well, what if it's the one time where she's not lying?" From September 1st to September 20th, we talked a lot in class, but we didn't text until September 20th, 2022. I remember this very clearly. We were in our journalism class together, and we were watching some video so the lights were off and no one was talking. I was sitting next to Riley at the time, and Allison, she was maybe two seats down. All of a sudden, I see Allison get up and leave the classroom, so I turn to Riley and I go, "Do you know why she's leaving?" And Riley is smiling and she goes, "Yeah, Allison's water just broke. She's going to the hospital." I'm like, "What?" She's not even supposed to be induced until October. Her due date isn't until January, and it's only September 20th. What's going on? So it's September 20th, 2022 at 11.38am. It's still class time. We're still watching this video. I text Allison and I say, "Riley told me you went into labor. I'm praying hard for you," and she said, "Thank you." Nothing after that. I figured just let her breathe, let her deal with what she's doing. I remember looking on the floor, though, to see if I saw any water. I didn't really know how labor went exactly when someone said their water broke. I didn't know if that was a literal thing, which I know it can be. It can be a big mess. Right. I was just curious. I didn't see anything though, but I figured, hey, maybe she took care of it super quickly. I'd like to thank Deletme for sponsoring today's episode. As we know, too, while on this show, if you're a woman who's thinking about your privacy, you're not being paranoid. 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Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too, that's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash s-w-w, thank you. September 20th, 2022 at 8.47 pm, I get a text from Allison, update, colon, still no baby, comma yet. I said, "Oh wow, praying for you with a heart. Are there any complications? And how are you feeling?" This is where it gets funny. She says, "Right now everything is going smoothly, I'm in pain from contractions and I'm hungry, but I'm good." I said, "Okay, good. Chomp down on some ice chips in the meantime, ha ha, but dinner on me when you're out of there. Can't wait to meet Waverly." Waverly was the name that she told me, she was naming her baby girl. I have a screenshot, I think it's on Facebook, and she's saying that Wizards of Waverly Place is one of her favorite shows, and the baby-to-be's name could either be Waverly Aspen or Rowan Flynn, I'm thinking Flynn Ryder. That's from Tangled, Rapunzel. Her ex is Jake Ryder. Her baby is Rowan Flynn, I can't. She says, "I'm excited for everyone to meet her, and I'm even more excited to drink alcohol, LOL. My roommate is bringing me a bottle of tea-dose after I give birth." That was at 8.56 pm. I read that I was in my room in my bed, and I remember my eyes just going wide and thinking, "You're about to give birth any minute, and you're thinking about the bottle of tea-dose waiting for you. Your baby is high-risk and might not even survive, and you're thinking about drinking. I don't know anything about pregnancy brain, I've never been pregnant, but I'd imagine that when you're in that environment and you're about to give birth, the only thing on your mind should be your baby. I didn't even know how to respond to that." I said, "Fair enough with the laughing face." She said, "It's been a long six months, LOL. That really threw me for a loop. She had this image of me, I think she really wanted me to be someone she could go out to a club with. At our school, we didn't even have clubs. It was a dry campus. She was so blatant about it where it seemed like she didn't care what this school thought. She was happy to be caught drinking, and it was like she wanted me to be that with her. Keep in mind, I had never told her anything about myself other than the fact that I went out for my 21st birthday. She has no idea what I'm really like." The way that she spoke to me and told me about how she was going out and sleeping around with these guys, it was all very strange. It was like she was talking about these subjects and hopes that I was the same way. I said, "Get a babysitter and we can hit a club up sometime. Ha ha ha." In my head, I'm thinking, "I had no intention of actually going out with her because she wasn't someone that I felt comfortable to go out with, especially because we had such strict rules in place at the school. I didn't want to be caught out with her because she seemed a little reckless and a little careless." After that, once again, while she's in labor, 8.58 pm, she says, "She's going to be in the NICU for a few weeks, LOL. We have time." That was even crazier to me. She's planning going out with me and getting drunk when her premature baby is going to be in the NICU, trying to survive. Doing that, I said, "LOL, that's a good way to look at it." Right in time for the opening of a new nightclub. She had told me she was due in January, but might be induced in October. She claimed to have given birth in September, and I think that is solely because there was a nightclub coming to town that was opening soon, and she wanted to be part of it. I swear, I think that's why. Right in time for Halloween. When people are talking about things, you kind of just go with them and appease them. I figured this girl's in labor right now. The least I can do is get her excited about something, and she said, "OMG, yes, Halloween in all caps. We're throwing a Halloween party at our apartment this year." I said, "Hey, can't wait. Let's get trashed." She said, "Yes, with a bunch of s's." At that point, I already had Halloween plans, I know it was a month out, but I knew for a fact I was not going to her apartment for Halloween. She was in labor. This is what she was excited about. I thought, "Hey, fine by me. Let's talk about whatever she wants, get her through this night." At 12.04 AM, September 21st, 2022, I say, "Any update?" She responds at 12.04 in the same minute. She responds and says, "Nine centimeters dilated currently." Did she say who was with her in the text messages? No. I do ask about that, but she did not say it was very strange. So I said, "Oh, wow, almost there at 12.05 AM." She responds at 12.06 AM and says, "I know, I can't believe it." I didn't answer. At 12.40 AM, she says, "I'm at a 10. My doctor is coming in now. I'm going to have a baby." She reached out to me. I hadn't even answered. She had purposely went out and texted me to tell me that she was 10 centimeters dilated and about to give birth. I answered two minutes later and said, "Oh, I'm praying. You got this." And she responded 12.42. I'm so excited, but also scared, rip my vagina. At this point, I'm thinking this girl is weird. I don't know why she's texting me of all people. Why is she texting me that she's about to give birth? I thought it was very strange, but I just was trying to, once again, make her happy. So I said at 12.42 AM, just think of the Tito's waiting for you. And she said, "Oh, I am." And I said, "And the baby, LMAO." She said, "Ha, ha, ha." On September 20th at 9.36, some are texting me. And whenever it would say summer, 10 plus notifications, I just knew it was something good. Drop everything that I'm doing. Look at the message and she just in all caps said, "All sins in labor." I was like, "Oh my gosh, this could not be happening." Because it didn't make sense. But it seemed like for a moment, wait, this could actually be real? Because she's saying she's going into labor? Like what's going to happen? Yeah, so it's like all these feelings of what's going to unravel. Why is she going to tell next how she's going to cover this up? It just seemed like everything exploded in that moment when I got that text. It was just the moment of truth. I said, "This baby is like three or four months premature." And Summer said, "I know. She's only six months pregnant. That's so crazy." That's when Summer sent me the messages from Allison saying, "I'm so excited for everyone to meet baby Waverly, but I'm even more excited to drink alcohol, LOL." And I'm thinking like, "You're only six months far along in your pregnancy. I think you would be having some more concerns, but I mean, that's just me." It was definitely bizarre. Allison texted me in my partner, James, "Hey guys, I just talked to Professor Nob, and I just got admitted to the hospital, and I'm in labor right now. I've already got most of the work done on our presentation, so I'm just going to let you guys finish it." She's exempting me from it since I won't be there. And James said, "You're in labor. Stop texting about the presentation and focus on yourself, but thank you for the update and good luck." And I said, "I hope you have a good and smooth delivery, and yes, don't worry about the work and focus on you and the baby." Summer texted me at 10.30 the night before. This was the time where B-Rail was really popping off because it was 2022. Summer said, "Did you see Allison's B-Rail? She's literally doing homework while at the hospital, and I said it doesn't add up. It's just been a really weird circumstances." And Summer said, "I'm so excited." I said, yeah, I know something is off. I just need to know the details. - At 117 AM, same day, I get a picture of a baby. Where we all send it to you. - Wow. - So for the listeners, it's a picture of a regular sized baby and maybe three medical providers' hands that are on the baby. The baby's laying on hospital blankets and it looks like they just pulled the baby out and put the hat on the baby, basically. Just set the scene. So she sends the picture of the newborn baby at 117 AM and captioning the picture she writes, "Wave really aspen her last name," born September 21st, 2022 at 107 AM. I remember feeling so weird looking at the time. It's 117 and her baby was born at 107. 10 minutes go by and she's already texting me. If that were me, I would not be texting some random girl from my journalism class, 10 minutes after giving birth. I would be celebrating my newborn, I would be calling my family, I would be with my family. - Exhausted, crying, you're bleeding, a lot is happening. - But she's texting me very casually. I thought it was very strange that I was the last and maybe one of the first people she had texted. It wasn't that I was thinking this baby's not real, but I was thinking there's something really weird going on here and I don't know what it is. And I have all these alarm bells going off in my head. Back to me knowing that I was never going to meet this baby, I remember thinking something's going to happen to this baby because it's only September 20th. I'm thinking there is no way that this baby is going to even survive. So I say congrats and all caps, can't wait to meet your beautiful little girl with some hearts. So precious, also you're actually amazing. She said I didn't even get an epidural because they didn't have time. Then she sends me it's this JPEG image. This is the picture that sparked everything after her. There's so much wrong with this picture specifically. This is literally what spiraled everything. If you look at the size of the baby and her hand over the baby, compare it with the other picture she sent me where all these doctors hands are covering the baby. It is a much tinier baby. - It looks about a third of the size of the other baby. It's a picture of a woman turning and looking down at the baby. So you can't see the woman's face at all. And it's like her hand is touching this extremely tiny premature looking baby. And then there is actually a medical band and it says her name on it. - There's so much wrong with it. Also she put the picture in black and white. So it's very hard to tell where she even is. They look like airplane seats in the background, but it looks badly photoshopped. If you look at these white boxes in the corners, it's very confusing. Also if you zoom in by her hair, it looks like she's hooked up to this IV that's floating. That picture sparked a lot. I remember seeing that and being really confused. Why is it so hard to tell what everything is? Why is the baby's head so small compared to the other picture? And then when you zoom in on the wristband because I did zoom in on the wristband, it blurs out some of the words and her name, but her name it should be a little bit curved and there should be a glare over some of it and there's not. It's just very clearly written in bold and there's no curvature in it. You can just tell with every other word on the wristband that that was placed there by her. It's just very clearly photoshopped. I remember thinking how weird it was. But again, it's so late, it's 147 AM now. I don't really care enough to establish the validity of it. I guess I'm just thinking I'll take this for what it is. I'll assume it's real. I wasn't thinking it's fake at this point. I was just thinking this is weird. So I said, oh wow, she's so tiny. And she responded two pounds. And I said, how are you feeling? Oh my goodness. She said overwhelmed, but so excited. I said, I bet. Let me know if you need anything. She said, I will. I said, how long will you be at the hospital? She said, if all goes well with me, I'll be discharged Thursday morning, technically tomorrow. I said, that's good. So soon, dang. She said, I've been here since 12 PM yesterday. I said, oh shit. She said, literally went straight from class. I said, were you actually in labor since then? She said, yep, 14 hours. I said, my god, that's insane. Did you drive yourself? She said, I know. It was a long 14 hours. No, my friend came and got me. I said, oh, okay, good. Ha ha, I was about to say with a laughing face. And she said, well, nope, didn't drive myself. Ha ha. I said, okay, so how painful was it? She said, not gonna lie, dot, dot, dot, the most painful thing I've ever done. And I said, OMG. And she said, but I do it all over again for her. I just remember reading that. And I was like, you're texting me so casually, but then so infatuated with your new baby. But also you're not. So then I said, I'm terrified to have kids. Don't know how you did it. She said, I don't either with the crying face and I did it without my mom. And I was like, oh, this is getting even more weird. Her mom only lives one state away. And I'm thinking there's no way they would miss the birth of their grandchild. So I said, oh, wow, that's so scary. She said, it really was, but she was on FaceTime. I said, is she coming down soon? She said, her and my dad got diagnosed with COVID on Monday, so they can't. I said, oh, no, with some sad faces. And this is 2022. COVID is still somewhat prevalent, but it's definitely not going around like it was. And I'm thinking how convenient that both your parents get COVID the day that you go into labor and give birth. It was much too calculated. And that's when I was really questioning things and thinking, why would your parents not be there? Even if they had COVID, I'm thinking they would at least drive up to come see you even if they had to social distance. And she said, but as soon as she's out of quarantine, they're coming, I said, okay, that's good. Wow, so when do you think you'll come back to class? She said, well, I will probably be staying home for at least two to three weeks to let my body heal. I said, I wouldn't blame you if you spent the whole semester at home, ha ha, that's not long at all for just having a baby. That's not even true. She was back in class like a few classes later. So then she said, well, I won't be coming back full time, but I will try to come back for presentations. But until my body heals, I'll do everything online slash on teams. I said, oh, true. Is it weird not being pregnant anymore? She said, honestly, yes. Like as soon as she was out, I just felt so weird. I miss her inside of me already with a laughing face. I said, aw, so is she in the separate room now or are you with her? She said, they just took her back to the NICU. I said, gotcha. Wow, I can't believe this all happened today. She said, once they get her settled in the NICU and get my post-labor things settled, I'll be able to go see her. It's crazy, LOL. It's been a wild 14 hours, almost 15 now. I said, you really have a whole kid, just wild. For real, she said. I said, are you excited now? Or still on an adrenaline rush? She said, adrenaline, LOL. I just want to hold her. My doctor said in a few minutes she will take me to see her and she wants me to try to feed her. I said, aw, so exciting. She said, and scary. I said, true. But also, you just gave birth. What's scarier than that? She had texted me true. It just seems so surreal at 2 AM. So I say, at 2 AM, I bet. All right, I'm gonna go sleep now, but goodnight to you and Waverly, get some rest soon. I thought it was so funny that I was the one saying goodnight to her and that I had to go to sleep now. Why is she still texting me? Isn't there anyone else that she wants to tell? I don't know what I'd be doing, but wouldn't you be texting other people or on the phone with your family? It was so strange that she chose me to talk to throughout all of this. Before giving birth and 10 minutes after giving birth. (dramatic music) September 21st, 2022 at 8.29 AM. Text from Allison. Please keep me and my family in your prayers. At 8.11 AM, Waverly's lung collapsed and they tried to do everything, but it wasn't enough. At 8.14 AM, Waverly passed away. I respond at 10.20 AM and say, oh, Allison, I'm so sorry. I don't even know what to say. I can't imagine what you must be going through right now. I'm praying for you and for healing over the situation and that God will turn this to good. You're so strong with the heart. My immediate first thought is, yep, checks out. I knew this was going to happen and I thought my premonition came true. But then the next part of me following that, which was a lot heavier was, oh my goodness, I can't even imagine the pain that she must be going through. My family knew her by name because they had all been praying for her and her name was written down in my mom's prayer group. I'd text them a screenshot of what she had said. Or am I to just copy and paste it her message and send it to my family group chat. And I was like, hey, guys, everyone pray for Allison right now. She just lost the baby. And my parents respond with these really sweet messages and saying how they're praying for her and they're so upset about this and it must be so hard and they're grieving with her. And then I remember my sister said something about, that's suspicious. And I remember thinking, yeah, it is, isn't it? She texted me September 21st at 5.56 a.m. and it was just a photo of a baby in an incubator. She texted the group chat with me in one of our classmates. At 8.29 a.m., please keep me and my family and your prayers at 8.11 a.m., Waverley's lungs collapsed and they tried to do everything they could, but it wasn't enough. At 8.14, I've really passed away. I texted her about three hours later saying, "Alison, I'm so sorry for your loss, I'll be keeping you in my prayers." The other student said, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, Alison, please let me know there's anything I can do for you." And I think at this point is when my suspicions were confirmed because I don't understand why 20 minutes after your baby dies, that you're texting classmates. Everybody reacts differently to trauma, so I understand that, but you think that your first thought wouldn't be, "Oh, let me just text my classmates that my baby died." She's either lying about this and that's why it's so easy for her to text us right after because she didn't think that people would think that that's off or she's just wanting attention. I'm still believing the best. I'm not really sure what to think. It's not going through my head that it's fake yet, but it's very weird to me and everything is off. I go to class that morning, it's a class I have with Daniel and we're partners and we always sit together, so I get that text right before class. It's fresh in my head. It's all I'm thinking about. I get there about 15 minutes early as I always do, I sit down next to Daniel and I go, "The baby died." And then he looks at me and he looks like he's trying to say something, but he can't. He kind of starts whispering and there's only a few other people in the room, class hasn't started yet. He goes, "Okay, I have to say something, but you're going to think I'm crazy." And I go, "Say it," and he goes, "What if the baby's not real?" And then immediately starts laughing because it's so crazy. At first, I think it's a joke, almost like when Eva said the same thing to me when she had said, "Well, make sure that the baby's real." I say to Daniel, "Are you serious?" And he goes, "Yeah." All the alarm bells that had gone off are starting to make sense. I'm thinking about everything she had told me and texted me. That was kind of that come to Jesus moment where both of us were fully on board. Both of us start going into full detective mode and this is in the 15 minutes before class started. We're losing our minds thinking, "Wait a second, is this actually real?" Again, there's always that fear of that you could be wrong and that there's an explanation for everything. I'm trying to come up with anything in my head that could explain her actions. We have to be 100% right because if we are wrong, we are the worst humans in the world. Who accuses someone of faking a baby? That's messed up if we're wrong. But if we're right, that changes everything. We start pulling up all the pictures, we're zooming in on the baby's head, we're comparing the pictures we're looking at, the hospital band, with her name on it, we're looking for anything that says that this is fake and we're finding it. And we're going back in our messages with her and we're comparing everything timeline stories, even how she got pregnant. There were four different stories circulating. Both of us are slowly but surely realizing that this girl is a psycho and we have no idea what we're dealing with. It's all coming together so quickly and both of us are freaking out. Once class started, neither of us were able to sit still, we're texting each other on our laptops, sitting right next to each other, pulling up more pictures, pulling up more text messages, figuring everything out. To earn class, I go on this Photoshop detector and this is before AI was really a thing. This was very strange for someone to fully Photoshop a picture like this. You have to physically go into the Photoshop app and do all this manually. You couldn't just ask AI to make it look legit. And in the picture where it shows what's Photoshopped, the Photoshopped evidence turns white, whatever's white has been Photoshopped and placed over another picture. So I put in the picture of Alice in holding the baby with the hospital wristband on and sure enough, the hospital bracelet turns bright white and I remember looking at that and going, "Oh my goodness, this is insane. We're freaking out. We're thinking this girl just faked a pregnancy and she pretty much just got away with it." Professor Nob, she's filled in on what's going on too because Alice had emailed her to say that she wasn't coming to class because she just gave birth and lost a baby. I think we might have even prayed for her at the beginning of class because it's a religious school and we start class with prayer every morning. We're praying for those girls' baby that isn't real. This was the turning point for Summer and I. This was where now our suspicions were being more solidified. I was initially the one a few weeks prior to that where I told Summer, "I think something's off about this but this is when we were like, this is definitely fake." We noticed the photos that she had sent me versus Summer. The babies looked like different sizes. One of them, the head looked bigger than the ones she had sent me. But we were like, "Oh, maybe it was the angle." And we also noticed that the wristband was so obviously photoshopped. It was all kind of blurry but the details with her name and age and stuff were very sharp and dark. Why is that standing out versus everything else? And I don't know if it's because she wanted people to look at it to say that it was her name or if that's just her photoshop skills. And then we also looked up the bracelet and it said that the hospital was several states away from where we were located at which did not make sense. And then also, you can download images on Apple when people send them to you on iMessage. So Summer and I did that and once they're in your camera roll, you can swipe up and look at all the details. We said that the photo was taken or downloaded on August 17th, which was a month prior. So if that was taken with her iPhone or a camera or anything, that detail doesn't add up with the timeline. Both of the pictures that she had sent the one she sent you and the one she sent Summer, they both have human hands somewhat near the baby's face. The one where you can see hair, that baby very much does look like a baby that would be small enough that it could perhaps be a NICU. But the other picture where it's like three sets of hands and the babies on top of the hospital blanket with the hat on, that baby is probably like eight pounds to my eyes. It does not look like the same baby based off of size alone next to the hands. Even if there was some variance in hand size, there's still a huge difference in baby size. Exactly, and that's what we had noticed. We were thinking, is that the same baby or are we the crazy ones? That's what put the nail in the coffin was the photos. This professor is someone that I've had for years, and I've had many classes with, and I truly love her. She is now retired, but she was one of my favorite professors. She was a lot older, but she was someone that you could talk to about life stuff. And as sweet as she was, she wasn't very sympathetic. She was always saying she would be a terrible therapist, because if someone came to them with her problems, she would say, "Can you stop crying and get over it?" She was better at seeing things for how they were. Daniel had said, "Oh, I actually do need to talk to Professor Nob about Allison's involvement in my group for another class." He was in another class with the same professor, Allison was in his group, and he was trying to see about maybe getting her removed from the group because she wasn't doing her work. I said, "Okay, I'll wait with you." Everyone had left the class, and Daniel and I go up to Professor Nob. Daniel starts explaining how, in the other class that they're both in, how Allison isn't doing her part, and he is considering maybe other options going forward, as far as her involvement in that group. And Professor Nob, I'll never forget this. She goes, "Oh, well, there's a lot you don't know about Allison right now." And then me and Daniel look at each other, and we go, "Wait a second. Do you know?" and she goes, "Wait. Do I know? What do you know?" And being a professor, she's not obviously allowed to just talk about other students like that. But Daniel and I were thinking she knows about the fake pregnancy. She seems like she knows exactly what we're talking about. So Daniel and I just spill. We think that Allison is faking this baby and that she faked the entire pregnancy and birth. After Nob, you could see just this wave of relief go over her. And she goes, "I've known about this for so long." And we go, "What? We just figured it out today. What do you mean you've known about this?" And she goes, "I've tried talking about this with all the other faculty members and no one believes me." And we're like, "How do you know?" And she goes, "Well, it's easy to know that it's fake when the first day of school you show up as you are and the second day of class you show up with the whole bump. And that's how Professor Nob knew, before anyone all the way back in August, that it was fake. Did she not think that people would notice? I don't know what she was thinking, maybe her bump didn't come in from team-oom yet. But I just remember Professor Nob, she was so relieved that we were talking about it. That's when she realized this is much bigger than I thought it was. Obviously, she's not going to be talking to students about other students' personal lives and the hardships they're going through. And I hinted at her that I knew about the pregnancy and how it was fake. That's when she kind of let her guards down, but she let me do most of the talking because I don't think she wanted to put herself in a position of getting in trouble with sharing this information. Professor Nob had told me that she saw Allison and she believed that she didn't have her baby bump on. But Professor Nob is, I think in her 70s, so she's just said, "Oh, it just must be my old age or whatever, but I really sat with it for a while and I just couldn't stop thinking about it. So I confided in some other professors and they said, "Who would lie about that?" Was she pretty certain at that point that Allison was lying? I don't think she was certain, but I think when I told her that I knew about it, it confirmed her own suspicions. That was such a great moment for all of us. It confirmed Daniel and I suspicions and it validated her and definitely gave her some relief that she needed. He said, "I didn't even know that these things existed talking about the fake bumps that you can wear." And she goes, "I looked it up online after and saw that you can buy them online." It was crazy hearing that from someone so much older, so much wiser, and just hearing that from her mouth really helped so much. It's not that we were going to give it up and stop doing our research on our own, but it really made us confident in what we were doing, because there's always that fear that you are wrong. After how much evidence you have, it's still scary thinking, "How am I going to confront this person? What if somehow there's an explanation for everything? It all makes sense, and I'm just this horrible person now." There was always that fear that we had. So hearing it from Professor Nob definitely was good for both of us. Otherwise, I don't think we would be here today. I think she would have gotten away with it. I just remember feeling so hurt and so upset that I had my family praying for her. It just felt like a slap in the face. September 21st, that same day, where she lost the baby and we talked to Professor Nob. She texted me later that night at 7.25 pm and said, "I was discharged earlier and I'm home now. I said, "Good, I'm glad you're out of there." Please let me know if you need anything. She said, "I will. Right now I'm just resting. Jake's mom is with me until my roommates are home. Jake, keep in mind, is her abuser and the reason she became pregnant. I said, "All good, that's nice that she's with you. I'm sure you're exhausted." And she said, "I am. I haven't slept in over 48 hours." And I said, "Wow, take the longest nap ever. You deserve it." She said, "I can't even sleep." I said, "Do you want me to bring over Melatonin in a bit?" She said, "Every time I close my eyes, I see her face." I just said, "Sad faces." And she said, "They gave me meds to sleep. But I have to be monitored when I take them. They put me on suicide watch." I felt that was strange. I said, "Girl, I'm so sorry. I've been thinking about you all day. I can't even think of how you must be feeling, but seriously, it will only get easier. This is the lowest point." And I remember thinking at this point, "I'm going to be as nice as I can to this girl because regardless if she lost a baby or she faked it, she's going through something." She said, "I don't even know how I'm feeling. I almost feel nothing." I said, "That's understandable. Time is the only thing that helps, which always sucks in the time being." She said, "It just sucks coming home with an empty car seat to an empty crib with clothes that she'll never wear." Reading that, I'm thinking, "You're lying so hard right now." So I said, "I bet. I hope it's at least comforting to know that God's got her taken care of for now and you will see her one day." She said, "Honestly, I wish I felt comfort knowing that, but I'm honestly so mad at God for taking her. But thankfully, my roommates moved all her stuff to our coat closet today, so I don't have to see it right now. Looking back on this, I had actually spoken to two of her or three of her ex roommates. And they said that there was no crib. They never moved anything. That's all a lie." I said, "I can understand that every time I'm grieving, I like to blame God. I think it's just in our nature to do that." She said, "Yeah." I said, "Please just take care of yourself for now. Try and rest and do things that'll make you happy. Eat good food and just take things easy. I'm praying that every day you'll feel better than the last." She said, "I love you. Thank you." I said, "And I'm so serious, please reach out to me for anything at all." At some point, she sent me a Snapchat. It's just a picture of her hand holding probably about 20 different pills every shape and size you can imagine. And she goes, "Should I just take them all and end it now?" I was so angry at that point because I thought this is just another attention grab. That's so emotionally damaging though for the receiver. I was angry when I got that message because I knew that she was lying. When I was younger, I had a friend that was contemplating suicide and it was so hard. It was really something that sucked the life out of me, like being someone to support them. It's so hard to think that someone is really thinking that it's devastating. You don't want to lose a friend and you don't want them to feel like they're alone and that that's the only choice. But when she sent me that Snapchat, I knew that she was using me at that point and I was angry. So I didn't answer. A few days later, she's texting us about classwork. She had texted both of us. "I'm so sorry guys, please don't be mad at me. My roommate's taken me to the hospital right now because I'm having suicidal thoughts. I'll still put my stuff in the slides." And my classmate said, "Please don't apologize, I'm so sorry." And then he said, "You have so many mothers who are with you who've lost children up to earth, mine included, I can get you in contact with my mom if that's something that you would want." And she said that would be so helpful and then he goes, "Okay." This point is why I sort of want to share the story. When you're using people's emotions like this to get in contact with somebody that's lost to a real baby and you're playing them and using them for your own personal gain, I think for me that's why I'm so angry and upset. I just think that's something that is not morally okay. Not only that, but these sexual assault allegations given that she made them against someone that we believe doesn't exist. It's also one of those things where it's something that's so sacred that should never be played with. Exactly. If you want to lie about what you ate for lunch, fine, do that. But when it's something that's serious, that's when I think you've crossed the line. How did you decide to proceed with Allison? On the 25th of September, which was four days after the baby had died, I said, "Hey, Allison, just wanted to touch base with you. Are you going to present the Canva presentation with us? If not, me and James are going to try to divide it up among us too. I hope you're doing well." And then I sent somebody a face and she said, "Well, I guess I'll be back tomorrow because I don't have a choice." And I said, "What do you mean you don't have a choice?" And Allison said, "The school won't allow me to miss any more days." And I said, "That's what the registrar said. I'm so sorry." And she said, "No, that's what the professor said." Professor Bolt started it and they all followed her lead. I said, "Well, the registrar is over the professors." And she said, "The registrar doesn't care." And I said, "I'm so sorry, Allison." She said, "It's whatever." She texted me and said, "Dude, I obviously wasn't in Professor Bolt's class because, you know, I had a baby that died." Well, I didn't go yesterday because I had another doctor's appointment and I saw her in the hallway and smiled and when I say she gave me the death stare, like, "I'm so sorry, my daughter died in this class, please forgive me." Like why are my professors so mad at me? I had a literal baby that died. Class is not that important and I'm truly baffled by the treatment I have received by professors at the school. Not a single one of them have asked me how I'm doing or have checked in on me, but they sure as heck had been mad that I wasn't in class last week. She texted me that and I didn't reply back because I was so over her actions. I replied a few days later and I just said, "I'm so sorry she's being unfair. You deserve to feel like your professor's care," which is true, but I didn't want to feed into her delusions or lies. She said, "Oh, she reported me for skipping class last week." And I said, "What in the world?" She said, "Now I have to go to a meeting at 12.30 because of it. I have to give them an explanation for skipping class and provide documentation for my reason for missing." I said, "I'm so confused because you can skip as many classes as you want because it's a 300 level class and at our school, if it's 300 or higher, attendance is optional." She said, "Regardless, I have a doctor's note writing me out due to a maternity leave." Allison texted me and she said, "I'm not coming to class. I'm so done with this whole effing school. I'm finding a way to transfer out next semester. I'm so done with this bullshit." They literally gave me a violation for alcohol consumption last November and for sexual acts, even though I didn't consensually do anything. I was raped. She was an hour of me sitting there basically having my entire pregnancy and birth diminished. At this point, I still didn't want her to know that I was suspecting of her lies because I wanted to get as much information as I could out of her. So I just said, "I'm so sorry they should be giving you comfort during this time. Not giving you violations for bringing pregnant." She goes, "I'm not okay. I'm not okay at all. I'm going to the hospital right now to be admitted." And I said, "I know you're not okay but please I want to make sure that you're safe." She said, "I'm safe." That's how casually she brings up her miscarriages. She also used going to the psych ward a lot. She's brought it up three or four times saying, "Hey, I'm checking myself into the hospital or I'm being sent to the hospital against my will and all these things." She would use the hospital as a reason to get out of work a lot. One hour after she told me she was being admitted to the hospital, she said, "Did Professor Nav ask where I was?" And I said, "I didn't go to class. I'm not sure. Are you at the hospital right now? How are things going?" She said, "Yes, but they're going to discharge me to go home with my roommate." Then the next morning, I said, "Hey, Allison, how are you feeling?" She said, "Not good. I found out on Tuesday if I get kicked out or not." I said, "Wait, are they really considering that?" She said, "Yep." I said, "For what part exactly?" She said, "Because Professor Bolt tried to say that I skipped her class too much and that I tried to fake my pregnancy." "Oh, and Hannah reported me for a drinking alcohol back in November for my birthday." I said, "I hate to ask this right now, but how are you feeling for the presentation tomorrow?" She said, "I need to know so I can practice." She said, "I'm not allowed in class until the decision has been made." She was on the verge of being expelled. She had just lost a baby. I was like, "Hey, are you going to be here for the presentation tomorrow because I knew she was lying about all this?" I was texting her so casually about this because that's how she's operated as long as I known her. I think that was on the Thursday and then on Monday, she was back in classes. I didn't go to class that day and she texted me and she said, "Where are you?" I said, "I skipped class." She said, "I noticed." "Are you coming on Wednesday?" I said, "No." She goes, "Well, we're supposed to be starting our team project." I guess I'll just pick the business and start working on it for everyone since no one is here. If you're on the brink of expulsion, why are you worrying about a project? And I'm like, you can't be annoyed at us this one time that both of us are not in class from the countless times that you've left us high and dry on the day of our presentation an hour before. I just texted her, I said, well, I guess we'll start working on it next week and she didn't reply. And then that next week, I went to class and I said, where are you? She said, oh, I can't come in because my medicine dosage up to this week and it's making me super sick. I came to the school, but I had to go home because I'm throwing up. I said, is it a medicine you're used to taking? She said, my doctor says it takes a few days for those effects to go away. I started it on Thursday, so hopefully it stopped soon. She sent me a screenshot from Professor Bolt that said that the assignment was very late and she got points docked for a tardiness and she goes, ma'am, sorry I was in the hospital and I'm like, why are you concerned about this if you're gonna be either suspended or expelled? Later she texted me and invite to her birthday party that said, getting drunk will be the main activity at Allison's 22nd birthday bash. Where are costume, get drunk. Alc provided by me, of course. October 29, 2022, 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., Allison's apartment. That was the flyer. And then she wrote, this is gonna be an invite your friends type of party. Literally invite anyone with a heart. And then she said, after the hell I've been through, I need to have a party and get drunk. I need to dress like a whore. My favorite part about the flyer is that, so it's a purple background and there's like an orange box that has most of the text in it. And on top of that box is the outline of four women who are, I imagine, partying. But one of the women is on her knees. There appears to be a puddle of vomit and she's extending her hand trained to pass her drink to someone else. And above that, it just says, getting drunk will be the main activity in huge letters at the top of the flyer. Which already struck me as this is so weird when you guys showed it to me two years ago when we first started working together. But knowing the school rules and how risky it would have been to do something like this, this is bold. It was truly shocking. That is not something I would ever put my name on with or without going to a religious university. I just remember thinking she's using my kindness for granted and she's taking advantage of me. She's not going to use me anymore. I just remember being so angry. Daniel and I kind of established, okay, we know that this is fake, but let's keep pretending like we don't know and try to get as much evidence as we can. We weren't planning on bringing this to a podcast. It was more something that we just wanted everything we could find out and we knew that there was more to the story. We'd only touched the tip of the iceberg. Next time, on something was wrong. I get a text from Allison saying, they expelled me for, in quotes, having sex and allowing migraines to drop. And because I was expelled, I'm also banned from campus. She sent me the photo of her in the hospital. It's just her legs in the bed with the blanket on. It just did not make sense to me because why is she talking about assignments when she's expelled? So at the end of our conversation, I asked him, straight up, do you want my evidence? He said, I'll tell you this much. What I'm allowed to say is that we pretty much have it covered. I basically told her about the podcast and she said, oh my, haha, that's insane. Yeah, I have so many stories, roommate from hell. Thank you to each and every survivor and guest for sharing their experiences with us. Something was wrong is a broken cycle media production created, hosted, and executively produced by me, Tiffany Reese. Special thank you and shout out to my co-producer, Amy B. Chessler, who also hosts our sister podcast, What Came Next, which you should absolutely check out if you haven't already. Thank you to our social media maven, Lauren Barkman of Luxury Media, and our glorious graphic artist, Sarah Stewart. Thank you to our amazing audio team, our head audio engineer Becca High, with additional editing support by Stephen Wack. Thank you to our behind the scenes partners, our lawyers, accountants, agents, cybersecurity, delivery workers, and anyone who contributes to the work we do. Thank you. Last but certainly not least, thank you for listening. If you want to help support the work we do, you can purchase a sticker from our shop at BrokenCycleMedia.com or become a community contributor on Apple podcasts. Other ways you can help support the show are by leaving us a review or sharing the show with your loved ones. Or hey, even those you don't love, they might need it most. Until next time, stay safe friends.